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NINJA ASSASSIN: The guys in the black pajamas haven’t gotten much play since their hey-dey in the ‘80s. Back then you couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a ninja: comics, movies, even prime-time TV had it’s own show (The Master, with Lee Van Cleef, which was kinda like The A-Team…but with a van full of ninjas). The Wachowski Brothers of the Matrix trilogy are the brains behind Ninja Assassin and it’s certainly the most high-profile outing for the Japanese hired killers in the last two decades. South Korean pop superstar Rain, who also popped up in the Wachowski’s Speed Racer, plays an orphan raised in an all-Ninja school (they’re even tougher than Catholics!) and taught the ancient art of assassination. The clans make a living knocking-off people for hire, but one nosy Federal Agent (Naomie Harris) is getting too close to the truth. After she becomes a target, Rain develops a conscience and takes on his deadly pals to protect her. I don’t ask much of my ninja movies, but Ninj...

OLD DOGS: “You’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” P.T. Barnum’s quote has been tossed around for years, but Old Dogs seems to have made it into a mission statement. Less a movie than a collection of deleted scenes from The Game Plan that were too embarrassing even for The Rock, director Walter Becker, who shepherded Wild Hogs to box-office glory a few years ago, strips every actor in the film of their inherent appeal. Travolta is obnoxious, Robin Williams is reserved, and bit players like Dax Shephard, Justin Long, and Matt Dillon walk through on their way to a better movie. Forced into taking care of the biological children he didn’t know he had, Dan (Williams) recruits his egotistical buddy, Charlie (Travolta), to help him through navigate the perils of fatherhood. Much of the alleged comedy hinges on the guys being mistaken for grandparents, but both actors (Travolta especially) still make their living as perpetually young Hollywood ...

THE CRAZIES: The modern zombie that has evolved from director George A. Romero’s “Living Dead” is often completely un supernatural in origin. Danny Boyle’s gutmunchers in 28 Days Later and its ilk are usually toxic in nature; a side-effect of man’s meddling with forces beyond his control. But before you dismiss Romero’s less genetically-complex creations out of hand, check out his take on The Crazies , an early roadmap for his seminal zombie opus, Dawn of the Dead , and a precursor to the man-made monstrosities that are currently all the rage. The town of Evans City, Pennsylvania falls under a state of martial law when a germ warfare experiment gets out of control. The symptoms materialize as rampant psychosis and spreads throughout the population. A mismatched group of survivors attempt to make it out of the hot zone to freedom, but find themselves falling victim to the “superbug” at an alarming rate. Typical of Romero’s homegrown productions, this one stars a cast of unknowns...

LAW ABIDING CITIZEN: Half a century ago, B-movies knew their place in the Hollywood system. They starred second-tier actors, journeyman directors, and sported the sort of outlandish plots that supposed “A-listers” would never stoop to produce. Law Abiding Citizen is an excellent example of that sort of filmmaking methodology, despite the fact that it stars an Oscar winner (Jamie Fox), an action hero (Gerard Butler) and probably cost more to produce than most studios spent in a year in 1956. Butler is a bonafide family man who loses everything during a violent home invasion. Foxx is the hotshot prosecutor who makes a deal and lets one of the bad guys get off with a slap on the wrist. Cut to ten years later. Turns out Butler is a master CIA tactician who’s been plotting his revenge with the sort of attention to detail usually reserved for James Bond super villains and bitter ex-girlfriends. Soon everyone associated with the case is winding up dead…despite the fact that Butler h...

LOVE HAPPENS: Romantic comedies have been in a real rut these days. Which is why it was so refreshing to discover Love Happens isn’t a romantic comedy at all, despite marketing that might argue otherwise. Aaron Eckhart plays Dr. Burke Ryan, a motivational speaker on the cusp of national success helping people deal with their grief. Trouble is, he’s never dealt with his own following the accidental death of his wife over three years ago. In the midst of this double-life, he finds himself attracted to Eloise (Jennifer Aniston), and despite the typical first act push-pull, they dip their toes into a satisfying relationship. Love Happens has plenty of opportunities to follow the well-trodden slapstick path of other rom-coms…most of them starring Jennifer Aniston. But it sticks with the rather poignant and emotionally powerful profile of a man who can help others, but refuses to help himself. It might be considered a “George Clooney” role, but Eckhart’s chin is up to the challenge....

AMELIA: There’s no question that the life of Amelia Earhart is worthy of a glossy cinematic adaptation. In fact, the famous lady flyer appeared in two films last year. So how wrong is it that I actually prefer the wax figure brought to life in Night At The Museum 2 (played much gusto by Amy Adams) over the historically accurate but overwhelmingly gloomy portrait embodied by Hilary Swank? Buoyed by the sort of old-Hollywood production values you rarely see invested in such “dated” material, Amelia is a gorgeous film to look at, sporting extravagantly beautiful flying footage and a supporting cast of dashing, experienced actors (Richard Gere, Ewan McGregor). But Swank is such a “Debbie Downer” in the lead role that the film has to work overtime to create enthusiasm for Earhart’s accomplishments, which include flying solo across the Atlantic before disappearing on her ambitious attempt to cross the globe. While Swank may deliver a more realistic portrayal (newsreel footage on the Bl...

ONG-BAK – THE THAI WARRIOR: The world has been waiting impatiently for the next Bruce Lee to surface ever since his untimely death in 1980. Jackie Chan and Jet Li both stood to inherit the crown but chose their own path to martial arts sainthood. Now the torch has been passed to Tony Jaa, whose debut in Ong Bak serves as a demo reel for his unique fighting style, combining Lee’s quickness with Van Damme’s groin-stretching flexibility. Jaa’s signature move, a pair of elbows to the top of the head, is just one of the many Muay Thai combat moves that make use off all the body’s pointy parts. Like the early Bruce Lee films, the story is only a loose structure used to introduce one fight sequence after another. Yet the film’s best assist goes to Petchtai Wongkamiao as Jaa’s fellow villager and comic relief, who keeps the film from falling into a monotonous series of Bloodsport-style deathmatches. Jaa himself doesn’t have much charisma when he’s not throwing a punch – unlike Lee, whos...

THE ALCOVE: Believe it or not, there’s an art to making a good dirty movie. And no one was better than the late Joe D’Amato. He made movies with an artist’s eye and Tiger Wood’s libido. His most famous cinematic collaborator was the lovely Laura Gemser. Together they milked the Emmanuelle franchise for all it was worth, transforming the soft-core erotica title into a parade of sequels, each more shockingly tasteless than the one before. By comparison, The Alcove is almost timid. Yet there’s still plenty of Cinemax-style skin on display in the story of an African princess (Gemser) brought back to Europe by an army officer to act as personal servant to his wife…who’s already having her own love affair with her husband’s personal secretary (Annie Belle). 3/4s of the movie is filled with the required heavy petting, but then things get ugly when someone suggests making a snuff film. The Alcove ’s unexpectedly brutal finale might come out of left field, but it’s that kind of unpred...

PANDORUM - When he was cutting trailers for low-budget kingpin Roger Corman, director Joe Dante confessed he kept a special reel of explosions, car wrecks and topless babes to be spliced in if the actual film itself wasn’t exciting enough. Didn’t really matter if the movie lived up to those expectations; getting butts in the seats was his job. Today, almost every film makes a good trailer. But it’s still a rare thing that they actually deliver the goods. When I caught the commercials for Pandorum , a sci-fi horror hybrid that lifted elements of Alien , Event Horizon and the PS3 hit Dead Space , it had my “Spidey-sense” tingling: “No way can that be as good as it looks.” And you know what? It wasn’t. But it comes surprisingly close…and that’s high praise in today’s quick-cut era of awesome trailers and mediocre movies. Ben Foster stars as a member of the flight crew of a long-distance space vessel, reawakened from hyper-sleep with little to no memory of his mission. Dennis...

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS: Let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. No one makes animated movies as well as Pixar. That clear enough? But Sony’s animation division should be pretty proud to come in second. The Ice Age films and Open Season were pleasant enough diversions. But they finally put the cherry on top with this adaption of the classic children’s book about an invention that results in precipitation of the edible kind. Flint Lockwood (Bill Hader) is the scientist looking for acceptance. Sam Sparks (Anna Faris) is the weathergirl looking for her big break. But it’s Mr. T himself who steals the film out from under them as a secondary character helping to stave off the all-you-can-eat catastrophe that results when the machine malfunctions. Sony’s artists go wild in the finale, creating a self-aware mountain of food that looks like something out of John Carpenter’s The Thing . But pre-teens will go wild at the idea of their favorite treats falling fro...

THE HANGOVER – The ‘80s were full of ensemble comedies built around funny situations rather than a funny leading man. But the rise of comedians like Jim Carrey and Will Ferrel changed all that, putting the onus on superstar funnymen who carried all the film’s laughs on their shoulders. The Hangover is an anomaly of sorts, the closest we’ve gotten to the classic National Lampoon tradition in the last 20 years. Waking up in their Vegas suite with a crying baby, Mike Tyson’s pet tiger, and no memory of what happened the night before, three guys on a bachelor party getaway must retrace their footsteps to find their missing buddy...who’s due at the altar in 24 hours. Here, the concept is king, turning director Todd Phillips’ movie into a road trip that doesn’t leave the city limits. There are flashes of the current wave of general raunchiness (it is Vegas, after all) but the overall feel skews more towards the “bro-mance” genre as the three guys (well-played by Bradley Cooper, The Office’s ...

G-FORCE: The idea of genetically engineered guinea pigs employed as superspies might seem like a crass rip-off of another recent rodent films’ success (“Aaaalll-viiiiiin!”), but if you lived through Disney’s live-action output in the ‘70s, it’s really not that out of line. There was The Cat from Outer Space, The Shaggy D.A., even Gus the football-kicking mule. All I’m saying is there’s a precedent for this sort of cutesy anthropomorphism. You don’t have to like it, but chances are your kids will. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, no expense was spared in creating all sort of hi-tech gadgets, weaponry and transportation to throw at the screen with the same level of quality as a National Treasure flick. The rodents themselves (voiced by Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz and Tracy Morgan) take offense to the “cute” label, staging a breakout from a local pet store after their first espionage operation goes bad. The one-liners are predictably awful, but the action is well-choreographed and sure to w...

PUBLIC ENEMIES - Michael Mann’s Heat was the culmination of many a cinema buffs dream, finally pairing two legendary actors in the same frame for the first time. The fact that Pacino and DeNiro only shared about 2-minutes together didn’t seem to matter much. And Mann follows the same formula here, managing to cherry-pick two of the best actors working today (Johnny Deep and Christian Bale), casting them as dramatic rivals (bank robber John Dillinger and federal agent Melvin Purvis respectively), and only allowing them to interact for a fleeting moment. That may have been how the real story behind John Dillinger’s capture, escape, and eventual comeuppance went down, but it doesn’t make for very dramatic filmmaking. Depp, sporting the long-awaited return of his 21 Jumpstreet hairstyle, mumbles through his role. And Bale doesn’t fare much better, recycling his pent-up Batman rage for yet another tight-lipped performance. Public Enemies feels very much like Miami Vice as a period piece, mi...

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN - While the first film was critically derided as a loud, obnoxious money-making calculation, the sequel was largely dismissed altogether despite co-starring Amy Adams, who was up for an Oscar the same year. No one is pretending anything here is award worthy, but the constant barrage of cute creatures and famous exhibits – all brought to life courtesy of that same troublesome Egyptian tablet – is like an irresistible type of “kid-nip” that’s even more effective this time around. Ben Stiller doesn’t bring his “A”-game (in fact, he’s probably the least lifelike character in the film) but a parade of guest stars, including Owen Wilson, Robin Williams, Bill Hader, Christopher Guest and Hank Azaria, more than make-up for his overly familiar neuroses. Still, despite all the special effects and high-profile talent on the pay roll, it’s Adams who does the most to earn her paycheck, providing some spunk and sex appeal to a movie that’s far beneath h...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME: You have to remember than in 1980, having Melissa Sue Anderson of Little House on the Prairie star in a slasher film was the equivalent of Miley Cyrus pole dancing. It was a big deal...at least for a week or so. The actual film is exceedingly well shot by director J. Lee Thompson (the original Cape Fear) and looks like a million bucks compared to similar horror knock-offs of the day. The victims this time are a private school “top ten,” an incestuous little group of rich kids who include the skittish Virginia (Anderson) in their nightly carousing. But when the “who’s who” begin to disappear, Virginia seems the most likely suspect thanks to her mysterious brain surgery and questionable memory. The plot becomes downright ludicrous towards the end and the killings are all rather quaint by today’s standards. But Anchor Bay provides a gorgeous new transfer and the original soundtrack, which had been replaced on previous releases. GRACE: Childbirth is a scary concept fo...

ARIZONA COLT RETURNS: There’s a tendency to put Spaghetti Westerns into two categories: “those made by Sergio Leone” and “everything else.” And while none of the imitators really came close to approximating Leone’s inimitable style, quite a few managed to be damn entertaining. Like this well-meaning shoot-em-up which pits a lanky Eastwood stand-in (Anthony Steffan) and his loyal but perpetually drunk sidekick (Roberto Comardiel) against a small army of bad guys who’ve framed our hero for robbery and sullied his not-so-good name. Directed by Sergio Martino with his usual energetic pace, there’s nothing here you can’t see in dozens of other Italian Dollars knock-offs that will never make it to DVD. But Arizona Colt hits the trail hard and fast, jumping from one showdown to the next until the nearly 20-minute finale, the perfect capper to a film that’s constantly trying to top itself. Through it all, Martino maintains a good-natured tone, expertly balancing the comic relief with the...

ISLAND OF THE FISHMEN: Volcanoes, black magic, escaped convicts, mutated Gill-Men and Barbara Bach. Could you ask for anything more? Not when it comes to the Italian exploitation genre. This take on the familiar Island of Dr. Moreau story sees three shipwrecked survivors attacked by an army of Black Lagoon leftovers led by an evil recluse using them to steal treasure from the lost city of Atlantis. The plot actually makes more sense than you’d think, and Joseph Cotton even pops up as the dedicated but deranged scientist convinced that we’d all be better off with fins. Director Sergio Martino makes effective use of his exotic locale and limited special effects, delivering a perfect Saturday matinee that doesn’t skimp on the monstrous action, yet remains relatively bloodless. The film’s titular fishmen parade around on full display for most of the running time, making sure everyone gets their money’s worth. Lead actor Claudio Cassinelli brings a rugged believability to the procee...

SCREWBALLS: It must have really irked Roger Corman to see Porkys rake in so much money from a genre that he essentially pioneered. His cinematic response was Screwballs , more of a teen-flick satire than a straight-up sex comedy, that comes highly endorsed from none other than “Mr. Skin,” the popular movie nudity resource index. The students at T & A High School are all ridiculously promiscuous except for one Purity Busch (Linda Speciale) – the untouchable tease who becomes the object of everyone’s special attention. Five mismatched horndogs bet each other they can get a glimpse of her goods and stage five different plans of attack. While most of the other films released around 1983 were variations on the coming-of-age story, Screwballs doesn’t even bother. It embraces the corny stereotypes (nerd, jock, rich-kid, etc.) without apology and invites everyone to a rowdy, raunchy kegger of a B-movie. Director Rafal Zielinski claims to have been inspired by the old-school Archi...

SUNSHINE CLEANING: Another straight-from-Sundance flick with Amy Adams and Emily Blunt as sisters whose aimless lives get pointed in the right direction when they open a crime-scene clean-up business. The concept is ripe for a wacky Hollywood comedy, but the film rarely zigs in that direction. Instead it opts to zag down some rather tragic family history and personal hang-ups. Adams is an ex-high school cheerleader having an affair with her married ex-quarterback boyfriend. Blunt is a self-masochistic loafer still scarred by her mother’s suicide. Their father (played by Alan Arkin) is a failed businessman always counting on the next flip of the coin. It’s not really fair to label Sunshine Cleaning as a downer, but it certainly is optimistically challenged. What it does offer is another stunning example of how good an actress Amy Adams truly is. Equally adept at performing opposite Smithsonian exhibits brought to life or more intense serious dramas, Sunshine Cleaning owes most ...

ADVENTURELAND: One of the most common rites of passage as a director is restaging your own rites of passage as a young-adult. Writer / director Greg Mottola takes us on a ride down his own memory lane as an ambitious post-grad who’s forced to take a summer job at a local amusement park. The games and rides are all run by equally unenthusiastic twenty-somethings living at home with Mom and Dad while they develop an unspoken familial bond toiling in their mutual misery. Except James (Jesse Eisenberg), who finds the girl of his dreams (Kristen Stewart) while handing out giant-ass Pandas. Adventureland shares vague similarities with Mottola’s previous hit, Superbad, in the sense that it the story is deceptively aimless. There are brief bursts of comedy, mostly from Adventureland onwer-operators Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, but by and large Mottola’s not interested in making anyone laugh this time around. Like its alt-retro soundtrack, Adventureland doesn’t really fall into an eas...

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA: The last collaboration between director John Carpenter, director of photography Dean Cundey and actor Kurt Russell - a combo that produced Escape from New York and The Thing – this tongue-in-cheek, supernatural, kung-fu action-comedy couldn’t be more different from their previous films if it tried. In fact, it was so different the theatrical reaction at large in 1986 was a collective “What the F___?” But like most of Carpenter’s early work, cable and video cemented the film as a bonafide cult classic with more quotable lines that a Will Ferrell movie. Russell plays Jack Burton, a beefcake blow-hard truck driver who gets conned into rescuing a kidnapped Chinese girl from a 2000-year-old sorcerer. Along the way he must face the seven Chinese hells, three elemental warriors and a parade of supernatural creatures. Over-the-top in almost every respect, Big Trouble is unlike anything else in Carpenter’s oeuvre, which up until then included mostly horror fil...

DOOR INTO SILENCE: Director Lucio Fulci actually accomplishes something quite remarkable with his final film: although it was produced 1991 you’d swear the thing was shot at least 15 years earlier! With the same pop zooms, soft focus and recycled editing of his glory days, Door into Silence is a nostalgic trip down memory lane from the man who lived in the shadow of more prestigious Italian horror directors. Unfortunately, there’s not much else to recommend about this Twilight Zone knock-off that stretches its central idea long past the breaking point. John Savage (looking considerably puffier than his Deer Hunter days) plays a traveling businessman caught in some sort of supernatural conundrum; the sun never sets, he’s harassed by a mysterious hearse, and his path seems predetermined by a higher power. The film’s “secret” is so predictable your average housepet would be insulted. Despite being completely devoid of the director’s patented gore effects made famous in films like The Beyo...

WATCHMEN – DIRECTOR’S CUT: Does anyone really want to know about Batman’s battle with impotence? Or see what Superman looks like underneath his tighty-whities? Because like it or not, Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Watchmen is going to go there, challenging the very idea of what audiences expect from the term “comic book movie.” As a graphic novel, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons creation was a seminal piece of work, dealing with mature themes wrapped into a complex story structure that strained the very staples of the format. But much of what made Watchmen unique has already been absorbed into comic book culture, making Snyder’s challenge of producing a culturally relevant film next to impossible. What he does produce is a fanatically faithful version of events set in an alternate-reality 1985 where masked crimefighters have been outlawed, leaving humanity on the brink of global thermonuclear war. Although you’d be hard pressed to pick any of them out of an acting line-up, Watchmen’s cast do...

(REC): As American remakes go, Quarantine wasn’t such a bad attempt. In fact, director John Erick Dowdle recreated some sequences from the original Spanish film almost shot for shot, avoiding the temptation to add his own creative “improvements.” And with the opportunity to finally see his source material, one can see why. (REC) is a shining example of high-concept on a low-budget, turning George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead into a carnival spook house on rails. Using the Cloverfield approach, the film is told from the camera’s point-of-view as a nightbeat reporter tags along with a team of firefighters called out to an unknown disturbance in an apartment building. The disturbance turns out to be a mutated communicable disease which quickly infects all the residents and rescuers. Authorities seal off the building, trapping the unlucky survivors inside with rapidly degenerating undead monsters. One of the hardest hurdles for any horror film to overcome is suspension of disbelief, b...

THE 10TH VICTIM: Generations from now several facts about the 20th century will still be debated. Who was more influential, Ghandi or Mother Theresa? Which group left a bigger impact on rock ‘n roll, The Beatles or The Stones? And exactly which film was responsible for inventing the bikini machine gun, Austin Powers or The 10th Victim? Well, you can check that one off the list. As Blue-Underground’s reissue of this little seen Italian import proves, director Elio Petri’s sci-fi satire beat Mike Myers to the punch by a good 30 years. Ursula Andress wears the lethal swimwear this time around as a participant in a worldwide competition called “The Big Hunt” in which combatants take turn playing the Hunter and the Victim with a cash prize of (wait for it) “One Meee-lion Dollars!” Marcello Mastroianni is her intended target, whom she woos with her signature technique. But when romantic feelings start to surface, both parties begin to question if the big prize is really worth it. Many of the...

THE UNBORN: Nazis have been a reliable cinematic scapegoat for all sorts of evil plots, from stealing the lost ark to bioengineering undead supersoldiers. But David Goyer’s The Unborn really lays it on thick, blaming the Third Reich for opening a supernatural hole in the universe and allowing a “dybbuck” to possesses the body of one unlucky concentration camp prisoner which then waits two generations for another chance to be reborn inside of one unlucky teenager (played by Odette Yustman, quite fetching in a pair of tighty-whities). What is a “dybbuck,” you ask? Well, had you studied up on your Jewish history you’d know it’s an Exorcist-style demon who possesses its way up the evolutionary chain from bugs to dogs to teenagers...or is that not the right order? The confusion is understandable. Even Goyer, who made a moderately entertaining supernatural flick out of The Invisible two years prior, seems confused about the nature of his threat. So he tosses in every cliché, even the deleted...

THE PINK PANTHER 2: When an actor is so closely associated with a role the way Peter Sellers was as Inspector Jacques Clouseau, attempting to replace him with another comedian (even one as gifted as Steve Martin) risks trampling on the very memory of what made the films successful. So it’s tempting to dismiss both films in this franchise reboot sight unseen, if only to preserve those precious slapstick experiences. But as a comedic foil for the next generation, I’m sure Martin’s take on the bumbling French detective is perfectly acceptable. In fact, this second installment adds a supporting cast that takes much of the weight off his shoulders, including Lily Tomlin as a Clouseau’s frustrated political correctness counselor and Alfred Molina as one member of a detective “Dream Team” charged with hunting down another master thief on the loose. I’m still not sure why Martin took on the challenge of topping Sellers classic creation; it’s really a no-win situation. While his gift for spasti...

INKHEART: Movies have turned to literature for inspiration since the very beginning of cinema. And although success in both mediums is measured by the same barometer – good storytelling – films can often get by on a sliding scale of style over substance. With Inkheart, director Iain Softley certainly has his heart in the right place adapting Cornelia Funke’s novel about Silvertounges, rare individuals who can literally bring books to life when they read out loud. Brendan Fraser plays just such a man, who unwittingly reads a trio of villains into the real world while his wife is sent back into its pages, setting himself and his daughter on a quest to track down the rare volume and rescue her. Although Fraser has more than a decade of experience starring in similar family friendly fare, it’s actor Paul Bettany (A Knight’s Tale) who shoulders most of the dramatic weight as Dustfinger, a mysterious magician who simply longs to return to his comfortable literary surroundings. Inkheart, like...

THE SEVENTH SEAL: When a film becomes as iconic as The Seventh Seal it runs the risk of becoming an unwatchable antique. Like a piece of fine china kept behind protective glass, audience’s tend to admire it by reputation rather than dusting it off and appreciating the actual craftsmanship that went into its creation. Certainly, Ingmar Bergman’s film has much more to offer than its oft-repeated image of Death as a pale, moon-faced chess player. In fact, much of The Seventh Seal carries over the blissful joie d’ vive of the director’s previous film, Smiles of a Summer Night, only balanced with the thematic weight of religious meditation and questioning of faith that would mark his later work. But there I go again, making the film seem like an unwieldy, unwatchable chapter of cinematic history rather than a living, breathing entity unto itself. Frequent Bergman collaborator Max Von Sydow is charged carrying the weight of the director’s loftier ideas in the form of Antonius Block, a knight...

TRUE BLOOD – S1: The death of the vampire has been greatly exaggerated. In fact, with the success of HBO’s latest series and the teenage tsunami that is Twilight, you could say that the undead have never been so healthy. Of course, both Stephanie Meyer’s work and True Blood emphasize the more feminine aspects of everyone’s favorite bloodsucker, turning up the heat on Sookie (Anna Paquin) and Bill’s (Stephen Moyer) interspecies flirtation like a cat on a hot tin roof. Taking full advantage of pay-cable’s forgiving sex and blood standards, producer Allan Ball has fashioned an adults-only version of Dark Shadows. And like most soap-operas, the real appeal lies in getting to know the characters, like our herione Sookie Stackhouse, a mind-reading waitress, Jason, her oversexed brother, Tara, her smart-mouthed friend, and Bill, the gentleman vampire who comes strolling into town for the first time since the Civil War. Relevant social drama plays out in the background, with vampires fighting ...

WOODSTOCK – 3 DAYS OF PEACE AND MUSIC: If there’s one thing we can all take away from this historic amalgam of mud, musicians and unsullied idealism it is this: boy, those hippies smelled bad! Thankfully, the new collector’s set doesn’t come in a scratch ‘n sniff package, but that’s about all it doesn’t include. Of course, the main attraction is the documentary itself, which waffles between iconic concert film (Joe Cocker, The Who, and Jimi Hendrix perform, among others) and warts-and-all time capsule of the Love Generation’s greatest success. This director’s cut adds quite a bit more to the film, allowing director Michael Wadleigh to insert several extended montages (like the post-fest, post-apocalyptic clean-up sequence) that studio suits suggested he trim in the theatrical release. And a full disc of extras adds even more, including 15 never-before-seen performances from the likes of Credence Clearwater Revival and The Grateful Dead along with a heavily edited From Festival to Featu...

THE SWEET PUSSYCATS: The world probably wouldn’t be a whole lot different without the Italian Sex Comedy. But it would be a lot less fun. Graced with the presence of the luminous Edwige Fenech, The Sweet Pussycats follows the genre’s standard operating procedure, with several suitors pursuing several scantily clad ladies who have their own romantic agendas. The set-up this time revolves around a pair of aristocrats fighting over the rights to a local castle who pledge to bequeath the estate to whoever can bed a pair of local virgins first. Fenech plays a visiting ex-lover who is looking for her own angle, while a handsome nephew is the story’s wild card, attracting the attention of every female character in the film and threatening to ruin the contest before it’s even begun. For all the flesh on display (Fenech fans take note, she bares quite a bit more than usual), director Josef Zacher’s production is fairly chaste, more interested in slapstick and sexual innuendo than the act itself...

RETURN OF THE GLADIATOR: “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?” Lewd jokes aside, this latter day peplum is exactly the sort of thing Captain Oveur was talking about. Brad Harris stars as an ex-gladiator who rose through the military ranks only to be chosen for an undercover mission that utilizes all his old skills and contacts. Bearing its original title Three Giants of Rome, MYA Communications DVD is a pretty rough presentation, looking to be several generations removed from the original negative. But that doesn’t detract from the cheesy charm of director Bitto Albertini’s sword and sandal hijinks. The film adopts the breezy comic spirit of similar Spaghetti Westerns of the day, particularly in the form of actor Raf Baldassarre whose “thief with a heart of gold” character takes his fair share of punishment including being doused in urine. As the film’s lead, Harris certainly has the biceps for the part, but lacks that indefinable star quality. He’s merely a tool in Albertini’s ...