In the 1950’s, skateboarding was a fad. Like yo-yos and hula-hoops, skateboarding appeared, peaked, and virtually disappeared from the face of popular culture.

Skip forward twenty-five years. It’s the mid-seventies. Skateboarding is as popular as oral surgery. The kids and teens hanging out the Zepyhr Surf Shop in “Dogtown”, an area of southern California, were much more into surfing than skateboarding. In fact, even when they were skateboarding, all they were doing was emulating the moves of their favorite surfers. “Skateboards” at that point in time were homemade pieces of wood, cut roughly into the shape of surfboards, with roller skate wheels attached to the bottom.

Dogtown and Z-Boys is a documentary that tells the story of the twelve kids picked to form the Zephyr Street Skate Team. Those twelve kids, which included people like Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams, changed the face of skateboarding forever, and basically ushered skateboarding into the modern era.

The documentary consists of interviews with all the members of the Z-Boys, plus the Zephyr shop owners, and certain celebrities who remember the team as well (Jeff Ammett, Henry Rollins, and Tony Hawk all appear). The documentary also contains hundreds of photographs and tons of vintage footage which, when combined with songs of the times, really takes you back to that place in time.

It’s hard to imagine a time where skateboarding was unheard of, but the filmmakers really do a good job of setting the stage. Some of the stories and anecdotes really make you imagine what it was like. “Getting paid to skate was unheard of,” says Stacy Peralta, one of the Z-Boys and a founder of Powell and Peralta Skateboarding Company. “It would be like if Nike called a kid up today and said they would sponsor them to paint grafitti all over town.”

Through trial, error, and a bit of luck, the Z-Boys developed a style of skateboarding all their own. In one interesting segment, the guys talk about how they invented vert skating. California experienced an intense drought in the late 70’s. The kids, constantly looking for new places to skate, discovered some — dried up swimming pools. Pretty soon the guys were searching southern Hollywood for houses for sale. Armed with both electric and gas powered pumps, the guys could empty a pool in just a couple of hours. The crew often traveled down back streets and alleys with one of the kids on the roof of the car, scouting for new pool sites. One thing that came out of skating pools for a couple of years — air. Tony Alva would constantly carve so close to the coping that occasionally his board would catch “air”. Remember, this was before backside airs had even been invented. Alva eventually turned this in the “backside air.” Seeing something like this developing on film before your eyes in fascinating.

The documentary moves to the 1977 Del Mar Skateboard Nationals. Most of the contestants showed up and performed old handstand maneuvers from the 50’s; and then there were the Z-Boys. “They were more like a street gang than a skateboard team,” one of the judges said. Dressed in Z-Team shirts, blue jeans, and Vans shoes, the team came in and changed skateboarding in one afternoon, taking home trophies in basically every event.

A couple of other segments talk about the money involved in the skateboarding world at that time. In the beginning, none of the Z-Boys were even paid. After the Del Mar contest, big coorporations lured the kids away with huge sums of money, which caused the Z-Team to break up (two years later, the Zephyr Surf and Skate Shop closed as well). The film also touches on how some of the skaters took the money and turned it into careers (both Stacy Peralta and Tony Alva formed their own companies), while other of the guys didn’t do so well (Jay Adams, one of the most naturally gifted of the Z-Boys, is currently serving time on drug-related charges in Hawaii).

Dogtown and Z-Boys is a documentary that captures a moment in time. The DVD contains a few extras, including some trailers, some extra skate session footage, and a commentary track with the director and editor. The commentary track is interesting to listen to, but focuses more on the creation of the film instead of the content. Anyone interested in the history of skateboarding or guerrila documentaries should check this one out. Very entertaining and informative.

Baltimore’s John Waters was and is definitely a “do-it-yourself” guerilla filmmaker — the type of director that makes Kevin Smith’s early works look like big budget Hollywood flicks. Armed with borrowed video cameras and a troop of friends, Waters set out in the early ’70’s to either change the world, create art, or just shock people. In reality, he probably suceeded in all three.

Divine Trash is a fairly raw documentary about John Waters and his entourage. The hour and a half long film focuses mostly on the early years, beginning with Waters’ early filmmaking days and ending with the making of 1972’s Pink Flamingos, Waters’ first big claim to fame.

Before Waters was making films such as Cecil B. DeMented, Pecker, Serial Mom and Cry-Baby, the self-proclaimed strange one was making “underground films” (defined within the documentary as films with basically no budget, no big name stars, and no distribution deals). Using some of Baltimore’s finest (and oddest) actors, Waters set out to do … something.

The documentary briefly touches on some of Waters’ early films, including Hag In A Black Leather Jacket, Roman Candles and Eat Your Make Up! It then focuses a bit more on Mondo Trasho, a 90 minute film which, in Waters’ own words, “should have been 10.” Mondo Trasho was basically a silent black and white film, with its plot told by musical cues. After two more films (The Diane Linkletter Story and Multiple Maniacs), Waters and crew set out to make their masterpiece.

Pink Flamingos is the major focus of the second half of the documentary. Pink Flamingos tells the story of Babs Johnson (played by Divine) who moves into Baltimore and is labeled “The Filthiest Person In The World” by a local newspaper. Connie and Raymond Marble (a couple across town who have slaves in their basement which they impregnate and sell the babies to lesbian couples for adoption) dispute the claim, and the competition is on.

Without spoiling too much of the plot, a search on the web for Pink Flamingos turned back the following key words: egg fetish, chickens, cannibalism, transsexual, shoplifting, murder, incest, oral sex, and shit eating.

Much of the rest of the documentary focuses on Divine, the 300+ pound man who dresses in drag and appears in most if not all of Waters’ early works. There are interviews with both Waters’ and Divine’s parents, both wondering what exactly went wrong (neither pair have seen Pink Flamingos, nor do they plan to). Divine passed away in 1988, so the interview segments with him/her are (obviously) from before that.

The documentary stops around the release of Pink Flamingos, and no mention is made of Hairspray, Polyester, or any of Waters’ later films. Added onto the end of the film is about two minutes of footage made during the filming of Pecker, but it really just seems to be “tacked” on — no explanation is given, and it really doesn’t do anything except make the movie two minutes longer.

John Waters doesn’t make “normal” movies. That’s a good thing; there’s plenty of “normal” movies out there already. While Waters’ later works have come closer to the mainstream, his earlier works were really “out there”. If you’re brave, rent Pink Flamingos (if you can find it) or some of Waters’ earlier works. If you can’t find them, or just want to “wade in” so to speak, check out Divine Trash (available on both VHS and DVD).

Why are Saturday Night Live Alumni in such a hurry to quit the show? Every year, the show loses skit actors who are “headed to Hollywood” to become a movie star. Eddie Murphy pulled it off. Chevy Chase pulled it off. A few others pulled it off. Most others didn’t. I don’t need to name them all; for every Wayne’s World there was a Wayne’s World 2. For every Blues Brothers, there was a Blues Brothers 2000. And for every Coneheads, A Night at the Roxbury, The Ladies Man, Superstar and It’s Pat, there were no positive counterparts of equal value.

David Spade, eternally doomed to “buddy comedy hell”, stars in Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. After the surprise success of Tommy Boy, Spade seemed perfect content to continue partnering with Chris Farley and remaking that film (which they did in Black Sheep). Due to Farley’s passing, Spade has been forced to get his material elsewhere. DR:FCS is equal parts Joe Dirt (Spade’s last film) and Billy Madison (starring Adam Sandler, another ex-SNL actor whose humor seems to fade the further from the show he gets). If you’ve seen those two films, take out most of the laughs and add a dozen or two cameos from former child stars, and you’ve got Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star.

Presented in an “E! True Hollywood Stories” format, the movie presents the life of Dickie Roberts. Roberts was a famous child actor who starred in a sitcom for six years. Roberts’ father left when he was very a child (a loose end which is never tied up), followed by his mother when his show got cancelled. Roberts wants to become famous again, to regain the love of his mother. His best bet at succeeding is starring in the latest Rob Reiner film. In a meeting with the director, Reiner tells Roberts that since he never had a real childhood, he won’t have any emotions to draw upon while acting. Filming is delayed for a month, and Roberts decides the best way he could prepare for the role is to hire a normal family, move in with them, and have them treat him like a child so he can finally have a normal childhood.

The rest of the film revolves around your run of the mill “fish out of water” jokes — either Roberts is acting goofy because he’s never been a kid, or the family (particularly the kids) get a laugh because Roberts taught them something unbelievably funny like saying “shizznit” over and over. Wow. Of course Roberts’ foster family has fallen on tough financial times, and can’t afford to throw Roberts out.

Despite the occasional laughs the film brings out (the Celebrity Boxing moment had me laughing outloud), the plot lacks any character development whatsoever. We see Roberts girlfriend Cyndi (portrayed by Alyssa Milano) treating Dickie like crap and him taking her back, but it’s never explained why. Several other characters’ motivations and reasonings are never explained or played out, particularly the family’s father who seems like a nice guy until we see he’s got a real mean streak. He alludes to several things that never materialize, things that most likely ended up on the cutting room floor.

Unfortunately, David Spade and writer/friend Fred Wolf felt a need to be more than funny, and tried for sappy. The whole thing ends up in a Wizard of Oz “there’s no place like home” moment that makes no sense and destroys the character Spade spends 90 minutes trying to somewhat flesh out. The day a childhood actor gives up his chance for a comeback will be the same day a three-minute SNL skit turned into a movie actually works. Which is to say, never.

For a completely nothing movie, the DVD is packed with special features, including two commentary tracks and several interviews and several featurettes. Fans of special features will be pleased with this release, as long as they don’t care about the movie they’re attached to.

I laughed at the gags in the opening and closing credits, but struggled to watch the rest in the middle. Worth a rental only to fans of David Spade and real former child stars, of which several appear in bit parts.

PS: The tagline to this movie is, “50 million people used to watch him on TV. Now he washes their cars.”. In the film, Dickie Roberts is a parking valet.

About an hour into The Tale of Despereaux (pronounced Dess-per-Row) I was already brainstorming headlines for this review. “Despereaux-te to Leave” was one I came up with. “The Tale of Desper-No” was another one. I originally considered “Desper-eaux-no” before settling on “The Fail of Despereaux,” which I decided was wittier, funnier, and more thought provoking than anything contained within the movie itself.

Warning: this review deliberately contains spoilers in an attempt to keep you from paying money to see it.

The Tale of Despereaux tells not one tale but (at least) three intersecting ones. The film begins by introducing us to Roscuro the Rat (Dustin Hoffman) as he arrives in the Kingdom of Dor (which coincidentally rhymes with “bore”). Dor revolves around soup, and one day each year Andre (the king’s chef) prepares an irresistible soup for everyone in the entire kingdom. Roscuro is so drawn to the soup’s wonderful aroma that he heads directly to the kitchen. (At this point it was hard to ignore the similarities to Pixar’s 2007 film “Ratatouille,” a film about a rat that loved soup.) While trying to get a better whiff of the soup’s mesmerizing aroma, Roscuro slips and falls into the soup. The queen, convinced she has just taken a sip of soup from a bowl containing a rat, has a heart attack and dies. As a result, the King bans both rats and soup from the kingdom. The King retreats to his room where he plays sad songs on the guitar all day, color disappears from the kingdom, and it never rains.

If this sounds weird, just wait — we’re just ramping up here. Roscuro ends up in Ratworld, a place where rats live deep below the city. Also below the city but not near Ratworld is Mouseworld, where mice live. In Mouseworld we meet Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), a young mouse with big ears who refuses to conform to the rules of Mouseworld. He sets off mouse traps for fun, refuses to cower and hide, and wants to (gasp) read books instead of eat them. When Despereaux commits the cardinal sin of talking to a human, he is ultimately banished to a dark hole (which leads to Ratworld).

The story goes on and on. Eventually Roscuro the Rat and Despereaux the Mouse team up to try and save the Kingdom of Dor from its soupless funk. At some point along the way Roscuro turns bad, then good, then bad, then good again, for reasons neither my wife nor myself could ever figure out. When Mason asked if Roscuro was a good guy or a bad guy, all I could say was, “Hell if I know!”

Thrown in the middle of this whole retarded mess is a subplot involving a servant girl (Miggery Sow, played by Tracy Ullman) with a hearing problem who gets duped by Roscuro to kidnap the princess. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that the servant girl with the unique birthmark (don’t they always have one?) was given up for adoption and you can bet she’ll find her father before the end of the film. What this had to do with anything, I have no idea.

Being an animated film for children one can assume there will be a happy ending, but by the time we got to it nobody in the theater cared. I seriously did not care if anybody in the film lived or died — in fact, I was secretly hoping they would all die so that the film would end. The film’s run time of 100 minutes is deceiving and I felt like they may have left a zero off the end. Despereaux is the only film my kids have asked — no, begged — to leave. Morgan finally quit begging 2/3 the way through the film. She was lucky; she fell asleep.

Modern animated films must walk a fine line between entertaining both kids and adults, but The Tale of Despereaux failed to entertain either demographic. After the movie was over I asked Morgan (age 3 1/2) what her favorite part was. She said, “the popcorn.” Mason (age 7) claimed to enjoy the film, but when I asked him what it was about he said he had no idea. (To be fair, neither did I.) I also had to look up every single character’s name online while writing this review; names like Miggery Sow, Roscuro, and Botticelli are tough to remember and/or spell. The one thing you will remember are the film’s morals. Not only do you get beaten over the head with them, but just in case you miss one, they are repeatedly reiterated by the narrator (Sigourney Weaver).

About the only thing this film has going for it is its beautiful animation, but this is 2009 — I expect beautiful animation. Unfortunately, I also expect to be entertained, and in that respect Despereaux was a failure. Not only would I not recommend seeing this in the theater — I wouldn’t recommend renting it or even downloading it for free.

Watching magic close up, in person, is an awesome experience. Your mind tells you it’s a trick, but your eyes don’t agree. It’s something that brings out the kid in us, every time a guy in a tuxedo and top hat “magically” figures out “what card you picked.”

After years of magicians trying to upscale and outdo each other, along came David Blaine — a regular guy who walks down the street (camera man in tow), performing magic for the common man. No white tigers or disappearing Statues of Liberty here. Blaine’s tools are cards, sleight of hand, and his mind.

David Blaine’s Fearless DVD contains “the best of” his three television specials: Street Magic, Magic Man, and Frozen In Time. Don’t let that “best of” tag fool you; other than commercial breaks and the occasional slimming down of tricks, pretty much everything’s here. If you remember if from the television broadcasts, chances are you’ll find it here as well.

In “Street Magic,” Blaine spends most of his time wandering around the streets, performing (mostly) card tricks for people. As no one had heard of Blaine at this time, this first special contains a few celebrities, namely Leonardo DiCaprio (who is shown in short segments, asking David Blaine questions about magic) and many of the Dallas Cowboys, who witness, among other things, David Blaine levitating.

Yes, levitating. Blaine performs an old (but uncommon) version of a levitation trick. The most amazing thing are the people’s descriptions of the trick afterwards. Once you know how the trick is done (something not divulged on the DVD, but readily available via the internet), you know it’s impossible for the person to “levitate” more than 2-3 inches. Still, people who have just seen the trick often describe him as floating “a foot into the air.”

During Blaine’s levitation, a cut away shot is shown. In the cut away shot, Blaine is shown floating a good foot into the air. This was a shot that was filmed after the first levitation. In person, the people were explained that “this is how someone would perform the trick with wires,” but we (as DVD viewers) are never explained this. This pretty much ruins the rest of the DVD for me. The only enjoyment you get out of watching magic on television is the mutual understanding that there are “no camera tricks” involved. Once that line has been crossed, everything else becomes suspect.

The magic continues in the “Magic Man.” Where “Street Magic” focuses more on card tricks, “Magic Man” contains more mentalism tricks. One trick that Blaine performs multiple times involves him walking up to a person, telling them to “mentally pick a card” (just think of one in their mind), and then he tells them what it is. In one scene, he tells three guys to think of cards, then he points at them one at a time. “You picked the Jack of clubs. You, the Queen of hearts. You, the nine of clubs.” He’s right every time. That particular trick seemed a little far fetched to me. “Magic Man” comes just short of suggesting that the guy is actually psychic. Of course, moments later he’s biting quarters in half and pushing a cigarette through a coin, two tricks that are for sale for $5 in every magic store. The card mind reading trick makes me wonder how much footage the producers have of wrong guesses.

The third portion of the film is made up of Blaine’s “Frozen In Time” special, where Blaine had himself encased in a big block of ice where he stood for several days. While there are still clips of tricks here, the majority of the program is footage of Blaine standing still in a block of ice. After proving himself to be one of the masters of close-up magic, Blaine’s career has taken a side path into the field of “survival” publicity stunts like his idol, Houdini. After encasing himself in ice, Blaine has also stood on top of a narrow pole for quite some time, buried himself in a plexiglass box for a week without food or water, and is currently (as of this writing) sitting in a box for 44 days without food. Shrug. I’d rather see his card tricks any day.

The more I watched Fearless, the more I think many of Blaine’s tricks have parts you don’t see on television. For example, in one scene Blaine asks a person on the street to think of a dead relatvie, only to lift his shirt and have the face tattooed on his stomach. In another trick, he has a mark pick a card, only to have it reappear — in their shoe. These are tricks that cannot possibly happen the way they are presented on the DVD.

The Fearless DVD contains three extra portions, one for each of the three specials. It also contains scans of some Blaine newspaper articles, and a section of “Unseen Blaine Footage”. Not as exciting as it sounds, the unseen footage is about seven minutes of tricks cut out of the specials, usually because (A) it prominantly shows the word “Budweiser”, (B) the people were drunk, or (C) the people cussed. One long unseen spot has Blaine performing his levitation, and then “overacting” about how much pain and suffering the trick caused him. The scene goes on WAY too long, and Blaine’s fake-acting is pretty awful.

Fearless is worth owning just so you can show this guy off to all your friends (if any of them haven’t seen or heard of him yet). You can pick it up new for between $12.99 and $14.99 at most major stores, and it’s definitely worth that.

Reality is a dangerous thing to screw with. Even those who like to chemically change their own for an hour or two at a time always like to come back to what they know. Up is up, down is down. Regardless of anything else that happens, you know how time works. You know how gravity works. You know who YOU are.

But, what if all those things were wrong? What if everything you know is wrong? What if reality as we know it, wasn’t reality? Like The Matrix and Men in Black, Dark City explores these possibilities.

The story begins with John Murdoch waking up in his bathtub, the hanging bathroom light swinging. He is bleeding from the forehead. There is a strange instrument (what looks like a needle) on the bathroom floor. Oh yeah, and there’s a dead prostitute in the living room of his apartment. On top of all that, John can’t remember anything before when he woke up in the tub. The phone rings, and a voice on the phone warns him that he is in danger, that “they” are coming for him, and to get out. As John slips out of the apartment, three strangers slip in, and the adventure begins.

Most of the fun comes from the unraveling of the story. There are clues here and there, and you as a viewer get to put them together as John does. Unfortunately, “they” (the film studio) decided that the story was too complex and confusing for the average person to follow, and so they added a two minute introductory speech. The speech, which is tacked directly on the beginning of the film, explains the entire plot, from beginning to end. It totally changes the film from being a mystery/adventure, to being just a story. Most fans of the film (even new ones, like myself) prefer the alternate way of viewing the film – pressing mute on the television until you see Kiefer Sutherland on the screen.

I’ve purposely avoiding telling too much about the movie’s plot. The best part of this film is figuring out just what the hell is going on. It’s purposely disorienting. And just when you think you know what’s going on, something comes along and you just shake your head and say, “what the hell?”

The DVD version of Dark City comes with some great extras. For those of you who like commentary tracks, this disc has two of them. One commentary has directory Alex Proyas, writers Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer, cinematographer Dariusz Wolski and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos. It’s okay, but the star of the disc is commentary two, a commentary by Roger Ebert. Ebert had just taught a film conference, and used this film as his subject. His knowledge of the subject material shows, and you get the idea he could dish out details for another hour or two after the film was over.

The disc also contains production notes, theatrical trailers, a comparison to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1926), set designs, “Neil Gaiman” on “Dark City”, and a DVD-Rom Interactive game “To Shell Beach”. The disc also contains both widescreen and fullscreen versions of the film, one on each side. It’s also got a nice 5.1 DD soundtrack to boot.

Dark City is one of those “what if” films that lets your imagination run wild. It made me take a step back and think about reality. I’m pretty sure that I “know what I know,” but stories like this allow you to wonder. Dark City is a story about the human spirit rising and triumphing over all. Unfortunately, in a “city” such as this, people, places, and things aren’t always what they seem.

As a kid with a penchant for squashing ants, spiders, and various other critters, my parents often reminded me that, “insects have families, too.” Supposedly I wasn’t just stomping on some random insect; instead, I was led to believe that I was ending the life of some bug who may have simply returning home from a long day at work; an insect with a wife and kids, just trying to make an honest living.

In J.J. Abrahm’s Cloverfield, we’re the insects.

Cloverfield (a throwaway name that means nothing) opens with Rob, a twenty-something-year-old executive who’s just been promoted to vice-president, showing up to his own surprise going-away party. A group of Rob’s pals including his brother Jason, Jason’s fiancee Lilly, and Rob’s best friend Hud have invited dozens of young, beautiful people to the party. Unfortunately for them (and the rest of New York), one uninvited guest shows up as well — a giant space lizard monster thingy, hell bent on destroying Manhattan.

Presented exclusively through shaky (headache-inducing*) hand-held footage shot by Hud, the audience knows exactly what the film’s stars know — which is to say, not much. The group quickly learns where not to stand when the Statue of Liberty’s head comes rolling down the street, and it turns out crossing bridges on foot isn’t such a good idea either. Matters are complicated when creepy mutant spider-tick things show up to continue the assault. Our protagonists story is one of confusion and survival.

The oddest thing about this film was that the monster may be the most realistic thing about it. I spent the majority of the film being baffled by pretty much every decision every character made. I suppose panicking citizens are expected to act like idiots (“let’s run ten miles back toward the monster to check on a friend who’s probably dead!”), but the way the military is portrayed is completely idiotic. Would soldiers really show up with M-16s to shoot at a 50-story-tall monster? At one point, our protagonists are told about a raundevous point where civilians will be air lifted out of New York to safety, three at a time. My, how far we’ve come from Katrina.

Cloverfield has been receiving mixed reviews, and I can understand why. While plenty of questions are presented within the confines of the film, very few of them are answered. If you are the type of person who enjoys sitcoms that wrap everything up in a neat little bundle once a week, this film is not for you. If, however, you’d like to experience what monster-geddon might look like from the ground level, Cloverfield does a pretty decent job. Just don’t forget a healthy supply of dramamine (for before), aspirin (for after), and suspension of belief (for during).

(*At least. A girl three rows back from us vomited twenty minutes into the film. Cloverfield is like the Blair Witch all over again, times ten.)

Sometimes a movie is more than the sum of its parts. One such movie was 1994’s Clerks, directed by then unknown director Kevin Smith. Despite being filmed in black and white and having practically no budget, the profanity-laced film captured the heart and attention of Gen-X’ers everywhere. Finally, one of their own had taken their plights, language, and experiences and placed them on the big screen.

The further Smith drifted from his “View Askewniverse” (the fictional area where Jay, Silent Bob, and all the rest of his characters exist), the less successful he’s been. Smith has promised to put the characters to rest on multiple occasions, a threat that usually occurs shortly before the announcement of a new View Askewniverse film — the latest of which is 2006’s Clerks II.

Clerks II finds Dante and Randall (Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson) ten years older, still working at the same convenient store and movie rental outlet, still squeaking through life. When the strip mall burns to the ground, the duo find employment at Mooby’s, trading in their cash registers for burger spatulas. Ten years ago, Dante and Randall were going through what every person in their early twenties goes though. Ten years later in Clerks II, the pair of friends face a new enemy — time. Dante’s girlfriend Emma (Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith) has promised him a new life in Florida, a move that threatens to end the boys’ friendship.

Most of the original cast including O’Halloran, Anderson, Jay (Jason Mewes), Silent Bob (Smith) return. New characters include co-worker Elias (Trevor Fehrman) and Mooby’s manager Becky (Rosario Dawson), with cameos from Smith regulars Jason Lee and Ben Affleck, and commedians Wanda Sykes and Earthquake.

Smith’s writing is as dirty and funny as ever. In the Askewniverse, people talk by exchanging diatribes about particular subjects; at any given moment you could be forced to debate (at length, in detail, with notations) whether Star Wars is better than The Lord of the Rings, whether certain words are considered racist, or whether or not certain sexual practices are either acceptable or even sanitary. Conversations in the film come off like two people reading exchanged e-mails aloud, a feeling exacerbated by the majority of the cast’s acting abilities. Mixing professionals like Dawson in with Smith’s regular gang of hooligans just makes them look that much worse when compared to her.

And yet, I doubt that’s the reason Clerks II will escape Grammy nomination (the “donkey show” comes to mind). No one’s going to see this film for anyone’s acting ability; they’ll go for Smith’s writing, they’ll go to find out what ever happened to the clerks, and they’ll go because they can relate to the characters in the film.

That’s why I went at least, and that’s why I enjoyed it.

In the late 1990s, dial-up modems stepped aside to make way for the new breed of high speed DSL and cable modems. As broadband access spread like wildfire into homes across the world, static web pages began being replaced by websites streaming audio and video programs to web surfers. The creators of this new wave of multimedia content found an immediate audience of millions of bored web surfers looking for ways to max out their newfound (and seemingly unlimited) bandwidth.

Classic Game Room, launched in late 1999, was one such show. Hosted by Mark Bussler and David Crosson of FromUSALive.com, Classic Game Room was an original online program that mixed classic videogame reviews with general wackiness. The show ran for about a year, only to fold when FromUSALive.com succumbed to the infamous busting of the Internet bubble.

Seven years after the last episode aired comes The Classic Game Room DVD, which contains ten classic episodes of the original show. The featured reviews span games from the classic Atari 2600 all the way up to the (then modern) Sega Dreamcast. These ten episodes have been encapsulated within a documentary that details the rise and subsequent fall of the show although if youre simply interested in just watching the episodes, you can do that through the DVDs menu.

Mark and Davids acting is goofy, the writing is occasionally awkward and many of the jokes run too long. That being said, Classic Game Room perfectly captures the birth of online steaming video programs. At this time, amateur filmmakers with small budgets and big dreams could create anything they could imagine and make those creations available to the viewing public think of it as local cable access programs going worldwide. Not every idea here works, but after each stumble the guys regain their footing and continue to produce increasingly better episodes. It should be noted that for an Internet-based program, The Game Room has superb video editing and production. It is no surprise that Mark Bussler has remained in the film production world. It is readily apparent that much more work went into the production of this program than its content probably warranted.

The episodes themselves vary greatly in content and quality. The duos review of SeaMan consists almost exclusively of footage of the hosts playing the game; conversely, the review of Alien for the Atari 2600 contains less than a minute of game footage and instead spends over ten minutes parodying the television show The Real World. The shows review of Sega GT for the Dreamcast features a Hollywood-style car chase that ends with crashes and explosions (if Hollywood used Hot Wheels).

The documentary itself is fairly cheesy and is presented more as a mockumentary than a true documentary. Where the DVD absolutely shines, however, is on Marks commentary track. Anyone interested in the true story behind the show or the logistics involved in putting together an Internet program MUST listen to this commentary track. It is by far the most entertaining and interesting portion of the disc. The tone is a 180 degree flip from the rest of the film, chock full of facts and background information about the show. The only fault is that the feature is buried at the very bottom of the special features menu. I fear many viewers may not even discover what I feel to be the best feature of the entire disc, which would definitely be a shame.

If youre not sure whether or not the pairs sense of humor is for you, search YouTube for Classic Game Room and check out several of the older episodes of the program. Even though some of the shows contained on the DVD are also available online, the documentary, and especially Busslers commentary track, is absolutely worth the price of admission. Game on, fellas!

Clash of the Titans is the latest in my series of “old movie/new to DVD” reviews. As I say in many of my reviews, if you haven’t seen Clash of the Titans already then close down this wonderful invention called the Internet, get in your car, drive to Blockbuster, rent this movie and send me the bill. Hell, it might be quicker to just start flipping channels on cable right now, it’s seems to be showing on some channel in cable land almost all the time these days.

Clash of the Titans is also a movie that falls under the “seemed like a great flick when I was eight, doesn’t seem so good these days” movies. Sure it’s a classic — there’s a two headed dog, giant scorpions, the Kraken, and Bubo the Owl for the gods’ sakes! Ok, scratch Bubo the Owl, that thing was just annoying. I’m just saying that at the age of 8, the Clash of the Titans had some sort of magical aura around it which seems to have faded a bit over the past 21 years. 21 years ago? Jesus, I’m old.

For those of you who grew up in a cave, Clash of the Titans tells the story of Perseus, starting with him being banished from a town as a baby to his becoming a young adult. Through a twist of fate, Perseus ends up on a quest to save the lovely (aren’t they all lovely? No one saves the ugly maidens, it seems) Princess Andromeda. Along the way, kills a two-headed dog, giant scorpion, the Kraken, but unfortunately not Bubo the Owl. Where are the gods now???

If nothing else, people should watch Clash of the Titans because it really is the last of the greats, so to speak. Ray Harryhausen, who fell in love with movie special effects after working with Willis O’Brien on animating the original King Kong, made a name for himself by stepping out on his own and providing the stop motion effects in such films as The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and the original Mighty Joe Young. Harryhausen honed his skills on films like The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, The 3 Worlds of Gulliver, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years BC, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. If you’ve seen skeletons fighting with swords anytime in the past fifty years, either Harryhausen did it, or someone copied his work (see: Spy Kids, Army of Darkness, and many more).

Clash of the Titans was Harryhausen’s last film. It’s hard to believe that Tron came out one year later than Clash of the Titans, and Return of the Jedi is only two years newer. Harryhausen’s stop motion techniques were replaced at first with ILM’s “go-motion” techniques, and eventually by computers. That’s one of the reasons that makes Clash of the Titans so special – just like the Kraken, it’s the death of a dynasty.

As I said earlier, as an eight year old this movie was THE shit! I think out in my garage I still have my Pegasus horse, my Kraken, and maybe even a Calibos figure. Twenty-one years later, I see why my parents did not think that this movie was “the shit”. First of all, it’s almost exactly two hours long … WAY too long for an adventure of this sort. Second of all, the effects are pretty bad. I’m not sure if they seemed bad “back then” or not, but they seem bad now, I can tell you that. Third of all, especially for a kid’s movie, it takes WAY too long for anything exciting to happen. My son, who’s nine months old, loves watching cartoons and movies. I couldn’t find anything in Clash to keep his attention, and especially not during the beginning. It’s over 30 minutes before anything remotely interesting happens. Too much backstory for a kid’s tale for me.

The recently released Clash of the Titans DVD contains four extras for viewers to chew on. The Cast and Crew Biographies and the Theatrical Trailer and throw-a-ways. That leaves you with an interview with Ray Harryhausen, and the Map of Myths and Monsters section.

The Harryhausen interview is short, that’s about all I can say. Maybe ten, twelve minutes tops. I found myself wanting to know a lot more about him and a lot less about Clash of the Titans when it was over. The other extra, a Map of Myths and Monsters, has a picture of each special “character” from the movie. When you click on each one, it shows you a short clip from the movie, and then a brief interview with Harryhausen, explaining how he animated the character. It’s interesting, but again seems too “on the surface” — there’s not a lot of deep info to be found here.

Clash of the Titans is one of those movies everybody just ends up owning. You might as well buy it now instead of later. With a MSRP of $14.99 and cheaper prices when on sale, this is a classic that deserves to sit on your shelf, collecting dust or not.