By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A fantastic send-up of loner cop action hero movies, with a final half hour that makes it the funniest thing I’ve seen this year.

Hot Fuzz is the funniest movie that most people haven’t seen this year. Sure, everyone is fawning over Superbad, which was OK, but if you’re an action movie fan, especially of stuff along the lines of Die Hard or Lethal Weapon you really need to see this movie.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A self-promoting, off-beat quasi-documentary that people in the lower ranks of the Hollywood movie machine will appreciate more than most of us.

I thought that with all the press surrounding Michael Moore and his latest film Sicko, it might be fun to review a (semi-)documentary about Michael Moore. Well, at least partially about him.

First off, you need to know that despite the promotional material and the title, Michael & Me is not really about Michael Moore, bashing or otherwise - so for both Moore haters and defenders there’s not really much to get bent out of shape over with this flick.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A great goodbye to Rocky that will remind you of the original.

Oh no, not a SIXTH “Rocky” movie?!

That was my reaction when I first heard about this project, but guess what? Rocky Balboa really works. I’m glad Stallone revisted the character that put him on the map because he did a heck of a job with this film. Instead of suffering from “sequel-itis” it feels like the closing chapter of a great story.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: A low budget, yet beautifully shot and extremely moving film with an underlying core that may be too subtle for Christians’ tastes yet too strong for others.

Initially I wasn’t going to watch End of the Spear.

However, my wife tends to have a good eye when it comes to determining what films I’ll like outside of my typical genres of action, sci fi, and occaisonally, horror. It’s usually something that she’s seen without me and on which she then gives me her micro-review: “You’ll like it”. So far I think she’s never missed.
End of the Spear is basically a story about Christian missionaries in the Amazon jungle who are trying to end the cycle of violence among factions of the Waodani tribe. For centuries they have been murdering each other using their weapon of choice (spears, of course) and the byproduct of this fact is that they are on the edge of extinction. If they do not kill each other off, the government will soon be stepping in to hunt them down due to their attacks on the regular folks who live nearby. The tribe members believe that the “outsiders” are cannibals.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: This is the Superman sequel that should have been, VASTLY superior to the ridiculous theatrical release.

I won’t be getting into much detail about the story which should be well known in a 20+ year old film, but instead will concentrate on what makes this new version so much better than the original.

If you’re not familiar with the story behind the story, it’s really quite fascinating. Originally Richard Donner was hired to film both Superman and Superman II simultaneously, after which the footage would be edited into two separate movies. Unfortunately, what happened during the course of filming was that many differences began to manifest themselves between Donner and the producers, the Salkinds.

The culmination of this conflict was that although Richard Donner had filmed probably more than 80% of the footage for Superman II, the Salkinds decided to pretty much fire him before completion of the sequel and brought Richard Lester to film additional footage and make the film “his”.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Although you might expect that people in their forties would find this funny, it will probably be funnier to folks in their twenties to whom forty seems infinitely far away.

Now I’m sure I haven’t lost my sense of humor because I just watched a comedian parody President Bush and although I voted for him I found it laugh-out-loud funny.

This DVD, not so much.

“But why are you rating it 2.5 stars?” you may ask… Basically because upon a second viewing it did elicit a few chuckles and when I step back and look at it, I imagine that if I was in my early to mid 20’s I might actually find his routine a lot funnier.

Sometimes nostalgia is best left in the past.

Have you ever had fond memories of something you watched on TV when you were younger… maybe a live action or cartoon series that you remember being the coolest thing ever? Here’s a little advice: Often it’s better to leave those episodes as sweet memories. The first time I ran into this phenomenon was when channel surfing I came across an episode of Speed Racer, one of the precursors to Anime from back in the 1960’s. When I was a kid I thought that cartoon was simply awesome, but watching it recently just killed it for me since I had no idea at the time how poorly animated and how ridiculous the plots were.

Unfortunately The Flash (just released on DVD) doesn’t even start with memories of having been an awesome show. It suffers from having been produced hot on the heels of the first Tim Burton Batman film, and the producers made the terrible decision to use the ambience of that film for this TV series as well.

For those of you unfamiliar with the character (and there have been multiple incarnations of The Flash), we start with Barry Allen, a forensic scientist for the police force. While in his lab there is a freak bolt of lightning striking him and a rack of various chemicals, the result of which imbues him with super-speed. I haven’t picked up the comic book in a while, but from what I remember the character was never “dark” like Batman. It was more of a take-place-during-the-day kind of comic book.

By Vic Holtreman

Short version: Probably the wierdest movie you’ve never heard of, a bizarre combination of Monty Python, Mad Magazine, Freaks and Airplane!.

I have no doubt that 99% of the folks reading this review have probably never heard of a film called Freaked. It was shot back in 1993 with a surprisingly substantial budget ($12 million) for this type of film, but it never saw the light of day beyond one or two film festivals. I can only guess that the writers/directors managed to get it made without any studio oversight, and once the final print was screened the execs recoiled in abject horror at what their millions had given birth to and immediately buried it. However, like a zombie it has risen from the dead and was recently released on DVD.

Freaked is one of those movies that puts you in a dazed and confused state until you finally settle into the rhythm of the thing. Imagine a Abraham/Zucker film (Airplane!, Kentucky Fried Movie) without the (cough) subtlety. It’s gross and at times cornball, but it has a spirit of reckless abandon to it that puts a grin on your face when you think of the brass it took for these guys to make this movie.

By Vic Holtreman

The short version: You REALLY need to watch this movie before you go through another fast food drive-thru: It’ll cure you of “Mac Attacks”, guaranteed.

Super Size Me is the brainchild of Morgan Spurlock and it’s a heck of a concept: Eat nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days straight… breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If it ain’t on the menu, he won’t eat it. He sparked to this idea one Thanksgiving as he was lying on the sofa post-dinner and happened to see a news item about the two teenaged girls whose parents were suing McDonald’s for making them obese.

In light of today’s 60% obesity rate in the United States this is an extremely important documentary. It’s an eye opening and shocking look at the effects of fast food on the body.

Spurlock lays the groundwork for gathering some good empirical data: Before he starts his experiment, he visits not one, but three doctors (each practicing a different specialty) and has each of them conduct a battery of tests and get baseline measurements of his overall and specific health status. He also consults a dietician and a personal trainer.

He starts out as a healthy guy, actually above average. He is 6′ 2″ and weighs approximately 185 lbs. His cholesterol is well under 200, and his body fat is a well below average 11%. Each of the doctors he informs about his upcoming experiment predicts minor effects: Triglyceride levels will increase along with cholesterol.

Another thing he decides to do is emulate the exercise levels of the average American, which is to say that he won’t do any exercise.

By Brian Rentschler

The short version: There aren’t a ton of extras here, and purists will be annoyed by George Lucas’ changes, but picture and audio is excellent and you’ll finally have these on DVD.

Well, after all my bellyaching about how Lucas went and ruined a good thing by fixing what wasn’t broke, I decided to make the plunge and buy the Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. Overall, I am very happy with the movies (hey, it’s Star Wars after all!), but I have quite a few “nitpicky” things I want to point out here. This review is not so much of the movies themselves, since the movies have been reviewed to death elsewhere. This is more of a commentary on what’s there and what’s not there. Since I never saw the “Special Editions” of the movies that were released in 1997, I may be giving commentary on content that has existed for years without realizing it, so bear with me.

The first thing that surprised me about this DVD set was the lack of extras. Compare this to the collector’s edition DVD’s of Pulp Fiction or Jackie Brown, or the Extreme DVD version of Terminator 2, and you’ll see what I mean. There is commentary on each movie disc, but that’s it. There is a fourth “extras” DVD that has a fairly lengthy behind-the-scenes documentary and some old trailers, but nearly everything else appears to be a plug for an upcoming movie or video game. Nearly every featurette on the “extras” DVD shows either a bunch of losers dressed up as Star Wars characters or a bunch of directors talking about how George Lucas is bigger than God. Ultimately, the extras were a bit of a letdown.

Now for the movies themselves…