This really kicks butt. Great rock'n'roll in the spirit of The Blasters with a shot of Link Wray, the Surfaris and The Stray Cats in their better moments. The awesome slow ballad "Tore Up" (complete with Hammond B-3 in the background) will remind you of Toussant McCall's "Nothing Takes The Place Of You". Simply fantastic! If any of you older guys are a bit wary about the purchase.... DON'T BE! This really swings! One of the best servings of American music in years. Grab it before it gets deleted.... AND PLAY IT LOUD, O.K? Then get all the Belmont Playboys cds.

Do you want to buy a cd of Bela Lugosi warbling "When A Man Loves A Woman?" Then why would you want a quartette of Japanese kids (with thick accents) sing slightly off-key versions "Hearts Of Stone", "Little Bitty Tear" and other great American country and rock tunes. This is the kind of music that was sold as a novelty joke back in the 50s and 60s. Lately with political correctness we have allowed ourselves to pass off this second rate twaddle as something worthwhile. Sons of Nippon with rockabilly pretensions are not cool and that is why we won the war. Play "Sukiyaki" instead and stop annoying the people.

The thing about Deke Dickerson is: He started out great and he just keeps getting better with each cd that he brings out. This offering is no exception. Whether it's the sax-driven rock'n'roll that starts the album or hillbilly swing that it finishes up on, Deke shines and never disappoints! I agree with the previous reviewers so I wont repeat their sentiments here. Just buy this cd now...and pick up The Belmont Playboys' "Hot Rod Heart" while you're at it. American music doesn't get much better.

Eddie Spaghetti (real name: Arthur Spaghetti) usually plays in The Supersuckers. He decided to make a cd of his favorite country songs. He tells us in the liner notes that he did it in 3 days and I believe it cuz it shows. Let's not kid ourselves that this is a work of genius. What it is, is a mediocre country music album. The sort of stuff I'd hear at the local pub on a Sunday afternoon after a day at the beach. Mainly covers with a couple of Eddie's songs thrown in. Nearly all are terrible except for "Killer Weed," which excells itself in the tedium stakes.... and of course there's the final slap in the face that I can do without: having the 2-year-old brat kid warble "Blue Shadows on the Trail."

I feel sorry for the jaded "spectator" who gave this dvd 3 stars. It sounds like the negative reactions of his wife and daughters soured his good time. Actually, I'm not surprised that this goes over the heads of today's youth. Their concept of "cool" is laughable, and a joke unto itself. However, for you older guys out there, this is a real treat. Nearly every cartoon is a winner. There are no clunkers... it's just that some of the cartoons are better than others. I was pleased that most of the characters I remember from watching this on TV as a kid were here. Jack The Knife (the singin', swingin', finger-poppin' swordfish) Dinah Sore (on the island of No Bikini Atoll), the Wildman of Wildsville (voiced by the wonderful Lord Buckley himself) Dishonest John (Nyah-ah-aaahh!) and many more. Some hip beatnik dialog and jazzy grooves too. Dig the wild doggy ("Fireplug Five minus Two") version of "Raggmopp!" This is truly magnificent stuff, and very funny. With the amount of jazz, rock'n'roll and beat references, somehow I don't think this was meant for little kids. There is a lot of stuff here for adults too. Many hilarious stabs at 1960s American pop culture in a Stan Freberg style that baby boomers will adore. About 85 minutes of remastered "Beany & Cecil" cartoons plus tons of other stuff. Reasonably priced, this is definately worth the purchase. I'm glad I bought it!!

If you don't believe what a boring dud this is, look at how many used copies are for sale. Yes, Hollywood isn't betting on the fact that over 90% of people are stupid... they're BANKING on it! That's why they make this overblown (in this case with "pretty boys"), ultimately forgettable dreck. This "remake" has precious little to do with the original classic, other than that it's a heist movie. Do these twerps think for ONE insane minute that they are as cool as Frank and the boys?? I mean, Brad "Beaver Chin" Pitt in the Dean Martin role, and that sad*ss Julia "Canyon Mouth" Roberts in the Angie Dickinson part. Gimme a break!! Hey.... here's a good idea: Let's do a remake of "Taxi Driver" with Leonardo De Caprio as Travis Bickle. The producers should have given this movie an original title instead of trying to trade off on a flick that was, and still is, the epitome of "cool." This so-called "remake" is just a harmless yawn of a caper movie that'll be forgotten while the "original" will live on. Just like what happened to "Vanishing Point." I mean, who gives a toss about the 1997 Viggo Mortensen version? Oh well, everybody knows that Hollywood has run out of ideas..... and REAL stars!! Now it's churning out pig-swill for the masses. Stick to the classic!

Fox has provided a beautiful widescreen transfer of this cult classic. The sound is great also. There are two audio commentaries. One by the director Mike Sarne and the other by star Raquel Welch. Some have said that director Sarne is settling old scores within his commentary, but really he is only setting the record straight. His is clearly the more insightful effort. Raquel takes herself and the movie too seriously and at the end of her spiel, with all of it's pseudo-intellectual pretensions, even admits that she doesn't know what she's talking about and is "here for the laughs." She seems put out that the movie didn't have mass appeal and wasn't a crowd pleaser, which is one of the reasons I find it so endearing. The AMC documentary on the "making of" is very interesting as well. It is included on the disc. All in all, this is a very good buy and an excellent example of what dvd is all about: Top quality sound and picture plus interesting extras. The movie itself, like anything else, is a matter of taste. If you like whacked-out late '60s/early '70s cinema like "The Magic Christian", The Monkees' "Head", "Beneath the Valley of the Dolls", "Candy", "Casino Royale", then you'll dig this flick. People (including Raquel) just don't seem to understand the premise which is: A gay film critic has an accident and while in a coma DREAMS he is a woman in Hollywood. When he wakes up (in the original BLACK & WHITE finale) he screams "Where are my t*ts?" Yes folks, the movie is about a dream and when was the last time you had a dream that wasn't a little weird and disjointed? But don't get me wrong... a lot of people will still find this film way too "out there" and it is definately a "culter." Not for squares or kids! Originally rated "X". Needless to say, I LOVE IT!!

Tarantino yanks his ankle once again. Takes a bite out of every film he has seen, chews it up, swallows it, then regurgitates the whole mess over his adoring fan base who obviously have not seen the original superior versions of the exploitation classics QT adores so much and steals from. Beats me why he's so popular. The late, great character actor Marc Lawrence had him pegged as a smartmouth Hollywood upstart and he was right on the money. In the "making of" doco on the dvd, Quentin talks of the (very inept) trashy Japanese girl band, The 5,6,7,8's, that he uses in "Kill Bill.". He says "They're Japanese, they play surf music! How cool is that?" No Quentin, that's NOT cool and neither is this pretentious mess of a movie.

BURNT!! What do you expect when you order an expensive 2-tape set called "That's Black Entertainment?" Well, I expected a more funky version of the MGM song'n'dance fest. A 3 hour plus documentary of the rich heritage of Negro musicals and comedies that slipped by a white audience because they were exactly that!
What I got was kind of disappointing! The first tape is only an hour long. It contains a 20 minute doco on VERY early Black cinema. Then, there are 3 often seen shorts starring Bessie Smith, Lena Horn and Cab Calloway respectively, all of which are available in much better quality versions elsewhere. (Namely from KINO Video.) The "Boogie Woogie Dream" short with Lena, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson is a fave but of terrible quality. It's very grainy and contrasty with poor definition. Sound is also poor. The second tape has about 45 minutes of ""Soundies" spliced together back-to-back which are great but there is precious little other info. All of this public domain footage could have fit onto ONE tape and it certainly doesn't warrant the high price tag. Yeah, it's good, but not what I expected. The picture quality of the second tape seems better than the first. The definitive documentary of Black Cinema is yet to be made.

This show is very addictive and it serves to remind us what REAL "cool" is all about. No kiddies, it's not a face full of rings and studs and a tattoo on your butt. It's not some numb-nutted, no-talent, rap-squawking pimp-daddy grabbing his croth on the Leno show. It's not the concept of bacterial life in Martian rocks. It's not your baseball cap on backwards and a pair of stupid-looking three-quarter-length baggy pants. Here is the truth: Peter Gunn is COOL personified! A smooth, immaculately dressed private eye who hangs out in a jazz club (where his girlfriend is the Julie London-esque chanteuse) and mixes with, truly, some of life's beatnik eccentrics.... all to the sounds of a perfect Henry Mancini score and produced by Blake Edwards. How cool is that? Also what is really good about this series (especially for you older guys out there) is the number of familiar faces and character actors that we used to see in 50s/60s TV shows and Elvis movies. I swear that while I was watching this dvd I asked myself "When is Floyd the Mayberry barber from the 'Andy Griffith Show' gonna turn up?", and lo and behold, in the very next episode, there he was as an eccentic antiques dealer. I also like the bongo-playing skindiver with the apartment full of hula girls.... this is Atomic Age bachelor pad excess, I love it!! Yeah, I agree that the transfers are not up to the usual A&E excellence and in some shows the tape hiss is very noticable but hey, given the vintage of this stuff, I'll live with it. Can't wait for further volumes of this ultra cool TV noir and hope and pray A&E release BOURBON STREET BEAT, 77 SUNSET STRIP, SURFSIDE 6 and HAWAIIAN EYE in box sets. I highly recommend this dvd. Buy it, check it out, let the "cool" flow over you like molasses and put it up there on your shelf next to "Jazz On A Summer's Day" and "The Saint" mega-set.