This Roger Corman produced turkey was put out by New Concorde, the same company that did the bulk of the campy 80s Sword and Sorcery movies. Apparently their budget low enough that they had to use the Deathstalker's script, along with some of the old footage. Filmed in the Ukraine in some pretty nice old castles, the plot is literally exactly the same (three big magic items being collected by the bad guy sorcerer, sorcerer's tournament, etc.).

On the plus side, this allows both Barbie Benton and the Pig Guy to make a cameo as the orgy scene is replayed! While the acting is truly bad, at least the star, Michael O'Hearn, is ripped, it has a semi-recognizable bad guy (Martin Kove), and lots of hot chicks interested in exposing themselves (Just tops, and lots of 'em). On the downside, there is this sidekick "creature" thing with a Toys "R" Us lion costume on that has no role except to make truly annoying whining sounds. On the lighter side, this DVD actually has a "behind the scenes" featurette where the traitorous fighter friend talks about how this movie has "lots of emotion" in it (He really looks like he believes this!!!).

Bottom line, unless you like campy S&S movies, skip this. If you do have the "acquired taste" for these (I do), you'll like the old castles, the high T&A rating with lots of hot chicks and the cameo Deathstalker Pig guy appearance.

This masterpiece, often referred to as the greatest fantasy movie ever, still holds up well over 60 years later. The Thief of Bagad has a terrific story with enchanting magic, enticing romance and terrific suspense. The acting is absolutely superb with fine performances turned in by Sabu the little thief, Rex Ingram as the powerful and scary genie, and Conrad Veidt who as the evil Vizier Jaffar is one of the best villians ever. John Justin, the blinded Caliph and his beloved princess (June Deprez) provide an engaging and often tragic romance that lends terrific depth to this story.

Best yet is the awesome imagination brought to life in this masterpiece epic. While some of the effects show their age (The spider, for instance), others, such as the flying mechanical horse and the magical carpet are still captivating. The immense attention to detail is evident in the palaces, the ships and the sultan's toy collection. Miklos Rosza's musical score along with this movie's wonderful cinematography recreates the legendary time of the Arabian Nights.

For my one complaint, while this movie clearly rates 5 stars, I'm knocking my review down to 4 stars due to the lack of DVD extras. When compared to spectacular golden age DVDs like Robin Hood, one begins wish all were made this way. Children from 8-13 (as well as adults) will still find joy in this delightful picture.

The Dilbert TV series is truly a riot. It has both the fun of office space, along with the incredibly looney deaths that only a cartoon can provide (black holes created by Dilbert's invention that's field tested by rednecks and ends up sucking up everything, poor ventilation polution that turns workers into slimes, fish people, etc, and other poorly designed contraptions that generally cause death and mass destruction). Like office space, this series pokes fun at all aspects of office life, including outsourcing, marketing folks, motivation schemes, board of directors, etc. The character voices seem dead on for what you would expect in the Dilbert comics. If anything, Dogbert is even better than he is in the comic version.

I don't understand why this show didn't make it on TV (maybe being stuck on UPN?). The sense of humour is terrifically twisted. This series is well worth getting if you missed a number of the episodes when it was on TV.

This third book in the Meredith Gentry series continues with massive political intrigue, strange, erotic and complicated sexual situations and an overall fast pace. Meredith is preparing to meet with Both the Unseelie and Seelie Sidhe courts, along with a stop in between to the Goblin King to work out a longer protection scheme (I'll let you guess what she is bartering with...).

But Merry begins to change to something more powerful. She appears to be favored by the gods, who are granting her the power to heal, to increase strenghts in others, and are giving her long lost Seelie artifacts. Now, as a consequence to killing the Nameless in the second book, when Meredith has initimate contact with her consorts and bodygaurds, she returns them their godheads - their powers from long ago re-emerge. This book is transitional in nature but has an AWESOME ending. Meredith's "consort total" continues to rise, with potentially absurd numbers coming in the next volume of the series.

Although the entire book takes place over a few days, Hamilton's creative writing style keeps things interesting enough that you will find it hard to put this book down. Because of the continued influx of new characters and continued story development, I would not recommend starting off with this book - this series is important to read in order. It's also clear that Hamilton uses these books to act out her fantasies. I along with many others are gladly going along for the ride.

This DVD makes clear why the Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" DVD should be manditory watching for all wanna-be concert movie makers. Stop Making Sense provides clear instructions how to make awesome concert movies. Lessons include no stupid cut-away interviews, few crowd shots, and clear, non-jumpy shots of band members.

This is DVD is just the opposite. Instead of supporting camera work that emphasizes the performance, we get a "HOW TO" on what not to do. In this DVD we get the "artsy" grainy black and white shots for half the performance along with interdispersed stupid video scenery (This scenery is taken from the large screens from the stage that were played during the concert). As someone who saw this tour live, I can testify that the video cuts of the screen material DOES NOT make one feel closer to the original performance. Worse, the camera almost NEVER focuses on anyone for more than 2 seconds at a time. Occaisionally you will get Paul singing, but NEVER do you get to see the finger-work on any musician including Paul (with the possible exception of the first stanza of "Yesterday").

This is bad, but truly annoying is the extra junk that has been added to "spruce up" songs that just don't need the extras. The worst example of htis was during the Beatles classic, "Paperback Writer." One might think that Paul singing this classic could stand on its own, but no, the movie makers decided during this song, see-through paperback book pages should cover the screen with ever increasing rapidity. If you concentrate hard, you can see Paul through the pages, but if you were like me, you were too pissed to care. Magical Mystery tour also apparently can't stand on its own, needing wierd "acid colors" to dominate the display.

As a final annoying aspect to this DVD, it provides a tribute to Linda at the back that shows lots of home movies of Paul's life, along with Beatles and Wings concert footage. Unfortuately you can only get to it after the end of the credits, and there is no dividing chapters for it.

The ONLY reason I give this 2 stars is because they did not destroy "Live and Let Die." When I saw this tour in DC, that song, with the fireworks and all was awesome, easily the high point of the concert. It provided me with a fond memory of the show.

This movie is a riot. It involves an alternate vampire world a la Buffy or Anita Blake, but does not take itself too seriously. If you've seen the Steve Martin movie "LA Story", this is the LA Story world with vampires. The acting is sometimes wonderfully over the top (Kim Cattrall from "Sex in the City", Rod Steiger as Van Helsing and Craig Ferguson as a terrific British Vamp) sometimes merely adequate (Casper Van Dien of course), but its the ridiculous situational comedy scenes that make this movie.

Modern Vampires has TUNS of terrifically bizarre scenes. The "people as food" motif is hilariously done in an LA sort of way. You have a crazed Dr. Van Helsing aided by Crypts gang members going after bizarre fun-loving and weird LA Vamps, who are themselves enmeshed in trying to help a trailer park trash vamp (played well by Natasha Gregson Wagner) in learning how to be civilized while not incurring the wrath of the local head vamp who wants her "dead."

For a T&A rating, this movie gets a big 2 thumbs up. There is a good sprinkling of jovial and perky nakedness throughout that helps makes this movie a nice grade-B gem. While Modern Vampires did not make it to the big screen, it certainly deserves to be watched at home. 5 stars on the B-grade movie scale.

Oblivion is a campy, fun loving Sci-Fi Western movie that doesn't try to explain itself, nor does it take itself too seriously. If you are a trekky like me, its almost worth the cost of the DVD just to hear George Takei (who plays a drunk doctor) pay hommage to "Bones" McKoy with such wonderful lines as "I'm a doctor dammit, not a magician!" Oblivion has all the stuff you would expect in a B-movie western, including the wooden hero with a problematic past, the nasty villain with a band of losers, the hostage, and the shootout. This is combined with the sci-fi laser guns and bizarre B-grade off-world creatures.

This movie has all sorts of weird scenes. The best without question (also worth the price of the movie) has to be the funeral scene with the simultaneous Bingo game taking place on the second floor. This hilarious combination of sappy funeral speeches with bingo announcements like "B-1" going on in the background is a scream.

And while this movie has a really hot black nylon chick in Musetta Vander (if you're into the Trinity "Matrix" look, get this!), it is truly missing the gratuitous T&A. Musetta (the hot siren from "O Brother Where Art Thou") is hot though, so the movie still survives.

I give it 3 stars on the B-movie scale - T&A would have brought it to a solid 4.

Whereas the previous two books were light, funny and enlightened us on the inner-workings of Menzoberranzan and Skullport, Windwalker focusses on the intimacy between Liriel and Fyodor, Liriel coming to grips with human notions of honor and trust, and the consequences of Liriel's previous actions.

The story is intriging, with a constant sense of haste and frustration similar to the fifth Harry Potter book. The return of many characters, including a number of the 7 sisters, were expertly woven throughout. One new character, Sharlarra, an elven mage-thief, may in fact be poised for a series of her own. The ending to Windwalker is heartwrenching, but well written.

Windwalker is definitey the end the Starlight and Shadows series - there may be additional stories with Liriel in them, but they will be very different. I would recommend this book to any who have read the previous two, with the understanding that this well written book is darker in tone and different in its overall orientation and writing style.

If you're a Styx fan you will love this DVD. The band (minus Chuck Panozzo, the drummer, who died just prior to this 1996 tour) is very tight, and they obviously enjoy their Chicago reunion. Their newdrummer, Todd Sucherman, fits, and really adds to the energy. Most of Styx's major hits are here (Rockin' The Paradise, Blue Collar Man, Lady, Too Much Time On My Hands, Snowblind, Suite Madame Blue, Crystal Ball, Grand Illusion, Fooling Yourself, Show Me The Way, Boat On The River, Lorelei, Babe, Miss America, Come Sail Away, Renegade, and The Best of Times), with one glaring omission from my standpoint - Mr. Roboto. Most of the songs were very well done, with Come Sail Away being truly awesome.

Styx as usual puts on a great show. John Panozzo, the bassist is far more active and engaged then I ever remember in the shows I saw. The only problem with the sound concerned the volume on James Young's leads. In some (but not all) settings on my receiver (Denon 3802 - Widescreen and Jazz Room settings) his leads are very quiet. This was especially bothersome, as one of the greatest things about Styx involve the contrasting guitar styles of James Young and Tommy Shaw. Additionally, while James Young's leads absolutely rocked, a few of Tommy's do not fit as well as they could have (although his acoustic work was awesome!). Also, Dennis DeYoung's black hair color is somewhat strange.

These are minor quibbles though. Their voices are all terrific, and the performance is wonderful. If you have ever seen their live performances, you know this is where Styx truly shines. This DVD reminds us how great they really were.

At this point its hard for me to be objective on these books. I got hooked long ago. The break for some people seems to be if you are bothered by intense sex and violence (sometimes combined), you will not like the later books, but if you are not, you will be as hooked as I am.

Bottom line, Hamilton's imagination is without bounds, and I for one do not mind tagging along on her sexual fantasies as they are played out in this series.

DEFINITELY do not start the series with this book. Read them in order. But if you have been with the series up until now, you will love Cerulean Sins. There are tuns of interesting plot-building transition stuff happening. I especially like the Queen of the Damned similarities.