Frasier: And the Dish Ran Away with the Spoon, Par

In 10 Words or Less
The classic nerds return for special edition hilarity

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: '80s films, Revenge of the Nerds
Likes: College movies, T&A comedies
Dislikes: Jocks
Hates: That college wasn't like it was in the movies

The Movie
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of HBO and frequented the long-gone
Video Plus in Copiague, NY, becoming a big fan of the T&A sex comedies of the '80s. Escapist
entertainment at its finest, these movies combined comedy and nudity to
create good fun for any red-blooded hetero young man. Sadly, we don't really
see many movies like this anymore, what with AIDS and political correctness,
so we can only revisit our old favorites and remember the fun we had.

Revenge of the Nerds, along with Real Genius, was one of the pillars of the genre, and a film that created my expectations for what college life would be. Being a part of my school's talented and gifted program, I, like many of you reading, identified with the misfit heroes of this movie, and enjoyed seeing their adventures. Many years later, the film remains just as enjoyable, and the story is as meaningful as ever, with its tale of underdogs overcoming the odds.

Lewis (Robert Carradine) and Gilbert (Anthony Edwards, "ER") are a pair of nerds heading off to college as freshmen. While Gilbert is realistically frightened and nervous, Lewis lives in a dream world where he thinks he will be a big stud at college and he has a chance to score with the hot cheerleaders. I don't know if it was their performances, but I always sided more with the understated Gilbert, rather than the bolder Lewis, who became the face of the Nerds franchise. Either way, they move into the freshman dorm and tack up their computer posters and begin building a robot, with at least Lewis confident that college will be a great time.

Shortly after they move in though, the jock fraternity, Alpha Beta, burns down their own house in a prank, and decide, since they are the Big Men on Campus, that they can take whatever housing they want. With their coach (John Goodman) encouraging them, and the school dean (David Wohl) standing impotently by, they boot the freshmen from their dorm and turn them into refugees living on cots in the gym. It's here where they meet their brothers in struggles, including Lamar, the gay black guy; Wormser, a little genius fast-tracked to college, Poindexter, a stumbling mess of allergies and blindness, and Takashi, a Japanese student without much knowledge of Western culture or language. And of course, there's the belching, farting, nose-picking Booger, who's more of an outcast than a nerd, but the nerds are the only ones to accept him. Together, they find a place to live and eventually, because of some troubles with the Greeks on campus, they decide to become a fraternity.

It's here that the social commentary starts creeping in a bit, amongst the nudity and potty humor. No one will take the nerds as a fraternity chapter, except for Lambda Lambda Lambda, a national black fraternity, and that's only because their bylaws say they must. It's telling that a group that has experienced so much prejudice and discrimination sees no problem discriminating against the nerds. It's a mirror for what goes on in real life, as minority groups turn against each other, despite whatever gains they might get by working together. Don't expect this concept to be explored much in the film, or at all. It's just there for one to discover if you feel like looking for layers.

Once the frat is established, the movie barrels on into the well-known part of the film, as the nerds wage a war of pranks on the jocks and the cheerleader sorority, including the installation of spy cameras in the girls' bedrooms and bathrooms, and the application of liquid fire to the guys' athletic supporters. That all leads into the climactic Greek games, where the frats and sororities battle in a competition of strength, skill and more strength to decide who controls the Greek Council that makes the rules on campus. Naturally, the Alpha Betas traditionally dominate the games, but the nerds have a few tricks up their sleeves, along with an elaborate stage show for the competition's final talent round. The great part about these scenes isn't the action, but the dialogue that it inspires, which includes some truly classic lines, including one that was going to be used as the name of this special edition, until someone at Fox woke up and realized America doesn't have much of a sense of humor.

The true end of the film is a bit hokey, but it does put a nice cap on the previously-mentioned social commentary, making a point about outcasts that makes a lot of sense. That it's delivered with the help of the Tri-Lambs' "brothers" at least makes it funny, but the film has kind of lost its energy by this point, due to the vividness of the games that preceded it.

In watching this film for a 50th or 60th time, it struck me how well it's edited, and how much fun Timothy Busfield is as Poindexter. I enjoy him a lot on "Studio 60," and completely forgot that he played this part. Every time he gets shocked, be it because of an attacking robot, an attacking sorority sister or an attacking blender, his reaction is spot on, with his fall during the nerds' first frat party being a highlight in physical comedy. Another viewing also made me notice that Gilbert's pal Judy is played by Michelle Meyrink, who also starred as a geek in Real Genius, which probably explains my attraction to her, and why I tried to find my Jordan/Judy at college. (Note: This is the edited version of the film, which removes the part with Lewis holding the house sign, leading the nerds. Why they couldn't digitally alter the phone number and include the scene, I don't know.)

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Christopher Morahan's taut suspense thriller, from John Collee's novel about a young man who gets away with posing as an emergency room doctor in a British hospital, raises provocative questions about human pretense and the ruses of professional survival.

Pic focuses on a dissatisfied hospital worker, Matthew (Paul McGann), who seizes the chance to assume the identity of a promising young doctor after the other man dies in a car crash and his papers fall into Matthew's hands. Befriended by a competent and sympathetic nurse (Amanda Donohoe), he survives day by day. But the stakes are dramatically raised when he accidentally kills a doctor's wife with an overdose of anesthesia. To his astonishment, the hospital protects him, and in turn, itself.

Highly entertaining as a thriller-chiller, film is equally engrossing on a psychological level as it is always some aspect of the typically self-absorbed beings surrounding him that allows Matthew to pull off his deception.

Say what you will about Disney, but their instincts about dog movies are as good as the Chicago Bears' when it comes to finding middle linebackers. Sometimes the formula shows through and you start to think that every one of these movie pups is descended somehow from "Old Yeller," but the results speak volumes. "Air Bud" (1997) was shot in just a month with a budget estimated at $3 million, but the movie took in more than that the August weekend it opened. By Pearl Harbor Day it had grossed more than $23 million. Talk about instincts!

And that's not even counting the cottage industry that grew from this modest little film about a basketball-playing golden retriever, which at times feels like a made-for-TV Disney movie. "Air Bud: Golden Receiver" followed in 2000, and "Air Bud: World Pup" featured soccer and introduced puppies that same year that would spin off into their own movie series. In 2002 Buddy took to the baseball diamond ("Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch"), while 2003 brought "Air Bud Spikes Back" for a little volleyball retrieving. And the puppies movies, or rather Buddies movies? "Air Buddies" (2006), "Snow Buddies" (2008), and "Space Buddies" (2009) went after an even younger audience with the talking offspring of the retriever from the original film. The only misstep was a quick-strike direct-to-video sequel ("Air Bud: The Dog is in the House") that was released the same year as the runaway success that started it all.

So Disney knows their dog movies, and they know their audience. They also know that if you isolate a kid you create a pain and a void into which something movie-magical can come. In this case, Josh (Kevin Zegers, who would go on to join Felicity Huffman on her transgender road trip, "Transamerica") plays a young boy whose test-pilot father was killed in a crash and whose mother (Wendy Makkena, "Judging Amy") picked him up and moved him to the place where she grew up. That may have been the scenic equivalent of comfort food for her, but for Josh it means new kids to pick on him and make him feel even more isolated. But we know the tonic that's headed his way, because in an opening scene that's surprisingly funny given the melodramatic tone of the bulk of this picture, we see an angry and abusive clown who's grabbed a dog off the streets and uses it in his worst-clown-ever act. After the dog wreaks havoc at a kids' birthday party and the clown is dialing up the pound, telling them he's bringing in a mean one, a bump knocks the cage off the back of the pick-up and onto the road, where it's struck again by a car. Coincidentally, it's the car driven by Josh's mom, and for a moment Josh locks eyes with the dog who's dressed in a clown suit.

Later, when he's ignored at try-outs for the basketball team and only made the "manager" by a gruff and overly serious coach, Josh heads for home. Along the way he discovers an abandoned church, where the religion he discovers is a basketball hoop out back that's been overgrown with plant life and covered with a deep blanket of leaves. So he clears it off and begins practicing. He's not very good, but one day he hears a rustling in the bushes. Yep. It's the retriever in a clown suit. After gaining the dog's confidence and learning that the dog can tip the ball back to him with his nose, Josh has finally found his buddy–literally, for that's what he names the dog.

But if I ever see another messy dog-bathing scene set to "Splish Splash," it will be too soon. I mean, must we? Probably. Just as we have to get Buddy a chance somehow to go from private dog to team mascot and halftime attraction, and from that to a player in a game. A championship game. And there's no shortage of nemeses in this film. The star player who game Josh the most trouble and his dad, like the pair in "Hoosiers" that bolts, just happen to turn up on the opposing team. Same with the coach, who was released for tactics unbecoming a sensitive human being. But hey, this is Hollywood, and a doggie version of it, so what do you expect?

For his film-making debut, ex-critic Tavernier took a novel by Simenon, made the lightly polemical choice to collaborate on the screenplay with veterans Aurenche and Bost (victims of Truffaut's early New Wave ire), set the result in Lyon, and emerged with a work of old-fashioned precision that the craftsman of the title would doubtless have been proud of. Noiret is superb as the eponymous 'horloger', realigning his self-willed solitude into credible relationships with his son, on the run with girlfriend after killing a swinish security guard, and the sympathetic police inspector (Rochefort) in charge of the case; while the physical and political ambience is rendered with a classically 'invisible' aura of authenticity.

In recent years, Marvel Comics and the major Hollywood studios have had a very successful symbiotic relationship. While Marvel is eager to move into a fresh medium that its huge stable of superhero characters might thrive, Hollywood too is taking full advantage of this relationship by picking up ready-made well known comic book characters and bringing them to life on the big screen. As a result, Marvel has had several of its famous comic book series turned into very successful motion pictures that are major box-office hits all over the world. On top of this short list are of course the Spider-Man, X-Men and Blade movies, which are beginning to turn into legitimate movie franchises all by themselves; courtesy of great scripts, directors who know what fans want out of a comic-based movie and actors who fit perfectly into their superhero roles.

While we talk about the recent big successes of comic-based movies, there are also the less successful Marvel-inspired ones like "The Hulk" and "Daredevil". Fortunately, the recent motion picture incarnation of Marvel´s comic book "The Punisher" falls into a category that is between great ("Spider-Man") and mediocre ("Daredevil"). "The Punisher", to my pleasant surprise, is able to carry a story that more or less succeeds in capturing the spirit and tone of the comic book. It is certainly not on the same level as "Spider-Man" but it succeeds in resurrecting the character from the ashes of movie graveyards after the abomination of the first movie effort in 1989.

Without a doubt, even before the premiere of this new film, "The Punisher" already faces an uphill task in attracting a large enough audience due to some bad history. First, there is the problem with name recognition–both with its lead actor and also the "Punisher" name itself. Unlike "The Hulk" and "Daredevil", which had big-name actors like Eric Bana and Ben Affleck at the helm, Lions Gate´s "The Punisher" only has the lesser-known Thomas Jane ("Deep Blue Sea") as the lead character, Frank Castle aka The Punisher. Jane has the right physique to match the character that he is playing but still lacks that stirring emotional punch needed to portray a raging man out for blood. There is rage but just not enough of it. Then there is that horrendous 1989 Dolph Lundgren take on the Punisher character, which kind of obliterated the general movie-going public´s perception of any movie that is unfortunate enough to carry the same title. Once bitten, twice shy.

Second, even with the recent success of movies like "Hellboy", audiences (apart from the real fans) are still wary of stepping into the cinema for comic-based films, where they might find themselves watching a live action movie with no soul and just mindless violence, all saran-wrapped with a script full of clichés and acting that borders on tackiness. However, surprising as it might sound, 2004´s "The Punisher" rises above all that and delivers an enjoyable popcorn flick that tries its best to stay true to the underlying dark motivations of the comic book character.

Although there are some cosmetic changes done to the basic background story of the character in this movie, I don´t think any of them are drastic enough to warrant hate mails to Marvel Comics or enrage the comic´s fan base. Frank Castle (Tom Jane) is an ex-military man who is now working as an undercover FBI agent. On his final sting operation before his retirement, Castle is involved in the accidental shooting death of Bobby Saint (James Carpinello), the son of the local mob boss, Howard Saint (John Travolta). Thinking nothing more of the younger Saint´s death, Castle and his family–wife Maria (Samantha Mathis) and son Will (Marcus Johns)–join the rest of the Castle clan for a vacation and family reunion in Puerto Rico. Here, Roy Scheider (looking trim, tanned and ready to do battle with a Great White) makes a brief but memorable appearance as Castle´s father, Frank Sr.

Back in Florida, the Saints are taking the death of Bobby very hard and Howard orders his henchmen to exact revenge on Castle and his family. An eye for an eye. This is where things deviate a little from the comic book. Instead of only killing off Castle´s wife and son as in the comic book, this movie version seeks to deepen Frank Castle´s agony and broaden his lust for revenge as the goons sent by Saint wipe out the entire extended Castle family, including his parents and all his relatives, women and children included. Castle, as expected, barely survives the attack and spends the next few months recovering from his wounds and plotting his revenge against Howard Saint and his organization.

Revenge is an ugly and scar-filled emotion and it is also the most basic motivation for Marvel´s Punisher character. Instead of a mindless and ultra-violent romp racking up body counts by the hundreds, director Jonathan Hensleigh opts to look into the soul of the character to reveal the constant internal conflict between Castle´s previous role as a law enforcement officer and his dark desire to become judge, jury and executioner. In this respect but to a certain extent, Hensleigh succeeds in bringing out a version of "The Punisher" that would please fans and casual moviegoers alike. Some parts of the plot could have been developed further to enrich the overall story but given the time constraints (the movie comes in at approximately 124 minutes), it is only prudent for Hensleigh to keep the movie from dragging on any much longer than it needs to. Fortunately for the audience, the use of clichéd lines (common in action flicks, especially in comic-inspired ones) is kept to a minimum and unneeded superficial humor is not allowed to take over the tone of the movie.

Movie: The Incredible Hulk, originally a comic book from Marvel Comics, details a story about a scientist who pushes the limits of science and pays the price. In the comic book, Dr. Bruce Banner was working with gamma radiation to invent a super powerful bomb. Those were the days when the arms race was in full swing and scientists were pushing the limits of various ways for mankind to destroy itself. The good doctor saved a young man and thereby exposed himself to the radiation of a bomb that caused him to change color and increase his strength to tremendous levels but lose all control and consciousness. That was the true birth of the Hulk. Over the years, the creature changed with the times but the elemental nature of the beast remained the same, the highly evolved mind of the human scientist gave way to the impulsive nature of the beast who left a swath of destruction in his wake.

Okay, in 1977 a television movie, and then a series, was made where Dr. Banner was investigating altering the human body by means of radiation. The mood of the times, including a change in public attitudes towards defense department scientists and government in general, made this necessary. Regardless, the doctor gets overexposed to the radiation and ends up turning into a large, green creature known as the Hulk whenever he gets mad. The creature's minimal intelligence retains, on some deeper level, Banner's sense of right and wrong so when he attacks someone or something, he never hurts the innocent. A tabloid reporter follows Hulk sightings which puts Banner on the run. The television Hulk was a much powered down version compared to the comic book version (relating to budgets) but he was still strong enough to overpower large bulldozers, heal faster than Wolverine, and escape when chased.

The movie I'm looking at here was the last TV movie, The Death of the Incredible Hulk, made in 1990, before the passing of actor Bill Bixby (who played Dr. Banner and directed this movie). In it, the good doctor played a janitor at an advanced research facility who uses the equipment on the sly, at night, in an effort to cure himself of the Hulk. He's been on the run for years and is tired of waking up in strange places after a wild night on the town (so to speak) and I can identify with this on a personal, if less dramatic, level. The story also involved some spies who were trying to steal the research conducted at the laboratory but it was pretty weak and uninvolving. I can't say more without revealing too many spoilers.

I find it difficult to tell you how much I loathed this movie. I was a fan of the comic book for a long time, enjoyed the television show more often than not, and like the many ideas the concept presented. The director was almost certainly suffering from his cancer when he directed and starred in this and it showed. The movie looked worse than many episodes of the television series and it was made nearly ten years later. Bixby's performance seemed pale and subdued, his assistant, Dr. Pratt (veteran actor Philip Sterling) gave what might've been the worst performance of his career, and most of the others could've phoned in their lines. The only two performers here that did a decent job were Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk himself) and Andreas Katsulas (Babylon 5). The technical limitations were many but it looked like it was shot in Canada (it was) with a smaller than average budget. Bixby did a lot of work as a performer and director that was much better than this so perhaps he wanted some sort of closure on the series before his life ended. I know a follow-up movie was initially reported but none of the television movies were worth making (and one had Daredevil, another had Thor) and I still find this claim to be tough to swallow. Perhaps the series will be released in season by season boxed sets in a marketing coup tied to the upcoming Hulk movie (it looks pretty wild with a CGI Hulk)-a fan can hope, can't he?

Picture: The picture was presented in it's original full frame 1.33:1 ratio. The bad news is that it looked really low quality. I knew I was in for a downhill slide when I saw the opening credits. They looked like something you'd find on a low end home videocamera. Unfortunately, it got worse as the show progressed. The colors were a bit muted but the lighting was often too low which made the picture lose detail. On top of that, there was too much grain, the blacks weren't "true black", and the darker sections of the movie had that annoying color bleeding so many of us hate.

Sound: The sound was presented with a choice of English or Spanish Mono (no stereo here). There was a choice of English or Spanish subtitles too. As a whole, the soundtrack did not impress me. I've heard some fairly decent audio tracks made from mono television sources but this sure wasn't one of them. It was hollow and the music pretty much a rehash of the older score from the television series. The highs were low and lows were high (essentially limiting the dynamic range to a middle ground much like AM radio).

Extras: Some trailers for Fox movies. Nothing else.

Final Thoughts: The movie was designed to cash in on the fanbase of the original television series and while that's not always a bad thing, in this case it was. The weaker than average technical aspects (audio, video, transfer), a poorly written story, and an obvious attempt to cash in on the upcoming blockbuster theatrical release make this one a release to pass on. Perhaps when the original series is released, they'll wisely include some great extras (Lou Ferrigno providing some commentaries comes to mind as do many of the television specials and the older interviews by Bixby and others) as a tribute to the late, great Bill Bixby but I'm not holding my breath. At very least, a remastering of the sound and audio tracks should be considered as well as a low price point. Skip this one unless you're a completist and spend your money on tickets to the new movie.

The Movie

OK, they've done it again. Another perfectly good video game franchise has had its name sullied by a rotten movie. This time the victim is "House of the Dead", a video game in which the player uses a hand-held gun to shoot on-screen zombies and other beasties. (The game originated in arcades and then migrated to home systems.) And while, "House of the Dead" doesn't have the narrative structure of the "Resident Evil" games, or the back-story of the "Tomb Raider" saga (two other games which yielded awful movies), the games does have a plot-line, which was thrown out the window for the movie, House of the Dead.

House of the Dead opens with five twenty-somethings — Greg (Will Sanderson), Simon (Tyron Leitso), Alicia (Ona Grauer), Cynthia (Sonya Salomaa), and Karma (Enuka Okuma) — attempting to reach a rave which is taking place on a small island off the coast of Seattle. They have missed their boat and are desperate to get to "the party of the year". (When we see the rave, there are about 30 people there.) So, they hire a local captain named Kirk (Jurgen Prochnow) (?!?!) and his first-mate, Salish (Clint Howard), to take them to the party. Once they reach the island, they find that the rave has been demolished and the only survivor is Rudy (Jonathan Cherry), who just happens to be Alicia's ex-boyfriend. Rudy explains that zombies attacked the party and that there's no way off the island. Now, this group, along with Coast Guard rep Casper (Ellie Cornell of Halloween 4 and 5), must find a way to survive the night as they are attacked by thousands of re-animated corpses.

My big problem with zombie movies is that they often mimic the monsters in the film and have very slow pacing. House of the Dead breaks this mold by being a fairly fast-paced movie. And, I'm no gun advocate, but I always think that many horror films would be much shorter if someone would just grab a gun and shoot the villain. In this movie, Captain Kirk (groan!) is a gun-smuggler, so there are plenty of weapons to go around. That's where the original thinking in House of the Dead ends.

This plotless, pointless exercise in cinema steals ideas from every horror movie (and several other genres) and the result is a goopy mess. The story in the game deals with secret agents who are tracking a mad scientist who has created a group of monsters. The "going to the rave" scenario in the film is lazy and dumb, and once the group reaches the island, the entire film becomes one long chase scene. Once an explanation for the zombies is given, it makes little sense and adds nothing to the film. The film's denouement makes a nod to the game, but it's too little, too late. And the game features many other monsters besides zombies, but we get none of that here.

Director Uwe Boll may not be able to tell a story, but he does attempt to give the movie an interesting look. Unfortunately, this look is stolen from other films. The restless Steadicam is reminiscent of Carpenter or Raimi. And, of course, there's the much maligned "Bullet-time" shot. (In the making of featurette, Boll points out his "Matrix camera".) During the big battle scene, each character gets a shot in which the camera rotates around them. This may look original to some, but it was taken directly from Wilson Yip's 1998 film Bio Zombie. Boll must have fallen in love with the Canadian scenery, as there are countless shots of the water and the island, lest we forget where the film is happening. Also, this is one of those movies where the night-time scenes which take place in the woods are lit as if it's mid-day. (I don't know about you, but the woods near my house are dark!) One of the most controversial parts of the film are the shots from the video game which are inserted into the film. Personally, I don't mind the idea, but for me, it just reminded me that the games are much, much better than the movie.

House of the Dead isn't the worst movie ever made, as it's saved by it's technical competence. And, if you're in the mood for a gore-fest in which NO thought is required, then you may enjoy the film. But, that doesn't change the fact that House of the Dead is a shockingly unoriginal movie which wastes a perfectly good video game idea.

"Diff'rent Strokes" was one of those Eighties' TV shows that tried to have it both ways—striving to be socially relevant while also milking the cute kids' family sitcom genre. It became a fan favorite during its eight-year run and is now a part of TV history largely because of the cherubic-cheeked Gary Coleman, who played pint-sized Arnold Jackson.

Debuting four years after "The Jeffersons," it was a "movin' on up" show for kids. The premise was simple: two young African-American boys from Harlem (Coleman and Todd Bridges, as Willis) go to live in the Park Avenue apartment of their mother's employer after she dies and the widowed millionaire promises to look after them. So the boys, ages eight and 12, move to a "de-luxe apartment in the sky" co-inhabited by a new teenaged stepsister, Kimberly (Dana Plato). Replacing their mother as chief cook and bottle washer was Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae), a feisty, one-screw-loose older woman who would leave in the middle of the second season for a bigger starring role in "The Facts of Life." Familiar character actress Nedra Volz would take her place as the crusty-but-warm-hearted Adelaide Brubaker for the next few years.

Conrad Bain was a perfect stay-at-home dad/tycoon, decked out in slacks and sweaters most of the time while he dispensed fatherly wisdom part of the time and reared back and played straight man other times. "Diff'rent Strokes" was significant because their was no reluctance on Drummond's part to bring the boys into their lives, and very little hesitation on the part of the boys. It was a willing blending of the races that set the tone and the themes for many of the issues, with Drummond taking special delight in shocking people by introducing the brothers as his sons. Then, of course, there are the self-righteous moments, the tirades and lessons on bigotry that couldn't be more thinly disguised than if they were Sociology of Race Relations 101 lectures. At times, you even felt as if the unsuspecting people who dealt with the Drummonds were being set up for a shock and a lesson in colorblind morality. But the show balanced those pedantic moments with a heavy dose of "What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis!" cute from Coleman, whose favorite expression with all its variations was mimicked by kids at schools everywhere.

Race relations was the show's primary platform, but other issues like child abuse, gangs, and peer pressure also surfaced. Nancy Reagan even appeared in 1983 to plug her "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. If the show were aired today, it'd be totally unbelievable, because the kids come to Park Avenue with very little baggage—no bad habits, no foul language, no gang signs, no racist feelings of their own, and no class resentment. It's as if they were born to be high-rise dwellers, so it's no wonder that they were popular with a broad, multi-racial audience.

Now, part of the show's pop-cult history is the curse of the co-stars. It was all downhill for the young actors after "Diff'rent Strokes," with poor Plato committing suicide, Bridges ending up in jail, and Coleman washing out and finding work as a security guard, only to get in trouble with the law after a fan claimed that he assaulted him. But during the second season things were still going great-guns for the group, with the show making the Nielsen's Top-30 again. Here's how the 24 episodes played out, transferred to three discs and housed in clear plastic keep-cases with a cardboard sleeve:

1-2) "Arnold's Girlfriend" Parts 1 & 2—Arnold's appendix acts up, but his fears are allayed by a little girl who needs a tonsillectomy. Everything's rosy until the girl's father turns out to be a bigot, and the kids run away because they can't share a room together.

3) "Feudin' and Fussin'"—The cast of "Hello Larry" returns as Larry gets to host a talk show whose special guest doesn't show . . . and he decides to interview Arnold instead.

The Movie:

Val Kilmer plays late porn superstar John Holmes (a role originally devised for Matt Dillon) in this film based on actual events in which Holmes may or may not have been involved. It's this involvement that the film focuses on, rather than Holmes' illustrious film career and eventual death from AIDS, but it still makes for very compelling viewing.

A biker named David Lind (expertly played by an almost unrecognizable Dylan McDermott from TV's The Practice) hears of the murder of four people at 8763 Wonderland Ave while sitting in a bar. He goes to the police and tells them his story.

Lind was involved with the people who were killed. Ron Launius (Josh Locus), Billy Deverell (Tim Blake Nelson), Joy Miller (Janeane Garofalo) and Barbara Lee Richardson (Natasha Gregson Wagner) were all found dead with their heads smashed in. Someone had taken a lead pipe to each and every one of them. A fifth victim, Susan Launius (Christina Applegate) survived, but just barely.

It seems that porn star John Holmes, who was a regular around the home for the sole reason of feeding his insane cocaine habit, told them about an Arab he knew with a massive stash of money, drugs and jewelry in his home. Holmes figured he could get into the house easily enough, as he knew the Arab so well that he referred to him as 'brother.' Once in the home, he'd leave the kitchen door unlocked so that the rest of the guys could come in and rob the place.

Well, the Arab was a man known as Eddie Nash - a local crime lord with a huge drug habit and a nasty temper. Nash figures out it was Holmes who let the thieves in and threatens to kill everyone he knows if he doesn't return the favor by letting him and his thugs into their pad to that he can get his revenge.

Depending on who's side of the story you believe.

When Holmes was taken into custody, his story, that covered the same events, was very different from Lind's tale. Both men were drug addicts. Both men had some giant sized skeletons in their closed. And Holmes was known to be a compulsive liar.

Holmes claimed that he was against the idea from the start. That he warned the group about going after Nash's drugs and money because he'd find out they were responsible and have them killed. He also claimed he had nothing to do with the murders besides letting Nash and his cohorts into the crime scene – despite the fact that his finger prints were discovered on the bed post next to where one of the victims lay. Holmes had been in the place many times – maybe he had touched the bedpost earlier that day on an unrelated visit. Or maybe he held down the victim while someone smashed her head in. Or maybe he was bracing himself there while he was actually smashing her head in.

Wonderland is a stylishly directed, fast paced grim proverb about just how low the human race is able to stoop. There are no redeeming characters at all in the film (though most of them do have a sympathetic moment or two in the film, reminding us that they are human). Kilmer is in fine form as Holmes – a man who kept an underage teenage mistress (played quite well by Kate Bosworth) despite being legally married to his first wife, Sharon (Lisa Kudrow who does a fine job in a role about as far removed from Phoebe of Friends as one can get).

Cox does an admirable job directing the whole ordeal. What could have easily turned out a convoluted mess instead evolves at a nice pace into a tightly scripted and slick looking production that presents both sides of the story in an almost seamless transition that doesn't feel forced, or take sides.

In place of Macaulay Culkin, comes mop-top newcomer Linz, and in place of Pesci and Stern, a quartet of similarly stupid espionage thieves. What remains the same is yet another chain of 'ouch that hurt' cartoon set-pieces. The first two films saw Kevin inadvertently left alone because of mistakes made by his preoccupied parents. Here writer/producer John Hughes has manufactured a situation whereby Alex, suffering from chicken pox, is intentionally left at home by his working parents. This low-IQ nonsense is becoming very tiresome.