Chuck Season 2 (aka The Complete Second Season) (2008 - 2009)

Charles “Chuck” Bartowski (Zachary Levi), the US government’s reluctant super-espionage computer (aka The Intersect) is back for his second season. Chuck is still being guarded by the sexy and tough Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), who he has feelings for, and the gun crazy and prone to outbursts of violence John Casey (Adam Baldwin), who Chuck is a little scared of. Chuck still maintains his cover of computer nerd and still lives with his sister and soon to be brother-in-law.

Season 2 has more action and more love as Chuck’s situation intensifies. It also has more guest stars (including Michael Clarke Duncan, John Larroquette, Chevy Chase, Bruce Boxleitner, Morgan Fairchild, Gary Cole, Jenny McCarthy, Tricia Helfer, and Scott Bakula) as past loves, a dead boyfriend, a missing father, a suave British secret agent, and a myriad enemy agents appear in Chuck’s life. Chuck and his handlers also have to deal with a breakaway CIA faction (Fulcrum) who are after The Intersect. Everything that was good about Season 1, is even better in Season 2. The staff at the Buy More are given greater screen time and even more ludicrous storylines. There is still mystery, there is still suspense but, more importantly, there is still humour. It could be the I Spy or The Man From UNCLE for a new generation.

Chuck Season 1 (aka The Complete First Season) (2007 - 2008)

Charles “Chuck” Bartowski (Zachary Levi) may seem like your ordinary Greg Brady look-alike, computer nerd, and perhaps he us, until an old friend (now a CIA operative) transmits a computer program in to Chuck’s head turning him into a database (The Intersect) of all the government’s secrets. Chuck is now vital to America’s intelligence network and he is assigned two protectors, Reagan loving, straight laced Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin) and the sexy, compassionate Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski). Chuck may be (reluctantly) valuable to the government, and by default a spy, but he has to maintain his cover as a computer repairer at the Buy More, where he works with his childhood friend, Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez), and stay living with his sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her boyfriend, Devon "Captain Awesome" Woodcomb (Ryan McPartlin),.

Chuck is a comedy, which does have a serious and often nasty undercurrent of politics and espionage, where the eponymous hero bumbles his way through missions to the annoyance of Casey and the concern of Sarah. Casey can’t stand Chuck’s mild mannered nature and his lack of training, while Sarah and Chuck have an attraction for each other that is a cause of frustration for both of them. Morgan, and the other staff at the Buy More supply comedy relief, while the sister’s relationship attempts to ground the show (and Chuck) in reality.

If you want a spy show that is like Get Smart meets Alias, while being nothing much like either of them, Chuck delivers. It’s loses it’s way a occasionally, but always bounces back. Adam Baldwin is the standout character, and not too dissimilar to the characters he played in Firefly and Angel. Yvonne Strahovski is hot and feisty, and that is a good thing.

The Postman (1997)

The Perry Bible Fellowship is drawn by Nicholas Gurewitch. See more at pbfcomics.com

Psychoville (2009)

Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, from The League Of Gentleman, create another bunch of odd, unattractive characters (as well as acting in some of the lead roles). A serial killer fanatic mommy’s boy (Pemberton), an obsessive blind collector (not someone who collects blinds, but a blind man who collects stuffed toys) (Pemberton), a vengeful one handed clown (Shearsmith), a lovesick dwarf (Jason Tompkins), and a baby obsessed nurse (Dawn French) all receive letters that say, “I know what you did”.

None of the characters know what the cryptic message means, and neither do we as there is no apparent connection between them. Small pieces of information are revealed during the seven episodes, including the characters’ connection to each other, but most of the time is spent examining the unusual lives of the five and those close to them. In the final episode all the pieces come together, although the ending is a little disappointing compared to the cavalcade of weirdness that precedes it.

The Middleman The Complete Series (2008)

The Middleman (Matt Keeslar) solves problems of an extraterrestrial or supernatural nature. In the series’ first episode he recruits Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales), a barely employed artist, to be his assistant. Also involved in the Middleman madness is administrative personnel Ida (Mary Pat Gleason), while Wendy shares an apartment with another artist, Lacey Thornfield (Brit Morgan).

Despite starting the season with a talking gorilla, who quotes from Hollywood movies, the season show doesn’t hit it full swing until episode 3, when Sensei Ping (Mark Dacascos) arrives and is kidnapped by a villainous group of masked, Mexican wrestlers. The series is charming and funny from there on in, with flying, zombie fish; plastic surgery addicted aliens; vampire, ventriloquist dummies; and a previous Middleman (Kevin Sorbo) thrown in to the mix.

The series is adapted from a comic of the same name and was aired on ABC Family. The show maybe friendly to children and teens, but the humour is more adult, with pop culture references thrown about with gay abandon. Keeslar is great at playing his character totally straight. Morales is wonderfully sarcastic, surly and phenomenally cute. Morgan is also a hottie and plays the quirky artist to perfection. Gleason is sarcastic and dead pan and her character is full of surprises. The idea and execution might owe something to Men In Black but it is, at times, more reminiscent of the sixties Batman series. Maybe the Middleman was too clever and too much fun to be allowed to stay on tv after the first series.

GI Joe

Editor’s Note – For those who don’t remember the Tania Zaetta incident, we take joy in remembering it for you. Zaetta (former TV host, short lived Baywatch Down Under eye candy, minor Bollywood actor, etc) bravely went to Afghanistan, in 2008, to entertain Australian troops. Leaked Department of Defence documents revealed stories of her providing special entertainment for members of the SAS while she was there. Zaetta’s people quickly denied these rumours and the Department of Defence released an apology. As Oscar Wilde said, "There is only one thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about.". The incident raised Tania’s profile, albeit momentarily, but we wonder why there were no rumours of fellow entertainer, Angry Anderson, being involved in indiscretions with the troops.

Mutant Chronicles (2009)

The year is 2707 and the world is divided in to four warring factions (much like the world of George Orwell’s 1984). As two of the megapowers clash, a machine that has been buried for 10,000 years is unearthed and the mutants it creates spew forth onto the battlefield. These are not laser eye blasting mutants, nor do they have power over magnetism, these are deformed, killing machines that want to butcher all humans or turn them into mutants.

The secret of the machine is known by a group of monks that includes Ron Perlman (Hellboy 2, The Last Winter). The monks also know of a prophecy about the man who will lead a mission to stop the machine. Pearlman goes about recruiting his version of the Magnificent Seven / Dirty Dozen to do the job, starting with Thomas Jane (The Tripper, Punisher), while the rest of planet Earth flees to the stars.

It might be the future, but it is a not a brave new world, it’s a grimy, steam punk world where the soldiers dress like it is World War One. The movie is shot with all the backgrounds created by CGI, like in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow or Sin City. Mutant Chronicles is based on role playing game of the same name and suffers from a lack of depth and originality. A good cast (including Devon Aoki, Sean Pertwee, John Malkovich) slaughtering mutants in a retro-futuristic setting is not enough to disguise a dull script.

Better Off Ted Season 1 (2009)

The television sitcom is a great format that is wasted most of the time on formulaic, morality tales based on the family unit. When the format is more imaginatively explored (eg Seinfeld, Arrested Development, The Office), it is much more interesting and perverse.

Better Off Ted is set in the offices of the fictional Veridian Dynamics, a ruthless corporation who will make anything that can lead to a profit. Ted (Jay Harrington) is head of research and development, where he reports to the eccentric and emotionally deficient Veronica (Portia de Rossi), has some sexual tension with one his employees , Linda (Andrea Anders), is adored by the companies two leading scientists, Phil (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem (Malcolm Barrett), and has his actions questioned by his 8yo daughter, Rose (Isabella Acres).

Veridian Dynamics’ quirky inventions (heat resistant mice, explosive pumpkins, cowless meat), office politics (motion sensors that don’t detect black people, Medieval Fight Club), and disturbingly realistic commercials provide the basis for much of the humour (which is rapid fire, one camera, no laugh track). Morality is questioned, but lessons are not taught or learnt in the conventional manner. Better Off Ted makes you think as well as laugh (and often cringe). Corporate America has never been funnier, or better examined.

Valkyrie (2008)

Valkyrie has a good film in it trying to get out, but Valkyrie itself is not a good film, despite the wonderful British support cast (Eddie Izzard, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Brannagh, Terence Stamp etc), and director Bryan Singer’s best intentions. It's a good story, it’s well shot, but it has a vacuum in its centre, a vacuum named Tom Cruise who sucks most of the good stuff into his charisma black hole. Not only do you not care about him, you actively want him to fail, and Hitler to succeed and have Cruise shot just so he'll be off your screen. What does it say about someone when they finish second best in a popularity contest to Adolf Hitler?

Dead Snow revisited...

Zombie Nation (2004)

A cop kidnaps women off the street then kills them and buries their bodies, while he has flashbacks to his abusive childhood. His partner and other police wonder what he is doing but do little about it. Then there are the voodoo practitioners who bring some of the victims back to life so they can exact their own revenge.

The story is muddled. I still don’t understand the scene of the abusive furniture customer. The acting is atrocious. The ending is ridiculous. The title, Zombie Nation, comes from one line in the movie and is not to be confused with a concept that could lead to a potentially good movie. The police station is a warehouse with “POLICE” painted on the door. The police car (there is only one) is someone’s family sedan.

This movie is mind numbingly awful. Director Ulli Lommel should be tried for crimes against the horror genre.

Solar Attack (aka Solar Strike) (2005)

The Sun is erupting and sending CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) towards Earth. Initially these solar showers take out communications satellites, then they start destroying cities, then small countries (eg New Zealand), and the prediction is that the methane in the atmosphere will ignite, burning up all the oxygen and end life on Earth. Mark Dacascos (playing Dr Lucas Foster, a billionaire industrialist) may have a radical solution.

A world threatening diaster. An environmental message. A fictitious government department (SNEL, Solar and Near Earth Laboratory, with a director who refuses to believe the hero). A black president (Lou Gosset Jr). American and Russia on the verge of starting a nuclear war. What more could you want?

World ending disaster movies are a recurring theme in Hollywood (When Worlds Collide, Deep Impact, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow, etc), and they may have had bigger budgets, but they didn’t have Mark Dacascos (I Am Omega). Okay, so this movie pretty tame, and they can’t afford to show much of the destruction, but that doesn’t mean I can’t like it (even if the story is reminiscent of other movies, especially Solar Crisis, Sunshine, and Supernova).

Kiss Of The Vampire (aka Immortally Yours) (2009)

A vampire (Daniel Goddard from the Beastmaster tv series) falls in love with a woman whose father is a scientist working for the Illuminati (you might remember them as the big bad in Lara Croft Tomb Raider:) Why an immortal would fall for someone as plain as Katherine Hawkes (star and writer of the film) is one of the mysteries in this movie. The relationship causes complications with the Illuminati who control what goes on in the world and who are obsessed with the search for immortality. The Illuminati currently think vampires may be the key to never ending life.

Meanwhile, in the world of ordinary humans, the police hire a vampire slayer to help eliminate a rogue pack of vampires.

What happens in this movie is of little interest, but it does lead to one of the most unsatisfying endings to a film I have seen.

A film with Matthias Hues (Dark Angel), Gary Daniels (American Streetfighter), and Martin Kove (The Karate Kid) should have much better action scenes than Kiss Of The Vampire does. It is even questionable if Kiss Of The Vampire has any genuine action scenes. The vampires are the most unthreatening I have seen. They dress and act like extras in a video clip for a soft metal band.

In the long, long list of cheap and dodgy movies I have seen, Kiss Of The Vampire may be the cheapest and dodgiest. It’s production values make day time soaps seem sophisticated. My favourite piece of cheapness was the room in someone’s house they attempted to use as a restaurant. Adding some tables does not make a living room look like a fancy restaurant.

Maybe there is a competition between producers to make the worse vampire film possible. Kiss of The Vampire is even worse than ">Dracula 3000.