No time for chit-chat. Hollywood has bombarded us with first-run DVD releases after months of drowning us in TV. So let's check out some of them.

Now on DVD:

Coach Carter
A real novelty: Inner-city black and Hispanic kids who receive a lesson in heart and morality from a non-white character. Otherwise, it's another To Sir With Love (or Dangerous Minds, depending on your generation) where an optimistic, yet surprisingly cynical authority figure bucks the system to teach the kids not to buck the system. Good job. Oh, and there's some basketball here and there, I think. No face masks and they don't use their feet, so I guess it's basketball.

Hostage
Here's a fresh twist: Bruce Willis rescues people held hostage. I think it might have originally been titled Die Hard: Die Already, but they decided they'd rather use one of the other Die Hard sequel scripts out there for that franchise. You see, in the Die Hard movies, Bruce Willis' hairline is receding; in Hostage, he's bald. And so is the plot. It's very violent, but not to the screenwriters, which is what you're really hoping for. It might be enjoyable, if you're able to surgically remove your brain, leave it at home, and just enjoy men being cruel to each other. At least most audiences managed to escape these hostage-takers.

The Pacifier
With this movie, on the other hand, there's no need to remove your brain, since it will probably forcibly eject itself from your skull two minutes into the film. And I use the word "film" in the loosest sense. The Hollywood hive mind deemed, "Let's make a film that makes Kindergarten Cop look like taut suspense." And that's the story of how this was shat out. It's for that microscopic percentage of people who actually wanted to see Vin Diesel in another movie, and that sub-microscopic subset that wanted to see his sensitive side in action. What makes it all the more comedic to me is "Vin Diesel" has always sounded like the name of a self-mocking character Schwarzenegger would play in a light-hearted comedy version of his own life story. But this movie is even too painful to enjoy ironically. I'm not sure any of the characters actually speak English, the other critics and I were screaming too loudly to make anything out.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman
It's too bad this movie has become a source of division between white critics and black audiences, when it's obviously just bad. The saddest thing is the number of liberal critics who have been guilted into seeing the "positive points" in this movie. I believe in true equality, regardless of color, and this movie just insults audiences of every race, religion, and creed. You don't see me out there representing the foibles of white culture, defending Baywatch to those who don't understand what appeals to us. It's okay to like something that's clearly awful—or actually it's not, but let's suppose you're going to like it anyway. But don't make it some sort of grand cultural gap. Bad is bad, insulting is insulting. And this Mad Woman is just awful, black or not. If we've got this sorted out, I'd like to address this "Kings of Comedy" thing once and for all next time…

And I didn't even bother with Miss Congeniality 2. And believe me, I could have.

June 13, 2005
Yola, America. That's a new hybrid black/Spanish greeting I just made up, I think it's going to be a big crossover hit. Start sending in your royalty payments now, kids. Anyway, we're here for one thing and one thing only this week: getting paid. I... (6/13/05)

June 6, 2005
In the interest of complete honesty, I'll tell you there are hardly any DVDs of first-release movies coming out in the near future. Blame the big distraction that is the summer blockbuster season. But the good news is, there's always TV. I thought... (6/6/05)

May 30, 2005
G'day, America, we're phoning in this week's edition of Entertainment Police from an Aussie state of mind, and by that I mean I'm stuck in an airport in Austria. Word to the wise: don't accept an invitation to the Greater Chinese Film Festival,... (5/30/05)

May 23, 2005
I have tried to tune out the entertainment "news," such as it is, this week. I may have gotten my wires crossed on this one, but is it true some theaters in Kentucky are boycotting films because of Darth Vader's involvement in the Vietnam War?... (5/23/05)