The holiday season is upon us and the media-related choices we now face in our everyday lives are near crippling! Where can we turn for solid, reliable information on and reviews of big-name movies, books, video games and sex toys? Well, we all know what happened two months ago with this column so you'd best look somewhere else for your sex toys, but as for the rest of it, I'm here for you! No more renting that brightly-colored video only to find out it has -yecch- subtitles! No more buying that glossy-covered book to find out it contains nothing but pictures of Madonna and oiled alpacas! I'll give you the straight skinny with none of that Hollywood double-talk you get with Cisco and Eberhardt or that Joel Spiegel guy. What's up with those "thumbs up", anyway? As if I'm going to trust movie reviews coming from a couple of hitchhiking gigolos! It's time to cut to the chaser, America!


Video:



SpiceWorld

Kevin Costner's latest attempt to cash in on the whole "spices from the orient" fad, this weak follow-up to WaterWorld follows the life of Pete, a half-man, half-spice-weevil mutant as he navigates an oregano-tinged post-apocalyptic wasteland and plays a game of pepper with Chili Davis during the highly predictable closing musical number. Wait for it on video.

The Parent Trap

Yet another shameless "tragedy of the month" cash-in, this time starring Macauley Caulkin and Johnathan Taylor Thomas as the Menendez brothers plotting their zany caper to up their weekly allowance. Cheech Marin is memorable in a minor role as the bumbling gardener who can never seem to warn the parents in time because of his loose bowels, but all in all this is another of Disney's failed attempts to capture that critical 11 to 13 yr old audience.


Video Games:



The Legend of Zelda: Orinthal of Time

Revered author F. Scott Fitzgerald comes screaming out of the "where-are-they-now" file with this pot-boiler of a video game adventure centered around rescuing his psychotic wife from the clutches of O.J. Simpson. Topical and poignant, with plenty of turtle-kicking fun for the whole family.



Delta Force

I suppose it could be useful for training new stewardess recruits, but I found it more boring than an in-flight movie until you get to the level where the fuse for the seatbelt light burns out and the whole roof of the plane tears off mid-flight. Then it's a frolicking ride to the bottom of the Pacific, with plenty of spills and thrills. Especially spills.


Movies:



Very Bad Things

A few years late and a few rock stars short, this "The People Vs Larry Flynt" look-alike chronicles the grody life of porn magnate Larry Flynt, including a JFK-like segment that seems to suggest Flynt was shot by coco the talking chimp while in the employ of the CIA. Some mysteries may never be solved, but without the tension of seeing Courtney Love play a woman who didn't kill her husband, this is one biography pic that comes up short.



Rugrats

That Stephen King is one sick motherfucker.



Enemy of the State

Jim Varney is back in form at last as Ernest P Warrell, a junior college drop-out who insists on attending the State University's football games with a toilet on his head. When did they forget to write comedies like this? This is an open challenge to the Hollywood big-wigs: Back to Basics, ya Morons! Let Ernest show you how it's done.