The Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew Mysteries Season One (1977) (Universal Home Video-2005) The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries was a short-lived ABC series about three chicks solving crimes in a world that resembles a studio back lot and there is nothing to Google. Despite their feather-haired cuteness, trouble just seems to find them. In almost every … Continue reading
Nikki Blonsky and Zac Efron Hair Raising Success in Hairspray by Brad Balfour What a way to kick off a career. From high school student to major motion picture lead, 17-year-old Nikki Blonsky’s star turn as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray, (the film version of the Broadway musical), deserves all the accolades the film has been garnering. In … Continue reading
Kitchen Confidential The Complete Series (2005) (20th Century Fox Home Video-2007) Kitchen Confidential came and went as fast as standing in line at McDonald’s Express. In it, superstar chef Anthony Bourdain (rechristened Jack for the series), as played by the underappreciated Bradley Cooper, talks about how your restaurant meal should “dazzle, amaze and delight.” Check, check … Continue reading
Gail O’Grady Roles of a Lifetime by Ronald Sklar “I did Celebrity Poker, and it was the first time I ever played,” actress Gail O’Grady tells me, and this should surprise me, shouldn’t it. You would think that the beauty and the brains were enough to get her by in life, that those heavy doors swing … Continue reading
NYPD Blue Season 01 (1993-1994) (20th Century Fox-2003) In the dawn of the last decade of the twentieth century, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was putting a dazzling new sparkle on the formerly graffiti-laden and dingy New York City; meanwhile, on the West Coast, the beating of a law-defying Rodney King by enraged cops (and captured on videotape) … Continue reading
All-American Girl The Complete Series (1994) (Shout! Factory-2006) Not even a guest appearance by Oprah Winfrey – playing no less than herself – could save this sitcom from biting the dust. Nor an appearance by Quentin Tarentino, at the peak of his white-hotness from Pulp Fiction– could pump this turkey’s chest back to life. Even a pre-famous Jack Black, as an … Continue reading
Shadoe Stevens Voice on the Air by Ronald Sklar When asked if he was indeed the world’s youngest DJ, at age 11, in Jamestown, North Dakota, Shadoe Stevens answers like a true native. “Yah,” he says, in that clipped Midwestern drawl, like a character out of the flick Fargo. The answer is true, but the “yah” … Continue reading
Action The Complete Series – Uncut and Unbleeped (1999) (Sony Home Video-2006) Of the unsolved mysteries of the twentieth century – JFK’s assassination, Y2K, the popularity of tattoos – probably the most baffling of all was the cancellation of the dish-dirty Fox comedy Action. The series, starring an amazingly funny Jay Mohr in a tour … Continue reading
Peter Stickles Something in the Lair by Ronald Sklar Photography by Eugene Gallegos When New-York-based actor Peter Stickles yearned for a role he could sink his teeth into, he wasn’t just whistling “Dixie.” As the lead vampire in the new Here TV drama The Lair, Stickles plays a vampire so evil that his name is Damian. … Continue reading
My Name Is Earl The Complete First Season (2005-2006) (20th Century Fox Home Video-2006) The darkly cheerful My Name Is Earl, a tale of obsession and redemption, is told through the narration of a newly minted Dudley Do-Right who used to be a backwoods badass. His actions are an exercise in how everything in the universe … Continue reading
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