Hyser, Joyce

Just One of the Guys

Though marketed as a raunchy teen sex comedy à la Porky's, Just One of the Guys is an amusing and well-acted comic riff on gender roles. Believing that she's lost a journalism contest because she's a woman, high school student Joyce Hyser disguises herself as a boy in order to see how the other half lives. Her investigation leads her to discover some interesting truths about how men and women treat each other in social and romantic situations. The screenplay by coproducers Jeff Franklin (a veteran TV scribe) and Dennis Feldman nicely balances the sex-driven gags with more character-driven material, which is well delivered by Hyser, Clayton Rohner as her eccentric pal, and especially Billy Jacoby as her perpetually aroused brother; the capable cast also includes Sherilyn Fenn and Arye Gross. Eighties music fans should also appreciate the soundtrack, which features tracks by Berlin, Lindsay Buckingham, and the Stooges. --Paul Gaita

She's 18, she's beautiful and she's about to set off an epidemic of comic hysteria when she enrolls in a new high school as JUST ONE OF THE GUYS. Stars Golden Globe nominated actress Sherilyn Fenn ("Twin Peaks").

Staying Alive (Widescreen Edition)

A continuation of the story of Tony Manero from \""Saturday night fever,\"" focuses on his attempt to make it as a professional dancer on the Broadway stage.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: PG
Release Date: 8-AUG-2006
Media Type: DVD

Highly recommended--for Saturday Night Fever completists and connoisseurs of bad movies. This notable dud updates the story of Tony Manero (John Travolta), the disco prince from Fever, as he heads across the river to Manhattan and tries to make it as a dancer on Broadway. Someone had the bright idea of handing Staying Alive to Sylvester Stallone, who directed and cowrote the screenplay (and pops up in a shameless two-second cameo). Stallone gives the picture the pumped-up Rocky treatment, and completely misses the dance-floor excitement of Saturday Night Fever. Travolta tries to recapture his signature role, but this is one of the movies that put his career into its pre-Pulp Fiction deep freeze. The action culminates in a laughable Broadway opening night that really should be seen to be disbelieved. --Robert Horton

Greedy

The best thing about this misguided 1994 comedy is the performance of Kirk Douglas as a feisty old scrap-metal millionaire named Joe whose venal family is out to get his fortune. Douglas had scored a modest hit with Burt Lancaster in the 1986 buddy comedy Tough Guys, but this was the veteran actor's chance for a late-career comeback--and his last major movie role before he was temporarily sidelined by a stroke in 1995. Douglas is quite funny here, playing an old codger who keeps frustrating his greedy relatives by refusing to die. Instead he threatens to will his fortune to his sexy "nurse" (Olivia D'Abo), and the scheming family reacts by finding a long-lost nephew named Daniel (Michael J. Fox), who is the only relative that Uncle Joe remembers with any fondness. The idea is that Joe will warm up to his welcomed nephew and will him his fortune--but of course this only makes the old man more crotchety and protective of his money. The movie's got a strong supporting cast including Ed Begley Jr. and the late Phil Hartman, but director Jonathan Lynn (who also plays Douglas's butler) fails to maintain a steady pace and the movie's cynical humor gradually wears out its welcome. Along the way, however, Fox keeps up a lively rapport with Douglas, who's obviously enjoying himself in a role that lets him cut loose with plenty of saucy and savvy attitude. --Jeff Shannon

Art of Revenge

When Matt (Stephen Jenkins of Third Eye Blind) becomes a successful musician he leaves his wife Lara (Joyce Hyser) to nurture his newfound taste for younger and prettier women. Bent on revenge Lara hires a beautiful con artist named Tuesday (Nichole Hiltz) to get Matt's attention and eventually crush him. When the two women become more involved with Matt as well as each other a story of loyalty vengeance and betrayal begins to unfold as the situation becomes more dangerous than expected for all parties involved.System Requirements:Running Time: 88 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE/THRILLERS Rating: NR UPC: 692865526025 Manufacturer No: T-5260

Art of Revenge

This Is Spinal Tap

Director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner) solemnly alerts us to the glory that was Spinal Tap in his introduction to this "rockumentary" about the legendary British heavy-metal group, featuring lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), lead singer David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), and a succession of drummers whose careers were cut short by spontaneously combusting on their stool, drowning in somebody else's vomit, or otherwise perishing in untimely fashion. Under DiBergi's studious interrogation, the band and their familiars retrace the band's evolution from head-bopping Mersey Beat poseurs to head-banging metal poseurs, each change in musical direction or tonsorial chic having little effect on the surviving trio's sublime idiocy. For, as St. Hubbins (he's the "deep" one, relatively speaking) sagely observes, "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

Happily for us, director Reiner, who developed the underlying story line with Guest and former Credibility Gap pranksters McKean and Shearer, stays squarely on the right side of the line, even as his writer-actors remain hilariously trapped on the other side. In lieu of a formal shooting script, the quartet created an extensive and detailed band history ripe with the sort of dead-pan detail that hard-core rock historians and screwball aficionados will savor on countless replays; with the three Tap members also musicians themselves, the "band" developed its stage act under the unsuspecting noses of L.A. club denizens, who accepted them as just as loud, flashy, sexist, and obvious as any other mullet-tressed, leather-garbed brigade of guitar slingers, circa 1984. The resulting footage thus manages to lob its punch lines and build its characters (including some thinly veiled character assassinations of various industry folks) with a loose, tossed-away verve rooted in the improvisational approach. This Is Spinal Tap remains the funniest, and most truthful, look at rock culture ever filmed and a personal best for all involved. --Sam Sutherland

You're about to get personal with one of music history's greatest and loudest heavy metal bands, Spinal Tap! Whether or not you're a die-hard fan of the group, you'll love this detailed "rockumentary" of Engand's legendary Spinal Tap. Acclaimed commercial director Marty DiBergi takes you behind the scenes for an intimate look at a band whose time has come and gone and come again and.... Through interviews, rare footage and lots of musicincluding classic Tap tunes like "Big Bottom" and "Hell Hole"you'll get acquainted with David St. Hubbins (lead guitar), Nigel Tufnel (lead guitar), Derek Smalls (lead bass) and every drummer who ever livedand diedfor this renowned rock band. Be a part of the sights, sounds and smells of this celebrated heavy metal phenomenon. It's an experience you'll never forget.

Art of Revenge