Tweed, Shannon

Detroit Rock City (New Line Platinum Series)

It's hard to call Detroit Rock City a "coming of age" movie--since it's hard to argue that any of the characters do any genuine growing up. But even though it's about four young metalheads trying to get to a KISS concert, the movie actually has more in common with sincere portraits of adolescence than it does with raucous teen comedies. The four heroes are members of a teen metal band called Mystery (the s is written in the same font as the letters of KISS, lest anyone mistake their source of inspiration). After the drummer's religiously zealous mother burns their tickets to a long-awaited concert in nearby Detroit, the boys go anyway and try to get tickets through theft, skullduggery, and entering a male stripper contest. The jokes are broad and the movie culminates in an orgy of male adolescent wish-fulfillment, but here and there some loving attention is paid to the details of 1970s teenage life--the haircuts, clothes, and toys the filmmakers probably had when they were kids. Edward Furlong, as the band's singer, is his usual scruffy self and exudes his particular lopsided charm; the rest of the cast play their parts with similar high spirits. Though Detroit Rock City was probably meant to be a no-holds-barred comedy in the vein of American Pie, the end result is curiously wistful; no one's going to mistake it for The Last Picture Show, but something sincere and elegiac lurks in those bang-covered eyes. --Bret Fetzer

Gene Simmons - Family Jewels - Season One

"It's good to be me," says Gene Simmons, and the Kiss bassist-frontman could hardly find a better vehicle for himself than Family Jewels, the first season of which (13 episodes, plus extras) is presented here on two discs. There has rarely been anyone as shamelessly and gleefully skilled at self-promotion as Simmons, who makes P.T. Barnum look like a shrinking violet and pro football player Terrell Owens seem modest. Whether he is glorifying or parodying his Rock God image (the show features both in roughly equal measure), he knows that either way, it's all about him--and it was ever thus for a guy whose success has always depended at least as much, if not more, on image and marketing as on music.

Fast-paced, tongue-in-cheek, and just naughty enough, the 22-minute episodes keep it short and simple, focusing on Simmons' principal preoccupations: his disdain for matrimony (although he and former Playboy playmate Shannon Tweed have been together for decades, they've never married), and, of course, his legendary reputation as a sex machine (the current estimate is 4,600 conquests). Thus we find Gene going to a Hooters opening in Las Vegas; conducting auditions for his latest scam, a video series called "Sexercise"; weekending at a health spa with Tweed, who refuses to sleep with him unless he drops a few pounds; and appearing on a Playboy Channel show with porn stars like Jenna Jameson… while Tweed and/or their two kids (teens Nick and Sophie), who love to goof on Dad, are at home setting fire to his rock star pants or some such shenanigans. The existence of a blooper reel among the bonus material hardly supports the notion that the show is unscripted and spontaneous; Simmons' day with an almost frighteningly obsessive Kiss fan, during which he confides to Tweed that at times the adulation "just becomes too much," provides one of the few "real" moments. Little matter. Despite his bluster, or more likely because of it, Simmons is good-natured, smart, and genuinely likeable; so are his kids, who are kinda snarky (but then, what teenager isn't?) but seem well-adjusted and a lot brighter than Ozzy Osbourne's sullen brood. If there's one obvious omission, it's that so little of Family Jewels has anything to do with music (a ten-minute bonus feature called "Lost Songs" is about it). Then again, those uninterested in rock 'n' rolling all night and partying every day may consider that a major selling point. --Sam Graham

The new real-life A&E family series GENE SIMMONS FAMILY JEWELS steps into the home of the legendary tongue-wagging rocker demon of KISS and Shannon Tweed former Playmate of the Year actress model and mom. Gene and Shannon have been happily UNmarried for 23 years and have no plans to get married anytime soon. And their kids Nick and Sophie are surprisingly charming well-behaved teenagers dealing with the trials and tribulations of adolescence even though Mom and Dad are like no one else s parents on earth. Yes Gene is a world-famous rock star and multi-media magnate but he s also the kind of dad who brings Gatorade to his daughter s soccer games and stands in the front row of his son s rock band when the play gigs.GENE SIMMONS FAMILY JEWELS: THE COMPLETE SEASON 1 reveals a side of Gene that he has kept hidden from the world at large until now and shows how the most non-traditional family in America manages to make normal life work under the oddest of circumstances.DVD Features:Rough Cut of Pilot Episode; Unseen Couch Interviews; Inside the Demon s Lair; Gene s History of Rock and Roll; The Lost Songs; Bloopers; Behind The Makeup Featurettes; Gene Simmons 24/7; Simmons Family Text Biographies; Interactive Menu; Scene SelectionSystem Requirements:Run Time: 286 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 733961762679 Manufacturer No: AAE-76267

Hot Dog...The Movie

When a hopeful young American hot-dogger goes pole-to-pole with an arrogant Austrian pro, the snow really starts to fly! But as hot as it is on the mountain, it gets even hotter off when the pro's ex-girlfriend (Tweed) sets her eyes on the new blood. Who'll win the competition and the girl? Only a race to end all races can determine which skier can really cut the mustard!

Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death

Mix two parts Apocalypse Now with equal parts Raiders of the Lost Ark and any feminist studies text and you'll come up with Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death. Shannon Tweed (of Playboy Playmate of the Year fame) and Bill Maher (Politically Incorrect) travel deep into the Uncharted Avocado Jungle of southern California on a mission for the U.S. government to find the ancient Piranha Women. See, the government wants to avert an avocado shortage precipitated by the Piranha Women's occupation of the jungle; that and the Piranha Women have this little peccadillo of eating their men, thus posing a threat to our phallocentric way of life. Tweed is supposed to convince them to move to Malibu condos, where they can continue eating men if they like, so long as we can get in there and get those avocados. Accompanying the duo on their mission, for contrast, is a Home Ec major named Bunny whose secret fantasy is to be tied up with red licorice whip, and who wants to join the Piranha Women so she can get one of those cute outfits. The previous envoy for the Military, one Dr. Kurtz (Adrienne Barbeau), an anthropologist and feminist, never came back, instead becoming the leader of the threatening Piranha Women. Yet she's really interested in writing an exposé about her time in the jungle ("a kiss-sacrifice-and-tell book") so she can get back on the talk show circuit. "You don't know what it's like trying to face David Letterman with a book on male insensitivity.... The horror, the horror!" Thoroughly smart and entertaining, with hilarious dialogue that never flags. --Jim Gay

Playboy: Celebrity Centerfolds

After more than 50 years 1000 issues and over 3000 women only Playboy has the power to transform small-town beauties into household names. Now in this captivating two-hour special from A&E their sexiest Centerfolds come to life like never before as we revisit their Playboy magazine debuts. From Hollywood icons and fashion models to Baywatch babes and Olympians they'll share every detail of their first pictorials. And the world's most envied man Hugh Hefner for the first time reveals the inside story about the early days of their careers as Centerfolds.System Requirements:Running Time 88 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: MATURE/ADULT Rating: NR UPC: 014381313222 Manufacturer No: ID3132PLDVD

Of Unknown Origin

An advertising executive battles a giant, intelligent rat that has invaded his townhouse.

No Contest

A group of terrorists take over an international beauty pageant wire the building with explosives and demand $10 million in ransom.System Requirements:Running Time: 98 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R UPC: 043396078703

Naked Lies

The insatiable Shannon Tweed stars as Cara Landry an FBI agent with a clouded past. She goes undercover to bring down a ruthless Mexican casino owner who is laundering money for the Cali drug cartel. Her superior Kevin Dowd (Steven Bauer) sends her to work in the casino as a roulette dealer. System Requirements:Running Time: 93 minsFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MATURE/ADULT UPC: 854769001064 Manufacturer No: MLR-DVMRV030801

Scandalous Behavior

Human Desires

A police-officer turned private investigator finds himself caught between models and murder when his plum assignment at a lingerie contest turns deadly. After the contest front-runner dies of an apparent suicide her chief rival and best friend insists that the detective look into the matter and he finds that in the cutthroat world of professional modeling looks can kill--literally.System Requirements:Running Time: 94 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: MATURE/ADULT Rating: R UPC: 854769001071 Manufacturer No: MLR-DVMRV030802