Kenny Herzog's DVD Talk DVD Reviews

Smoke Out Festival Presents: DMX

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 00:05:58 UTC

Skip It

The Movie

You just know upon one look at the slapped-together packaging and brief track list that this is going to be one step above a bootleg at best. And boy, is it ever.

Excerpted from a half-hour DMX set at the San Bernadino stop of Cypress Hill's Smoke Out tour, there couldn't be a worse way to fathom capturing Earl Simmons' gritty intensity.

One big question is why they chose to release a show filmed during the pouring rain, as not only are the showers distracting while they wash across the cameras, but they clearly suck energy out of the sardine-can-tight crowd.

Granted, there are highlights, but mostly of the unintentional kind: X encouraging a largely white audience to chant "Fuck y'all niggas," and the presence of your token, superfluous hypeman rambling nonsense as if X couldn't handle himself on the stage. Then again, since he raps over what's clearly his own voice on the D...Read the entire review

Motley Crue Carnival of Sins

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 22:48:22 UTC

Recommended

The Movie

I can probably sum up this DVD by the fact that in one scene, Tommy Lee takes his "Tommy Cam" around the arena, basically goading girls into flashing their breasts for the big screen, and then asks for a moment of silence, gets down on his knees, hands folded, and says, "Lord, God, Jesus Christ, bless all the titties of America."

That's the beauty of the Crue in a nutshell. Unlike many of the peers from the decade of decadence, the Crue have carried on (albeit conspicuously in between failing solo projects) without making any pretenses about having matured or changed their focus: that being sex and rock 'n' roll (though only the occasional booze now). Combine that with the fact that their songs still hold up, and it's no surprise they can sell out arenas in '05, without being part of some pathetic package nostalgia tour.

Filmed earlier this year in Grand Rapids, Mich., "Carnival...Read the entire review

Beavis and Butt-Head, Vol. 1: The Mike Judge Collection

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 21:05:56 UTC

Highly Recommended

The Show:
Much like "Mr. Show," which toiled in home-video purgatory for years, and "The State," which still hasn't seen proper DVD release, "Beavis and Butt-Head" seemed destined to never get its due in the medium. Finally, however, MTV unlocked the vaults for a Mike Judge-approved, three-disc collection that will inspire euphoria in all those sick of tattered VHS' released in the late '90s and containing only three episodes.

What you may have forgotten after all these years, or never even realized if you were 14 when it first aired, is that the scripts were as witty as they come, but worked without pretension because they were verbalized by two relatable slacker heroes. And the jokes were just as often smart enough to be dumb, ranging from subtly keen observatio...Read the entire review