Grabblin’ life by the horns…

Beautiful Southern women splashing about in their mud-covered bikinis, tangled up, dripping wet because they’ve been wrestling 50-pound catfish … Confused? Get your mind out of the gutter; it’s just a Girls Gone Grabblin’ fishing trip. Grabblin’ is the Southern sport of catching catfish using your bare hands. Sometimes called noodling, participants stick their hands under large rocks where they wiggle their fingers and wait for a fish to bite down so they can wrestle them to the surface.

Despite the title, there’s nothing sexual about this collection created by Marty Jenkins. Girls Gone Grabblin’ 2 focuses on Marty’s wife, Fostana, helping rookies wrangle their first catfish. The whole thing feels like an extended episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos (Country Fried Home Videos for Country Music Television fans) as Jenkins handles the camera and eggs on the participants—and therein lies the appeal of the DVD, the sport and the hell of the South itself. The whole thing has a down-home feel that focuses on good friends and good times without a hint of pretension. From the opening theme song, penned by the son of Jenkins’ high-school auto-mechanics teacher, it feels like you’re watching old home movies.

The biggest laughs are at the expense of guest stars that are completely unaccustomed to the sport. Seasoned grabblin’ girls mock Jackie Bushman, host of Buckmasters, as he panics at every nibble or threat of a nearby snake, but it is the eye-popping scream of world archery champion Joella Bates that’s worth numerous rewinds. Still, the real stars of the show are the fish. It’s amazing how powerful fish are as they drag girls underwater or toss them about as if they were rag dolls. After watching the excitement, the only question that remains is who will be the first brave soul to go grabblin’ in Lake Natoma?

Ben 10: A Race Against Time…

Using the “back in my day” formula, it’s safe to say that a lot of today’s kid shows suck. As a cartoon on Cartoon Network, Ben 10 was enjoyable, but ultimately forgettable. However, the live-action movie Ben 10: Race Against Time does something remarkable: It treats imagination with respect. When Ben Tennyson finds an alien watch that transforms him into any one of 10 alien creatures, he attracts some unwanted attention from alien baddies. The story is a classic setup—a socially awkward child finds that he’s something special. Ben also learns that the citizens of his hometown lead double lives as agents of an alien-monitoring organization called The Plumbers. Backed by The Plumbers, his grandfather—also a member of the organization—and his cousin Gwen, Ben faces an enemy that threatens not only the lives of the one he loves, but time itself. Even though the computer-generated imagery is pretty rough, it’s fun to see a movie not be afraid to serve up monsters in live action. The film has hints of Cloak & Dagger, Batteries Not Included and Flight of the Navigator—all childhood classics that executed a simple premise with precise imagination but were greatly overlooked by critics at the time. While films like The Chronicles of Narnia series and The Golden Compass rely on the fantastical to drive a child’s imagination, Ben 10 relies on the commonplace. Graham Phillips as Ben is reminiscent of Henry Thomas (E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Cloak & Dagger) for his portrayal of a child forced to deal with adult problems. And thankfully, Ben 10 doesn’t shy away from the adult themes—loss, self sacrifice and responsibilities—which are all explored. Saturday-morning cartoons may keep kids glued glossy-eyed to the TV, but Ben 10 will get them out in the front yard saving the world from aliens.

Sex and the City: The Complete Series…

I’m not from New York, I’m not single and the last time I checked, I’m still a guy. Yet, over the years, various women have subjected me to Sex and the City. With an inevitable viewing of the new movie looming, I decided to turn lemons into lemonade—or in this case, raspberries into cosmos—and try to get into the couture spirit by devouring all six seasons.

Initially, the treatment of men, starting with Mr. Big in the first episode, is borderline offensive. Big, whose name doesn’t mean what you think, is only referred to by his wealth and power because he’s a commodity to the lead character, Carrie Bradshaw. Sarah Jessica Parker keeps Bradshaw from being repulsive, but only barely in the beginning. The first three seasons follow the guy-an-episode format—every male stereotype is covered, from athletes and actors to widowers and whiners. This could make for great comic fodder, but the leading ladies spend most of their character development stunted in stereotypes of their own. Instead of a group of well-rounded women living and loving, the first three seasons feature a career woman, a slut, an innocent wife and an indecisive psycho name-dropping restaurants while accessorizing. The whole thing feels like a raunchy, inferior prequel to The Golden Girls.

It’s a shame, because once Sarah Jessica Parker takes over as executive producer, we finally start to learn what makes the women and the men in their lives tick. The second half of the series is engaging, funny and witty, turning the stereotypes of the first seasons into comic foils to bounce real life issues off of. Instead of clichés, we are treated with four conflicting versions of a woman’s (and for that matter, a person’s) psyche. As the depth of the characters grows, so does our interest.

Sex and the City is what it is—flaws and all—and not everyone will love that. But, as Carrie says to close the series, “[I]f you find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous.”

Hoist your goblets of blood wine…

Unless you’ve been off wrestling targ for the past four decades, you are no doubt familiar with the guilty pleasures of Star Trek. But what do you truly know about the Trek universe’s most honorable race, the Klingons? Well, here’s a crash course.

Collecting 11 fan-favorite episodes, spanning the franchise from The Original Series (TOS) of the late ’60s to last year’s Enterprise, Star Trek: Fan Collective–Klingon beams all the power and the glory of the Klingon empire right into your DVD player.

From the beginning, relations with the Klingons have been uneasy at best. During Captain Kirk’s time, in the two TOS episodes presented, they’re ruthless, all-out baddies. And though these two episodes, especially “The Trouble with Tribbles,” are enjoyable, they only present the glorious warriors as two-dimensional characters. In fact, so little consideration was given to these proud people that, at first, their only discernable characteristics were dark skin and facial hair. Does that make Lieutenant Uhura only one unibrow away from Klingon ancestry? It wasn’t until Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in 1979, that Klingons developed some nuances–at least in their newly ridged foreheads. “Trials and Tribble-ations,” a Deep Space Nine episode included here, offers everyone’s favorite Klingon, Worf, the opportunity to explain the cosmetic change. “We don’t discuss it with outsiders,” he grumphs. A more scientific explanation–something about the Levodian Flu–was later suggested in Enterprise, but that episode was a real Ha’DIbaH, thankfully omitted from this set.

Special features are not very impressive and text commentaries–think Pop-Up Video–may not work on all DVD players. Still, for the price, this set should suit anyone wishing to get a taste of Klingon culture without wading through almost 50 years of Trek canon. There are plenty of exceptional battles, and four Next Generation episodes prove that politics can be gorier than battle.

So what if it’s been done…

Every filmmaker remembers a childhood spent in his basement with a small camera, a group of friends and a handful of dreams. Or, if he doesn’t, he’ll make one up to feed to the press when it comes time sell out. Brendon Small never became famous, but he did get a chance to tell his story. And, with its fourth and final season now on DVD, the Home Movies saga is now complete.

Co-created and directed by Loren Bouchard, the cartoon series is written by Small, who also lends his name and voice to the main character–an 8-year-old filmmaker with an impressionable cinematic taste. Along with two friends, Brendon’s constantly making movies that, to everyone but their creators, bear a strong if low-budget resemblance to the current Hollywood blockbusters.

By contrast, Home Movies is always original and funny, with crisp animation and sound, and, on the DVDs, some effective special features. The highlights of the series include a “jazz fight,” a performing-arts camp led by a Hollywood craft-service provider, and a disastrous encounter between some Trekkies and a Renaissance Faire. One enjoyable constant is the children’s drunken, apathetic soccer drillmaster, Coach McGuirk, a welcome comedic character who safely balances bad taste with unchecked humor.

Also nestled in the fourth season of this overlooked series is one of the most appropriate and sweet finales of any television show in recent years. It’s a nearly perfect sendoff, representing both creator’s and characters’ sentiments about their creative endeavors.

While Cartoon Network keeps Home Movies in a rotating lineup, it’s still worth checking out on DVD; maybe it’ll inspire you to grab a camcorder yourself. Start making up your childhood now.