Hawaii Five-0
The Third Season
Starring Jack Lord, Cam Fong, Zulu
Paramount Home Entertainment
Available Jan. 22, 2008

When you hear an urban youth refer to the cops as “Five-0,” when you hear the Hawaii Five-0 theme song by The Ventures used in movies from Leroy & Stitch to Madagascar to Mr. Bean’s Holiday, and when Hawaii Five-0 is referenced several times in the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland, you know the show has reached pop-icon status.

Appearing on CBS from 1968 to 1980, Hawaii Five-0 was the longest running crime show on network TV, until Law & Order broke its record in 2003. Now, CBS and Paramount is releasing the series on DVD, with the first two seasons already available; and now, all 24 episodes of the third season are available in a six-disc set.

Hawaii Five-0 centered on the adventures of the fictional Hawaii state police agency that seemed to have only about four employees at any given time, yet was able to stamp all the crime the popped up in the Aloha State. Five-0 was lead by Steve McGarrett (played by Jack Lord), who approached the role with steely seriousness. If Mr. Spock had been a American cop in Hawaii, he would have been Steve McGarrett.

Assisting McGarrett was his no-nonsense second-in-command Danny Williams — none of these guys were ever given an official police rank like “Captain” or “Lieutenant — and two Hawaii native cops Chin Ho Kelly (played by actor Cam Fong) and Kono Kalakaua (played by actor Zulu).

In the third season (1970-71), the Five-0 unit investigated, solved, and thwarted a number of crimes including a bank robbery, a murder, an international counterfeiting plot, a jewel heist, a kidnapping, and even the theft of a priceless violin.

As George Lucas sadly discovered several years ago, you can’t deliberately create a cult film.

Sure, J.J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves are doing their best to make Cloverfield (which opens Jan. 18) the cult science fiction hit of ’08, but there is an increasing feeling of desperation about the project as it nears release.

First, Abrams has said he wanted the film to present a monster that will be as loved by Americans as Godzilla is loved by the Japanese (memo to J.J. — we already have one — he’s called “King Kong”), then the production company refuses to show any pictures of the monster, which is never a good sign. Add to that a movie trailer that looks like it was shot with a hand-held video camera (Godzilla meets the Blair Witch Project?) and it really looks like a movie that’s straining far too hard to be hip.

Fortunately, there are several other contenders for THE science fiction cult film of 2008. Here is a brief look at some of them.

Oswald’s Ghost
Directed by Robert Stone
Documentary
Paramount Home Video
Available Jan. 14, 2008

Questions about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy have echoed through America for over 40 years.

Think of it — an American President was gunned down in broad daylight on a public street in front of hundreds of eyewitnesses and captured on film by Abraham Zapruder.

Yet, no one was ever brought to trial and evidence was mishandled or missing. The President’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was killed a few days later. President Johnson appointed The Warren Commission to investigate Kennedy’s shooting, but the commission’s report was so spotty and left so many questions unanswered, the majority of Americans today believe JFK’s assassination was part of a shadowy conspiracy.

Robert Stone‘s documentary Oswald’s Ghost, part of the excellent American Experience series on PBS, doesn’t present any new evidence on the assassination. Stone’s purpose is not to contribute to the controversy, but to look at the controversy itself. Oswald’s Ghost shows how controversial aspects of the assassination originated and why JFK’s murder continues to haunt the American psyche like a jeering, paranoid mockingbird. Stone interviews a variety of assassination aficionado’s including Norman Mailer, Dan Rather, and politician Gary Hart. Insights are also provided by Mark Lane, whose book Rush To Judgment, was not only the first book to suggest Kennedy’s assassination was a conspiracy, but also suggested that the Warren Commission was probably in on it.

While fans debate whether Brandon Routh or Brian Singer are going to show up for another Superman movie, South Korea will be releasing its own Superman film in this month.

And it’s not like any Superman movie ever made before.

The film is called Supermanyi Eodeon Sanayi or, in English, A Man Who Was Superman. Korean model/actress Ji-hyun Jun stars as Soo-jung Song, a documentary maker best known for human interest documentaries. Bored with her work, Soo-jung takes a camera from her film company to a local zoo to make a documentary about a lion refusing to eat.

While filming, her camera is stolen camera by a thief. The camera is quickly retrieved by a man in a Hawaiian shirt (played by actor Jeong-min Hwang) who claims to be Superman. He explains to Soo-jung that he has been rendered powerless by a villain who placed shards of Kryptonite in his head, but still does good deeds like rescuing lost dogs, persuading a man not to wander about naked in public — and sometimes regains enough power to stand on his head and push the Earth away from a collision course with the Sun.

(because ten questions aren’t enough “” and who has time to read twelve?)

Christopher Moonlight Cooksey is the creator of the goth comic The Black Lipstick Curse, which recently celebrated its 10th anniversary. “I first wanted to be an artist when I saw a show they use to have on late night MTV called This Is Horror, hosted by Stephen King,” Chris said. “They were spotlighting an FX artist and I just thought he had the coolest job. It wasn’t until a comic shop opened in my town that I wanted to be a comic artist.”

X-Men legend Paul Smith took Chris under his wing and showed him the ropes of a studio when Chris was a teenager.

“My best friend, Frank Kane, was instrumental in showing me how to write a comic, and we’ve been working together ever since,” Chris said. “My first published works were The Third Eye 2001 annual anthology, and as a contributing artist in Supernatural Law’s Comic Book Legal Defense Fund Special, by Batton Lash. The artists that inspire me the most are Eddie Campbell, Dan Brereton, Alex Ross, and Dave McKean.”

Chris currently works as the lead instructor for Art Is Our Passion teaching animation, comic, and fine art. Chris’s works can also be viewed on his Blogspot and MySpace pages, as well as the official Black Lipstick Curse MySpace page.

T.E. Pouncey: You have said Wendell in The Black Lipstick Curse is a lot like you were as young Goth. How much of Wendell is autobiographical?

Christopher Moonlight: None of it really happened the way it does in the comic, but in one respect or another it does reflect true events. I’d never watched That 70’s Show until recently, but I realize that they were doing the same kinds of things that I do. You’re always getting glimpses of what’s going on in the characters’ heads; how they perceive things. You’re seeing things from their point of view, therefore it’s infected with their personalities. It’s a wonderful opportunity to inject deeper meaning into the layers of a story, and it keeps things from getting to dry. The literal truth is, I really did throw Tiki Voodoo Luau parties. My friends and I marveled to see people at the front of stages, chanting in odd languages at the rock bands, and in one way or another, we’ve all had to face death on very real terms.