CHUCKY CHEESE It's hard not to fall in love with Jennifer Tilly. Star of hits big (1997's Liar Liar) and cult (1996's Bound), she's an Oscar-nominated (for 1994's Bullets Over Broadway) actor who also happens to be a champion poker player. Though she specializes in dim-bulb sexpots, Tilly is no dummy — witness her hilarious turn in 2004's Seed of Chucky. Read more »

TRASH She's an unstoppable force, that Sherri Frankenstein. As embodied by Linda Martinez in an anything-but-soggy serial by George Kuchar, Sherri is endlessly buffeted by life — shoved, mutilated, or worse by rapacious characters ever-eager to administer injections. She's prone to oracular gestures so lengthy and dizzyingly impulse-driven that their conclusions directly contradict the reality around her. Read more »

VINTAGE SEXY CINEMA "Ooh-la-la!" For decades this nonsense phrase personified "Continental" knowingness of a nature heavily suggestive to Yanks and yoinks raised under the buzz-kill shadow of a nation founded by Puritans. Just what did it mean? Oral knowledge unbeknownst to Oral Roberts? Sneaky-Pete glimpses of furry minx? Houses of ill repute and burgundy upholstery? Whatever: for long decades, Americans figured Old Europe knew sensual pleasures we were too nouveau to grasp, let alone grapple with.Read more »

DOCUMENTARY CLASSIC This column space is usually devoted to pop culture detritus. But this week we'll bend the Trash definition to encompass human detritus, as in such timeless phrases as "Those people are nothing but trash." The occasion is the Roxie's restored re-release showcase of On the Bowery, a 1956 piece of early U.S. independent cinema that won major prizes. Read more »

CHEESY, SLEAZY CINEMA Last year found Jack Abramoff a peculiarly hot commodity at the movies, especially if you consider he spent most of the year in federal prison and hadn't exercised his own Hollywood ambitions in nearly a quarter-century.Read more »

Every nation had its distinct cinematic response to the sexual revolution of the 1960s and '70s. Germany's was characteristic in offering the pretense of order, "scientific" educational value, and encouraging a healthy collective morality — even if all this was usually mere gloss over the usual, more marketable qualities of copious T&A.Read more »

MOVIES WITH MOHAWKS Punk and the movies met when the former was very young. When punk eventually grew up, the movies still insisted on viewing it as a child. Their union, nowadays perverted by mutual materialistic bloat, has been rather like an arranged marriage: long-lasting, with moments of real understanding, but fundamentally fraudulent.Read more »

Fallout: New Vegas

(PC, PS3, Xbox 360) Obsidian Entertainment/Bethesda SoftworksRead more »

Medal Of Honor

Danger Close, Electronic Arts

(Xbox360, PS3, PC) Read more »

When one door closes another opens: as summer comes to an end, Good Vibrations gives us something to ensure that warm sensation continues — porn.

Yes, it's that time of year again. On Sept. 23, the Castro Theatre opens its doors to the Good Vibrations Indie Erotic Film Festival's short film festival competition, after a lead-up week of diverse, sex-positive programming at various venues. The annual contest, now in its fifth year, offers filmmakers the chance to share their unique erotic visions on the big screen.Read more »