Because Reality TV is Lame.

// By Anna Krutzik //

Today is Tuesday, also known as New DVD Day!

There are several notable films this week, a couple of which I feel contractually obligated to mention, as both screened at the 2009 Milwaukee Film festival: $9.99 and Shall We Kiss. $9.99 is an exquisite stop-motion animation by Israeli animator Tatia Rosenthal about one man's quest for the meaning of life. Shall We Kiss is a french romantic comedy about two friends who would like to kiss each other. You should rent these two films...so ends my shameless film festival plug.

The film that I'm most interested in promoting is the DVD release of Sorority Row. Directed by relative newcomer Stewart Hendler, this remake of 1983's House on Sorority Row delivers a surprisingly good rendition of pop culture via cheesy horror film stereotypes and a good dose of bitchy girl power thrown in.

The cast includes the who's who of today's IT girls (Briana Evigan, Margo Harshman, Rumer Willis, Jamie Chung, Leah Pipes) whose names you might not recognize, but that doesn't matter because none of them were chosen for their great acting skills and some are already on their way out of America's collective consciousness (The Hill's Audrina Patridge). The dialogue is uncharacteristically smart (sometimes) and even funny (in a good way).

The film doesn't pretend to be anything but a bunch of popular girls wearing cool (a.k.a slutty) clothes that run around and get slaughtered. But it does what it does well. Once the killer comes around there isn't an endless 15 minute chase scene, people start dying and they do so in a big way. But the best part of Sorority Row has to be Carrie Fisher who plays the shotgun-wielding house mother of the girl's sorority.

Pop culture on celluloid, sparkly and fun.

*Still image from Sorority Row