Who is Jaime Pressly

Poison Ivy - The New Seduction

Back in the mid 90's, Thursday nights were the official start of the weekend, and we would invariably start with a "group acceptable" movie and a few cocktails at someone's apartment, before invariably heading out into the night. I put "group acceptable" in parenthesis, because "acceptable" was a bit of a misnomer; the only movies that everyone agreed upon were non-plot driven flicks with semi-starlets, who, thankfully enough, were kind enough to appear sans clothing at various times during the course of the show. This movie was one of the last we saw before switching over to Antiques Roadshow (don't ask), and eventually disbanding. I decided to review this movie because now, 4 short years later, I have become fairly domesticated (as has everyone else), and drinking on Thursday's has become a fond, albeit hazy memory from the past, and I want to do my part to ensure that this great piece of cinema is not dismissed as just one more piece of exploitative, late-night HBO soft-core filler that it appears to be.

To hold this movie to the same standards as a regular movie would be a disservice to it, and I think it should be rated against other movies of its genre:

1) Nudity - 5 Stars - What can I say except for bravo. Veteran B-movie writer Karen Kelly has managed to create a plot where nude scenes seamlessly flow into each other, and actually kind of make sense. One constantly expects Ron Jeremy to make a quick cameo; the quality is that good.

2) Starlet Quality - 1 Star- At the time of this movie Jaime Pressly had only one previous acting role (playing the pre-teen American girl in Mercenary), and the excitement factor knowing she was soon to be nude was just not there. (For an example of a 5 star in this category, check out Nicole Eggert in "Blown Away", which is, possibly the greatest nude/starlet movie ever made).

3) Acting - 5 Stars - The acting.... Wooden? Terrible? Mind-Numbing? Yes! And More! I've always felt that the amount of nudity should be inversly proportional to the quality of acting. I call it the erotic neuron quotent. Think of the 10 minutes between nude scenes as a big neuron, and your attention span as the surge of electricity running its length. As you watch the fully clothed bad acting, you start to get annoyed, and begin to lose interest (as the electric charge does as it runs the length of the neuron). By minute 9 you are fumbling for the remote, and about to stop the tape, when WAM! , the new nudity recharges the battery (as does the charge as it moves to another neuron) and you are good for another 10 minutes.

Determining the final score can be tricky. One suggestion is to add the three categories up, divide by 3, and then add 1 point for every nude scene over 3. Or, if you have seen the other two installments, you could get the guys together, pour a pinot noir, and compare and contrast the merits and plotline on your own. Whatever your method, Good Luck, and Happy Viewing! -- Dave Klopp "smendt" (Milwaukee, WI USA)

Jamie Pressly Sizzles in this Seductive Sequel!
Jamie Pressly stars in this third installment of the "Poison Ivy" series, and she really sizzles!

Pressly stars as Violet. She and her mother live in a house owned by Ivan Greer (Michael Des Barres). Joy (Megan Edwards) is Ivan's daughter. Ivan and Violet's mother are having an affair, but they get caught by Ivan's wife. Soon, Violet and her mother are thrown out of the house. The Greer's continue living in the house, but Ivan's wife ends up passing away, so Ivan and Joy are left by themselves in the house.

The movie moves ahead eleven years. Ivan is working as a successful bank executive, Joy is a star tennis player who's engaged to Michael (Greg Vaughan), an Ivy-league finance major who's trying to get a job as an intern at Ivan's bank. Everything seems fine, until one day, there's a knock on the door. The housekeeper opens it to find a very grown-up Violet. Violet claims that she moved to Arizona, but has returned to work as a waitress and attend Junior College, but she has no place to live. Joy suggests that she move in with them. After a little convincing, Ivan agrees, and Violet moves in.

Joy and Violet have fun catching up, and Joy introduces Violet to her college friends, but they find her "different", and pay very little attention to her. She gets up to go to her waitress job, but it turns out that she's really a prostitute. After a while, she returns to the house, where she finds Michael. Michael and Joy went up to her room, but Joy wasn't interested in making love with Michael. Now, Violet has found him, and she seduces him.

Joy's friend Jamie then comes over to help her train for her big tennis match. After playing for a while, they take a break. Violet spikes the juice with rum, and both Jamie and Joy get very drunk. The housekkeper has become very suspicious of Violet, and her suspicions are confirmed shortly thereafter. Ivan makes a date with another woman,and she calls to tell Ivan where to pick her up at. Violet answers the phone and promises to give Ivan the message, but she never does. Ivan comes home feeling that he's been stood up. Violet is there to comfort him, and eventually, the two have sex.

Things continue on at this pace until Michael shows up again. Violet was swimming nude in the pool and noticed Michael watching her. She gets out of the pool and offers cocaine to Michael. A recovering drug user, he declines at first, but in the end, he gives in. Violet and Michael have sex again, and Violet plants the cocaine vial in his jacket. This is eventually found by Ivan, who shows it to Joy. Michael ends up losing out on his internship.

Joy is so distraught by Michael's apparent drug use that she blows her big tennis match. Michael confronts Violet and tells her that he knows about her and what she's doing. He goes back to the house and begins going through Violet's things. he finds Violet's sex toys hiding under her bed, but she sneaks in and knocks him out. When he wakes up, he's been handcuffed and had duct tape put over his mouth. Violet then injects him with a drug, which ends up killing him.

What will happen to Ivan and Joy? Will they suffer the same fate as Michael?

I thought this movie was good, but it falls slightly short of the original movie. Jamie Pressly is extremely sexy and does a good job as the scheming yet beautiful Violet. Megan Edwards is good as Joy, and I was glad to see her stand up to Violet in the end. The plot is a little more complicated than the first two movies. The acting is lukewarm at best, but Pressly and Edwards are both very good.

I do recommend this movie. Jamie Pressly makes the movie worth watching. If you''ve seen the other movies in the series, you won't want to miss this one. -- Jeffrey T. Munson (Dixon, IL)

Release Date: 11/02/1999

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My Name is Earl - Season One

My Name Is Earl breaks into your home
And they say that creative, bizarre shows don't make it on TV anymore...Meet Earl(Jason Lee). Earl is a petty criminal who one day won $100,000 on a scratch-off ticket. Celebrating his unexpected win, Earl is hit by a car, loses the ticket, and ends up in the hospital where he decides that he needs to balance out all the bad things he has done in his life. Finding the ticket and getting his money, Earl is convinced that karma has put him on this mission, much to the dismay of his brother Randy (Ethan Suplee), his ex-wife Joy(Jaime Pressley), and her new boyfriend Darnell the Crab Man(Eddie Steeples).

Since the airing of the pilot, both critics and audiences have been blown away by My Name is Earl. Besides a extremely talented cast whose comedic chops are perfectly timed, Earl has a solid cast of writers who create 22-minutes of laugh out loud comedy every week. Earl's guest stars in Season 1 rival only Scrubs, including Giovanni Ribisi, Johnny Galecki, Beau Bridges, Jon Favreau, Adam Goldberg, Christine Taylor, and Juliette Lewis.

Season 1 of My Name is Earl offered 24 solid episodes, including the pilot, and received the Director's Guild Award and the People's Choice Award for Best New Comedy, and was nominated for a half dozen other awards including 2 Golden Globes. This would be a 5-star show but it remains to be seen if the writers and producers can keep this level of energy up for several more seasons. As First Seasons go though, this is one of the best to come along since Scrubs.

The DVD set just released and it is jam packed with extras include 8 episode commentaries, a 15-minute mini-episode that incorporates the Family Guy into the show, deleted scenes from 6 episodes, some outtake reels that highlight the improvisational nature of Jason Lee, Jamie Pressly, and Ethan Supplee, and a Behind The Scenes look at the show. This is a solid and fun show, and it deserves a place in your collection. Highly Recommended. - A. G. Corwin (St. Louis, MO)

Release Date: 09/19/2006

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My Name Is Earl - Season Two

I love this show. The second season is just as good as the first. The COPS episode with Mimi from The Drew Carey show is outstanding. And using Marley Matlin as Joy's defense lawyer is genious. One of my favorite things in the first season was Catalina's brief, horrifying references to her past life and sadly, there aren't nearly as many of those in the second season and there was a weird unresolved segment with Dee Dee, the one legged girl, in the last episode. But if you enjoyed the first season, you will enjoy this one too. Much as I like this show, my main reason for writing this review is to commend whoever's decision it was to cut all but a second or two from the opening theme/intro on this set. Finally someone has realized that people who buy a boxed set of shows are very likely to watch several episodes in a row and having to listen to a theme song and the same intro every 18 minutes really gets on your nerves. Whoever's decision that was, I thank you and I hope other shows will follow suit. - Curly (Seattle WA)

Release Date: 09/25/2007

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