Unauthorized Part 2

After opening with a setup menu that contains the kind of garish graphics Master P favors, Unauthorized Part 2 gives us the usual FBI warning but ends it with an exclamation mark. It's these stupid but brilliant, ambitious and amateurish touches that make this "no Kiss music included" DVD such cheesy fun for all the fanatics that feel many of the band's greatest moments were unintentional. There's an incredibly long and freakish segment with former member Vinnie Vincent at a Kiss convention where the guitarist blabs on and on about the record he's been working on for a decade and now sells on the Internet. Of course a Ramada-full of Kiss Army members really want to hear stories of the old days and see the guy in makeup, and the guitarist obliges on both. Vincent's segment goes on longer than he was actually in the band, but it is charming to see him so in love with his fans and genuinely grateful to them (unlike some fire-breathing bassists). Other highlights include an interview with the surprisingly impish brother of late-period Kiss guitarist Bruce Kulick, a long video press kit for the movie Trick or Treat (since Gene Simmons starred in it), an interview with Peter Criss dressed in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, and a heck of a lot of excuses for Music From "The Elder", from golden-age manager Bill Aucoin. The cover says it's a "Video Magazine" but calling it a "Video Fanzine" would have been more effective and excused the patchy production. It's shoddily put together with bargain basement archival footage, but a DVD where you get to see and hear a drunken Ace Frehley say "disco" over ten times should appeal to campy Kiss fetishists. ~ David Jeffries|