July 26, 2000 | From the golden age of Hollywood studios to the twilight of the drive-in circuit, they were known as B-movies: Low-budget, high-concept genre flicks, shrewdly derivative of pricier film fare, populated with has-beens, wanna-bes, never-weres and ever-reliable second-stringers. But new technology ushered in a new type of cinema: V-movies, pictures made primarily, if not exclusively, for home video consumption. For some, V-movies are the best way to sustain stalled careers. For others, V-movies are, and forever will be, the only game in town. Either way, V-movie stardom is an enduring phenomenon, and attention must be paid to V-movie superstars

GARY BUSEY

Through much of his movie career, Gary Busey has come off as a party-hearty good-ol'-boy, a shambling teddybear of a Texan with a rapid-fire gift for gab and a toothy grin that resembles twin rows of refrigerators. Whether he's boldly cast against type (check out his faux Joe DiMaggio in Nicolas Roeg's Insignificance) or playing perfect-fit lead roles and character parts, he conveys all the lip-smacking, eye-bulging gusto of someone who thinks -- hot damn! -- acting is one hell of a great way to earn beer money.

Indeed, Busey generates such good will in his on-screen adventures that it's often painful to read about his off-screen brushes with death and battles with personal demons. He literally fell off a cliff during the filming of Barbarosa, barely survived a nasty motorcycle accident in 1988, and sought treatment for cocaine addiction in 1995 after nearly snorting his way into Choir Invisible. And, of course, there's the usual tabloid stuff about public rowdiness and marital combat.

To his credit, Busey has managed to keep working through good and bad times, alternating between juicy character bits in mainstream features and pay-the-rent jobs in routine V-movies. Typical of the latter is his ingratiatingly efficient performance as an emotionally scarred homicide cop in Breaking Point. Confronted with a slew of lurid plot absurdities -- a serial killer turns out to be a male exotic dancer who gives pre-murder private performances for bound female victims -- Busey provides a center of gravity simply by keeping his face straight and his tone steady. He is a tad more animated as a fugitive assassin who wants to make amends with his dying father in the blandly unremarkable Warriors. But, then again, considering that his co-star is the charisma-challenged Michael Pare, he doesn't have to do much to be, comparatively speaking, a blazing ball of fire.

Evidently, Busey has developed a sharply honed sense for how much he can get away with in a film aimed primarily at TV viewers. Obviously, he knows when to proudly swagger, and when to merely strut. Unlike co-star Burt Reynolds, who lurches over the top with a laughably unconvincing Foreign Person accent as the chief bad guy in Universal Solider II: Brothers in Arms, Busey plays a villainous henchman in the made-for-cable sequel with only a few modest nibbles on the scenery.

Busey recently proclaimed himself a born-again Christian, leading cynics to suspect that working with David Lynch (Lost Highway) and Terry Gilliam (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) within a two-year period might be enough to drive anyone back to Jesus. Whatever the reason for his road-to-Damascus experience, he has backed his words with deeds: In Tribulation, a straight-to-video cautionary drama produced by evangelical Pentecostals, Busey plays an agnostic cop who battles the minions of Satan (Nick Mancuso, truly fearsome for all the wrong reasons) in a post-Rapture world. The movie plumbs dank depths of godawfulness with the ineptitude of its writing and direction, but give it this much: Gary Busey is remarkably affecting in the final scene when he makes peace with The Man Upstairs. For reasons that have little to do with the V-movie itself, you're really glad to see the poor guy has been saved.

SELECTIVE FILMOGRAPHY: 1973: "The Last American Hero." 1976: "A Star is Born." 1978: "Big Wednesday," "Straight Time," "The Buddy Holly Story." 1980: "Carny," "Foolin' Around." 1982: "Barbarosa." 1983: "D.C. Cab." 1984: "The Bear." 1985: "Insignificance." 1987: "Lethal Weapon." 1990: "Predator 2." 1991: "Point Break." 1992: "Under Siege." 1993: "Breaking Point," "The Firm." 1994: "Warriors," "Surviving the Game," "Drop Zone." 1996: "Steel Sharks," "Man With a Gun," "Black Sheep," "Carried Away." 1997: "Plato's Run," "Lost Highway," "The Real Thing" (a.k.a. "Livers Ain't Cheap"); 1998: "Universal Solider II: Brothers in Arms," "Two Shades of Blue," "No Tomorrow," "Detour," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," "Soldier." 1999: "Hot Boyz," "The Girl Next Door." 2000: "Tribulation."

ANDREW McCARTHY

What if there had been made-for-cable movies and direct-to-video features in the 1960s and '70s? Would Troy Donahue have starred in a slew of supercop capers? Might Tab Hunter have sustained a career by being the fall guy in a bunch of erotic thrillers? Could Sandra Dee have altered her image by playing a hot-to-trot femme fatale in steamy neo-noirs?

These are just a few of the imponderables that may pop into your head as you note the preponderance of former Brat Packers in the Action/Adventure section of any well-stocked video store. When they're not attempting comebacks in sitcoms and dramatic series, or taking small parts in edgy indie fare to prove they're not just kids anymore, many erstwhile '80s icons pay their bills and avoid oblivion by keeping their names above the titles in workaday V-movies. The big difference is, instead of playing characters who fret over prom dates or first jobs, they're now cast as people who save the world, or capture serial killers, or contend with the huffing-and-puffing big-bad-wolfishness of Michael Ironside.

To a degree that some of his former co-stars might envy, Andrew McCarthy, the affably pleasant young star of Class, St. Elmo's Fire and Pretty in Pink, has made a reasonably smooth transition from Brat Pack fun and games to V-movie guns and poses. He remains boyishly handsome, but not so much that he looks profoundly foolish, as an FBI profiler (Perfect Assassins) or a cynical homicide cop (Beyond Redemption). In fact, his relative youthfulness sometimes works to his advantage: As a taxi driver who's marked for death after finding stolen loot in Night of the Running Man, McCarthy elevates the authenticity of standard-issue scenes in which the hero simply outruns the pursuing bad guys. Since he's being chased by Scott Glenn -- who's a couple of decades older, and looks every day of it -- you have no trouble believing that McCarthy can sprint faster and longer.

Occasionally, McCarthy feels the need to make himself seem more "adult" -- i.e., less like someone who might be lusting for his prep-school roommate's mother -- by growing a beard, or close-cropping his hair, or deepening his voice to indicate the weight of his testes. In The Heist, for example, he relies on the image enhancement of an aggressively butch coiffure to make himself more believable as a bad-ass ex-con who commandeers a security company's headquarters. It's a cheap trick, to be sure, but in this case, it works.

McCarthy wears a stylish goatee in I'm Losing You, an underrated drama about falling stars and fading lights in Hollywood that received scant theatrical exposure before fast-forwarding to video. As the son of a famous producer (Frank Langella) who's slowly succumbing to cancer, the ex-Brat Packer gives a gravely melancholy performance that's all the more compelling because of its semi-autobiographical flavor. McCarthy plays an underemployed actor who hasn't made good on his early promise, and who's dismissed by casting directors for feature films because he's "too cable." When he picks up his little girl at school, he says, only half-jokingly, "Daddy's had a hard day of not being cast in a major motion picture." If McCarthy appears to wince when he says that line -- well, the truth hurts.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY: 1983: "Class." 1985: "Heaven Help Us," "St. Elmo's Fire." 1986: "Pretty in Pink." 1987: "Mannequin," "Less Than Zero." 1988: "Fresh Horses." 1989: "Weekend at Bernie's." 1991: "Year of the Gun." 1993: "The Joy Luck Club," "Weekend at Bernie's II." 1994: "Night of the Running Man," "Dead Funny." 1995: "Dream Man," "The Courtyard." 1996: "Things I Never Told You," "The Heist" (a.k.a "Hostile Force"), "Escape Clause," "Mulholland Falls." 1997: "Stag." 1998: "Perfect Assassins," "Fool's Errand," "I'm Losing You," "I Woke Up Early the Day I Died." 1999: "New Waterford Girl," "New World Disorder," "Beyond Redemption."

MICHAEL PARE

Despite his unfortunate penchant for mumbling-macho posturing, Michael Pare was anointed as an ascending star in such early efforts as Streets of Fire and Eddie and the Cruisers. With the latter film, a box-office underachiever, he actually earned a footnote in movie history: Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! arguably was the first sequel to be produced for theatrical release solely because of its predecessor's track record in cable and home-video venues.

Unfortunately, ever since he failed to make the grade as a TV supercop in the deservedly short-lived Houston Knights (1987-88), Pare has toiled mostly in the valley of V-movies with mixed success and scant enthusiasm. More often than not, he simply sleepwalks through generic plot mechanics with the grimly determined air of someone handling an unpleasant but necessary chore, like unclogging a drain or taking out the garbage. As he edges into middle age with his good looks relatively intact, he gives the impression that he considers his movie career to be something of an imposition, a waste of time that could be better spent on -- well, hanging out. Or sleeping. Even while making smooth moves over, under and around Barbara Carrera in Point of Impact, Pare brings little gusto to picking up a paycheck.

It's instructive to compare his studied indifference to the engaged underplaying of co-star Robert Davi, another V-movie mainstay, in The Dangerous. No doubt about it, the flick is a nose-burning stinker, mixing vengeful ninjas, maverick cops, Hispanic drug dealers and free-lance assassins in a bland gumbo on the mean streets of New Orleans. Elliott Gould, Joel Grey and John Savage wander through, looking vaguely embarrassed at being spotted in this purgatory for the underemployed. But Davi ignores all evidence that he's stuck in a moldy piece of cheese, playing a mysterious ex-cop -- or ex-spy, or ex-FBI agent, or ex-whatever -- with subtle dash and panache. In contrast, Pare evidences all the eagerness of a guy who took his co-starring role only because he lost a bet. Whenever his character disappears from the plot -- which happens frequently, for extended stretches -- you can't help suspecting Pare tried to escape, and had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to the set.

More recently, in a V-movie time-killer known alternately as Merchant of Death and Mission of Death, Pare did his somnambulist thing once again as a loose-cannon cop in Portland, Oregon, a place where, for no apparent reason, large numbers of people speak with South African accents. (The closing credits reveal the picture's Johannesburg roots.) To be fair, Pare manages just a smidgen of intensity when his character is forced to recall a childhood trauma during a psychiatric evaluation. After that, unfortunately, it's back to business as usual as the poker-faced Pare kills a lot of people in Portland, flies to Venezuela and kills some more folks, then returns to Portland and kills a few others. It's a dirty job -- but, hey, someone's got to do it.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY:

1983: "Eddie and the Cruisers." 1984: "Streets of Fire," "The Philadelphia Experiment." 1985: "Space Rage." 1987: "Instant Justice." 1989: "Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!" 1990: "Dragonfight," "Moon 44." 1991: "Sunset Heat," "The Killing Streets." 1992: "Into the Sun," "Blink of an Eye." 1993: "Point of Impact." 1994: "Warriors," "Deadly Heroes," "The Dangerous." 1995: "Village of the Damned," "Raging Angels." 1996: "Bad Moon," "Coyote Run." 1997: "Falling Fire," "Strip Search," "Mission of Death" (a.k.a. "Merchant of Death"). 1998: "Hope Floats," "October 22." 1999: "Space Fury," "The Virgin Suicides."

ERIC ROBERTS

Eric Roberts has spent the better part of the last two decades living down his first big break. Back in 1978, he was overhyped and underwhelming as a Next Big Thing in the misbegotten King of the Gypsies. Cast as a volatile usurper of power in a New York gypsy clan, the hunky newcomer evidenced all the authority of day-old toast. Even with a gun in his hand, he appeared only slightly more formidable than Elisha Cook Jr. as the posturing gunsel in The Maltese Falcon.

After that, Roberts had nowhere to go but up. And, sure enough, he redeemed himself with risky and quirky work in such movies as Star 80 (playing the manipulative and murderously jealous husband of Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratton) and Runaway Train (earning an Oscar nomination for daring to stand near Jon Voight as the latter gorged himself on scenery, dialogue and other actors). By the end of the '80s, however, Roberts found himself on a dead-end detour from the comeback trail. It helped little that he was overshadowed by, and very bitterly estranged from, his superstar kid sister. (Maybe you've heard of her, she's an actress named Julia.) It helped even less that he skirted perilously close to self-parody with a repetitive mix of Method mannerism and moist hyperventilation.

So how has Eric Roberts continued to survive and thrive? Largely by reinventing himself as a dependable utility player in melodramas made primarily for home video and cable television. And while he tends to specialize in neo-noir thrillers, he has demonstrated impressive range with a rogues' gallery of flawed heroes, scurvy losers and not-so-innocent bystanders: a smoothly ingratiating con man who talks smart women into dumb investments (Lonely Hearts); an abrasive talk-radio host with a fondness for fatal one-nights stands (Power 98); a slick safecracker who comes between a bent cop (Michael Rooker) and a femme fatale (Lysette Anthony) while plotting a majot heist (The Hard Truth); a retired mob enforcer whose new identity is exposed by a punkish computer hacker (Hitman's Run); a compassionate cop whose ex-wife may have been murdered, and whose estranged teenage son is a prime suspect (Dead End).

As he has grown up -- and buffed up -- Roberts has evolved from a tediously twitchy male ingénue to a credible and creditable character actor. He also earns high marks for working well with others, whether he's stuck in the ensemble of a terrible Tarantinoesque goof (American Strays) or calling the shots as first among equals in a fiendishly clever sleeper (The Immortals). These and other V-movies on his resume underscore his strengths as a first-rate journeyman who does not transcend his material so much as serve it with thoroughgoing professionalism. More's the pity, then, that Roberts' growth, maturity and reliability as an actor remain phenomena appreciated almost exclusively by those who channel surf cable TV in the wee small hours, or cruise the Action/Adventure shelves at their friendly neighborhood video stores.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY:

1978: "King of the Gypsies." 1983: "Star 80." 1984: "The Pope of Greenwich Village." 1985: "Runaway Train," "The Coca-Cola Kid." 1986: "Slow Burn." 1988: "Blood Red." 1989: "Best of the Best." 1991: "Lonely Hearts," "By the Sword." 1992: "Final Analysis." 1993: "Best of the Best II." 1994: "Love is a Gun," "The Hard Truth," "Babyfever." 1995: "Nature of the Beast," "The Immortals." 1996: "It's My Party," "Heaven's Prisoners," "Power 98," "The Cable Guy," "American Strays." 1998: "Two Shades of Blue," "T.N.T.," "Dead End," "Prophecy II," "La Cucaracha," "Purgatory," "Hitman's Run."

MICKEY ROURKE

For anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing Jean-Claude Van Damme kick the living crap out of Mickey Rourke -- and you know who you are, so don't try to lie about it -- Double Team had to be a near-religious experience, on the order of having great sex or winning the office Oscar pool. Indeed, during the movie's relatively brief theatrical exposure, full-throated roars of audience approval greeted each swift kick that Van Damme applied to Rourke's noggin. Critics were just as savage in their assaults: Even co-star Dennis Rodman, on brief sabbatical from pro basketball and other public spectacles, got better notices.

Rourke has been a punchline for so long, it's difficult to recall a time when he was taken not just seriously but gratefully. "With luck," critic Pauline Kael wrote back in 1982, "Rourke could become a major actor: He has an edge and magnetism, and a sweet, pure smile that surprises you." So what happened? Why is the slow-simmering scene-stealer of Diner and Body Heat now slumming his way through an inexplicably prolific V-movie career?

Perhaps he delved a little too deeply into his character while giving what may be his best performance. In Barfly, Barbet Schroeder's riotous comedy of bad manners based on Charles Bukowski's self-mythologizing screenplay, Rourke was fearlessly and ferociously funny as a Skid Row poet with scabby knuckles, indelibly soiled clothes -- you could almost see how bad he smelled -- and a bowlegged walk that suggested a long estrangement from indoor plumbing. Unfortunately, after starring to perfection as an unkempt crank who doesn't give a damn, Rourke stuck with the part, on screen and off. It wasn't just that he continued to speak his lines in a lazily purring whine. (In Francesco, which cast him as, no kidding, St. Francis of Assisi, he extolled his followers to live in the wilds, "under the treeeeeeees, with the squirrrrrrrrrrels.") He also appeared to stop bathing for long periods, and to never, ever wash his hair. When he half-heartedly attempted a comeback by doing ever steamier variations of 9 ½ Weeks, you couldn't help wondering how his female co-stars could stand near him, much less lie under him.

Occasionally, Rourke will shake off the cobwebs, reacquaint himself with shampoo and work for a filmmaker he respects, or one who simply won't put up with his nonsense. (He's terrific in a small but vital role in Francis Ford Coppola's The Rainmaker.) More often, though, he lumbers through V-movie flotsam like Bullet (doing a grim reprise of his Rumble Fish posturing) or Fall Time (offering a glassy-eyed self-parody as an unlucky bank robber). There is something weirdly artificial about his newly buff physique, to say nothing of what looks like a haphazard face-lift. But the real turn-off is the screw-you arrogance that permeates his V-movie performances. Whether he's playing a sweaty and sleazy drug-addled cop in cheap silk shirts and leather pants (Out in 50), or a sweaty and sleazy action hero who's shooting his way through a ridiculous mix of Die Hard and Con Air in an underpopulated shopping mall (Point Blank), Rourke acts like he's doing everybody a favor simply by showing up. Thanks, but no thanks.

SELECTIVE FILMOGRAPHY:

1981: "Body Heat." 1982: "Diner," "Eureka." 1983: "Rumble Fish." 1984: "The Pope of Greenwich Village." 1985: "Year of the Dragon." 1986: "9 ½ Weeks." 1987: "Angel Heart," "A Prayer for the Dying," "Barfly." 1988: "Homeboy." 1989: "Johnny Handsome," "Francesco." 1990: "Wild Orchid," "Desperate Hours." 1991: "Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man." 1992: "White Sands." 1995: "Fall Time." 1996: "Exit in Red," "Bullet." 1997: "Point Blank," "Double Team," "Another 9 ½ Weeks," "The Rainmaker." 1998: "Buffalo '66," "Thursday." 1999: "Out in Fifty," "Shades." 2000: "Get Carter."

ICE T

Widely acknowledged as the godfather of gangsta rap, Ice T was the first superstar in his musical orbit to make a credible bid for a big-screen career. Despite having, at best, only three expressions --surly, surlier and seriously pissed off -- and a voice that sounds like bad plumbing with a slight lisp, the frosty rapper managed to more than hold his own opposite Denzel Washington as a supporting player in Ricochet. And he believably blowtorched his way through New Jack City as a bad-news cop who barely contains his wrath while apprehending a super-slick crime kingpin (Wesley Snipes). "I want to kill you so bad," he memorably rasped at his captured quarry, "my dick is hard!"

But at a time when fellow rappers such as Ice Cube and LL Cool J are assuming prominent roles in major motion pictures -- and even evolving as multi-hyphenate auteurs -- Ice T is pursuing a more idiosyncratic career path. Indeed, he appears poised to become the Warren Oates of the new millennium, establishing himself as the kind of ego-free, multi-purpose character actor who'll do any part of any size in any kind of film.

In recent years, Ice T has dashed from V-movie to V-movie with all the indefatigable energy and undiscriminating enthusiasm one used to associate with Michael Caine or Gene Hackman. Look here, and he's feasting on scenery as a rogue fighter pilot who holds the United States for ransom in Stealth Fighter, a smudged carbon of Broken Arrow. Look there, and he's effortlessly engaging as furloughed convict who helps an FBI agent (Suzy Amis) track a twisted religious fanatic (Mario Van Peebles) in Judgment Day, a frisky, no-frills mix of Deep Impact and 48 HRS.

Look just about everywhere else at your friendly neighborhood video store, and you'll likely see one of Ice T's several collaborations with director Albert Pyun, master of the visually stunning and dramatically muddled action flick. Think John Wayne and John Ford, or Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro -- and you'll doubtless agree that Ice T and Pyun have a lot more in common with Edward Wood and Bela Lugosi.

In Crazy Six, a typically incoherent Pyun picture, Ice T spends most of his time suggesting deep thought by pressing his index finger to his forehead while he, Rob Lowe and Burt Reynolds wander through an impenetrable haze of disjointed storytelling on the mean streets of Bratislava. More recently, Pyun shot three digital-video quickies -- Urban Menace, Corrupt and The Wrecking Crew -- with the same actors, the same rap-music soundtrack and, no kidding, the same deserted-factory set. Ice T runs the gamut from foul-mouthed narrator to loose-cannon vigilante to lovelorn gang boss in this trilogy of... well, take your pick: They're either short movies or long music videos. The good news is, Ice T remains cool even when his films fizzle.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY:

1991: "New Jack City," "Ricochet." 1992: "Trespass." 1994: "Surviving the Game." 1995: "Tank Girl," "Johnny Mnemonic." 1997: "Mean Guns, "The Deli." 1998: "Crazy Six." 1999: "The Wrecking Crew," "Stealth Fighter," "Sonic Impact," "Judgment Day," "The Heist," "Urban Menace," "Final Voyage," "Corrupt." 2000: "Leprechaun in the Hood."

SHANNON TWEED

In the world of direct-to-video melodramas, Shannon Tweed is the undisputed Queen of the V-movies. The secret of her success? Some critics will tell you she is master of her disreputable realm because of her sleek professionalism, which allows her to stride through even the most formulaic bilge with her dignity intact. Others will insist that Tweed more than compensates for her limited acting skills with a charismatic screen presence that serves her quite well within a narrow range of roles.

But a really honest admirer of her oeuvre will set you straight: Shannon Tweed is a cult icon because she's a fabulously beautiful woman who finds a reason to flaunt her abundant breasts in almost every movie she graces. With assets like those, who cares if she can't match Meryl Streep when it comes to tricky accents?

A former Playmate of the Year -- surprise, surprise! -- and a veteran of TV soap operas, the Canadian-born Tweed made her first significant screen appearance in Hot Dog... The Movie, a singularly dopey 1984 farce about sex on the ski slopes. As a hormonally inflamed ski bunny who comes on to men, women and tender vegetation, Tweed evidenced a genuine flair for flirty comedy. She also removed her clothing and jumped on warm bodies, signature behavior that would carry her far as a V-movie star.

Throughout the 1990s, Tweed appeared in literally dozens of made-for-video features, playing everything from vengefully homicidal widows to kickboxing action heroines, from cunning femmes fatales to bamboozled defense attorneys. The only constant has been her proclivity for nakedness, partial or otherwise, even when there isn't time or motivation for soft-core gymnastics. In Hard Vice -- a low-rent thriller that plays like a pilot for a TV series even undiscriminating insomniacs wouldn't watch -- Tweed is a hard-boiled cop teamed with harder-boiled Sam Jones to find a serial killer of hookers. Nothing much happens between these two until, more than halfway into the film, Tweed simply rips off her shirt and grabs her hunky co-star. It's almost as though, off camera, director Joey Travolta suddenly slapped his forehead and yelped: "Damn! I almost forgot! This is a Shannon Tweed movie! Lose the blouse, honey!" The scene is a paradigm of gratuitous nudity: Once it's out of the way, Tweed remains fully clothed for the rest of the film.

Well into the second decade of her V-movie career, Tweed remains a vivaciously attractive and reasonably competent actress who can rise to the occasion in painless time-killers such as Sexual Response, a Fatal Attraction clone in which she plays an adulterous talk-radio sex therapist, and Forbidden Sins, a Jagged Edge knock-off which casts her as the lawyer for an accused killer who looks and acts guilty only because he is. Unfortunately, Tweed can do little to elevate something as mind-numbingly, jaw-droppingly awful as, say, Scandalous Behavior. Even more unfortunately, her resume indicates a work ethic unimpeded by discriminating taste. "I read scripts and think, `That's pretty good,'" she once told an interviewer. "And then it turns out to be nothing like what I read. I always feel betrayed at the end of a movie." Poor dear.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY:

1984: "Hot Dog... The Movie." 1987: "Meatballs III." 1988: "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death." 1989: "Code Name: Vengeance." 1992: "Sexual Response," "Night Eyes II," "The Naked Truth." 1993: "Night Eyes III," "Indecent Behavior." 1994: "Indecent Behavior II," "Illicit Dreams," "No Contest," "Hard Vice." 1995: "Indecent Behavior III," "Body Chemistry 4: Full Exposure." 1997: "No Contest II," "Human Desires." 1998: "Scandalous Behavior," "Forbidden Sins," "Forbidden by Law," "Naked Lies." 1999: "Detroit Rock City," "Power Play."