Although the title is undoubtedly more famous as the second movie in the James Bond film franchise, From Russia, with Love was originally the fifth novel by author Ian Fleming to feature his Agent 007 character. In bringing Bond to screen, the movie producers had very little concern for translating the work faithfully. The books… Read More Bond in Books | From Russia, with Love (1957)
Welcome to 2025. We’re still in something of a vacation mode here at The Video File. To start the year off, we’re easing in with a mostly off-topic article that has no direct connection to either video or home theater, but that we hope some of you will enjoy anyway. Freshly unboxed is an item… Read More G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1982-1994) | Skybound Comic Compendium Set Unboxing and Review
As a tie-in with its wildly successful Energon Universe line of comic books, Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment has also licensed the right to reprint the original Marvel Comics run of The Transformers, first published in 1984. Re-reading it today unleashes a flood of nostalgic memories from my own ten-year-old youth. The Skybound reprint of The… Read More Commencing Revival Procedures | The Transformers Issue #1 (1984) Marvel Comic Book Reprint by Skybound
In September 2023, two new non-fiction books were published to capitalize on what was originally intended to be the theatrical release of Denis Villeneuve’s mega-budget sequel Dune: Part Two. Unfortunately, that film’s launch date was postponed to early 2024, leaving both books stranded with no obvious thematic tie-in, except each other. I’ve previously reviewed A… Read More A Secret Report within the Guild | The Spice Must Flow (2023) Book Review
The summer of 2023 may have belonged to Barbie, but the year also closed out with a very lovely tribute to her longtime rival from toy store shelves. Arriving in book form rather than a movie, The Art of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is a gorgeous and exhaustively comprehensive chronicle of one of… Read More Relive the Adventure | The Art of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (2023) Book Review
Even among fans who love it, David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune must be acknowledged as a very messy production with a terrible reputation. One of the most expensive movies ever made at the time, the result was met with critical scorn and box office disaster upon its release in late 1984. Four decades later, author… Read More Our Test Is Crisis | A Masterpiece in Disarray: David Lynch’s Dune (2023) Book Review
Earlier this year, Robert Kirkman’s Skybound Entertainment launched a new sci-fi comic book called Void Rivals that, in a surprise twist not announced in advance, turned out to be the kick-off for a shared narrative continuity with Hasbro’s Transformers and G.I. Joe brands. The first few issues of that book featured cameo appearances by select… Read More Cybertron Will Die | Transformers Issue #01 (2023) Skybound Comic Book
Robert Kirkman, original creator of The Walking Dead, launched a brand new comic last week. Science fiction themed rather than horror, Void Rivals is, at least thus far, a rather simple and frankly derivative tale with a big cameo at the end intended to open up a broader shared universe (I know, I know, does… Read More Energon Mine | Void Rivals Issue #01 (2023) Skybound Comic Book
Two of Clive Barker’s most famous creations, the Hellraiser Cenobites and the monsters of Nightbreed, collide – but only in comic book form. While the author/filmmaker’s Hellraiser was successful enough to launch a franchise of sequels, his Nightbreed wasn’t quite as lucky. Nonetheless, Epic Comics (an imprint of Marvel) spun off both properties into comics… Read More Chaos of the Flesh | Hellraiser Nightbreed: Jihad Comic Book (1991)
For as uneven and frequently disappointing as the 1990s Hellraiser comic could be, the book at least managed some pretense of being artistically motivated with ambitions of literary merit (however rarely achieved). In contast, spin-off title The Harrowers was a straight-up embarrassment in all respects. Its short six-issue run was six too many. In the… Read More Hellishly Dumb | Clive Barker’s The Harrowers Comic Book (1993-1994)
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