Released at the end of 2023, Zack Snyder’s would-be sci-fi epic Rebel Moon: Part One turned out to be such a non-event that I half-expected Netflix to quietly scuttle the sequel without making a fuss or drawing attention to it. Honestly, would anyone have even noticed if it simply never showed up when originally announced?… Read More Cut the Snyder Release | Rebel Moon: Part Two (2024) on Netflix
Considering how extensively the popular Fallout video game series satirizes American consumerist and media cultures, the fact that its inevitable live-action television adaptation would be produced by retail giant Amazon for distribution on its streaming service seems both fitting and more than a touch ironic. That the first season of the show would actually turn… Read More Don’t Lose Your Head | Fallout Season 1 (2024) on Amazon Prime Video
I’ve watched James Cameron’s Aliens countless times over the years. I own numerous copies of it across multiple home video formats. As far as I’m concerned, Aliens is a nearly perfect movie, as as a sequel or taken on its own. The film takes everything that was great about the original Alien, expands it in… Read More State of the Badass Art | Aliens (1986) 4K Ultra HD
James Cameron’s 1994 action blockbuster True Lies had been neglected for so long during the home video era that most fans gave up hope for a decent release of it years ago. Remarkably, after literal decades of unfulfilled rumors, what seemed impossible finally happened. Cameron’s production company Lightstorm Entertainment (via its current corporate distributor, Disney)… Read More You Do Not Have Time to Tango | True Lies (1994) 4K Ultra HD
I can’t say I recall ever hearing anyone beg for a remake of Road House. The original 1989 film is both a product of the time it was made that can’t easily translate to the current day, and is still pretty much perfect for what it set out to be. The movie didn’t need a… Read More People Seem a Little Aggressive Around Here | Road House (2024) on Amazon Prime Video
For a cult film with such an exalted reputation, Road House winds up being surprisingly modest in scope or ambition when you watch it play out. As a young boy who hit his teenage years in the late 1980s, I’d of course seen the movie before, and more than once, but my last viewing was… Read More I Thought You’d Be Bigger | Road House (1989) Vinegar Syndrome 4K Ultra HD
The Netflix fantasy adventure film Damsel puts a modern feminist spin on some of the most traditionally sexist tropes of the fairy tale genre. That really shouldn’t be too controversial a thing to do, but because our real world is such a dumpster fire right now, probably will be. Some members of the viewing audience… Read More Distress Signals | Damsel (2024) on Netflix
Far off, in a harsh desert landscape isolated from the centers of civilization, a small pocket of humanity struggles to claw out a meager existence from the unforgiving environment. As if not difficult enough on its own, that challenge is made nearly impossible by sudden attacks from monstrous sandworms burrowing beneath the ground right under… Read More Underground Goddamn Monsters! | Tremors (1990) Arrow Video 4K Ultra HD
The Netflix series House of Ninjas is a fun throwback to the ninja-sploitation craze of the video rental era, when most Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stores had an entire section devoted to sword-wielding, kung-fu assassins who skulk around at night wearing footie pajamas and masks. Thankfully, in doing so, the show maintains a generally light… Read More Our Whole Family Is Normal | House of Ninjas Season 1 (2024) on Netflix
If not quite as satisfying (to old-school Generation 1 fans like myself, at least) as the 2018 Bumblebee prequel movie, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts works well enough in broad terms to prove that the franchise remains better off without Michael Bay at the helm. Sadly, the film continued the series’ downward trajectory at the… Read More Going Primal | Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) 4K Ultra HD
