I have a soft spot for Predator 2, even if the movie may fail pretty badly at its intended purpose as the sequel to a bona fide action masterpiece. Taken on its own, as a schlocky B-movie about a grizzled urban cop fighting a superhuman hunter from outer space, the picture has a lot of… Read More A New Player in Town | Predator 2 (1990) 4K Ultra HD
Although LucasFilm’s animated Star Wars: The Clone Wars initially seemed to come to a close back in 2014 after six very successful seasons, it showed up again in 2020 for a bonus seventh season that felt like it finally brought the narrative to a conclusive end. Even after that, however, creator Dave Filoni is apparently… Read More Star Wars Odds & Ends | Tales of the Jedi Season 1 (2022) on Disney+
In Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind The Shape of Water (2017) steps into Alfred Hitchcock’s shoes to act as both producer and on-screen host of an anthology drama series. Following his own proclivities, the show is more overtly horror-oriented than just mystery or suspense. In addition to Alfred Hitchcock Presents,… Read More Tales from del Toro’s Dark Side | Cabinet of Curiosities (2022) Netflix Series Premiere
Having subjected myself to one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s very worst movies, the only sensible course of action would be to revisit one of his very best. Although greeted with mixed reviews upon release, Predator was a sizable box office hit in the summer of 1987 and has grown substantially in critical appreciation over the years.… Read More Ol’ Painless Is Waitin’ | Predator (1987) 4K Ultra HD
By this point, 25 years since its debut, I suspect that the only people who would still willingly subject themselves to Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin must fall into one of three categories: 1) Franchise completists who feel compelled to watch every entry no matter what, 2) Bad movie aficionados who revel in its awfulness,… Read More Stone Cold Awful | Batman & Robin (1997) 4K Ultra HD
After four seasons playing around in HBO’s Westworld, husband-and-wife producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have moved over to Amazon with another high-concept sci-fi property, a series adaptation of William Gibson’s 2014 novel The Peripheral. Rather than robots, this one’s about VR and time travel and…. well, yeah, some robots too, as it turns out.… Read More Ready Inception One | The Peripheral (2022) Amazon Prime Series Premiere
Reboots of long-running horror franchises so rarely work out that it’s a wonder producers keep trying them. The 2009 Friday the 13th and 2010 A Nightmare on Elm Street were both dead on arrival, and the Halloween series has turned into such a running joke of multiple reboots overwriting one another that no one can… Read More Put a Pin in It | Hellraiser (2022)
Riddle me this: I was enormously popular yet everyone hates me now. I star multiple Oscar- and Golden Globe-winning actors yet every performance is terrible. I feature the so-called “world’s greatest detective” and make him look like an idiot. What am I? Why, of course we’re talking about 1995’s Batman Forever, the first of two… Read More A Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma | Batman Forever (1995) 4K Ultra HD
Batman Returns, the immediate sequel to the 1989 smash hit, is redeemed mainly by association with its predecessor. It’s a Batman movie directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton, one of only two. Those aspects give it a certain cachet among fans who continue to hold it in some high regard, even if, to… Read More The Cat, the Bat, and All That | Batman Returns (1992) 4K Ultra HD
Based, at least nominally, on the open-world RPG video game Cyberpunk 2077 (which was in turn based on a 1988 tabletop game originally just called Cyberpunk), the new Netflix anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners plays like it could be a gonzo extension of the Ghost in the Shell franchise, if hopped up on meth and hallucinogens.… Read More Psychosis in the Shell | Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 1 (2022) on Netflix
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