Released December 22, 1989, the action blockbuster Tango & Cash was (alongside Steven Spielberg’s Always) literally the last movie of the 1980s. Big, loud, dumb, and defiantly unwilling to take itself seriously for even a second, the film could almost be read as commentary on a decade famous for its excess, and a genre that… Read More Good Old American Action | Tango & Cash (1989) Blu-ray
When trailers for the upcoming remake of The Crow were unveiled earlier this year, fans of the original 1994 film were left appalled. True enough, the old movie already had some pretty lousy cash-in sequels, but most of those went direct-to-video and were easily ignored. Even three decades later, something about the prospect of rebooting… Read More Guy Shows Up Looking Like a Mime from Hell | The Crow (1994) 4K Ultra HD
Of the small wave (apologies for the pun) of deep-sea thrillers that hit movie theater screens in 1989, Leviathan was neither the most nor the least successful of the bunch. The film scored mostly poor reviews and failed to recoup its budget at the box office, but at least did better than Deepstar Six or… Read More Not Down Here for Fun | Leviathan (1989) 4K Ultra HD
Discounting his debut on the schlocky Piranha II: The Spawning, which the filmmaker himself leaves off his résumé, 1989’s The Abyss remains the only box office failure James Cameron has directed to date. Since emerging with The Terminator in 1984, Cameron has helmed one blockbuster hit after another, including two (Titanic and Avatar) that respectively… Read More Are We Talkin’ Little Space Friends Here? | The Abyss (1989) 4K Ultra HD
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
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
Even though David Lynch may not have had anything to do with making it, the 1993 noir thriller Red Rock West features an interesting convergence of actors who had recently worked with the director, albeit not at the same time. With Nicolas Cage (Wild at Heart), Dennis Hopper (Blue Velvet), and Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin… Read More One Lucky Son of a Bitch | Red Rock West (1993) Blu-ray
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
Released in early 1992, advertising for the crime thriller Deep Cover played up star Laurence Fishburne’s involvement in the previous summer’s breakout hit Boyz n the Hood and generally tried to connect the film to the run of other so-called ‘hood movies that had made waves during that period. Although it scored positive reviews from… Read More A Scumbag for the Right Side | Deep Cover (1992) Criterion Collection Blu-ray
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