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
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
After more than a decade exploring other subjects and genres that interested him, filmmaker David Cronenberg returned to the so-called “body horror” cycle of his early career with the 1999 thriller eXistenZ. While the director himself has argued that this particular movie was more science-fiction than horror, the connective tissue (in multiple senses) with his… Read More Death to Realism | eXistenZ (1999) Vinegar Syndrome 4K Ultra HD
Nostalgia is a trap that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny both comments upon and falls victim to. The fifth entry in the venerable franchise arrives fifteen years after the last one, which was itself already nineteen years after everybody already assumed that the Indiana Jones Trilogy had satisfactorily concluded. Coming so late, the… Read More Yesterday Belongs to Us | Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) 4K Ultra HD
Before leaving his native Hong Kong, John Woo had already established an international reputation as one of the most exciting action film directors in world cinema. Naturally, Hollywood eventually came calling, luring him westward with the promise of bigger projects and bigger paydays. It would take a few attempts to get there. First, he’d make… Read More The Most Van Dammerous Game | Hard Target (1993) 4K Ultra HD
Intended as his final movie for the Hong Kong film industry before leaving for the bigger paydays awaiting him in Hollywood, 1992’s Hard-Boiled was also something of a Greatest Hits package for director John Woo. Featuring his frequent leading man Chow Yun-Fat, the film playfully recycles many of the themes and tropes the two of… Read More Tequila Straight Up | Hard-Boiled (1992) Hong Kong Rescue Blu-ray
If the financial failure of Blade Runner in 1982 posed a serious setback for the director, his next feature project, Legend, was the film that broke Ridley Scott. Although his career would recover and he’d go on to be nominated for several Oscars over time (some of dubious merit, if you ask me), the film’s… Read More No Light without Darkness | Legend (1985) Arrow Video Limited Edition Blu-ray
