I have long since lost count of how many times I’ve watched the 1986 animated The Transformers: The Movie in my life. A pivotal part of my childhood, I know it practically backwards and forwards, and assumed it could hold no further surprises for me. However, the chance to sit with my 8-year-old son as… Read More Such Heroic Nonsense | The Transformers: The Movie (1986) 4K Ultra HD
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
With Hellraiser under his belt, Clive Barker proved himself to be not just a compelling author, but also a talented filmmaker on the rise. Of course, more film projects went right into development. Unfortunately, his second movie, 1990’s Nightbreed, was both a critical and commercial dud that nearly derailed Barker’s directorial career. In fact, he’d… Read More Commies, Freaks, and Third World Y-Chromosome Mutants | Nightbreed (1990) Director’s Cut Blu-ray
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
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
Clive Barker’s stylish, creepy Hellraiser made such a splash in 1987 that studio New World Pictures moved quickly to cash in with a sequel ready for release less than one year later. With Barker himself and most of the original cast still attached, Hellbound: Hellraiser II is often regarded as the best of the many… Read More Your Suffering Will Be Legendary | Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Blu-ray
The feature filmmaking debut for up-and-coming author Clive Barker, Hellraiser represented an attempt to produce what we might now call an elevated slasher movie. That was a risky proposition to deliver into a cinema landscape dominated by jokey genre schlock at the time. Amazingly, despite initially mixed reviews and modest box office returns, the little… Read More Demons to Some, Angels to Others | Hellraiser (1987) Blu-ray
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 on a wildly popular bestseller, directed by a filmmaker hot off his buzzy breakthrough, and starring a mega-wattage cast headlined by a certified superstar, the film adaptation of Interview with the Vampire was one of the splashiest movie releases at the tail end of 1994, seemingly preordained to be a monster blockbuster and the… Read More Tom Cruise Sucks | Interview with the Vampire (1994) Blu-ray
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