Hollywood has been warning us about the dangers of A.I. for decades. Look to the Terminator franchise for the most famous example of that, of course. However, as A.I. tools work their way into the real-world film production chain, such that a good chunk of Netflix originals often feel like they were probably scripted by… Read More Don’t Be Fooled by the Bot That She’s Got | Atlas (2024) on Netflix
As the world celebrated Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part One as if it were the greatest science fiction masterpiece in the entirety of cinema history back in 2021, I was among the rare outliers who didn’t care for the movie. I found it a bore, and yes, I’m one of those weirdoes who prefers the David… Read More May Thy Knife Chip and Shatter | Dune: Part Two (2024) 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
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
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
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
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