Even though the first attempt to make a theatrical feature film (in animated form) based on Hasbro’s popular Transformers toy line resulted in a big box office bust back in 1986, the property remained too valuable over the years to resist trying again. By 2007, visual effects technology had evolved and improved to the point… Read More Car Picks the Driver | Transformers (2007) Blu-ray
It seems that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade wasn’t Indiana Jones’ last crusade after all. Just shy of two decades after director Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford seemingly closed the book on their iconic archaeologist adventurer, producer George Lucas convinced them to pull the old fedora and bullwhip out of storage one more… Read More That Can’t Be Good at All | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 4K Ultra HD
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade almost was, and in many fans’ estimation probably should have been, the last adventure for the iconic screen hero. After the disappointing (yet still extremely profitable) Temple of Doom, the film was a significant return to form and offered many unmistakable notes of closure to bring this blockbuster trilogy… Read More You Call This Archaeology? | Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 4K Ultra HD
Whether it be a case of selective memory or rose-colored glasses, I find it fairly amusing the way disgruntled Indiana Jones fans, when complaining about how much they dislike later entries in the series, tend to either forget that Temple of Doom happened or act like it was ever one of the good ones. The… Read More Anything Goes | Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 4K Ultra HD
With the combined talents of George Lucas as producer and Steven Spielberg directing, I don’t think anyone ever doubted that Raiders of the Lost Ark would be another big smash. Between Jaws and Star Wars, the two men had each only recently held the title for the highest-grossing movie of all time, back-to-back, Spielberg handing… Read More It’s Not the Years, Honey | Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 4K Ultra HD
The first live-action Transformers movie directed by someone other than Michael Bay is, not coincidentally, the first live-action Transformers movie that’s any good. Because we live in an unjust world, 2018’s Bumblebee was also the lowest-grossing Transformers film up to that point by some considerable margin. As someone who grew up in the 1980s with… Read More That Was Radical! | Bumblebee (2018) 4K Ultra HD
The qualities that caused Dragonslayer to fail at the box office in 1981 are very likely the same reasons the film has endured for so long as a cult item with many passionate fans. Released at a time when what passed for movies in the fantasy-adventure genre were typically jokey and juvenile in nature (see… Read More We Shall Live and the Beast Shall Die | Dragonslayer (1981) 4K Ultra HD
As a young film student in 1993, I walked out of the theater ecstatic about Tony Scott’s True Romance. I went back to see it a couple more times, but couldn’t convince any of my friends to go with me. From the title, they all assumed it must be a sappy rom-com that would hold… Read More If I’m With You, Then I’m With You | True Romance (1993) 4K Ultra HD
Released in the highly-competitive 1999 fall movie season against dozens of good-to-great films from other major artists, Steven Soderbergh’s modest crime thriller The Limey slipped through the cracks and drew little attention. Although kindly received by critics, it made no money and, even a couple decades later, remains one of the director’s least-seen works. Yet… Read More You Tell ‘im I’m Coming | The Limey (1999) 4K Ultra HD
Culture often seems to move in thirty-year cycles. Growing up back in the 1980s, it felt like nostalgia for the 1950s was everywhere, as my parents’ generation hit middle age and started pining for their own youths. Now here we are another three decades hence, only to find the United States in a renewed Cold… Read More Don’t Think, Just Do | Top Gun: Maverick (2022) 4K Ultra HD
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