DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

Godzilla flies! Godzilla vs. Hedorah is one of the most creative of all of the Godzilla flicks. It’s also one of the least successful due to its dark themes, dark tale, and even darker shoot. Opening with a disturbing shot of a female mannequin face up in some toxic sludge  ...

Are you Team Godzilla or Team Gigan?  Because, in the fight against giant mutated cockroaches, it matters. Yes, alien cockroaches are behind the plans to do away with Godzilla and his pal, Anguirus, who swim across the ocean to save mankind from having their home ...

Grateful Dead.  Janis Joplin.  The Band.  Buddy Guy.  What do they all have in common?  Well, other than being fantastic rock bands, artists, and live performers, they once upon a time in 1970 shared the same train as it traveled through Canada and played a series of  ...

Directed and produced by Howard Hawks, Red River is proof that, if pushed by the demands of a well-written script, John Wayne could actually act.  I am not a Wayne fan by any means but my father raised me on a steady diet of Sunday westerns and I’ve seen more than ...

The pervading metaphor of “Manifest Destiny” as American soldiers turn to cannibalism in the 1840s is what sells director Antonia Bird’s horror film and makes it worth revisiting.  Ravenous was released in 1999 and, sunk by mediocre to poor reviews, most ignored the film  ...

Seven months after the 2nd Mass arrives in Charleston, the gang realizes – what with new characters, new aliens, new technology, and new presidents – that all is not what it seems.  Perhaps the viewer will too.  So much has happened in the gulf between Season Two ...

The story of the 47 Ronin is by all accounts the most famous story of samurai in the history of Japan. Many plays, books, films have apparently been dedicated to the true story of 47 samurai who would accept certain death themselves to avenge the unjust death that befell  ...

In 1922 a naughty fledgling German production company stole the story of Dracula by Bram Stoker and made one of cinema’s most revered horror movies: Nosferatu. Prana Film went bankrupt with their first and last production after Stoker’s widow successfully sued  ...

The fans complaining that AMC’s Duck Dynasty has changed or stayed from its roots are disappointed because they are only just now realizing that this “reality” program is in fact a sitcom – which means it is fake as hell. It is formulaic, scripted, and plotted. It is also still very funny and worth a look for its fans ...

They’re humans turned inside out and still alive! Famed B-movie producer strikes again. This time he brings slippery Italian Fishmen to the silver screen in the heavily re-worked (or butchered as some would suggest) Screamers. Of course, in keeping with Corman’s  ...

A fun-filled weekend for some park rangers and their girlfriends turns deadly when they find themselves on the wrong side of a killer’s blade in The Final Terror. Long out of print and available only in the dingiest of VHS rental dives after a super quick theatrical release, this ...

What has been seen can never be unseen. It is a saying as old as the wise man who told it to me and Cannibal Holocaust – with its graphic rape, cannibalism, torture, and on-screen REAL killing of animals – is proof of that. . The scenes depicted in director Ruggero  ...

Helix, when you get to the midway point of Season One, will otherwise be known as a squandered possibility.  Don't believe me?  Well, watch for yourself. Co-produced by Ronald D. Moore (of the re-outfitted Battlestar Galactica fame), Helix: Season One, a Syfy Channel ...

The documentary Kids’ Rights: The Business of Adoption jumps all over the place, in terms of its topics and locations. Filmmakers Olga Rudnieva and Michael Dudko, who want to adopt, travel to various countries to learn more about the process. They meet with lawyers ...

Mad genius. Visionary. Prophet. Egomaniac. Whatever word you use to describe cult film director Alejandro Jodorowsky would probably be correct. This Chilean-French filmmaker is also a playwright, an actor, an author, a musician, a comic book writer, and a spiritual guru  ...