It would be impossible to make an argument against the case of "Adventure Time" being a cultural phenomenon. Launched in 2010 from Cartoon Network, the series was the brainchild of Pendleton Ward who served as storyline writer for eight of the series' 10 seasons amongst other credits. Over nearly a decade since the Finn the Human (voiced by Jeremy Shada) and Jake the Dog (voiced by voice acting legend John DiMaggio) treated viewers to a whimsical, irreverent and wholly original adventure in the debut episode "Slumber Party Panic", the series has gone on to spawn countless off-shoots. Numerous video games that captured the spirit of the show even when some were plagued by rote gameplay, multiple comic lines, and entire games spawned from the series' unique parody of pop culture have captured the imagination (as well as wallets) of fans, both fanatical and causal alike. However, as the old adage g...Read the entire review

Country music, much like any genre of music is bound to evolve as the years go on and new artist emerge to add their own flavor and make their mark on the world. Time Life's latest release, a massive nine DVD set covering the CMA Awards from 1968-2015 is a remarkable collection of live performances at the industry's biggest awards show and in the process, provides a fascinating timeline of the evolution of country music (at least from the 60s on). Running a little over 11-hours, the "CMA Awards Live" release is far from a comprehensive look at each year's hot acts and performers. Across the nine DVDs, a smattering of performances are included along with the occasional acceptance speech and then oddly enough, the ending credits for that year's awards ceremony. However, despite the 1968-2015 moniker in the title, not every year's awards are highlighted and as I'll mention later, oddly, some bigger...Read the entire review

Long before Guillermo del Toro's magnificent "The Shape of Water" wowed audiences and critics alike with a supernatural fantasy of a woman falling in love with a "fish-man", Stuart Gordon, legendary purveyor of (often Lovecraftian adapted) horror films, offered his take on two of H.P. Lovecraft's famous short stories, "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Dagon" respectively, in his 2001 film "Dagon." Filmed in Spain, "Dagon" is an ethereal horror film through and through, blending tremendous atmosphere, Lovecraft's legendary brand of dread and macabre, and Gordon's unflinching auteur's eye to offer nearly 100-minutes of well-crafted horror that will remain in your psyche after the disc is out of the case and back on the shelf. Long available on DVD, Lionsgate brings "Dagon" to Blu-Ray for the first sporting a digitally remastered transfer and a bevy of bonus features for fans and newcomers of the crim...Read the entire review

To call Sergei Parajanov's 1969 masterpiece "The Color of Pomegranates" a dense film is a vast understatement. I will be full in my disclosure that the film's release on Blu-Ray from Criterion is not only my first viewing of the film, but my first introduction to Parajanov. The film itself was a source of controversy upon release, drawing the ire of Soviet Communists, resulting in a ban and eventual re-editing by Sergei Yutkevich, leaving the film six-minutes shorter than its directors intended vision. At its most basic core, "The Color of Pomegranates" is an interpretation of the life of Sayat-Nova, an Armenian poet and musician who lived in the 1700s. In a fashion fitting the subject, Parajanov conveys the major thematic points of Sayat-Nova's life through living poetry, breaking the film into solitary segments that represent the progression form birth and childhood to death. The film, while ...Read the entire review

Larry Cohen's 1996 return to blaxploitation "Original Gangstas" exists as a unique blending of the old-school and new-school. Cohen's own directing career kicked into high gear with a pair of genre classics, "Hell Up in Harlem" and "Black Caesar" both starring Fred Williamson in what are arguably his most well-known roles. Williamson himself is easily argued as a genre superstar and if one were crafting a Mount Rushmore of the great leading faces of the blaxploitation years, Williamson would easily deserve a spot alongside the likes of Richard Roundtree, Pam Grier and Jim Kelly. "Original Gangstas" assembles this quartet alongside the equally notable Ron O'Neal and Jim Brown for what should have been one final great hurrah for this group of talented individuals as well as a passing of the torch to the focus of the genre on inner city street gangs.

Filmed and set in the impoverished locale o...Read the entire review

Stephen Frear's "Victoria and Abdul" marks 20 years since Judi Dench returns to the role of Queen Victoria, a role which she garnered critical acclaim, including a Best Actress Oscar nomination in John Madden's underrated "Mrs. Brown". While "Mrs. Brown" focused on Queen Victoria's relationship with her servant John Brown in the years following the death of her husband, Prince Albert and the ensuing rumors and scandal following it, "Victoria and Abdul" follows similar, historically based ground, this time in the final years of Queen Victoria's life and her relationship with Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a Indian prison clerk brought to England for a normally forgettable moment of pageantry, who quite literally catches the Queen's eye and is soon swept into her confidence.

While "Mrs. Brown" explored the improbable friendship and possible romantic relationship between a grieving monarch and her les...Read the entire review

Chances are if you were watching HBO around the height of the "Westworld" craze, you saw the mysterious and slick ads for "The Young Pope". With a thumping brooding techno beat viewers were offered the intrigue of the Vatican through the story of unconventional looking Pope played by Jude Law. Unfortunately, despite the mesmerizing teasers, I never actually got around to watching the miniseries until months after it's Blu-Ray release and to be honest, I never heard any buzz about it good or otherwise. Screened at the Venice Film Festival and making the rounds on European television months prior to its HBO debut, Paolo Sorrentino's ten-hour miniseries is perhaps a series best digested via a Blu-Ray release.

"The Young Pope" is a series that rewards the patient viewer who is willing to accept ambiguity and non-closure. At its core, it's the tale of Lenny Belrado (Jude Law), an orphan raised ...Read the entire review

Director Richard Stanley is not likely a household name to the average filmgoer; while most recently he has come into the public eye again through "Lost Soul" the fascinating documentary chronicling Stanley's failed Hollywood breakthrough via a now legendarily bad adaptation of "The Island of Doctor Moreau," Stanley remains an independent auteur in every sense of the word. His early 90s cyberpunk near masterpiece "Hardware" likely remains his best work, while "Dust Devil" should be a film with more acclaim than it receives (likely the effect of massive tinkering by Miramax upon its stateside release). Stanley has another filmmaking side, one of a documentarian focused on the odd and obscure. Stanley's 2013 documentary "The Otherworld" arrives via a very noteworthy Blu-Ray release and offers viewers possibly the most calm Stanley offering in quite some time.

Running around an hour and 45-min...Read the entire review

Gerry Anderson's "Thunderbirds" series may not have a bulky catalog of offerings compared to other series', but over the span of its 50-year existence, it has had an influence on a number of projects and for fans of the series, remains a steadfast entry in the 60s sci-fi genre. For myself personally, I like many non-Thunderbirds fans came to know of the series during the leadup to Trey Parker and Matt Stone's "Team America: World Police" a cutting political/action satire that employed puppets in the same style as Anderson's much more family friendly yet still technically impressive work. Over the decades, "Thunderbirds" have existed as a TV series, spawned two major follow-up films "Thunderbirds are Go" and "Thunderbird 6" which is the focal point of this review, a mid-2000s live-action film, and a remake/re-imagining that began its run in 2015.

Despite having still never watched the origina...Read the entire review

Although "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" may have been the tenth of thirteen films helmed by Sam Peckinpah, compared to his final three big screen efforts, it is in many ways the last film with the Peckinpah style. Arriving on the heels of the troubled "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kidd," "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" sees Peckinpah in the director's chair as well as the co-writer's seat, telling the timeless tale of morally questionable characters engaging in often amoral behavior. Set in the dusty underworld of Mexico (an underworld that is far more romantic than the modern cartel influenced settings as portrayed in "Traffic" and "Sicario"), Peckinpah's tale follows Bernie (Warren Oates in a career highlight), a hard-lived former soldier, crooning with drunk tourists in a grimy Mexican bar who sees a chance at quick cash by tracking down the titular character.

Peckinpah has gone...Read the entire review

From 1999 through roughly 2001, Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike served up some of the most talked about films of his career, from the slow-burning horror of "Audition" to the infamous ultraviolent excess of "Ichi the Killer" there seemed to be nothing Miike wasn't able nor willing to create. As time has gone on, Miike has slowed down his own output (although two to three a year films is still an astonishing number for any filmmaker) and used his own credibility as a modern auteur to offer up some truly moving, technically accomplished works of cinema, including the kinetically charged "13 Assassins" and dramatic "Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai". Going back to the heyday of "old school" Miike stands one of his more noteworthy, or at least remembered series of films, the "Dead or Alive" trilogy. Produced in 1999, 2000, and 2002 respectively, all bear the hallmarks of Miike's other output, including...Read the entire review

Two decades after its release, it's incredibly easy to take "Microcosmos" for granted. In an age where we are graced every few years with a stellar, Sir David Attenborough helmed nature series such as "Planet Earth" or "Life", it's easy to forget that at one time, broadcast TV quality was the best look many of us were getting of the natural world around us. Now, 1080p HD, if not outright 4K Ultra HD gives us as clear a view into the macroscopic and microscopic world as one could get without stepping for in nature. "Microcosmos" though, was that one chance viewers had to see a stunning view of the small-scale world on the big screen itself, provided they were willing to trek to the theaters for its limited initial release. Now, 21-years later, "Microcosmos" makes its debut in 1080p HD giving viewers an all new view of a classic in the nature documentary genre.

Crafted from the minds and eff...Read the entire review

It's not often that a franchise horror film requires a great deal of effort to watch in terms of back story. When I first approached "Phantasm Ravager" for review, I was expecting another quirky horror film, similar to the previous four films I had vague memories of watching 15-odd years ago. The film starts off innocuously enough, with series hero Reggie (Reggie Bannister) wandering the desert we last saw him in, looking for his prized Barracuda. It's not long after an exciting highway chase involving the iconic Sentinels (those cool looking flying metal spheres with a host of terrible weapons of destruction); suddenly though, we find a very tired and haggard Reggie in a hospital, sitting bedside is Reggie's friend and second series hero Mike (A. Michael Baldwin). It's quite obvious Reggie is suffering from dementia and both Reggie's reality and the reality of the Phantasm series is put into qu...Read the entire review

With the sixth and final season of "The Wonder Years" receiving its individual release officially marks the end of an era for many DVD collectors. Long anticipated but thought to be an impossibility, it's still stunning to realize Time Life was able to release the seminal series given the multitude of music rights issue surrounding it; save for a few unobtainable songs, the sixth and final season of the series arrives with little fanfare (truth be told, most fans likely snagged this as a complete series release a few years back). In the 22-episodes that make up the release, the saga of Kevin Arnold (Fred Savage) winds to an end, marking a journey from middle school through high school for a character who represented the average American teen of the 1960s.

A large theme running through the final season of the series is bidding farewell to old memories and embracing the unknown; the series beg...Read the entire review

The vigilante film often takes one of two paths: the brooding character study and the exploitation piece. The "Death Wish" series for instance started as a character study and then quickly morphed over multiple sequels into over-the-top exploitation, propelling a mild mannered architect pushed by tragedy to reclaim his streets into a dispenser of justice on par with any overly muscled action star of the day. "The Demolisher" a low-budget 2015 offering from Canadian writer/director Gabriel Carrer attempts to straddle both those lines in a scant 85-minutes including credits. The tale of Bruce (Ry Barrett) a cable repairman who finds himself caring for a wife badly injured in a gang ambush while on duty as a cop. In the darkest moments of the night though, he dons riot gear and sets his sights on retribution as the titular figure.

The mere concept of "The Demolisher" makes it an intriguing od...Read the entire review

1992's "Howards End" marked the third Merchant Ivory production of an E.M. Forster novel, following "A Room with a View" and "Maurice." Nominated for nine Academy Awards, "Howards End" would wind up bringing home Best Actress (for Emma Thompson), Best Adapted Screenplay (Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's second for a Merchant Ivory production), and Best Art Direction. With a runtime of nearly two-and-a-half hours, "Howards End" is the rare quiet character drama that feels like it runs half that amount. The production assembles an accomplished cast, including Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Helena Bonham Carter, and Prunella Scales, to name a few highlights. Set in the early 1900s, "Howards End" is a classic Forster tale of social classes mixing against type and the personal ramifications that result. Approaching its 25th anniversary in 2017, "Howards End" sees its second Blu-Ray release, repl...Read the entire review

For the past decade or more, AMC has been leading the charge in terms of quality TV storytelling, beyond the major hits such as "Mad Men", "Breaking Bad", and "The Walking Dead" there are a number of other series that garner their own level of notoriety and following. 2015's "Into the Badlands" is one of AMC's more ambitious offerings, bringing "Smallville" creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar back together to tell one of the first martial arts oriented series since the ill-fated UPN offering, "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues". Opening with one of the more jaw dropping TV action set pieces, featuring series hero, Sunny (Daniel Wu) squaring off against a cadre of nameless raiders who seem to have been plucked straight out of the "Fallout" game series; the kinetically charged sequence is a strong mix of traditional martial arts, wire-work, and a healthy dose of lethal swordplay; it very easily secur...Read the entire review

While the fourth season of "Arrow" was fighting a losing battle to keep viewers entertained, CW's other DC offering, "Flash" was leaving a strong sense of deja-vu on viewers with a sophomore season that really upped the ante in terms of storytelling, following a shaky, but overall, entertaining debut season. While the first season of "Flash" didn't necessarily wow me, it had its fair share of shocking plot twists and more surprisingly moments of heart and emotion that "Arrow" had never really touched on. Tying action, drama, and suspense together was an earnest, natural sense of humor led in no small part by series star Grant Gustin. Gustin's Barry Allen, despite all the growing pains of a new series, was a hero we wanted to see win and a more importantly a hero anyone could feel proud to cheer on.

The second season of "Flash" accomplishes a great number of things over its 23-episode run. ...Read the entire review

CW's 2012 debut of "Arrow" did a number of things for the network: it helped to wash away the bad taste left in the mouths of many superhero fans from "Smallville's" epic run that really didn't resemble much of a comic book show AND it was the catalyst for what is now a network running strongly on the back of a shared comic book themed universe. Following the trend of what is much maligned by viewers and critics of DC's Cinematic Universe, "Arrow" borrowed heavily from Christopher Nolan's grim-and-gritty Batman aesthetic, following our hero Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) from his return from the dead to his assumption of Starling City's Vigilante. While the show was an unequivocal hit its freshman season, there was a large contingent who desired "Arrow" to more quickly offer up a character who resembled his comic origins.

Season two would be a step in the right direction with Queen shunning hi...Read the entire review

2012's "The Hollow Crown" was equal parts an ambitious and surprising production. Presented in four parts, it adapted "Richard II", "Henry IV: Parts 1 and 2", and "Henry V" for a modern audience abridging the story for a more feature-length presentation and updating dialogue for a more modern ear, without betraying the heart of Shakespeare's original prose. The project starred an impressive cast of British actors, although Tom Hiddleston Prince Hal and Jeremy Irons' Henry IV stood out in the realm of spellbinding. Four years later, the second Hollow Crown cycle picks up with Shakespeare's "Henry VI" before naturally progressing towards a conclusion with "Richard III". "The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses" is brought to life by the same behind-the-scenes team, but with an updated cast and in a world where "Game of Thrones" has become an HBO hit, allowing Ben Powers and Dominic Cooke to ever s...Read the entire review

I'm going to go out on a safe limb here and say Neil Simon's "The Odd Couple" is one of the greatest comedies of the 20th century. Finding its way from the stage to the now iconic pairing of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon as the slovenly Oscar Madison and neurotic Felix Ungar respectively, the film managed to work its way into a very exclusive club when in 1970 it was adapted for television, replacing Lemmon and Matthau with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, whose performances honored their big screen counterparts while managing to tread expanded ground as provided by the television format. Running only five seasons, the (first) TV incarnation of "The Odd Couple" has aged like fine wine over the decades and cements a place in the books of many comedy fans as one of the more worthy entries in the genre. Like all successful endeavours, having a hit film and TV series wasn't enough and the 80s would of...Read the entire review

The miniseries remains one of television's most time honored storytelling traditions. Growing out of necessity to tell stories that were too involved (or perhaps not marketable enough) for the big screen, the miniseries' heydey was arguably the 1970s. From the legendary "Roots" to the somewhat forgotten "Rich Man, Poor Man", the miniseries offered viewers, who were willing to commit to an hour or two of dedicated program over a stretch of multiple evenings, a tale not hastily edited to fit a two-hour time block, but rich storytelling, often adapted from behemoth sized novels, peppered by casts of genre stalwarts and occasionally, Hollywood's biggest stars making rare appearances on the small screen. Now, nearly three decades after its troubled production, Eric Jonrosh's "The Spoils of Babylon" gets a commercial release, albiet in a much truncated format form his original 22-hour vision.

Nev...Read the entire review

In my city, there's a monthly event at a local theater called, "B-Movie Bingo" wherein moviegoers come to watch a VHS of a crappy 80s or 90s film on a screen that is capable of handling 70mm and compete to complete their bingo card of genre cliches (i.e. villain in white suit, three mustaches on screen at once, severed limb, high fault, etc.). A training video showing numerous examples of these cliches is shown prior to every film and for a few years now a clip of a deranged looking man/monster getting hit in the head with a basketball with such force his head explodes entirely has captivated me. What does this have to do with "The Immortalizer", a straight-to-VHS horror film offering of the late 1980s? Well, at a glance, the villain on the cover resembled the man/monster from that video clip and my curiosity to find context behind the clip was piqued.

"The Immortalizer" is a baffling piece...Read the entire review

Sosometimes all you need to see is a cast list for a film to catch your fancy; such was the case with 2015's "Unnatural" part of the "8 Films to Die For" series of smaller budget horror film offerings. In this case, it was the names James Remar, Sherilyn Fenn, and Ray Wise that raised an eyebrow from this reviewer; the simple thought of two of "Twin Peaks"' greatest characters along with the always interesting, grizzly Remar, made the thought of watching a previously unheard of horror film all the more palatable. Add to that mix an Alaskan setting, talks of genetic experiments gone awry and a small supporting role by Graham Greene, and on paper, "Unnatural" sets itself up for at least an average B-movie offering.

Written by co-star Ron Carlson, "Unnatural" is a cracking little horror offerings for its first 30-40 minutes as it largely focuses on Carlson's role as a fashion photographer out i...Read the entire review

"Go! Tell the Spartans" is a tidy little late 70s offering tackling the subject of the US involvement in the Vietnam War that I'd make a safe bet in saying likely waned from the public mindframe following Coppola's epic "Apocalypse Now" a scant year later. Helmed by Ted Post, a veteran of both the big screen and small screen, "Go! Tell the Spartans" is a questionable two-hour offering that draws more on Post's stylings as a small screen director, taking cinematic endeavour such as the Vietnam War and honing in on the heart and soul of the futility of war through broad character studies. A film in the vein of Samuel Fuller's "The Big Red One", "Go! Tell the Spartans" anchors its saga around Major Barker (Burt Lancaster), an Army man through and through, tasked with commanding a motley crew of young men, each with a different journey leading them to Muc Wa, the film's home base.

Adapted from D...Read the entire review

In hindsight, "MI-5" was most likely a film I should have done some research into before blindly jumping into and agreeing to review; however, for those like me, wholly unfamiliar with the BBC series "Spooks" (or "MI-5" as it was called in the US), the film offers an interesting perspective into jumping into a longstanding series (in this case 86 episodes in). "MI-5" or "Spooks: The Greater Good" as it was called in the UK is a spy thriller/action film chronologically set after the end of the series and features Peter Firth as Harry Pearce, the head of British Intelligence, or MI-5 as its better known. Joining Firth are a number of additional series stars as well as Jennifer Ehle and Kit Harrington as two characters crafted solely for the big screen outing. Weaving in and out of the worlds of shadowy, "real world" espionage and cinematic grandiosity, "MI-5" is a head scratching hour and forty min...Read the entire review

A Golan-Globus Production. For those unfamiliar with the 80s giants of schlock and excess, I suggest you seek out "Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films" and see first hand the cinematic treasures and atrocities (sometimes the two were one and the same) unleashed upon filmgoers of the 1980s. For the familiar, you know already what you were in store for when that three word phrase opened a movie. Of all the Golan-Globus/Cannon productions that were box office successes and bombs, I will argue none distilled the insanity of 80s action cheese and rampant jingoism than "Invasion USA", a Chuck Norris action vehicle that preyed upon all our biggest community fueled, xenophobic fears and simultaneous desire for a beacon of machismo to keep us safe in our capitalist wonderland.

Opening with a shockingly convoluted premise (it takes probably 30-minutes before everything is clear)...Read the entire review

Penelope Spheeris' follow-up to her iconic punk rock documentary, "The Decline of Western Civilization" ventured into territory familiar in many broad strokes to the punk scene, but at the core, quite often the antithesis, with an exploration of the 80s heavy metal/glam metal scene in the logically titled "The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years". Full disclosure up front, I'm no real fan of punk and my overall interest in metal doesn't really align with the subjects in Spheeris feature by-and-large, however Spheeris talent as an observer and show person allow the feature to transcend standard boundaries. The standalone Blu-Ray release was not my first encounter with this film that had been MIA on home video for years; captivated by the decadence I encountered on an old VHS copy nearly two decades prior, all the right notes were hit when revisiting this semi-milestone in rock docum...Read the entire review

It's been nearly five years since US fans of Hideaki Anno's "Rebuild of Evangelion" series have had an entry in the tetralogy. Produced in 2012, in Japan, "Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo" answers the long awaited question of "what next" that was so aptly stated at the end of "Evangelion 2.22" with the chilling closing line, "this is the end of the world." For reasons I don't know, nor can discern, US audiences have been awaiting answer to this question for four years longer than their Japanese counterparts, which honestly had me as a fan coming to terms with the second entry possibly being the last for English language audiences. Fortunately after much delay, "Evangelion 3.33" rockets onto Blu-Ray and DVD and waylays fans with the answers they were looking for and a host of new questions.

I won't lie, ev...Read the entire review

Back in October I had the opportunity to review two classic James Garner western comedies, "Support Your Local Sheriff" and "Support Your Local Gunfighter". Marked improvements over their antiquated MGM releases, Kino's DVDs were nice upgrades for fans of the films. Now, Twilight Time offers up fans an HD offering of both films on one Blu-Ray in one of their limited edition releases. As I had previously reviewed the films less than half a year ago, my thoughts have remained unchanged and the movie review section of this review is taken from my previous reviews of each standalone DVD.

SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL SHERIFF

Having made a career both behind the lens and the typewriter for a number of lessons, when it came time for genre veteran, Burt Kennedy to film the 1969 western comedy, "Support Your Local Sheriff!", the outcome was likely to go two ways: an end product that is comfortabl...Read the entire review

Another day, another WWE film. This time it's a sequel from a nearly decade old WWE film, "The Condemned". Starring "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, "The Condemned" was WWE Films' third major effort following the horror flop "See No Evil" and the John Cena vehicle that failed to reach its destination, "12 Rounds". Far from high art, "The Condemned" was essentially aping the "Battle Royale" phenomenon but instead of social commentary and schoolkids, threw together a bunch of nasty convicts along with a few not-so-bad, down on their luck cases. While "The Condemned" ended with all its loose ends tied up, one would wonder how a sequel could exist; well, in typical WWE Films fashion, it's a sequel in name/concept only, this time replacing a bonafide legend and national treasure with, well...Randy Orton. Not a slouch in the ring by any means, Orton is no Austin, especially when it comes to the mic. The...Read the entire review

It can often be a blessing and a curse to have the ability to revisit films from one's youth. As I learned whilst reviewing "Greatest Heroes of the Bible", nostalgia is a dangerous tool; it can instantly suck you into a bygone era and bring forth happy memories of a simpler time, but before the credits roll, have just as easily shattered those memories when you realize what you held so dear, was in fact, quite insufferable. The latest Scream Factory double feature targeted my nostalgia button with the inclusion of creepy memories of "Millennium" a sci-fi offering of the late 80s starring Kris Kristofferson. Along for the ride is another 80s offering, "R.O.T.O.R" (or "Blue Steel" as its title card reveals, likely changed to avoid confusion with the police thriller of the same name). While "R.O.T.O.R" had somehow never made it on my radar, one thing was clear from just cracking this disc out of th...Read the entire review

Sho Kosugi is arguably to ninja films what Shintaro Katsu was to the "Zatoichi" series. While Kosugi didn't make a career playing the same character, he did feature prominently, most often as lead hero in several 1980s-era ninja films. "Pray for Death" was Kosugi's fifth nina-centric film of the decade, following up such cheesy, but delightfully entertaining nonsense such as "Enter the Ninja" and "Ninja III: The Domination" (a third entry in the vague sense, it was his third ninja film in a row). "Pray for Death" would be one of his last major roles, as his role in the 90s seemed to take him behind the camera, before re-emerging in 2009 as the villain in the ultraviolent, CGI-infused modern ninja spectacular, "Ninja Assassin".

"Pray for Death" is a film unlike Kosugi's previous efforts, trading the very serious business of non-stop ninjitsu for a melodramatic narrative of ninja turned busin...Read the entire review

Nostalgia is a double-edged sword. Although I wasn't alive for the initial run of the "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" series, I have a soft spot for hazy memories of re-run and syndicated TV of the late 80s and 90s. As often was the case in such programming, I would find myself exposed to many a mediocre TV star often billed as a much larger draw than they actually were. Now, when you take this sort of programming and mix it with an attempt at epic storytelling on a very small network TV budget, you wind up with "Greatest Heroes of the Bible". Spanning 15 episodes that defy time and space, making each 50-minute installment feel like a feature-length B-roll on a Cecil B. DeMille epic, "Greatest Heroes of the Bible" with a very straight face attempts to offer viewers a greatest hits series of dramatizations of all your favorite Bible stories, well...at least those not featuring the Bible's most wel...Read the entire review

Although I've never read James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge's "Zoo" personally, the synopsis I read as I initially watched "Zoo" the TV series over the summer, made me appreciate on a very basic level what CBS chose to do over the course of its 13-episode debut. The premise is simple: animals are rising up and killing humans across the globe. From lions on the Savannah to Antarctic birds at a research station, it's quite clear humanity's place on the top of the food change is quickly going to change. Enter Jackson Oz (James Wolk) and Abraham Kenyatta (Nonso Anozie) a zoologist and safari guide respective who are present for the series precipitating event, a very aggressive lion attack in Africa. A little bit of additional exposition here and there, add in French intelligence agent, Chloe Tousignant (Nora Arnezeder), journalist Jamie Campbell (Kristen Conolly), and world wear veterinary patholo...Read the entire review