Director Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman” movie series has been very good so far. What’s kept the series from being great is the films’ lack of really interesting super villains that can make Diana’s heroic quest difficult. “Wonder Woman 1984” is a very good movie that has its sights set on paying tribute to the iconic heroine, and in those respects it’s a very good follow up to the original film—save for some glaring flaws that keep it from being a great follow up.
Category Archives: Collector’s Den
A Quiet Place, Part II (2021) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
A few years ago, John Krasinski pretty much took everyone by surprise by unleashing one of the most innovative and entertaining horror dramas of the mid-aughts. Often imitated but rarely duplicated, the “A Quiet Place” follow up was only inevitable, but it was fascinating to see if Krasinski could duplicate his original film’s success. While “A Quiet Place Part II” stumbles in a few places, the second chapter in the saga of the Abbott Family and their survival against the enigmatic monsters that consumed the world. Continue reading
Batman: The Long Halloween – Part Two (2021) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
Suffice to say that I haven’t been this entertained by a Batman animated movie since “Gotham by Gaslight.” Chris Palmer’s animated production of the 13-issue limited comic series by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale has been a masterful, absolutely mesmerizing amalgam of a murder mystery, mob thriller, relationship drama, and action thriller pairing Batman and his unlikely partner Catwoman against increasingly impossible odds.
Flight to Mars (1951): Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
Well, say what you want about “Flight to Mars” (reaching its 70th anniversary this year) but damn it, they make good on their promise in the title. There is definitely a flight to mars. It’s just a long, drawn out, monotonous, tedious flight to mars involving four boring male characters and one woman whose duties involve getting aggressively hit on by the spaceship’s captain, taking notes, and making the men coffee.
In Sp-a-a-a-a-ce!
House of Wax (2005): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Director Jaume Collet-Serra made his debut with a horror vehicle that was meant to basically cash in on the big tabloid sensation of the early aughts: Paris Hilton. According to most reports, “House of Wax” was built around her and the movie gladly doesn’t suffer for it. That’s mainly because Hilton’s on screen presence is so dull that she doesn’t overpower any of the cast, and “House of Wax” manages to power through as a fun, trashy slasher survival film when all is said and done.
Mortal Kombat (2021) [Blu-Ray/Digital]
Despite being one of the most violent games ever released (of its time), in the nineties studios worked hard to water down the series for a younger audience. With that, they effectively killed off any cinematic prospects for over twenty years after 1997’s embarrassing “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.” Now in 2021, Director Simon McQuoid brings us a new vision for “Mortal Kombat” that’s faithful in many respects, and embraces the gore and grue of the original games. It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it’s a damn good martial arts fantasy when all is said and done.
The Dead Zone (1983): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
Some of the best Stephen King book to screen adaptations has been television mini-series. That’s fascinating as “The Dead Zone” often feels exactly like a television mini-series. Despite David Cronenberg’s solid direction, “The Dead Zone” is often very episodic. It doesn’t have one streamlined narrative so much as it has vignettes that lead to what you could call the series finale. In retrospect after my first viewing, it’s not at all a surprise that the premise inevitably led to a television series.