A cyber-criminal on temporary release travels the world in order to catch another high-level cyber-criminal.
Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996) [Arrow Video Limited Edition]
When Graboids show up on Mexican land rich in oil, Earl Bassett is brought in to get rid of them again.
The “Police Academy” Collection [Blu-Ray]
I have a long history with the “Police Academy” movie series, as well as a lot of nostalgia attached to it. As a child who was attached to the television, I spent many a day watching the adventures of Mahoney and the Police Academy on WPIX Channel 11 here in New York. I often watched two to six on television and almost always had a blast with it. I was able to see “City Under Siege” in theaters, and stuck with it right through the end where it became a TV show, cartoon, comic series, and then an inevitable pop culture running joke. It’s a very of its time movie series that would be impossible to duplicate today, and that’s why I love it so much. Shout Factory releases a new edition of this series that is stuffed with bells and whistles, but leaves much to be desired.
I plan to review the full movie series in the future.
Eye for an Eye: The Blind Swordsman (Mu zhong wu ren) (2022)
A blind bounty hunter stops by a woman’s house to rest and wine. Soon, he finds himself involved in her revenge against those who have wronged her.
Leave the World Behind (2023)
“Lady, people aren’t chocolates. D’you know what they are mostly? Bastards. Bastard–coated bastards with a bastard filling.” – Scrubs
Director Sam Esmail’s “Leave the World Behind” is a mean, nasty, and cynical apocalyptic parable that stages the quintessential end of the world scenario but also takes a magnifying glass to humanity and the inherent paranoia that transforms a scenario from working together to survive, to survival of the fittest. While some of the symbolism is a bit clunky in some spots, “Leave the World Behind” is a very volatile and relevant take on how we’re more likely to pick at each other’s bones and fight for scraps when resources become finite. While that does feel like old hat post apocalyptic fodder, “Leave the World Behind” is refreshingly complex and quite horrifying.
You Have to See This! Shredder Orpheus (1989)
Now Available at Vinegar Syndrome.
The best way to summarize “Shredder Orpheus” is if “Gleaming the Cube” and “Videodrome” had a torrid violent, sexual love affair while high on shrooms that projected new wave music videos in to their brains, all the while the pair ended their rendezvous with a round of skateboarding. Courtesy of Boom! Cult and AGFA, Robert McGinley’s VHS SOV genre film is simultaneously oddly entertaining but also incredibly mind numbing. It’s a dystopian tale that seems to be working toward some kind of coherency at times, but occasionally gives up in exchange of using the budget to showcase skateboarding. In lieu of story there are just aimless scenes of people skateboarding.
The Bootleg Files: Dylan Thomas
BOOTLEG FILES 848: “Dylan Thomas” (1962 Oscar-winning documentary short featuring Richard Burton).
LAST SEEN: On YouTube.
AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: It doesn’t appear to have been released.
REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: There could be a rights issue preventing its release.
CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.
Here’s a question for Academy Award trivia buffs: What is the only Welsh film to win an Oscar? The answer is the subject of this week’s column: “Dylan Thomas,” which earned the 1962 Best Documentary Short Subject Award.
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