Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

The name's Fanon. Jerry Fanon.

Actor James Coburn is no stranger to the world of superspy franchises, having worked through the lighthearted Derek Flint pictures of the 1960s. 1979's "Firepower" has a bit of James Bond envy, with "Death Wish" director Michael Winner working to mount his own take on exotic locations, golden women, and roughhouse men attempting to save the world. A brawny, noisy movie, "Firepower" is a reasonable facsimile of a Roger Moore-era 007 adventure, favoring excessive characters, stunt-heavy action, and a few secret agent tricks. However, Winner isn't entirely out to replicate, adding his own extremes to the effort, laboring to energize a plot that's basically a basic bounty hunter story into a towering display of excitement. The feature almost gets there, aided by a few violent chases and escapes, but it's not the most stimulating endeavor, periodically lost in laborious expositional banter that doesn't widen the scope of the hunt as profoundly as the production imagines. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

About 17 years ago, when I attended a midnight showing of "The Beyond" during its brief Quentin Tarantino-approved re-release, I received my first look at Duke Mitchell's "Massacre Mafia Style" (a.k.a. "Like Father, Like Son" and "The Executioner"). The trailer (later revealed to be the opening sequence of the endeavor) was a display of ultraviolence and unintentional comedy that blew my mind, sharing a bizarre vision of mass death, bad acting, missed cues, and big hair that proved to be irresistible, triggering an immediate need to see the film. Contact would come years later at a cult movie society screening, which utilized a print that was likely used as finish line tape for local marathons, leaving the viewing experience unstable, mucking with Mitchell's idiosyncratic vision. Now "Massacre Mafia Style" has arrived on Blu-ray with a revived image and clear soundtrack, allowing B-movie daredevils and the curious an opportunity to view the effort as Mitchell intended, permitting appreciation for its substantial passion, iffy creative choices, and torrent of violence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Don't Go in the Woods" is as close to a cinematic representation of a stroke as I've ever seen. The 1981 shocker seems like a cruel joke from director James Bryan, who, all fueled up on the slasher craze of the era, elected to try out his own take on the permissive subgenre, moving the action into the wilds of Utah mountain areas. Surrounding himself with friends and family, armed with script credited to Garth Eliassen, Bryan fights for some type of cinematic vision with "Don't Go in the Woods" (sometimes known as "Don't Go in the Woods…Alone!"), but filmmaking skill eludes the man. Stumbling through a series of casual kills with unidentified characters, the effort looks to chill viewers with displays of random violence and agony, but it mostly confuses in a way I've never seen from a horror picture. Without boundaries and sense, Bryan coughs up a greatest hits reel of pain, trying to pass off the wildly scattered results as some type of parody, but it's mostly just nonsense, albeit periodically amusing nonsense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There is a vibration of life that runs through "Memphis," which eschews a straightforward narrative approach to soak up the details of the famous city and the picture's star, musician Willis Earl Beal. Playing a variation of himself, Beal is our guide to madness, watching the broken bluesman attempt to consider his limitations during a potent period of creative blockage, dealing with impatient record label executives and various supporting characters in his life, including his son. Insular but effective, "Memphis" is an evocative odyssey into confusion and the responsibility of influence. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Reflecting a country in the midst of a seismic cultural change, cinema of the 1960s attempted to address the ills of a nation. Following a trail set by psychedelic drug use and political upheaval, filmmakers set out to create eye-popping, feral pictures that would appeal to a younger audience, often transforming parental figures and the rest of the establishment into villains, demonizing their authority and commitment to greed. A lesser known entry in the "groovy, man" uprising is 1969's "Cult of the Damned" (a.k.a. "Angel, Angel, Down We Go"), a movie that doesn't have much in the way of dramatic firepower, but it's drenched with period-specific malaise and rock and roll influence, emerging as a musical crossed with a teen angst drama, with elements of horror, abstraction, and daredevil sports poured into the brew. It's exhaustively repetitive and brutally snail-paced, but for those who automatically embrace counterculture cinema generated during this particularly volatile era, "Cult of the Damned" is a lost entry in the freak-out subgenre. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although it teases the presence of political debate with a hot potato subject, "Charlie Wilson's War" is more of a cocktail hour movie, treating significant world events as everyday business. Focusing on American influence during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the picture shies away from the grim details of the conflict, preferring to explore its rather unlikely genesis, with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director Mike Nichols (this being his last film in an amazing career) creating a sense of playfulness while juggling troubling facts, trying their best to keep the true-life tale approachable despite its substantial carnage, underhanded dealings, and eventual ties to American disaster. It's not entirely successful as a comedy, but "Charlie Wilson's War" has a certain spring in its step that keeps it appealing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The world is changing, always evolving. "Earth: A New Wild" is a five-episode series dedicated to understanding how nature is coping with its future, sending host Dr. M. Sanjayan around to numerous continents to discover the secrets of planetary growth and how extremes as processed by animal life. Through "Home," "Plains," "Forests," "Oceans," and "Water," "A New Wild" takes time to study impending disaster and hope for a brighter tomorrow, focusing on human involvement to help ecosystems and creatures along, working diligently to correct many mistakes made along the way. It's an epic look at the corners of Earth and its mysterious ways, with Dr. Sanjayan excited to share his often remarkable findings with the viewer. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I wouldn't plan for an elaborate dinner and exquisite dessert before screening the German film "Wetlands" at home. It's not a movie made to stoke appetites, it's a restless creation hoping to repulse in a myriad of ways, endeavoring to find beauty within the folds of unrepentant illness. Based on a novel by Charlotte Roche, "Wetlands" sets out to the capture the head rush of a broken adolescence, with all its impulses, curiosities, and emotional unrest, and the feature is certainly vivid enough to reach a few high points of frightfully detailed experience that are rarely explored on-screen. However, its visual intensity is tiring and incessant shock value tends to weaken already feeble emotionality present later in the picture. This is certainly unforgettable work, but often for the wrong reasons. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Not only is 1959's "Ten Seconds to Hell" a genuine nail-biter, but it manages to find another corner of WWII history to explore, pulling emphasis away from the Allied effort in Europe to explore tensions in Germany during the initial phases of reconstruction. Adapted from a Lawrence P. Bachmann book and directed by Robert Aldrich ("The Longest Yard," "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?"), the feature hands viewers a unique perspective, tracking the conflicts and confusion of six disgraced German soldiers who've accepted a bomb disposal detail that seldom permits a happy ending. It's a flipside of wartime honor and duty that isn't frequently explored, observing the shell-shocked reaction of traditional enemies now in charge of piecing together a shattered country. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before the great Elmore Leonard adaptation explosion of the 1990s, bringing the likes of "Get Shorty," "Out of Sight," and "Jackie Brown" (based on his novel, "Rum Punch") to the big screen, there were slim pickings when it came to authoritative productions using the author's colorful and threatening literary world. 1986's "52 Pick-Up" makes a game attempt to commit Leonard's universe of tough guys and big problems to celluloid, even attracting John Frankenheimer as a director — perhaps the most leathery moviemaker working at the time. Even armed with surefire elements of sleaze and underworld chicanery, "52 Pick-Up" barely registers a heartbeat, stumbling through a confused narrative that strives to examine a man facing the biggest mistake of his life, but ends up detailing the actions of three impossibly idiotic thugs, which throws off the intensity of the effort. Select scenes crackle with tension, and star Roy Scheider does his professional duty to make his character appear together when he's actually falling apart, but this isn't steady work from Frankenheimer, who's lost in the particulars of porn and criminal buffoonery, never achieving necessary suspense. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The full title is "Love is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Bacon," which might be a play for irony from writer/director John Maybury, who doesn't actually make sense of his subject despite having the cinematic tools to do so. A blizzard of images with the occasional blip of emotional clarity, "Love is the Devil" is more of a sensory experience, finding the viewer blasted with the mere idea of Bacon's intricate appetites in both art and sex, not necessarily gifted a concrete vision of creative stimulus and domestic intent. It's raw, unhinged work, but it's often caught servicing Maybury, not the needs of drama. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The American Slave experience on film tends to follow a set course of merciless violence and dramatic despair. "The Retrieval" makes a valiant effort to remove itself from customary images of plantations and seething white characters, electing for an intimate tale of connection between lost souls, taking the action to the forests and creeks of the country. It's a Civil War picture that's barely about combat, instead working to find other corners of history to mine as it builds a powerful relationship between its main players and explores their unique bond during a time of constant threat. Spare and heartfelt, "The Retrieval" is exceptional work from writer/director Chris Eska, who takes time with his script to extract as much self-examination as possible, deepening the personalities as they struggle with the reality of the changing nation, fighting for their lives along the way. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Director Antonio Margheriti made a name for himself with 1964's "Castle of Blood," a gothic horror effort beloved by fans of the genre. That same year, the helmer returned to duty with "The Long Hair of Death," a similar feature in tone and candlelit threat, continuing a career quest to explore dark shadows and eerie events. "The Long Hair of Death" is stocked with ghoulish developments and duplicitous characters, but that lack of pace ends up crippling a promising chiller. As much as Margheriti would like to scare the pants off viewers, he would be better off trying to keep them awake. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

More notable than 1972's "The Offence" is the story concerning how movie was actually funded. Star Sean Connery, pulled back into James Bond duty for "Diamonds are Forever," contractually demanded a greenlight for two additional pictures of his choosing, hoping to burn off the 007 blues with a heaping helping of serious dramatic work. Well, he wasn't messing around, as films do not come more sobering than "The Offence," an adaptation of the John Hopkins play, which features an intense dissection of psychological strain and a particularly volatile sense of gamesmanship involving the law and human weakness. Directed by Sidney Lumet and co-starring Trevor Howard, the effort is bleak and unforgiving. No wonder Connery had to use his Bond clout to nudge it into production. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Jake Paltrow, son of Bruce and brother to Gwyneth, made his feature-length directorial debut with 2007's "The Good Night." A successful foray into dreamscapes and loneliness, Paltrow showed surprising confidence with the effort, overseeing strong performances and a distinct visual style to start his career on the right foot. "Young Ones" is his long-overdue follow-up, and the wait between projects may have hurt the helmer in the long run. An ambitious attempt to marry literary-style storytelling with a cinematic futureworld of misery, the picture is mostly paralyzed by its intentions, unable to gain much traction as a family drama or as an examination of dystopian panic. Although created with care, boasting impressive tech credits, "Young Ones" doesn't generate much tension or post-show reflection, working a bit too hard to emerge as artful and important when it's barely interesting, prone to wandering instead of remaining dramatically commanding. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While 1963's "The Girl Hunters" isn't the most rousing picture, it does offer the rare sight of an author portraying his own literary character on film. Mickey Spillane suits up for duty as private detective Mike Hammer for the feature, challenged to come up with a satisfying performance that matches his legendary writing. Pre-leathered, mumbly, and mischievous, Spillane is an interesting choice to topline this adaptation of his 1962 novel, but, in the end, he's not a performer, often revealing frustrating rigidity while his co-stars confidently manage lukewarm material. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A film of unfortunate timing, 1976's "The Missouri Breaks" arrived in theaters boasting the participation of stars Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. It was a heavyweight battle of thespians brought on by prior triumphs such as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Godfather," solidifying the leads as legends in their field. Arriving in the shadow of future classics is a cruel fate for any feature, but Arthur Penn's "The Missouri Breaks" was hit particularly hard by its production position, delivering an askew, permissive western with no real shape to an audience expecting a clash of the titans. Time has been kind to the endeavor, allowing modern viewers a chance to embrace the picture's compelling eccentricities without the burden of outrageous expectations, at least those beyond the basic thrill of watching two of the finest actors in movie history slap on gun belts and chase each other around the old west. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before "Rocky," Sylvester Stallone was just an average working actor in Hollywood trying to make a living. After "Rocky," he was transformed into a screen legend, riding a reputation as a cinematic hero to box office success and Oscar gold, making him one of the biggest stars of the 1970s. The follow-up to his little movie that could was 1978's "F.I.S.T.," a feature that attempts to deliver a disquieting look at the rise of the labor movement in America, co-scripted by Joe Eszterhas (his first produced work) and directed by Norman Jewison. With Stallone's participation, "F.I.S.T." is more of a light slap when it comes to challenging methods of union influence, instead trying to find heroism in this thinly-veiled take on the Jimmy Hoffa story. Numerous elements flatline in the film, but Jewison does pull a fine performance out of Stallone, padding the picture with enough talent and sequences of fiery indignation that propel the overlong, undernourished effort along. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

With the movie industry on the prowl for adventure stories during the 1970s, the work of Edgar Rice Burroughs was mined on several occasions, with director Kevin Connor leading the filmmaking charge on efforts such as "The Land That Time Forgot" and "The People That Time Forgot." "At the Earth's Core" was Connor's second round with Burroughs, with the 1976 endeavor using established creative momentum to plunge into the center of the planet, meeting all types of monsters and mayhem while keeping star Doug McClure employed as the go-to guy for Burroughs-inspired heroism. A B-picture with wonderful passion for the material, "At the Earth's Core" has its issues with pace and repetition, but it's immense fun at times, utilizing creative special effects and spooky villainy to support a run of gallantry and primal survival sequences, using the novel's influence to jumpstart an endearingly set-bound extravaganza that, at one point, features a fire-breathing frog. It's impossible to deny a movie that favors such a bizarre sight. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's plenty of bizarre cinema out there to sample, yet few have the capacity to both horrify and delight quite like 1991's "Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky." Based on a Japanese manga that reveled in violence, the film adaptation isn't one to let fans down, ordering up a buffet of carnage that includes impalements, disembowelments, beheadings, skinnings, and a considerable loss of limbs. A wildly over-the-top effort, "The Story of Ricky" is also aware of its extremity, often caught braiding emotional sincerity with cinematic absurdity. The narrative does take a few naps as it slowly unfolds, but storytelling isn't a top priority here. Director Lam Nai-choi is more enlivened by the challenge of orchestrating macabre antics between feuding characters, splashing blood and screams all over the frame as every martial arts-based encounter turns into an occasion to detail excessive gore. There's a certain thrill in viewing such goofball hostility, and the feature isn't afraid to go absolutely bonkers when necessary. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com