Megan Is Missing
‘Megan’ is annoying
Girls, Guns and G-Strings: The Andy Sidaris Collection
Super-cheap, super-great set of 12 films blending T&A and TNT
National Lampoon’s Dirty Movie
Well, at least they tried something different.
Warehouse 13: Season Two
Syfy's slyest series
I Spit on Your Grave (1978/2010)
If it doesn't bother you, there's something wrong with you
Beneath the Dark
Mildly spellbinding, well-made indie thriller
Stan Lee’s Superhumans: Season One
Interesting stuff, but a bit too drawn-out
The Six Million Dollar Man: The Complete Collection
40 discs. 40.
Scream / Scream 2 / Scream 3
The younger are they are, the worse off
Galaxina / The Crater Lake Monster
Two totally unexpected Blu-ray remasters
Tuesday 22 May
OKG Newsletter
DVDs
Rogue River / The Collapsed
All washed up, all fall down.
Cinema Verite
Be glad their family isn't yours.
Drama
Rod Lott
In 1971, the all-American, Nixon-loving clan known as the Loud family made history without even trying. They just allowed cameras into their lives for six months, and the result was PBS' An American Family, television's first reality series.
The Aggression Scale
Home, sweat home.
Thriller
Rod Lott
True to its title, The Aggression Scale begins quite aggressively: A woman just done with her daytime jog enters her home, whereupon a gunshot blasts her back out to her front yard. A hit man emerges and snaps a Polaroid for proof.
Dark Crimes
How to kill 3,640 minutes of time wisely.
Thriller
Rod Lott
Mill Creek Entertainment’s budget pack of noir, Dark Crimes, strongly goes against the notion that films in the public domain are there because they aren't any good. That’s nonsense.
The Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls
Horror
Rod Lott
On the bloody heels of Something Weird Video's The Blood Trilogy comes another Blu-ray of pioneering indie filmmaker Herschell Gordon Lewis' well-known works. The disc may hold one feature fewer, but high-def beggars can't be choosers, so chew happily on what you got: 1970's The Wizard of Gore and '72's The Gore Gore Girls, which would be his last directorial effort for more than 35 years.
Knights of the Round Table
Good ‘Knight’? Not quite.
Drama
Rod Lott
From 1953, Knights of the Round Table proudly boasts the CinemaScope logo as it opens, trumpeting itself as an epic Hollywood costumed drama on a massive scale: no expense spared, no detail ignored. And no story engagement.
Chronicle
Proof that high school would've been more fun with superpowers.
Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
With an abusive, alcoholic dad and a dying mom, high schooler Andrew (Dane DeHaan, TV's In Treatment) has bought a secondhand video camera to record his life. This decision proves most convenient when he and two classmates are imbued with superpowers after running across an alien life force deep within a pit.
Sherlock: Season Two
Elementary? More like excellent.
Television series
Rod Lott
Dismiss any worries you have that the sophomore season of BBC's smash Sherlock may not live up to the first. It does. One could even argue for surpassing it, but such debate is needless; excellence is excellence.
A Bullet for the General
¡Viva la revolucion!
Western
Rod Lott
Set right smack in the Mexican Revolution, A Bullet for the General unloads roughly several thousand rounds of ammo for one explosive epic of a spaghetti Western starring two of the genre's faves, Gian Maria Volonté and Klaus Kinski, both graduates of Sergio Leone's classic For a Few Dollars More.
One for the Money
Now go, Kat, go! Away.
Mimic 3 Film Set
A triumvirate of vermin.
Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Assuming you’ve yet to acquire the director’s cut of Mimic that Lionsgate unleashed to Blu-ray last fall, I’d suggest opting for its new, franchise complete 3 Film Set. Only Guillermo del Toro’s 1997 original played theaters, while the two sequels went the direct-to-DVD route, on purpose.
The Swell Season
Lightning strikes ‘Once.’
Documentary
Rod Lott
Remember how joyous you felt at the end of 2006's excellent Irish indie Once? Well, The Swell Season is why there is no sequel. Hell, it practically is the sequel, only factual instead of fictional.
Death and Cremation
Either beats taxes.
Thriller
Rod Lott
Two outcasts are better than one in Death and Cremation, a better-than-average indie thriller, thanks mainly to mood. Even the smallest of budgets can afford that, yet few think to invest in it.
Flareup
Raquel-a-go-go!
Thriller
Rod Lott
Raquel Welch never quite landed on the A list, but not for a lack of trying. It's just that so many of her projects (Bedazzled, One Million Years B.C., Fathom, Myra Breckinridge, et al.) required little more of her than her assets. At least she shakes those with the best of them as a go-go girl on the go — and on the run — in 1969's Flareup, fresh from the MOD ovens of Warner Archive.
Underworld: Awakening
Kate plus bait.
Action
Rod Lott
After sitting out the 2009 prequel, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Kate Beckinsale and her skintight, black-leather outfit return for Underworld: Awakening, the fourth and likely not-final entry in the mindless but massively popular vampires-vs.-werewolves franchise. Also back? That omnipresent blue tint. Not so lucky? Scott Speedman.
