Action
Rod Lott
While it's admirable that Parker is dedicated to the memory of Donald E. Westlake, the legendary crime author who wrote two dozen novels about the character under the Richard Stark pen name, this Parker is not his Parker. It's Taylor Hackford's, and the director continues to apply his nondescript, workmanlike touch to average material (see Love Ranch, Ray, Proof of Life, etc.). He neither improves it nor harms it; he simply keeps it afloat.

Thriller
Rod Lott
File 1965's Die! Die! My Darling! under that now-dead subgenre dubbed "Grande Dame Guignol." The Hammer Films production may lack the dueling duo of two twilight-era titans of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and the others, but truth be told, Tallulah Bankhead is fierce enough to provide all the fire it needs.

Horror
Rod Lott
While it's not entirely successful, The Town That Dreaded Sundown represents a big step up for Charles B. Pierce, the Arkansas filmmaker who made a cinematic cryptozoological splash in 1972's unlikely hit The Legend of Boggy Creek. 

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Ignore the grim, apocalyptic cover of this DVD, which depicts the flick’s vibe so inaccurately, it even drops the title’s exclamation point. Make no mistake: Mold! has mirth on its mind ... even if those brains have spilled onto the floor.

Documentary
Rod Lott
Thanks to Netflix, we are mere days away from being able to bite into Arrested Development’s long-awaited, never-thought-it-would-happen fourth season. In the meantime, you might be inclined to consume The Arrested Development Documentary Project as an appetizer, seeing as how the documentary is now available on demand from FilmBuff.

Horror
Rod Lott
H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air is really Albert Pyun’s Cool Air. The notorious director of the aborted Captain America and the should’ve-been-aborted Kathy Ireland vehicle known as Alien from L.A. is up to his usual inert tricks. It shows from the start, which forces viewers to read six title cards in two long minutes.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Imagine waking up in a river with a nasty cut on your forehead, a gun, a bag full of millions in cash and no memory of who you are. For many, we call this Monday. For the purposes of this review, however, we call it ID:A.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Who's Minding the Mint? is the kind of comedy they don't make anymore: all-star and mad, mad, mad, madcap. It was released in 1967, which is the year that such old-Hollywood projects were put out to pasture by such edgy fare as The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde. I'd argue Mint — while pure, cotton-candy fluff compared to those prestige pictures — has aged every bit as well.

Action
Rod Lott
Like many, my first exposure to Jackie Chan was through 1981’s The Cannonball Run. That doesn’t count.

Action
Rod Lott
Let us now praise a giant of action cinema: Bruce Lee. It seems like a good time, given Shout! Factory’s reissuing of four of the man’s marital-arts titles via a pair of double-feature DVDs: one with 1971’s The Big Boss and 1972’s Fist of Fury, the other with 1972’s The Way of the Dragon and 1978’s partly posthumous Game of Death. In total, that’s three-point-two-five good movies.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Despite how Warner Archive has branded it, 1963’s FBI Code 98 is not — repeat: not — film noir. All film noir is crime, but not all crime is film noir. That vaulted subgenre requires darkness, whereas this feature is so light and breezy, it’s practically a recruiting tool for the federal agency. It even has its own marching music.

Television series
Rod Lott
Until Warehouse 13 and Haven came along, Syfy’s idea of an original series was a largely frightening prospect, and for good reason. I’d been led to believe that its short-lived Flash Gordon update (2007-08), carrying bad buzz before it aired, was one of those train wrecks.

Drama
Rod Lott
Its technology will be dated hopelessly within a few years, but for now, Disconnect stands as an accurate parable on the dangers of the Internet.

Action
Rod Lott
You’ll hear the phrase “hot mess” bandied about the whole of Iron Man 3. For a while — the entire first act, really — the film embodies it, minus the hot.

Comedy
Rod Lott
Following its hilarious Father’s Day, the ’80s-obsessed Canadian quintet known as Astron-6 unleashes another inspired homage/parody in Manborg. Instead of vengeance, sci-fi is the skewered genre of choice. And Manborg is indeed choice.