Television series
Rod Lott
XXIV, VXI, XXX, IV, X — hell, it's all Greek Roman to me. All I know for sure is that each and every box set that has been or will be released of Mystery Science Theater 3000 is worth owning. Since the new Volume XXIV falls into that category, it, too, qualifies.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Compared to the continent of Europe, the rate of death by guns in America is six times higher. You wouldn’t know it based on the current wave of crime films from that half of the globe. Arguably kicked off by the worldwide success of Sweden’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, the movies generally are ballsier and bloodier and, therefore, better.

Action
Rod Lott
In the heyday of DVD, 20th Century Fox brought a lot of contemporary Asian actioners to disc in affordable, collectible editions under the “Hong Kong Legends” banner: Eastern Condors, Magnificent Butchers, Knockabout, In the Line of Duty 4, City Hunter, Naked Killer, My Lucky Stars. Watching The Outlaw Brothers reminded me of those glorious times.

Hip Hop/Rap
Ryan Querbach
Atlanta rapper and one-half the legendary duo Outkast, Big Boi has released his new solo project, Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors. It’s far from a typical hip-hop album; every song has a different feel to it, sometimes even stepping outside of the genre.

Documentary
Rod Lott
I was incorrect in thinking the documentary I Am Bruce Lee wouldn't reveal anything new about the screen's greatest martial artist. While not exactly earth-shattering, the facts I learned numbered many.

Thriller
Rod Lott
Following a half-dozen Perry Mason movies into the Warner Archive store are the half-dozen Philo Vance films that make up his Murder Case Collection. While S.S. Van Dine’s “dilettante detective” is nowhere near as well-known today as Erle Stanley Gardner’s attorney-at-law, this is the better set by bounds.

Action
Rod Lott
Ignore the Weinsteins’ needless re-christening of the Hong Kong film Wu Xia as the ever-generic Dragon. The important thing is that director Peter Chan (The Love Letter) has made not only one of the better martial-arts pictures of the new millennium thus far, but one that holds appeal to audiences not attuned to the genre.

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.