16 Mar 2013, 3:05 pm
Exactly what the title says. Here are my five most recent:
All fourteen of the mostly excellent Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, made from 1939 to 1946. The better films in the series are some of the best Holmes films ever made, and even the worst of them are still decent. It's fun to watch the progression of the series, from Victorian adaptations to contemporary anti-Nazi spy thrillers to hard-boiled film noir. Seeing them remastered and in HD is amazing, since I had only previously seen the old, beat-up prints used for television that looked like they had been sitting in a warehouse for six decades. Picked this up for a steal (75% off MSRP) on Amazon Marketplace.
When it comes to horror comedies, Army of Darkness and Shaun of the Dead get all the praise, but I'll take Re-Animator over those any day. It's one of my favorite films from the 80s, one of my favorite horror films, and probably the best H. P. Lovecraft adaptation, not that that's saying much. I don't know why I never owned it on DVD, but I couldn't pass up the Blu-ray when I saw it at Best Buy for ten bucks.
I recently saw this movie when someone uploaded it to YouTube and I liked it enough to make up for my piracy by buying the DVD, which can be found brand new on Amazon Marketplace for less than five bucks. It's based on the early Turok comic books instead of the later comics and video games, so there are no machine guns or pulse rifles or cyborg aliens, but there's still plenty of good action involving Native Americans in a hostile Lost Land populated by dinosaurs and savage cavemen. It looks like a Saturday morning cartoon but it's as violent as Heavy Metal. A live-action version of this would be amazing.
It's sad that Infernal Affairs is mostly known today as the movie that The Departed is a remake of, but I guess I should be happy that it's getting any attention at all since it's a better film. I had seen it before on DVD but picked up the Blu-ray pretty cheap at a local used video store. I watched it this time with my sister in the room: she started off playing on her iPhone, not paying attention to the movie at all, but it slowly captured her attention and she was raving about it when it was over.
I've been reading David Morrell's First Blood, and it compelled me to revisit the Rambo films. You can get a two-film set with just First Blood and Rambo, which are the two best films in the series, but I thought "f**k it" and went for the set with all four. First Blood Part II and Rambo III are nothing amazing, but they're decent enough distractions and it's nice to have them.
16 Mar 2013, 4:33 pm
All in all, I think Band of Brothers is the better of the two.
However, the second half of The Pacific is simply brilliant because of the stellar performance by Rami Malek as Merriell "Snafu" Shelton.
16 Mar 2013, 5:27 pm
17 Mar 2013, 7:14 pm
13 Apr 2013, 1:00 pm
Good lord, I need to stay away from Best Buy, for the sake of my wallet.
Despite being a huge Godzilla fan, I had never actually seen this movie, since it didn't make it to DVD and Blu-ray until recently. It always frustrated me that I couldn't see it because I had been told that it was one of the better movies in the 28-film series. I had forgotten all about it until I saw the Blu-ray in the store last night for $7.99. Now that I've finally seen it, I can confirm that it's indeed one of the better Godzilla films, although I'm not sure it's good enough to recommend for someone who isn't already a fan.
After renting this movie and loving it, I held off on buying it because I was hoping the price would come down. No such luck, so I just said "f**k it" and grabbed a copy. Knowing my luck, it'll go on sale three days from now. One thing I find strange is that everything's on one disc: the Blu-ray, the Blu-ray 3D, and the digital copy.
After seeing Dredd, I though I'd check out that other action movie I had heard about, the one that's supposedly very similar to Dredd. Indeed, The Raid has some pretty striking similarities, right down to individual scenes, but the two movies are still different enough to make me think that plagiarism probably wasn't involved. Another similarity is that they're both damn good, two of the better action movies I've seen in a long time.
14 Apr 2013, 2:19 pm
11 May 2013, 2:00 pm
I've already written about this one in this topic.
Up until recently, finding these movies -- about a vengeful giant stone samurai god in feudal Japan -- has been a pain. They either weren't available or they had poor video quality and incorrect aspect ratios. Now the whole trilogy is on Blu-ray with perfect visuals, in a relatively inexpensive set. Now all I need is for someone to make Godzilla vs. Daimajin, and my life will be complete. (They should have at least made Gamera vs. Daimajin by now, since they're made by the same studio.)
I didn't want to start buying full season sets of Perry Mason; I just wanted sort of a Greatest Hits package, and this one fits the bill nicely. You've got 12 episodes with guest stars like Barbara Bain (from Mission: Impossible), Robert Redford, James Coburn, Adam West, Burt Reynolds, and Leonard Nimoy. You've got the only episode filmed in color. You've got the final episode. You've got the TV movie Perry Mason Returns, and a ton of extras. Not bad for less than $20.
11 May 2013, 3:15 pm
11 May 2013, 4:06 pm
11 May 2013, 10:18 pm
13 May 2013, 6:34 pm
More monster movie goodness from the filmmakers behind Godzilla. I can't help myself.
16 May 2013, 9:19 pm
I'm not supposed to be spending money right now, but these were dirt cheap on Amazon Marketplace, brand new.
Not full season sets, unfortunately, just the first half dozen episodes of the season... but still a damn fine deal.
17 May 2013, 4:32 am
24 May 2013, 9:27 pm
It's Hammer Time.
These movies have been a b!tch to find for years, and luckily they've recently been collected in this inexpensive set. I got it primarily for Dracula: Prince of Darkness, but Frankenstein Created Woman is a very welcome bonus. The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (a.k.a. "the kung-fu Dracula movie") is... something I'm not likely to watch any time soon.
I already own copies of Horror of Dracula and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. So why did I shell out the cash for this set? Because I wanted copies of The Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, and individual copies of those movies are outrageously expensive. In fact, they're slightly more than twice as expensive as this set! What utter nonsense.
25 May 2013, 8:36 am
I forgot to add this one in. This is what I decided on after looking around in Best Buy for almost half an hour. I decided I had wanted to pick this up since October but was unable to, so I got it for my birthday on Wednesday.
25 May 2013, 10:14 am
