Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai - The Criterion Collection (Blu-ray) by Tyler Foster When the mob makes the risky decision to take out a made man, Louie (John Tormey) turns to the one guy he knows he can trust: the quiet, eccentric Ghost Dog (Forest Whitaker). Ghost Dog carries himself less like an assassin and more like a samurai, following the tenets of the Hagakure, right down to his belief that he is Louie's retainer (follower of a lord) after Louie saved his life years earlier. He can only be contacted by carrier pigeon, and his closest friend is an ice cream vendor named Raymond (Isaach De Bankole) who speaks French, a language he doesn't understand. The hit itself goes smoothly, but nobody involved expected Louise (Tricia Vessey), daughter of big boss Vargo (Henry Silva), to be a first-person witness to the murder. Worried about being implicated in the hit, Vargo orders his men to kill Ghost Dog, setting off a circuitous chain of events he could not have for...Read the entire review »

The Great Alligator - aka Il fiume del grande caimano (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movie:Sergio Martino's 1979 man versus nature film, The Great Alligator (previously released on DVD by No Shame Films under the alternate title of The Big Alligator River), is pretty much Jaws in the jungle with an alligator instead of a shark. Martino's film can't even try to deny the influence that the world's most famous shark film had on their film, there's simply no way around it. This film is pretty much a rip off of Spielberg's classic. That doesn't stop this goofy, low budget shlock fest from being a whole lot of fun, however, and while it isn't going to win any award for originality or for what many would consider to be ‘good' special effects, it's entertaining in its own semi-stupid way.The premise on this one is simple enough: a resort developer named Joshua (Umberto Lenzi favorite Mel Ferrar of Eaten Alive and Nightmare City) ...Read the entire review »