The Daimajin Trilogy (3-Disc Limited Edition) (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movies:For the uninitiated, in 1966 Daiei Studios in Japan released a trio of monster movies about a giant stone golem that looked kind of like an old fashioned samurai who would periodically come to live and trash evildoers. A mix of Samurai films like Rashamon and Kaiju films like the studio's own Gamera pictures, the Daimajin films stand as a pretty unique entry in the pantheon of giant monster movies and they hold up well even by modern standards thanks to some creative storytelling and great effects work.Arrow Video now brings the entire trilogy to Blu-ray in a features-laden collection that handily bests both the old ADV DVD set and the Mill Creek Entertainment Blu-ray release from 2012.Here's a look at the three films in this setISC ONE: DAIMAJINIn this installment, the first in the series, an evil...Read the entire review »

Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (Blu-ray) by William Harrison THE FILM:I cannot say I was really jonesing for a sequel to The Hitman's Bodyguard, the entertaining but totally forgettable 2017 action flick in which Ryan Reynolds plays a bodyguard charged with protecting Samuel L. Jackson's hitman on his journey to testify against a dictator. The two leads return here, as does Salma Hayek, for a violent, profane second chapter that feels like it could have been made a decade ago thanks to some outdated and underwhelming humor. Reynolds and Jackson obviously have success in comedic and action roles, but Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is the kind of loud, generic action film that is destined for cable TV. Patrick Hughes returns to direct but leaves little impression, and the film's three screenwriters struggle to mix action, drama and comedy into a cohesive whole. Perhaps the mos...Read the entire review »