2016-17 TV Season Recap Part 1

Previous TV Season Recaps – (2013-14 | 2014-15 | 2015-16)

2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 2 (Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Legion, Riverdale)
2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 3 (24: Legacy, South Park, Horace & Pete, Stranger Things)
2016-17 TV Season Recap, Part 4 (Glow, Defenders, American Grit, Ballers, Leftovers, Game of Thrones)

It is time for my annual TV season recap blog. Check out the links above to previous seasons in case you missed them. Like last year I wound up keeping up with a few too many TV shows so I will split this up into a few parts and link them above. For part one, I am going to focus on the four TV shows I followed based on DC Comics properties.

Gotham - If you thought last season of Gotham was off-the-rails, then be prepared for a whole new level of craziness for season three. I do not know where to start. How about with my only real qualm being, like in actual comics is that no one stays dead. Thanks to the science experiments of Hugo Strange (BD Wong), he keeps finding ways to bring back past fallen villains of the show, for better or worse. Yup, the writers found another way to bring back Fish Mooney (Jada Smith) for a few more episodes this season, and she is just as dreadful to endure as past seasons.

We do have a few new villains join the fray this season, and if you grew up with the classic animated Batman TV show you will be delighted to see Mad Hatter (Benedict Samuel), Poison Ivy (Maggie Geha) and Mr. Freeze (Nathan Darrow) join the mix of the ever-growing list of Gotham antagonists. The big foil this season is a blood virus that Mad Hatter unleashes upon the city of Gotham that turns people into blood-lusting lunatics. It affects a number of major and minor players on the show this season and watching them succumb/overcome the disease lead to some compelling television.

Other favorite parts of this season for me are the constant love/hate/love relationship between Penguin (Robin Taylor) and Riddler (Corey Smith). Both wind up playing the political field this season before declaring war on each other to amusing results. Another constant dynamic I enjoyed playing out through the season was Barb (Erin Richards) getting more twisted each episode as she bosses around Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) and Butch (Drew Powell) to do her bidding to middling results. Once again, Ben McKenzie and Donal Logue nail the roles of the two primary detectives Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock. Bullock is now the head of Gotham PD and Gordon starts out as a private detective hauling in baddies on his own terms. His season arc is unbelievable if I lay it all out for you now so you just have to tune in to see it. Finally, David Mazouz is really coming into his own this season as Bruce Wayne. He spends most of the season feuding with the underground Gotham society, the Court of Owls. I loved that comic arc from a few years ago and really dug Gotham’s take on that faction.

There is so much more that happened this season and other major characters I have not even touched on yet. It does get to be a bit much to keep track of, but last season I just said “screw it” and rolled with whatever Gotham threw in my face and let the recaps starting off each episode serve as a much-needed refresher. I very much enjoyed this season, and my only takeaways are Fish Mooney and a couple other minor villains that did not hit the mark of the many they introduced this season. Also, if you were following week-to-week like me then it got to be a bit difficult to keep tabs on everything since Gotham took two extended midseason breaks this season and I had trouble recalling if certain events transpired in specific seasons. Grade: A

The Flash - This is difficult to admit, but The Flash lost its way for its third season. Last season introduced Wally West (Keiynan Lonsdale) into the mix, and he just never clicked with the rest of the Star Labs crew. The writers of The Flash took this criticism to heart and doubled down on Wally this season by having him mope around the first several episodes about not having superpowers like the rest of the team. Then he finally gets powers and redubs himself Kid Flash and instantly becomes annoyingly arrogant. He is scripted to be as gut-wrenching as Spider-Man was in the disastrous Amazing Spider-Man 2 from a few years back. Wally West sir, you hereby are the runaway winner for my ‘dopiest character’ of all of TV this past year.

The third season of The Flash also doubles down into exploring the 52 Earths of the DC-Multiverse. If you do no recall from my recap from last season, there are 52 Earths/alternate realities where each one has its own version of Team Flash members. It seems now the writers are getting into a new comfort zone where if they need to write off a certain character they will bring in a new multi-verse doppelganger to take their place. Each season has had a different version of Harrison Wells (Tom Cavanagh), with season three’s being a very lighthearted, coffee addicted version who calls himself ‘HR.’ HR is a fun addition to the team, but by the end of season three there were so many different multi-verse versions of each character introduced that it got to be groan-inducing whenever they time jumped to a new multi-verse.

The primary villain for season three is the mysterious Savitar. An early season episode shows a flash-forward of Barry’s love of his life, Iris West (Candice Patton) meeting her demise at the hands of Savitar so Barry (Grant Gustin) and the rest of Team Flash spend the bulk of the season trying to prevent that from happening. How they get there and what they wind up doing to try and save Iris is an interesting journey, but it has severe consequences that wound up being a big turnoff and does not have me anticipating season four whatsoever since the ending (light spoilers ahead) essentially implies that the cringe-worthy Kid Flash will be taking over as the new protagonist. There are still a fair amount of decent episodes this season (the annual Christmas party is a feel-good scene that delivers again this season), but I could not help but shake this season as a real letdown. Grade: C

Arrow - This is a big redemption season of Arrow after a couple of good, but not great seasons. Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) starts the season as the new mayor of Star City and he still somehow manages to moonlight as The Green Arrow in his downtime. With season four leaving the old Team Arrow in disarray, Oliver recruits several new vigilantes to take under his wing for season five. This reminded me of the not-so-desirable new recruits Gordon was in charge of in season two of Gotham as most of these new characters just did not cut it and they become early cannon fodder for season five’s primary antagonist, Prometheus (Josh Segarra). There was one likeable new recruit though that stayed on board the entire season with the codename Wild Dog (Rick Gonzalez), and I dug his story arc as he wound up teaming with Quentin Lance (Paul Blackthorne) for most of the season and the two meshed well together so much that I was always glued to my device whenever the two were onscreen.

Prometheus proves to be one of the major villains that Ollie has ever encountered as the two have several impactful moments throughout the season. They manage to outdo themselves in their final confrontation in a pivotal showdown between the two that had me in goosebumps throughout. Fans that follow Arrow every year know that each episode has flashbacks that lay out what happen each year that Oliver was away for the five years before returning to town in Arrow’s first episode. For the fifth year of Arrow flashbacks Ollie is in Russia teaming up with the Russian gang known as Bratva and his antics there all tie in to how he winds up back at Star City at the very beginning of Arrow. The final flashback scene is another powerful moment that combined with Green Arrow and Prometheus’s final showdown as one of the best season finales in the history of a TV superhero show and capped off one of the best seasons of Arrow yet. Grade: A

Legends of Tomorrow - The show featuring the castoffs from Arrow and Flash returns for a slightly more streamlined second season. Instead of focusing on a huge superhero roster of 10, they slimmed the team down to seven Legends this season due to how the first season wrapped up. The season starts off with team captain, Rip Hunter (Arthur Darvill) lost in time and Sarah Lance (Caity Lotz) taking over the captain’s chair to lead the Legends to track Rip down.

Season two has a new team of former Flash and Arrow villains dubbed the Legion of Doom (Whaaaaaaaat a rush!) consisting of Eobard Thawne (Matt Letscher), Damien Darhk (Neal McDonough) and Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman). I was a fan of these guys before, so seeing them team up and intentionally ham up the evil villain factor made them the perfect foils for the lighthearted Legends. This was a much improved season that stayed on point better, did not feature love triangle plots that overstayed their welcome and a better group of antagonists. The Civil War zombies episode I imagine will be a hit with a certain audience. Even though they improved a lot this season I would still state Legends of Tomorrow is not a top tier superhero show, as even with a slimmed down roster, there was still a lot to keep track of, and new Legend member Steel (Nick Zano) is a little too cheesy and requires a high tolerance level. Grade: B

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television

The War

Today’s film has been sitting unwatched in my backlog longer than most of the other films I have covered so far. I recall buying it around 2001/2002 when visiting Best Buy was a regular payday occurrence to see what was on sale. One of those DVDs I impulse bought is today’s entry which I first viewed shortly after its original release in 1994, The War (trailer). The Simmons family is barely surviving trying to make ends meet in a typical hot and humid Mississippi summer in 1970. Siblings Stu (Elijah Wood) and Lidia (Lexi Randall) are toiling away their summer building their dream tree fort while engaged in an intense feud with rival rural neighbor siblings, the Lipnickis. Meanwhile their father, Stephen (Kevin Costner) struggles to find stable work while suffering the effects of PTSD coming back from the Vietnam War.

When I originally saw The War when it hit theaters I was 11, which is right around the same age as Elijah Woods’ character here so suffice it to say Stu easily resonated with me. A big part of this movie is about Stu and Lidia making their local quarries and woods the ultimate summer hang out spot and engaging in their own brand of rural warfare with the Lipnickis kids and the film makes some extreme correlations relating it to flashbacks from Stephen’s drama he experienced in ‘Nam. That is no hyperbole either, because in the film’s big final act the Simmons and Lipnickis are beating the tar out of each other in a sick/awesome slow-motion montage of preteen kids pounding each other with their own unique weaponry while Stu pauses and takes it in and has visions of his father’s Vietnam stories. It is a bizarre scene you just have to see to believe.

I tried to hunt down that iconic scene on YouTube, but was met with failure. I will link instead to another big moment from the film where Lidia’s friend Elvadine (LaToya Crisholm) stands up for herself in summer school class when the teach attempts to segregate the classroom. Again, like the tree fort fight, the scene is amped up, but that is a good thing as the filmmakers here just go for it and hold nothing back like they do with other scenes, for better or worse. Stephen finally finds work at a high-risk mining job, and the film instantly foreshadows doom and gloom, but instead of dragging out a few scenes with routine days on the job, The War wastes no time and has Stephen experience hard times no less than 30 seconds into his first mining scene.

I want to give props to director Jon Avnet for nailing so many little things that went a long way with me like the way the actors sulk in those dreadful, humid summer weather and how everyone’s southern accent is spot on throughout. There are a few scenes where Stu gets up to no good and winds up in impromptu fights with random Lipnickis siblings and Stephen intervenes and preaches to him to rise up above violence and not to think with his fists. It is a big life lesson moment, which I could not help but crack up at as Stu continues to ignore it and winds up in more fights and skirmishes throughout the movie.

A lot of people will rightly first associate Elijah Wood for voicing the iconic videogame character Spyro the Dragon….just kidding we all know what he is primarily known for, but The War was one of his first films and he won a handful of young actor awards from it that recognized him with some serious acting chops. It was a breakout two year span of films for Wood in 1993-94 that put him on the map along with his performances in Adventures of Huck Finn and North that have only lead to bigger and better roles for him to this day. The War also was the debut film for another actor I covered recently here, where Lucas Black made his big screen debut with his performance of Ebb Lipnicki. Black is just as cocky and gung-ho here as an obnoxious eight year old as he was about 12 years later in his leading performance in Tokyo Drift.

Seeing how this is an ancient DVD originally printed in 1999, there is little on here in the way of extras. It has a trailer, production notes and film-ographies. Not many DVDs have production notes and film-ographies any more and I kind of miss them a tisch. The IMDB app has made film-ographies irrelevant for many years now, but I always scour through production notes whenever I see them on a DVD. Do not let the lack of extras sway you from checking out The War however. If you have older parents this would likely be up their alley. I recommended it to my 76-year-old dad after watching it again as I constantly hear him harking back to stories from his childhood years running wild on a farm, so The War should easily be in his wheelhouse.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Welcome back to my latest entry going through the Fast and Furious franchise. Today I am covering the third movie in the series, 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (trailer). If you are going through my blog archives and am curious why there is no entry for 2Fast, 2Furious, that is because as I stated in my blog for the first film that is the only film in the brand that I loathe and do not own so I am going to pretend it does not exist.

-I always considered Tokyo Drift a side story in the F&F universe since Vin Diesel & Paul Walker’s characters take a backseat and this film focuses on one Sean Boswell (Lucas Black). After getting in a nasty wreck in a street race gone awry with high school rival Clay (Zachery Ty Bryan), Sean is sent packing overseas to live with his father (Brian Goodman) in Tokyo. Even in the Far East Sean cannot escape the thrills of the underground street racing scene after getting introduced to it by new friend, Twinkie (Shad Moss aka Lil Bow Wow).

-I ended up watching Tokyo Drift twice. The first time I watched it with the Giant Bomb staff commentary like I did with the first film, and the second time with director commentary from Justin Lin (Tokyo Drift marks the first of four straight F&F films that Lin directed). The Giant Bomb crew once again was a riot to listen to especially since GB head honcho Jeff Gertsmann flew nationwide to join up with the East Coast office’s crew to specifically watch this film with these guys. Jeff has a lot of awesome stories about relating to this film with his rambunctious street racing tales growing up and lays down some knowledge on drift culture and goes in depth on some car industry lingo when appropriate. Lin also had a lot of nonstop insight throughout and had a lot of love for the cast and I got a kick of his memory of car enthusiasts riding him on swapping out the engine of a Dodge Charger in order to make it drift-worthy. I also appreciated Lin explaining what it took to pull off and how grateful he was to get a certain cameo at the end of the film.

-The opening race scene where Sean and Clay race is awesomely cheesy where the two demolish a new expansion of residential areas under developmen. There is silly a BluRay GPS extra feature where each driver’s location is shown on an overlay map on the screen. I nodded along enthusiastically following the dots with intense driving action playing out to Kid Rock’s “Bawitaba” in the background.

-Tokyo Drift is the final movie in the franchise to have street racing be the primary focus of the film. Tokyo Drift’s hook on the racing is by introducing drifting to the street races. I recall being surprised at how the film made it seem like it was this revolutionary technique that was only applicable in Japan, but that was probably because I played too many driving videogames that had a drift feature such as various Need for Speed and Burnout games by 2006. Regardless, I loved how the film embraced drifting here by introducing the antagonist street racer of the film, DK aka Drift King (Brian Tee). He smokes Sean in an early race in the film as Sean is flummoxed at this radical new car technique, but luckily Han (Sung Kang) takes him under his wing and shows him the ropes at making him a master drifter in a well-produced montage.

-Spoilers ahead, skip this paragraph if you have not seen Tokyo Drift. Yes, Han makes his F&F debut in this film, and even though he bites the dust to set up the final act, Justin Lin loved the character so much that he brought him back for the next three films. When asked about this in interviews, Lin simply stated that F&F 4-6 all take place before Tokyo Drift. Sure, why not. That is fine, because Han is an awesome character and Kang nails his laid back role and even has a couple throwaway loose references in Tokyo Drift on how he use to ride with ‘The Family’ that formed in the following films so it all makes sense anyways. If you are new to the series and absolutely want to watch the films in the proper canonical order then the correct way to do so is starting off with the first two movies, then skip to four through six, but skip the post-credit scene at the end of six, then watch Tokyo Drift and then the F&F6 post-credit scene and continue on to seven and eight. If you can follow that, then you will be set and the timelines will all fall into place….I think.

-The two best scenes in the film are when Sean and Han have a serious life moment with rooftop soccer in the background and the final mountain-top race showdown between DK and Sean. It is appropriately ridiculous and filled with countless ‘yeah right’ drifts and stunts. This race went out of its way to show how advanced Japan cell phone tech was in 2006 by being able to live stream and broadcast the race with the latest flip-phones available at the time. Also, I hope you made the connection by now that F&F 4-6 all take place a couple years before the introductions of smart phones, so even though they are ubiquitous in those films, just think of them as alternate model flip-phones and avoid thinking twice about it. The race was the ultimate thrill ride and a fitting end to a surprisingly enjoyable film that did not prominently feature any of the cast from the first pair of films.

-There is a significant amount of extras on the BluRay, but unless you are seriously into car culture and drifting then you can easily skip at least half the extras. If you are a big gearhead, you will absolutely eat up Drift: Sideways Craze a one hour look at the pro drift racing scene and a few other shorter extras on drift culture. If I were to recommend just two of the 11 extra features (totaling around two and a half hours!), then check out Han’s Last Ride and Tricked Out to Drift. Those two extras break down the gang car chase scene and how the filmmakers modded the Dodge Charger in the film to make it drift-worthy. There is also a feature-length ‘Picture-in-Picture’ BluRay exclusive extra that combines all the extras and constantly switches between them all when appropriate throughout the film so that could be a better way to take in all the extra features, but I would rather suggest checking out the director commentary from Justin Lin instead.

-I still recall regretting going to the theater when initially seeing The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and thinking it was going to be a complete waste with none of the noteworthy cast in it. I was glad to be proven wrong. Tokyo Drift is far from the best film in the series, but I would still give it a strong recommendation because it is a fitting swan song for races and driving being at the forefront of the movies before the series transitioned into the over-the-top-yet-amazing-what-will-they-do-next CG experiences that we know them as today.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe

In 2014, after nearly 20 years of a tumultuous relationship with the WWE, the Ultimate Warrior (the former Jim Hellwig who legally changed his name to ‘Warrior’) was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on Wrestlemania XXX weekend. It was the final step of a healing process welcoming Warrior back into the WWE fold after easing his way in by participating in the previous year’s video game ad campaign and getting interviewed for a DVD collecting his greatest matches dubbed The Ultimate Collection. What many people did not anticipate however was him suddenly passing away from a heart attack three days after his induction.

WWE immediately aired a bunch of tribute programming on the WWE Network that week which I covered here shortly thereafter. Nearly a year after his death in early 2015 WWE put out another home video with a brand new documentary on the life of the Ultimate Warrior, as well as collecting an assortment of previously unreleased matches and promos and called this collection, Ultimate Warrior: Always Believe (trailer). Read on to find out if WWE went to make this video as a ‘make good’ from their 2005 DVD that made him come off as the worst person in the business, or if the WWE doubled down and continued to disparage Warrior after his passing.

The documentary kicks off with Warrior’s unintentionally telling promo on RAW on the eve of his passing. I could not help but get chills watching in a new light a few years later. From there the feature starts off with Warrior’s first days in the business teaming with Sting and striking out in the Memphis and Mid-South territories in the mid-80s. Jerry Lawler, Sting, Warrior & Zeb Coulter are all featured here in interviews admitting they were way too green and had no idea what they were doing. I dug seeing all these old-school clips of the team, and instantly recalled a few of those so-bad-they-are-funny-matches of a very green Sting and Warrior teaming up off of Sting’s Into the Light BluRayI covered here last year.

A few minutes was dedicated to the year Warrior spent in WCCW where he credits finding himself as a single act as ‘The Dingo Warrior.’ I wish they spent more time about Warrior in this era where it is apparent how he evolved into the Ultimate Warrior persona there by the end of his run there, but Warrior does comment some about how he came into his own in World Class and there are a handful of matches and promos from his WCCW run in the extras that I recommend going out of your way to check out. From there the doc shifts to him landing in WWE by the end of 1987 and current and past stars such as Hogan, HHH, Batista, Kofi Kingston, Ziggler and Cesaro are interviewed about how they went gaga over the infectious Warrior character and entrance.

The documentary transitions into his meteoric rise up the WWE from winning his first Intercontinental Title from Honky Tonk Man to the big showdown with the Hulkster at Wrestlemania VI. I still recall watching that match as a kid and could not help but get that big feeling from that match and watched it countless times on Coliseum Home Video as a kid and for a few years it was my favorite match. The documentary got that feeling across on how that encounter was larger than life. I own the BluRay of Always Believe, and one of the BluRay exclusives is a unique ‘Arena Cam’ (AKA ‘HardCam’) only perspective of the Hogan/Warrior match with no commentary so all you here is the pandemonium of the sellout crowd from Toronto. It resulted in a fascinating take on that landmark match, and made it worth reliving again.

Throughout Always Believe there are little clips of Warrior backstage during Wrestlemania XXX with him engaging with current and past stars. At one point there is a funny exchange between Warrior and Sgt. Slaughter which served as a perfect transition in the film on how Warrior losing his title to Slaughter set up his killer feud with Randy Savage for their ‘retirement match’ clash at Wrestlemania VII. Of his initial successful WWF years I was bummed to see he that his feud with Rick Rude got the shaft with no mention of it at all here, but it is overall a much better recollection on his early years than the 2005 version of it.

The feature then shifts to Warrior’s heated years with the WWE in the early-to-mid-90s where he held the company up for cash and promptly got fired, and got fired again for missing shows in his ’92 and ’96 runs. Actually, only about 10 seconds is dedicated to his three month stint with WWE in ’96 which I could not help but crack up on how WWE glossed over it. I guess Triple H did not want to repeat his comments about his Wrestlemania XII match with Warrior this time around. I also cracked up with how Warrior’s brief run in WCW in ’98 is highlighted here. Warrior admits he only went there for the payday and he obviously was not a fan of all the hocus pocus infused into his character over there, but stated it did not matter in the end because of the big time money that came of it. Hearing Hogan admit how the feud wound up as one of his all-time blunders was nice of him to own up to as well.

I may rag in my yearly Wrestlemania blogs about the philanthropy nature of the ‘Warrior Award’ at the WWE Hall of Fame where we get to see Warrior’s widow, Dana present the award each year, but do not let that dismiss the fact that Dana and Warrior’s two daughters come off as legit wonderful people in the documentary. All three are charismatic, genuine talkers and the scene covering how Warrior and Dana met and how their wedding went down is easily the best feel-good scene in Always Believe. Speaking of the ‘Warrior Award’ however, I will take this moment to get on my soapbox and call out to WWE to please rephrase this award to Warrior’s original vision of it in his induction speech as an award to recognize the hard work of the little-talked about workers behind-the-scenes of WWE such as Jimmy Miranda and Mark Yeaton.

On the Self-Destruction DVD the interviewees were quite malicious of the Warrior character disparaging how he got gassed by the time the match started and how he was one of the most careless workers in the ring in history. A decade later in Always Believe, some of those same interviewees like Hulk Hogan and Triple H have a somewhat change of heart and still recognize Warrior’s shortcomings, but are more constructive with their criticism and eventually justify Warrior’s act by essentially saying it worked because it brought in good business. If you never saw the 2005 DVD before I recommend watching that documentary before this one because it is absolutely fascinating to see the 180 degree shift in tone on the Warrior in general. I wish they were this constructive the first time around, because while I agree with a lot of the shortcomings of Warrior’s act, it was ridiculous at how much WWE disparaged him in that original documentary. I am saying this as not even a big Warrior fan growing up (I was more of a Big Boss Man-kid). I still vividly recall that documentary’s ending being Christian’s blunt thoughts on the Warrior’s legacy being “like it or not, he is going to be remembered.”

Speaking of that DVD, Warrior and his wife are interviewed here about it, and rightfully trash WWE for releasing that and hold nothing back about how much that documentary hurt them. The feature then covers Warrior’s libel suit against the WWE and Vince McMahon and Hulk are on hand defending how their comments by saying they were misconstrued at the time and how the case was eventually dropped and nobody came out ahead at the end of it. There is a lot to read between the lines during this scene, and if you were following the business at the time, catching Hogan, Vince and Warrior’s thoughts about the DVD and the proceeding lawsuit several years later made for a very compelling segment of the feature.

Dana is then featured detailing how Hunter was imperative on repairing Warrior’s relationship with WWE. Vince, Steph and Hunter are all here commenting about what it was like to bring Warrior back for the hall of fame. Seeing Warrior’s final days backstage in these final scenes during Wrestlemania weekend is both ominous and fortunate to see how a lot of his final exchanges were captured on film. The big moments featured here from that weekend are Warrior and Hogan talking for the first time in many years and ‘burying the hatchet.’ Vince and Warrior also have a moment backstage where Warrior gifted Vince the children’s book The Little Engine that Could with his own personal foreward to Vince! Hearing Vince reflect on that moment and how he and Warrior got together for one last photo saw a rare, emotional moment for Vince on film when talking about it for Always Believe. The documentary wraps up with Dana detailing how Warrior’s last day transpired with him suddenly collapsing in the midst of traveling back home. Dana and her daughters then reflect on that weekend and Warrior’s legacy and wrap up by reading letters to their father and husband in a touching scene.

Like most of WWE’s BluRays, Always Believe is packed with a ton of extras and the first disc has 21 Warrior matches on it. WWE is getting better with most of their newer home videos only featuring matches never before put out on video, the tradeoff to this however is all noteworthy Warrior matches have already been released on other DVDs over the years. They got around this with the special ‘ArenaCam’ perspective of the Wrestlemania VI match. This is fine for the Warrior, who was like an early version of Goldberg who I primarily wanted to see for his larger-than-life entrance and to see him run rampant and squash nobodies. Believe me, there are a bunch of Warrior squash matches on here from the weekend shows I grew up with like WWF Challenge and WWF Superstars. It was actually refreshing to relive these old-school squash-fests.

There are also numerous house show matches that WWE use to record in the late 80s/early 90s. These are longer, traditional PPV-style matches, but worth taking a look at as Warrior faced off against Rick Rude and teamed up with Jim Duggan against Andre and Rude. There are a pair of fun Saturday Night’s Main Event matches on here where Warrior takes on Haku and Sgt. Slaughter where the crowd was eating up everything Warrior was doing around his championship run. Finally, there are a few surprisingly long, decent matches with Warrior facing unlikely opponents in these scenarios where Rick Martel, Demolition Smash and Owen Hart all got a surprising effort out of the Warrior.

Disc two has a whopping 2 hours and 41 minutes of Ultimate Warrior promos. This is vintage Ultimate Warrior where he mostly shouts nonsensical phrases I could not help but enthusiastically nod along too because of his organic charisma. The bulk of these promos are quick one to two minute rants of only him going off against a blue screen, but there are several longer interviews of him on the Brother Love show and having entertaining exchanges with Sensational Sherri and Ric Flair. His hall of fame speech is here in its entirety, and the aforementioned RAW promo the day before his death is here as well. It took a few sittings to get through them all, but I did not mind taking the time to get blown away by nearly three hours of random Warrior intensity. His tribute montage the week after his death is not on here, so here is a link to this very-well produced tribute.

There is just over an hour and a half of BluRay exclusives. Once again, I recommend going with the BluRay because of the alternate perspective of the Hulk Hogan match alone. There are four other BluRay bonus matches, with his WCCW match against Rick Rude and teaming up with Legion of Doom to take on Demolition in a bout that probably set a record for featuring the most face paint standing out the most. There are also 19 minutes of exclusive ‘stories’ with Dana sharing some fun Warrior courtship memories and Batista and Triple H sharing some bonus thoughts about the Warrior too. Natalya also is awesome here as she challenges one of Warrior’s daughters to an unofficial match.

Always Believe is an exponentially better documentary than 2005’s Self-Destruction. This does not hide Warrior’s wrestling shortcomings and controversies (though it does hide his real life political remarks and controversies), but it addresses them in a far more professional manner and it does not make Warrior come off as the quintessential slime ball like the Self-Destruction DVD did. Warrior is far from being my personal favorite wrestler and/or person, but he did serve up a number of timeless moments in wrestling for me in my impressionable years and Always Believe is a perfect way of celebrating those moments of the Ultimate Warrior character for past, present and future fans.

Past Wrestling Blogs

Best of WCW Monday Nitro Volume 2
Best of Monday Nitro Volume 3
Biggest Knuckleheads
Bobby The Brain Heenan
Daniel Bryan: Just Say Yes Yes Yes
Dusty Rhodes WWE Network Specials
ECW Unreleased: Vol 1
ECW Unreleased: Vol 2
ECW Unreleased: Vol 3
For All Mankind
Goldberg: The Ultimate Collection
Its Good to Be the King: The Jerry Lawler Story
Ladies and Gentlemen My Name is Paul Heyman
Legends of Mid South Wrestling
Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story
Memphis Heat
OMG Vol 2: Top 50 Incidents in WCW History
OMG Vol 3: Top 50 Incidents in ECW History
Owen: Hart of Gold
RoH Supercard of Honor V
RoH Supercard of Honor VI
RoH Supercard of Honor VII
RoH Supercard of Honor VIII
RoH Supercard of Honor IX
RoH Supercard of Honor X
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
Sting: Into the Light
Superstar Collection: Zach Ryder
Top 50 Superstars of All Time
Tough Enough: Million Dollar Season
True Giants
Ultimate Fan Pack: Roman Reigns
Warrior Week on WWE Network
Wrestlemania 3: Championship Edition
Wrestlemania 28
Wrestlemania 29
Wrestlemania 30
Wrestlemania 31
Wrestlemania 32
The Wrestler (2008)
Wrestling Road Diaries Too
Wrestling Road Diaries Three: Funny Equals Money
Wrestlings Greatest Factions
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2015
WWE Network Original Specials First Half 2016
WWE Network Original Specials Second Half 2016

Roseanne - Season 3

A few days ago I finally wrapped up season three of Roseanne (s3 highlights) and that means it is time for another entry with my key takeaways from the season. Click here for my recaps of previous season.

-As I mentioned in my previous recaps while I liked the first two seasons, they do not feature a lot about what I originally remembered of the cast. Season three is where a lot of the key character and plot traits I originally identified with the cast started to take shape.

-That first trait is Roseanne (Roseanne Bar) working at the diner. She inexplicably is jobless again at the beginning of the season, but winds up employed at a diner in the mall. I always remembered Roseanne and Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) working together at a more traditional diner and not in a mall though, but I am presuming that is to come in later seasons. We do meet Roseanne’s co-waitress Bonnie (Bonnie Bramlett) who nails the role of an old-shool truck stop waitress who does not take crap from anyone. Needless to say, she and Roseanne gel well. We also meet their boss Leon (Martin Mull). We learn a few episodes after his introduction that he is a homosexual, and the waitresses are perfectly accepting of him. I do not know my TV history that well, but I am presuming this is one of the earlier cases of a respectful portrayal of a homosexual character in TV history.

-I recall Dan (John Goodman) mostly working in a bike shop throughout the show’s run, and at the very end of season three we find out how he starts up the bike shop in a must-see show-defining season finale. Darlene (Sara Gilbert) is the character who evolves the most this season. She is still rocking her tomboy look and is still all about sports at beginning of the season, but as season three progresses she switches up her hairstyle to the long, wavy perm look I always associated her character with and she starts to deepen her voice more too and embrace her first couple of boyfriends this season too. She is not quite all the way their into her dry wit/super emo self yet, but she is well on her way.

-There are a couple seeds planted for DJ (Michael Fishman) being the stereotypical ‘weird kid’ this season. One is where he collects the heads of Darlene and Becky’s old dolls. DJ is primarily in the backdrop this season and is featured in a handful of episodes. Season three sees introduction to Becky’s longtime boyfriend Mark (Glenn Quinn). He is only in two or three episodes this season, though I imagine he will be more prominent later on. The Conner’s are not fans of Mark’s bad biker-boy demeanor and ban Becky (Alicia Goranson) from seeing him. Obviously that did not work out.

-I do not know if the third season featured a transition with some new writers that took awhile to mesh well together or what, but the first several episodes of the season are lackluster and feature a lot of sitcom clichés and/or gimmicky themes in a series that established itself up until this point as that being anything but the case (minus the annual Halloween-themed episode). I was starting to get worried about the show going for a turn for the worse, but the writers eventually started clicking and getting their act together several episodes in.

-Odd story arc this season goes to Roseanne’s friend and former factory co-worker, Krystal (Natalie West) marrying Dan’s father and the two having a child together by the end of the season. It provoked quite the reactions from Dan & Roseanne, and watching those two go haywire from learning the news and come to embrace them was a fun journey to embark on. Jackie had a bad break this season as she lost her boyfriend and job early in the season and remained jobless for the rest of season three. She did remain as affable as ever though.

-My favorite episode in season three is an easy choice and goes to the episode “Scenes from a BBQ” where the Conner’s throw a Mother’s Day BBQ where all their friends and neighbors attend. It brought back memories of the chaos and fun of my old family BBQs with the family going nuts getting all the food ready, but eventually enjoying each other’s company by the end of the night. Unlike Mr. Connor however, my dad was not a master strummer of the guitar as the episode concluded with a delightful family sing-a-long.

-Like the past seasons, there are two bonus interviews that make up the extra features. They are interviews with Laurie Metcalf and Lecy Goranson. Both are a little under 10 minutes, and both are by-the-numbers interviews where they give their key memories of the major cast members and what it was like first coming on the show.

-Season three started off stumbling over itself for the first several episodes, but found its footing a third of the way through. It seems by the end of the season Roseanne is pretty close to solidifying its foundation for what I mostly remember it being, and I am anticipating starting off season four!

Past TV/Web Series Blogs

2013-14 TV Season Recap
2014-15 TV Season Recap
2015-16 TV Season Recap
Adventures of Briscoe County Jr: The Complete Series
Angry Videogame Nerd Volumes 7-9
Mortal Kombat: Legacy - Season 1
OJ: Made in America: 30 for 30
RedvsBlue - Seasons 1-13
Roseanne – Seasons 1-9
Seinfeld Final Season
Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Superheroes: Pioneers of Television

Guardians of the Galaxy

We are mere weeks away from the release of the latest Marvel Studios film, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, so naturally it felt right to pull 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy (trailer out of the backlog box. I specifically remember thinking that this was going to be the first full-on flop from Marvel Studios. The comic it was based on was around off and on over the years but I never considered it a top-tier book from Marvel by any means and could not name a single character by the time the film arrived.

GotG was certainly going to be the first Marvel film to focus on a character that was not in the upper-echelon of Marvel Heroes such as Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor. I also despised the original trailer for the first film. For whatever reason it played before nearly every film I caught at the theater for several months before the movie hit. The preview gave me all the wrong vibes that this was going to be full of bad jokes from a bunch of unknown heroes in the cosmic branch of the Marvel Universe that will go right over my head. I could not have been happier to be so wrong.

GotG centers around one Peter Quill aka Starlord (Chris Pratt). The film starts off with him as a young child at his mother’s deathbed, when all of a sudden a mysterious spaceship abducts him and the film immediately jumps a couple decades ahead where Quill is now a ‘junker’ (futuristic treasure hunter?) residing in a intergalactic community somewhere in another universe. A routine quest for a mysterious orb goes haywire and lands Quill in prison. It is here where Starlord teams up with some unlikely allies. His new comrades consist of Gamura (Zoe Saldana), Rocket the raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), the monstrous brute Drax (David Bautista) and a full sized animated tree capable of speaking only five words Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel). Ronan (Lee Pace) is GotG’s lead villain. He is a lieutenant of the high and mighty Thanos, but breaks off from him after he finds a new source of power.

Minus Groot, Marvel did a tremendous job with the casting. I will give props to Quill for this being his big motion picture breakout performance after several years on the ensemble mockumentary TV series, Parks & Rec. Saladana proved she is already capable of sci-fi greatness in the latest line of Star Trek films and went on to double down on that expertise in another sci-fi franchise. Bautista went above and beyond what anyone expected out of a pro-wrestler. Bradley Cooper shows all kinds of range with his voicing of Rocket, but Marvel could have saved a good chunk of money on the budget by having anyone voice Groot. Vin probably commanded a high dollar since he is in the midst of riding the success of the Fast & Furious money train.

Watching the GotG unwillingly come together to break out of prison in a fantastic scene and transition into a well-oiled machine by the time they take on Ronan in the final act is simply an awesome experience. Part of the reason on how they got there is a stunning job in the CG department. GotG got nominated for two technical Oscars for Best Visual Effects & Best Costume Design. After witnessing a few of its dazzling-yet-intense spaceship duels and watching the behind-the-scenes feature on the multi-hour process of what Saladana and Bautista had to go through in makeup justifies the film as being a Oscar contender in those departments.

What also helped round off this sublime audio/visual package is a five star soundtrack consisting primarily of 1970s pop hits such as “I Want You Back,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” and “Cherry Bomb.” Director James Gunn stated in the commentary for the film that Disney got every single song he requested approved for the soundtrack, and I am presuming Gunn must have spent a great deal timing when each and every song would kick in at just the right moment to add that extra dose of impact. A couple of my favorite examples of this are when the Guardians are planning their final assault on Ronan to “Cherry Bomb” and the opening title screen where Quill is dancing away to “Come and Get Your Love.” I remember being super giddy the day Google generously released the soundtrack for free on its Play Store and it has been in a consistent rotation in my running playlists ever since.

There is only one noteworthy qualm I have with GotG and it is the fact that it is too lighthearted. Do not get me wrong, nearly all the jokes and zingers in here are clever and witty and each character has several standout lines/moments in the film that cracked me up. That there is the problem however! Unlike other past Marvel films that know when to cut back and get serious, this one never lets up on the jokes, so the few times that GotG attempts to have a pivotal, meaningful moment in the movie I found myself waiting for the surprise gag to come from out of nowhere to steal the scene, and in a couple of those moments that is exactly what happened. Again, that qualm is not a deal-breaker by any means and when you are dealing with a talking raccoon and tree as two of your main actors, I could see why Marvel felt like they had to dial up the jokes to help the audience suspend their disbelief. They just dialed it up a bit too much.

There are a few extras on the BluRay you can easily cruise through in no time, but are worth consuming. There are four minutes of deleted scenes with or without commentary from James Gunn. If you have watched past Marvel films on video, you know they have some of the best produced gag reels out there, and GotG does not disappoint with a killer array of bloopers that culminates with a spectacular dance-off you have to see to believe. Intergalactic Visual FX is a seven minute look at the costume and makeup design that made me get sympathetic for what Saldana and Bautista had to go through every day on set. Guide to the Galaxy is a 21 minute all-encompassing behind-the-scenes look at the film hosted by Gunn where he explains the world lore, interviews the cast and goes into what it took to pull off the huge final battle scene. Finally Gunn goes solo for a commentary track on the film, and it is a decent solo commentary where he has a lot of notes filling everyone in on the backstory of the universe from the comics and a lot of recollections about the casting for the film.

Guardians of the Galaxy made me feel like a fool for doubting it as it went on to be both a critical and commercial success. It is one of several movies I have seen in the theater twice. If you somehow had my original premonitions on this film being a flop and avoided it because it featured a lot of characters you were unfamiliar with then go ahead and put those reservations to the side and watch this immediately so you can be ready for the sequel in a few weeks. I recommend watching it solo so you can avoid others judging you as you jam out and get your dance on to the songs throughout the film!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past

The Fast and the Furious

Yesterday I caught the latest film in the worldwide hit Fast & Furious franchise, The Fate of the Furious. To get a little a little bit it in the right mindset for it, I went and watched the original 2001 film, The Fast and the Furious (trailer) a couple days prior. I own all of the films, but the second installment which I detest, and as luck would have it all but the last couple were still in my backlog. I may as well cover them all(minus 2Fast) for the blog, and I think I will try and knock out a couple of the earlier movies right away before revisiting the later films down the line. Additionally, since I always kind of embraced these films in a lighthearted ridiculous kind of way, I will be a little looser with my entries for these films and will run down my highlights from each film in a bulleted list kind of way.

-Quick plot synopsis for those unfamiliar with the first film: The late Paul Walker portrays undercover cop Brian Connor. There is a street car gang stealing hot ticket Apex DVD players from trucks, so Connor goes undercover and joins Dominic Torreto’s (Vin Diesel) gang that also consists of his sister Mia (Jordana Brewster), his tough-as-nails girlfriend Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) computer hacker whiz Jesse (Chad Lindberg) and lifetime meathead bro Vince (Matt Shulze).

-I vividly recall my sister treating me to this film at the theater for a graduation present since it hit theaters a Friday or two after I graduated way back in 2001! Initial memories of the film were that it seemed like the coolest thing ever with all the crazy special engine closeup/NOS turbo special effects and all the bedazzling of the street cars with neon and underglow.

-I also specifically remember thinking coming out of this thinking that Vin Diesel was the coolest dude ever with him having the silent, deadly charisma and perfect chilling delivery of classic lines such as “It doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winnings’s winning!” and the quintessential “quarter mile at a time” speech of the film which transpired in my favorite scene in the picture. Those thoughts quickly changed when Diesel skipped out on the sequel in favor of duds like The Pacifier. I also recall Paul Walker’s BS wavy hair and as the ultimate cornball with his epic so-bad-its-good delivery of classic lines such as “I need two cans of NOS…tonight!” He gets much better in later films thankfully. This is also the only film series I can tolerate Michelle Rodriguez in since she goes on to play the same badass stereotype in all the other films she is in and is insufferable as a result. This was the first time I was exposed to her here however and she is the perfect complement to Vin Diesel’s character.

-Johnny Tran (Rick Yune) is the stereotypical Asian gangster for the film. He has history with the Toretto gang and it all comes to a head in the film’s last act after some deadly fallout after a race that transpires at the Race Wars event. He is actually a pretty compelling villain and one of my favorite antagonists from the series. Speaking of races, if you have not seen the earlier Fast films, than I have to be the one to break it to you that the earlier films primarily revolved around the underground street race scene and it was not until Fast Five when the films fully evolved into “best drivers in the world pulling off insanely unbelievable heists.”

-The truck heists were only a small backdrop to the street racing in the film, but the final truck heist scene features a lot of great stunt work and practical effects. Watching the extra feature interviews it was cool to see that a lot of the street racing and truck scenes were primarily shot with practical effects and very little CG work. Obviously that would flip with the latter films in the series.

-I got a good feeling the younger crowds are going to scoff at the soundtrack for this film, but for me this film hit during my coming of age years and thus a lot of it resonates with me still today. Reliving it does have a really good blend of (then) modern rap, hip/hop and metal. Fans of Ja Rule, Saliva and Limp Bizkit will not be disappointed! The SWAT montage scene being accompanied by Dope’s “Debonaire” is another favorite scene in the film of mine, which has a great culmination of Tran’s father giving the ever-dreaded “disappointed parent hand-slap of doom!”

-I forgot to mention I am reliving these films with a special commentary track. Giant Bomb is my favorite videogame website and they occasionally do movie commentaries. Longtime readers here may recall that is how I re-watched Rocky IV. Experiencing this film again with the Giant Bomb crew was an ideal experience for me, since they re-watched all seven films over the past few months leading up to F8. Host Alex Navarro is the well-versed lore-master of the Fast franchise and provides plenty of wisdom for casual Fast fan Vinny Carravella Fast-newbie Dan Ryckert. Dan bombards Alex with too many questions, but Alex wisely knows what to clue him into as the movie progresses. Also experiencing Dan state why he avoided the movies all these years only to make a complete 180 and end up loving this film about an hour in was very entertaining to listen in on. As always the GB guys are a riot and have plenty of wise cracks along the way that made rewatching this a lot of fun. If you want to give their commentary a listen then head here to download the track.

-The BluRay is jacked with a ton of extras. Most of them are carried over from the DVD release but there are a couple new HD extras too. Dom’s Charger is a quick four minute look at Dom’s ride and how they found that model for the film. Quarter Mile at a Time is a 10 minute-eye opener on the origins of drag/street racing and how it lead to NASCAR/F1 and modern street racing. That is all for new extras. There is a little over an hour worth of assorted extra features carried over. Of them I would suggest checking out the deleted scenes, as there are a few good ones that director Rob Cohen justified why they did not make the final cut. Making of Fast and Furious is a thorough breakdown of the cars, races and cast for the film and provides a lot of detail on what I referenced earlier on how the stunts were done. Make sure to check out the six minute short film, Turbo Charged Prelude which has no dialogue and is essentially Connor going rogue from the cops and travelling across the country to Miami to setup for the sequel, 2Fast, 2Furious. Finally, Rob Cohen is on hand for a solo director’s commentary, but as I previously mentioned I opted for the Giant Bomb commentary instead.

-I highly recommend watching the original film whether you have seen it or not. It was awesome experiencing it again and seeing how far the series has evolved over the past 16(!) years. Even if you prefer sticking with the newer films, if you are one to pay attention to all the nitty gritty details you will likely pick up on a few references and characters that stay dormant until the later movies that will give you a new look into their origins with the franchise. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, check out this incredible guide from The Ringer that ranks the Fast films along with several supplemental rankings of vital elements of the films such as “Best rapper cameos” and “Best Dom one-liners.” Very thorough, but is well worth your time to take in. Now if you pardon me, I am going to go off to a corner in my room and jam out to Saliva and Limp Bizkit.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3 & 4
Mortal Kombat
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past