MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: March 2025

Sunday, March 9, 2025

RED ONE (2024) (WBDHE 4K Ultra HD Review)

RED ONE (2024)

4K Ultra HD + Digital

Label: WBDHE

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: PG-13

Duration: 123 Minutes 2 Seconds

Audio: Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English subtitles

Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (2.39:1)

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J.K. Simmons

Red One (2024) is a Christmas-action flick featuring J.K. Simmons (Spider-Man) as Santa Claus aka Code Name: Red One – a jacked-up muscular St. Nick who is gearing-up for Christmas, protected by the North Pole’s Head of Security Callum "Cal" Drift (Dwayne Johnson, Black Adam). The film establishes a multilateral military organization known as MORA (Mythological Oversight and Restoration Authority) that protects a secret peace treaty between mythological creatures and human, this organization is headed by Zoe Harlow (Lucy Liu, Kill Bill), who helps protect Santa and secure the North Pole.

This is to be Cal's last Christmas working at the North Pole, he having become disillusioned by the sheer amount of people on the Naughty List, this being the first year that there were more naughty than nice people on the planet. However, just before Christmas a team of mercenaries break into the North Pole and kidnap Santa, leaving Cal and MORA to find the culprits and free Santa before Christmas is ruined, which leads them to hacker/bounty hunter Jack 'The Wolf' O'Malley (Chris Evans, Captain America) who used his special set of skills to locate the secret location of the North Pole, which he sold to an anonymous client. O'Malley is a true Santa non-believer, and is unaware of what he was locating for his client, and finds the idea of Santa and other mythological creatures actually existing to be quite a shock. Cal teams-up with O'Malley to find the real culprit, leading to a globe-trotting adventure that will include encounters with buff killer snowmen, the winter witch Grýla (Kiernan Shipkam, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), and Santa's adopted brother Krampus (Kristofer Hivju, Cocaine Bear).

Watching this brought to mind The Polar Express, Die Hard, Krampus, and Hellboy 2 if somehow you managed to smash those together, in the process somehow squeezing out any sort heart or Christmas sentimentality. This is really a soulless popcorn flick that requires you to shut your brain off and just go along with it. That's not to say it's terrible, no, this is something worse, this us just very middling.

The best stiff for m is the Johnson/Evans good Santa cop/bad Santa cop buddy-cop interactions, and the trip to Krampus's lair which is populated by an array of mythological creatures that brought to mind Hellboy 2 or Nightbreed. When the true culprit is revealed their plan involves punishing naughty kids, which has elements of Krampus. It just sort of feels like they are pulling in all these elements but there's just no Christmas heart to any of it. Even a tacked-on sub-plot involving O'Malley making things right with his estranged son has zero emotional impact, it just rings hollow, and feels like moviemaking by committee. Even the Polar Express with it's creepy and uncanny motion-capture animation managed to squeeze some feelings into to, but this is largely an emotionless, bloated, Christmas action flick with a little bit of eye candy, a couple of fun comedic moments, but zero heart.

Audio/Video: Red One (2024) on 4K Ultra HD looks solid enough with the Dolby Vision color-grade, however, there's a softness to it that didn't sit right for me. I don't know if it's the heavy use of digital effects or what, but between the softness and how dark it was it just didn't pop the way I felt it should have in 4K UHD. The Doby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) is pleasing with plenty of surround activity, including the height channels and a robust bottom end.

The flick has zero extras, not even a trailer, which might speak to how poorly the film performed at the box office, and there being some production woes on set that ballooned the budget to over 250 million dollars, but there should at least be a commentary track, but maybe no wants to talk about this stinker. We do get a Slipcover and a 4K Digital Copy of the film.

Special Features:

- Slipcover

- Digital Copy

Buy it!

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Saturday, March 8, 2025

THE PENGUIN: SEASON 1 (2024) (Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment 4K Ultra HD Review)

THE PENGUIN: SEASON 1 (2024)

Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 480 Minutes

Audio: English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1) with Optional English Subtitles

Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen

Directors: Craig Zobel, Helen Shaver, Kevin Bray, Jennifer Getzinger

Cast: Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, Michael Kelly, Clancy Brown

The Penguin eight-episode mini-series is a spin-off from the Matt Reeves directed The Batman film, starring Colin Farrell (Daredevil) reprising the role of the club-footed title character, aka Oswald "Oz" Cobb. I will admit when I first heard it was coming our way I was only lukewarm on the idea, but having watched it, and now re-watched the eight episode run, I will likewise admit this was easily my favorite TV show on 2024. The series is set about a month after the events of The Batman, with the destruction of Gotham City's seawall laying waste to poorer neighborhoods, and we have a power vacuum, left by the assassination of crime boss Carmine Falcone. At the start of the series Cobb is caught pilfering from the late Falcone's nightclub office at the Iceberg Lounge by the would-be hir to the Falcone crime family, his son Alberto Falcone (Michael Zege, The Girl Next Door). Oz talks his way out of being caught red-handed and the heir apparent shares that he has a new drug in the works that will take the family to the next level. However, when he insults Oz the impulsive Mr. Cobb shoots him dead. As he sets about disposing of the body Oz encounters a group of young men trying to steal his hubcaps and shoots at them, catching Victor "Vic" Aguilar (Rhenzy Feliz, Marvel's Runaways), and forcing him to become his henchman. As the series continues we have Oz making trying to cover his tracks while maneuvering the Falcone and Maroni crime families against each other to his benefit, which gets complicated when Carmine's daughter Sofia (Cristin Milioti, TV's Fargo), Oz having once being her chauffer, is released from Arkham Asylum. Having served time for being the "The Hangman", a serial killer of women, including her own mother.

Other pivotal characters include Oz's overbearing mother Francis (Deirdre O'Connell, Outer Range) who is afflicted with degenerative illness, Mark Strong (Sunshine) as Carmine Falcone in flashback, who was played by John Turturro from The Batman film, and Clancy Brown (Pet Sematary 2) as Maroni crime-boss Salvatore "Sal" Maroni, and Shohreh Aghdashloo (Renfield) as his Persian Nadia Maroni, who is the acting boss of the family as Sal is, at least at he start of the series, imprisoned.

This is a pretty fantastic crime family series, chock full of power struggles and power plays, loads of betrayals and deceit, and violence aplenty. I love how Oz is at once both moving the chess pieces but also impulsive and a bit brash, but also a really good liar. The way that Ferrell disappears beneath the prosthetics is quite amazing, aided by the terrifically seamless work that gives his face a storied well-worn look with a horrific scar and acne scarring, plus the performance that he gives through the appliance, using the make-up effects, is nothing short of fantastic. Oz is a truly despicable character, but the performance and script are so compelling that cannot take your eyes of of him, and you want to see him succeed. I was not at all surprised when he took home the Golden Globe for his turn here. Equally stunning is the truly committed turn from Cristin Milioti as the once princess of the Falcone crime family turned black sheep of the family, having been wrongfully sent to Arkham for 10 years, betrayed by her own father. Her arc and backstory are so gripping, and her performance is magnetic.

The episodes that delve into both her and Oz's backstory are television at it's best, especially the tragically dark tale from Oz's childhood, showing how his siblings died down in the sewer, this episode in particular is key to understanding him, it explains everything you need to know about Oz's fraught relationship with his mother, and his characters drive for respect, love and power.

If you're a fan of rise-to-the-top crime film like Scarface or totally engrossing character study/family-mob dramas like The Sopranos, I think this DC-centric take on a dark crime tale is gonna just tickle you pink. This is not only my favorite DC series of all-time, but I like it better than The Batman, and I friggin' loved The Batman!

Audio/Video: All eight episodes arrives on a 3-disc 4K Ultra HD set from WBDHE, we get three episodes each on the first two discs and two on the third, with the extras spread across all three disc. The Doby Vision HDR10 color-grading offers wonderful colors and deep black levels, contrast is on point, and depth, detail and clarity are superior to their streaming counterparts. Audio comes by way of English Dolby Atmos (TrueHD 7.1 with Optional English subtitles. The track is nicely immersive, dialogue sounds flawless, eruptions of gun fire and action-packed moments are impactful, and the score by Mick Giacchino (Skeleton Crew) has some nice depth to it.

The set is well endowed with over 90-minutes of handsomely produced extras; we get eight Inside Gotham featurettes that run 4-8 minutes each, plus 9 more featurettes that explore the characters, production design, the look of Gotham, and the make-up effects used to bring Cobb to life. The 3-disc set arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork. There is no Slipcover or Digital Code for this one,

Special Features:

- Inside Gotham: Ep. 1 (6:00), Ep. 2 (4:24), Ep. 3 (4:55), Ep. 4 (5:40), Ep. 5 (6:26), Ep. 6 (7:41), Ep. 7 (8:17), Ep. 8 (8:05)

- Introducing The Penguin (5:07)

- The Origin of Oz (4:04)

- Welcome to Gotham (4:21)

- Gotham Re-Envisioned (4:43)

- Becoming the Penguin (3:07)

- Who Is The Hangman: Portrait of Sofia Falcone (4:01)

- Hearts of the Penguin (3:52)

- A Take of Two Gotham (3:51)

- Victor Aguilar: The Making of a Henchman (7:21)

Buy it:

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FURIOUS (1984) (Visual Vengeance Collector's Edition Blu-ray Review + Screenshots)

FURIOUS (1984)

Visual Vengeance Collector's Edition

Label: Visual Vengeance

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 71 Minutes 49 Seconds

Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)

Director: Tom Sartori, Tim Everitt

Cast: Simon Rheel Phillip Rheel Arlene Montanol Mika Elkan, Howard Jackson

The cult martial arts flick Furious (1984) features the fierce Kung Fu master Simon (Simon Rhee, Showdown in Little Tokyo) who sets out to avenge the death of his sister Kim (Arlene Montano, L.A. Streetfighters), who at the start of the film we see perused and killed after a chase through mountainous terrain, the killer apparently after her enchanted tusk. This seems like it's set in ancient times, but we then find out after the brother Simon is introduced, who is running a martial arts school in a modern city center that it is current day 1984, where he lives in a treehouse. The quest for vengeance is a bit meandering to be honest, by the end of the film that elements is a bit lost, but along the way he is aided by the mysterious Master Chan (Phillip Rhee, Bruce Lee Fights Back from the Grave) while the evil Mika the karate sorcerer (Mika Elkan) attempts to thwart him by stealing a mystical amulet with super-charged mystical power.

The threat becomes a bit of a world-ending scenario involving alien karate wizards, a giant dragon's head, a DEVO-esque new wave clone band, mystical animals including a talking pig - there's a little bit of everything here. This z-grade no-budget production is a highly enjoyable mix of bizarre bat-shit mystical shenanigans and martial arts bad-assery, throwing in horror elements and some fun lo-fi camera tricks and ropey special effects that keep things entertaining if a bit hard to fully comprehend at times. In the extras you glean that it was largely shot without a script, and it shows, but it's fun and when the fight choreography kicks in it's pretty terrific.

Audio/Video: Furious (1984) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Wild Eye Entertainment's SOV specialty sub-label Visual Vengeance looking about as good a the tape-source elements can, framed in 1.78:1 widescreen, in 1080i. It's looks like a VHS, it's soft and smeary looking, fine detail and textures are vague, and it's murky, but colors generally look good, and it's never less that watchable. It's not HD perfection, pretty far from it, but for connoisseurs of 80's SOV oddities who live for this sort of lo-fi DIY action-flick there's plenty to appreciate about his presentation. Audio comes by way of English 2.0 stereo Dolby Digital with optional English subtitles. Much like the video presentation the audio side of things is lo-fi but totally watchable, the dialogue, sound effects, and the surf music soundtrack all fare well in the mix, just don't expect it to be hi-fi perfection, it ain't.

We get a massive array of extras for this one, even by the usual standard of VV this is excessive in the best possible way. We get an Archival Audio Commentary with co-director Tim Everitt who touches on everything from locations, the in-camera effects, the cast, the new wave band, the Rhee Brothers martial arts choreography, post-production and so much more. We also get a brand new Audio Commentary with Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Peter Kuplowsky of the Toronto International Film Festival who talk about their experience screening the film in Canada, talking about their love of the flick, and pointing out those who went onto bigger careers.

We also get a the 53-min High Kicking In Hollywood: Co-director Tom Sartori Interview, the 54-min The Kung Fu Kid: Co-director Tim Everitt Interview; and the 21-min North American No-Budget Martial Arts Cinema Primer, which is spirited and enthusiastic, offering up a zero-budget martial arts cinema primer that I loved, some of the flicks mentioned include The Deadly Art Of Survival, Death Promise, The Instructor, Treasure Of The Ninja, and plenty more, highly recommended. Decloux shows up again for the 11-min Rhee Brothers Career Overview - Justin Decloux Video Essay, tracking the brothers career from no-budget flicks to huge Hollywood productions.

There's also a 29-min Archival Scarecrow Video Podcast with Tim Everitt (2013); the silent 3-min Furious New Wave Band - Behind The Scenes Super 8 Footage, plus the 15-min Scorched Earth Policy: Full Six Song EP (1987) that plays over footage and still of the band, as well as the 21-min

Cinema Face: Live in Concert (1986) featuring a vintage VHS taping of a live gig. We also get the 12-minute

Tom Sartori 1980s Music Video Reel featuring three music videos by M.D. Hall performing "Stop It", the song "High Life" by an unknown band, plus "Amway" by Mercury Blue - none of which I've ever heard of and I am pretty sure never made it to MTV. Additionally there's the 22-min of Tom Sartori Super 8 Short Films Reel featuring short films Allegiance, Bum Doubt, and Hong Kong Flew. Th first of which is presented without sound, a Civil War era short, followed by a day-in-the-life of a city bum, and a shaky travelogue of a trio to Hong Kong. Disc extras re finished up with two vintage Furious Trailers and a new cut Visual Vengeance Trailer for the film, plus a selection of Visual Vengeance Trailers for Born a Ninja, Commando the Ninja, Kung Fu Rascals, and The Nine Demons.

As usual Visual Vengeance do not skimp on the packaging ephemera. The single-disc release arrives in a clear keepcase with a Reversible Wrap featuring the original VHS artwork, plus a Limited Edition Slipcover with its own unique artwork by The Dude, which is limited to the first-pressing only. Inside there's a 2-Sided Insert with alternate artwork, a synopsis and credits, plus a Folded Mini-Poster featuring a reproduction of the original one-sheet movie poster, a 'Stick your own' VHS Sticker Sheet, plus a Limited Edition Throwing Star Key Tag.

Special Features:

- New SD master from original tape elements

- Archival Audio Commentary with co-director Tim Everitt

- Audio Commentary with Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Peter Kuplowsky of the Toronto International Film Festival

- High Kicking In Hollywood: Co-director Tom Sartori Interview (53:16)

- The Kung Fu Kid: Co-director Tim Everitt Interview (53:35)

- North American No-Budget Martial Arts Cinema Primer - Justin Decloux Video Essay (21:18)

- Rhee Brothers Career Overview - Justin Decloux Video Essay (10:30)

- Archival Scarecrow Video Podcast with Tim Everitt (2013) (29:29)

- Furious New Wave Band - Behind The Scenes Super 8 Footage (2:55)

- Scorched Earth Policy: Full Six Song EP (1987) (14:30)

- Cinema Face: Live in Concert (1986) (20:42)