BRIEF REMEMBRANCES OF THE RECENTLY RELEASED
THE LIGHTHOUSE (1947) - FOUR RODE OUT (1971) - BATMAN NINJA VS. YAKUZA LEAGUE (2025) - CAPTAIN PLANET AND THE PLANETEERS: THE COMPLETE SERIES (1990-1992)
LIGHTHOUSE (1947)
MOD BD-R
Label: Film Masters
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG
Duration: 60 Minutes 28 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Director: Frank Wisbar
Cast: Don Castle, June Lang, John Litel, Marion Martin
Lighthouse (1947) is directed by Frank Wisbar (Devil Bat's Daughter)a tale of jealousy and revenge set upon a small lighthouse island where Lighthouse keeper Hank (John Litel, The Return of Dr. X) works alongside his seemingly trusty assistant Sam Welles (Don Castle, High Tide). It seems that Sam has been taking trips to the shore to spend time with cannery-row gal Connie (June Lang, Flesh and Fantasy), stringing her along with promises of marriage. One day Connie misses Joe so she goes out to the lighthouse, and while he is not there she is shocked to discover that while Sam has been passing himself off to her as the Lighthouse keeper he is actually only the assistant, and that he is married to another woman, and is currently away taking care of matters at home. In revenge, which sort of speaks ill of her, she marries older man Joe, much to the chagrin of Sam. When Joe moves his new wife into the crowded confines of the lighthouse the stage is properly set for a potboiler melodrama, as tension Rise between the three, though Sam is well unaware of the intimacy Joe and his wife had in the very recent past. Joe turns out to be a pretty sleazy guy, even more so than we at first thought, and he suggests i/throwing a house-warming party and invitees Connie's best friend JoJo (Marion Martin, The Phantom Speaks), getting her drunk in hopes that she blabs about Connie shady cannery-row past, when that doesn't quite pan out he stages an accident to remove Joe from the picture altogether! At just 60-minutes long this one breezes by quite nicely, obviously shot on a small budget the sets and cast are minimal but it; handsomely executed and quite charming with a few darker moments, but overall a peppy tale of both soured love and unexpected new beginnings.
Special Features:
- None
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FOUR RODE OUT (1971)
MOD BD-R
Label: Film Masters
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: R
Duration: 95 Minutes 48 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Director: John Peyser
Cast: Pernell Roberts, Sue Lyon, Julian Mateos, Leslie Nielsen
In this western-thriller, directed by John Peyser (The Centerfold Girls), pretty girl Myra Polsen (Sue Lyon, Murder in a Blue World) is found in bed with her Mexican lover Fernando Núñez (Julián Mateos, Cold Eyes of Fear) by her father. He repeatedly calls her a whore, comparing her unfavorably to her mother, chasing Fernando off, and then walking into the next room and blowing his own brains out. Sometime later a U.S. Marshal named Ross (Pernell Roberts, TV's Trapper John, M.D.) comes to town inquiring about Myra, tracking her down at a local dress shop run by Rosa (María Martín, Murders in the Rue Morgue), asking if she knows where Fernando is. It seems he robbed a bank, and gunned down a man in the process, now he's wanted by the law. Also in town looking for the Mexican outlaw is a sleazy Pinkerton Agency detective Mr. Brown (Leslie Nielsen, Day of the Animals), who forces a team-up upon the Marshall to track down the bank robber, but Myra ends-up coming along as well, to ensure that Fernando is not gunned down. They eventually find him holed up in the desert near the border, in the process of trying to apprehend him secrets revealed, it seems that Mr. Brown is not what he appears, and Myra has a surprise of her own, followed by an impromptu shotgun wedding, and a scorching trek through the burning desert. The story, as unremarkable as it is, was co-written by Joe Dante good luck charm Dick Miller (A Bucket of Blood, Gremlins) who was one of three credited writer, one of the others being Paul Harrison (House of Seven Corpses). It's a very run of the mill western, not gory, the gunplay is pedestrian, and the setting is pretty tired, but it's an interesting cast, with the highlight being seeing Nielsen play a sleazeball, and it's fun to see Sue Lyon from Stanley Kubrick's Lolita here as the town's good-time girl. The soundtrack comes by way of singer-songwriter Janis Ian, who is probably best remembered for late-60s and mid-70s hits "Society's Child " and "At Seventeen", who showing up not just on the soundtrack but on-screen as a Greek chorus of sorts.
Special Features:
- None
BATMAN NINJA VS. YAKUZA LEAGUE (2025) 4K Ultra HD + Digital
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 89 Minutes 2 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 Surround, Japanese Dolby Digital Digital 5 1 Surround with Optional English Subtitles
Video: Dolby Vision HDR10 2160p Ultra HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Director: Jumpei Mizusaki and Shinji Takagi
This sequel to Batman Ninja, directed by Jumpei Mizusaki and Shinji Takagi, picks-up directly after the events of the first film with Batman and Damien returning to Gotham but straight awat realizing something si not right. For starters, the Justice League have disappeared, as has the entirety of Japan! But wait, look up in the sky, is it Superman? Nope, it's the island of Japan floating in the sky, caught up in a rift in the space time continuum. Meanwhile in Gotham it's raining Yakuza gangsters from the sky, coming from this alternate Japan in the sky. Batman and Damien take the Bat-jet to the cloud city, where they find not the feudal Japan they've just returned from, but an alternate Japan ruled by the Hagane Clan, featuring redesigned anime versions of the Justice League, including a Green Lantern by way of Zeshika the Emerald Ray, a Flash with Bari, the Fleet of Foot, Ahsa, the Aqua Dragon, obviously Aquaman, and a dark version of Superman. There are even rival clans, one of them being run by Daiana Amazone, the Eagle Goddess! I won't spoil all the fun with who shows up and what not, but this is a wild, wild anime version of some of our favorite DC characters. This mash-up of Western and Eastern by designer Takashi Okazaki is pretty fantastic, taking inspiration and elements and from every thing from fish market vendors to Lady Snowblood (I shit you not) it just dazzles from start to finish. I will say that outside of character design and teh action I found the kinetic and chaotic storyline a bit hard to follow at times, but I was so dazzled by the visuals it didn't really mater, and I was howling when they seemed to homage Voltron in a very retro-looking sequence, and awesome character intros. I kind of find the whole thing hard to describe, especially as I am not a huge anime or manga fan, in fact I could see someone DC fans not really liking this, because it is so different than what we are used to seeing, but I liked it, and i liked it infinitely more than the Justice League x Rwby crossovers. The 4K UHD looks and sounds fantastic, though I noticed the Japanese language track only gets lossy Dolby Digital while the English track is DTS-HD, and comes with a digital copy as well.
Special Features:
- Bringing Justice to Japan (7:27),
- Anime Action: Choreographing the Fights (9:08)
- Digital Copy
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CAPTAIN PLANET AND TEH PLANETEERS: THE COMPLETE FRANCHISE
(1990-1992)
9-Disc Blu-ray Set
Label: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment
Region Code:
Rating: TV-G
Duration: 2612 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HDMA 2.0 Mono with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1)
Directors: Will Meugniot, Jim Duffy, Stan Phillips, Vincent Davis, Ray Patterson
Cast: Martin Sheen, Meg Ryan, Whoopi Goldberg, LeVar Burton
Captain Planet and the Planeteers: The Complete Franchise Blu-ray collection includes the original Captain Planet and the Planeteers series (1990-1992), as well as The New Adventures of Captain Planet (1993-1996), collected on nine Blu-ray discs, which is great news, unless you're one of th fans who bought the DVD set just last year and now finds themselves upgrading. In 1990 I was in my late teens and this was not in my wheelhouse at that time, as I was preoccupied by metal and girls, but i remember watching quite a few episodes with my young brother Tommy, who was a fan. The basic idea of the show is we have five teens, The Planeteers, from around world who are brought together to embody the power of the elements and protect the planet, when their powers are combined and magnified, can summon eco-warrior Captain Planet. Re-watching select episodes on this set I must say that I think the animation style was much better than I had remembered or given credit to at the time, and I adore the pro-environmental message the show eschewed faithfully from start to finish. For me going back to the show as an old dude the takeaway I had was the interesting voice cast the series had, I mean, c'mon we had Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost) and Margot Kidder (Black Christmas) voicing Gaia the spirit of the Earth in different season, Star Trek's LeVar Burton as African Kwame, the kid with the power of earth, plus a host of notable villains, including Jeff Goldblum (Into the Night) as Verminous Skumm, Dean Stockwell (The Dunwich Horror) as Duke Nukem, Meg Ryan (Joe Versus the Volcano) as Dr. Barbara "Babs" Blight, Tim Curry (Stephen King's It) as MAL, James Coburn (Our Man Flint) as Looten Plunder, Martin Sheen (The Believers) as Sly Sludge, and one evil entity known as Zarm, basically the evil version of Gaia was voiced a different times by Sting (The Bride), David Warner (Nightwing) and Malcolm McDowell (Evilenko), easily one of the best zet of rogue's gallery villain names in the game!
Anyway, the set looks and sounds very good, colors are bold and well saturated, animation lines look good, and we get uncompressed DTS-HD MA audio for all 113 episodes. Sadly, we get zero extras for this set, but I do appreciate that the nine disc are housed in an oversized keepcase with for flipper trays inside holding the discs separately, not stacked on a spindle. The wrap is 2-sided and features a season and episode guide on the reverse side.
Special Features:
- None
Buy it!
Physical Media Land - use code: MOVIEDEAL at checkout to get 5% off your entire order!
