John Dhannay (Tony Musante) is trying to manage a coup in an African country for the CIA when one of his men, Douglas Grayson (John Steiner) kidnaps two actors — Jack (Gianrico Tondinelli) and Aliki De Mauro (Claudia Cardinale) — and puts John’s ability to lead in question.

Directed by Damiano Damiani, who co-wrote the script with Nicola Badalucco which was based on The Grosvenor Square Goodbye by Francis Clifford, this is a tense thriller that puts nearly everyone into the line of fire, including an ambassador played by John Forsythe.

While most of the movie takes place in a small hotel room, it stays packed with tension throughout. What helps is the score by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis or as I call them Oliver Onions. You may not end up liking John at all by the end, but you will realize that he gets the dirty work done.

A mix between political thriller and poliziotteschi, this kept me watching intently.

The Radiance Films release of this movie has a new 2023 restoration of the film from the original camera negative presented with Italian and, for the first time on home video, English audio options. It has audio commentary by Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, interviews with editor Antonio Siciliano and actor Wolfango Soldati, a reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters, a limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Italian crime cinema expert Lucia Rinaldi and the Radiance Films packaging that looks so great in your collection. You can get this from MVD.

My brother and I don’t have a lot in common. He loves basketball and I’ve never watched it. However, I did watch this Tubi Original and I was pretty amazed by the story in it. I never realize that Kobe Bryant’s father played, that he grew up in Italy or that he had a lifelong friendship with WNBA player Tamika Jennings, that he supported women in basketball so much or that he was so devoted of a father.

Directed by Victoria Duley and Sia Savvy, this Tubi documentary would probably be elementary for someone who knew basketball better than I do, but it held me for an hour and a half and it took me through the entire story of Kobe’s life — the good and bad — and I grew to admire what he did in his life, even when he failed.

You can watch this on Tubi.

The Creep starts with a man (Cory Espie) putting a shovel back in a truck. It looks like something has gone wrong.

Then, we find two people in bed together talking about how they’re both in other relationships and have to choose what they want to do. She claims that she needs more time and he walks out. He’s passed by the black man we saw at the beginning who punches her in the face.

Fade out. We come back to a barber shop where we see the man who walked out, Terry, getting his hair done. He asks out Olivia (Kris D’Sha), the woman who did his fade and gossip follows. He makes it to his job as a teacher just in time to break up a fight between two girls.

Terry and Olivia have a date at his house where she cooks. As you can figure, they make out on the couch despite her worrying that they’re moving too quickly. The next morning, one of Olivia’s customers by the name of Francesca (Tekia Gee) is trying to get details and it turns out that she’s a detective. She goes to a crime scene where she finds a body in a field.

Cut to that big guy from the beginning, who has a woman tied up and covered in blood. He’s filming her while he screams at her about how women use men. He sings the song we heard when we first saw him, “Ain’t No Sunshine” and hits her with a weapon.

Back to the detectives — the partner is Adrian (Fabian) — who are investigating the case. And Terry and Olivia are still dating, as he makes a red pepper pineapple weenie rotini, which she doesn’t seem to like. She makes him order a pizza.

When he goes to a teaching conference, he lets his cousin stay there. Olivia visits and hears the young man having vigorous bed olympics and thinks that it’s Terry. Meanwhile, the hair stylists take out the detective to celebrate that she graduated. The killer is also drinking at the bar and watches as Olivia arrives in tears. He introduces himself and starts talking to her. It takes seconds before they’re kissing on the dance floor and then making love in his apartment.

Speaking as a larger man, thank you The Creep for having a big man be sexual.

Olivia and the Creep end up getting into it pretty quick, dating as fast as it gets, as we see them out and about on multiple dates. He also starts looking through her phone and learns all about her life, including Terry, who gets to explain that it wasn’t him that she heard. Now she’s trapped inside the Creep’s apartment with him having an emotional talk with her, telling her that he doesn’t take heartbreak well.

That’s when she breaks up with him.

The detective meets the sister of the woman we saw killed earlier and learns that her sister’s boyfriend was named Cory and she has a photo of him. Yes, it’s The Creep.

I have to call out that Olivia has some of the silliest outfits ever.

We then cut from a romantic dinner to Terry and Olivia making love as the Creep watches and does a five knuckle shuffle on the piss pump.

Also I want to remark how much I love the Greek chorus that is the other hair stylists, Quasha (Dee Hill) and Cortez (Corta Ishman).

The Creep ends up stalking everyone, even at the gym. He’s sending valentine hearts, calling the stylists, even watching people work out. Everyone gets together to play Uno and yes, this movie has a long and involved discussion of double Uno rules and then Terry and Olivia get engaged and the Creep leaves a dead bird on the porch.

At their engagement party, Terry’s cousin Tony gets jumped by the Creep and shot in the bathroom while the band Chemistry plays. His worried girlfriend says, “Tony must be taking a shit.”

This gets even better, because the Creep goes all in on stalking after Olivia reveals that she was cheating and Terry leaves her. He also kidnaps the sister of the woman he killed and goes wild, yelling about Bennigan’s.

The ending of this is just as goofy as you would have hoped that it would be, with a comedy baby scene, some dispute over the child’s baby daddy and, of course, one more twist. After all, the first person that the Creep took was also sleeping with Terry. The plan was there all along.

Directed by A.D. Scott and written by DeMarcus Bailey and Derek Massey, this was shot for $33,000 in Dallas and is more than 2 hours long for reasons I can only wonder about. Of course I loved it.

You can watch this on Tubi.

Joseph James DeAngelo is the man who has been charged with 13 murders, 51 rapes and 120 burglaries over 12 years while he worked as a cop, often investigating the crimes that he had caused. He was also known as the Visalia Ransacker from 1974 to 1976, the East Area Rapist from 1976 to 1979 and the Original Night Stalker.

He also sent letters and made phone calls to past victims and the police after.

For a long time, people thought that each of those killers were different people. They were all the same man.

If you watch as much true crime as gets watched in this house, you already know this story. But that’s how it is — I may have seen the same story on other networks, 48 Hours, 20/20, Dateline and more. I still watched this and despite everyone’s complaints about the podcasters in it, it’s not bad.

You just might know all of it. Every horrible detail.

You can watch this on Tubi.

In 2007, Jeffrey Epstein was featured in a VH1 show The Fabulous Life of Billion Dollar Wall Street Ballers.

That is shown in this, bragging of his rich life as if it’s something everyone wanted.

“Jeff was a high school math teacher who traded his blackboard for the big board. He just couldn’t keep out of the classroom. When he bought himself a house, he bought himself a school house.”

There’s even his Lolita Express in the show, although it isn’t called that, but there is mention of his close personal friendship with Bill Clinton.

“Jet setting with Bill? All in a day’s work for the Wall Street mogul,”

The media reported that Jeffrey Epstein died on August 10, 2019 by suicide while inside one of the most secure prisons in the world. This Tubi Original attempts to turn the memes and theories into as truthful a story as they can get.

I mean, the Naked Cowboy singing a song at the beginning doesn’t help, but did you think a Tubi Original was going to be the way you get all of the answers to one of the biggest mysteries ever?

You can watch this on Tubi.

Gui Yu has been searching for Tian Guinong and the evil martial artists who killed his father and his father’s greatest rival to steal a treasure. They have been looking for the iron box that holds it for a decade, long enough for Gui Yu to get old enough to start tracking them all down.

Also known as The Hidden Fox, this was directed by Lei Qiao and he has a real eye for some amazing fight scenes.

The only negative I can say about this movie is that there are so many flashbacks that it gets kind of hard to figure out things, but when the action is this ferocious, you can forgive that. I mean, it’s almost a superhero movie with some of the battles. It’s yet another release by WELL GO USA that brings a movie I’ve never heard of to me and ends up being way better than I thought when I started it.

You can get this blu ray from WELL GO USA. To learn more, here’s the official site.

Clément (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is the rich son of an industrialist who has come to join a far right terrorist group. Despite being married to a former actress named Anne (Romy Schneider) and having anything he wants, he blows up the home of a socialist politician, killing the man and having to hide in a windmill owned by his old friend Paul, who is a socialist.

Once Clément learns that he was railroaded by his friends, he goes for revenge while his wife and Paul fall in love. He’s gone to South America where he works with what’s left of the Third Reich before coming back and challenging his one-time friend to a duel.

Directed by Alain Cavalier and written along with Jean-Paul Rappeneau, this looks gorgeous and presents a woman torn between two men who both love her but are on the opposite sides of outlook.

The Radiance Films blu ray of Le Combat Dans L’ile has a 2K Restoration from the original camera negative, a 1962 interview with Cavalier, a 1983 interview with Jean-Louis Trintignant, an analysis of the movie by critic Philippe Roger, short films by the firector, behind the scenes photos, a trailer, a reversible sleeve, a limited edition booklet featuring new writing on the film by critic Ben Sachs and scholar and author of Late-Colonial French Cinema, Mani Sharpe. This is limited to 3000 copies and comes in Radiance’s trademark packaging,  presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of logos and markings. You can get it from MVD.

Murphy (Peter O’Toole) is the only survivor of the merchant ship Mount Kyle, which was sunk by a German U-boat and the survivors all shot. He gets to the shore of Venezuela, where he is nursed by Dr. Hayden (Siân Phillips), a pacifist who may not be interested in his plans to kill everyone who put him here.

Based on the book by Max Catto, this was directed by Peter Yates and written by Stirling Silliphant, this was originally going to have Frank Sinatra as Murphy.

Robert Evans brought the director and producer Michael Deeley to the project before losing interest. However, they had a pay or play contract and Evans wanted them to make The Godfather instead. They chose this.

It’s definitely not a movie that makes war look romantic or in any way filled with honor. Instead, it’s just people losing and dying and failing. No wonder critics were so rough on it.

The Arrow Video blu ray of this movie comes with a new visual essay by film critic David Cairns, archive interviews with assistant director John Glen, focus puller Robin Vidgeon and film critic Sheldon Hall, a trailer, an image gallery, a reversible sleeve and an illustrated collector’s book. You can get it from MVD.