WELL GO USA BLU RAY RELEASE: The Flying Swordsman (2022)

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.

WELL GO USA BLU RAY RELEASE: Wolf Pack (2022)

Ke Tong (Aarif Rahman) is a physician who has just joined a private mercenary team who is trying to find out what happened to his father. Well, he’s basically kidnapped into it and he may disagree throughout with the team’s leader Lao Guan (Max Zhang) before he learns that they give their money to charity and that their cause is pure.

That said, if you don’t worry about the story and just go into it to appreciate the action, you’ll be doing so much better. There are some great gun battles, martial arts, vehicle stunts and all sorts of weaponry. Maybe leave politics out of it too. Maybe just watch it and try and have fun.

By the end, it got me cheering and made me excited that at least somewhere in the world, people are still making action movies like this.

You can learn more about this WELL GO USA release at the official site.

MVD DVD RELEASE: The Book of Harth (2022)

For 20 years, conceptual artist David Greg Harth had a Bible that he carried with himself every single day, seeking signatures from the most culturally significant people in the world.

In this movie, director Pierre Guillet follows Harth as he finishes this project, standing in line to meet people, sometimes having conversations, often only getting an autograph, sometimes even getting interviews with people like Noam Chomsky to Kevin Smith.

Harth feels like this project has cost him some of his life. It certainly has been a quest, as his sweat and hands have warped the Bible and made it into a work of art transformed by the artist. What does it all mean? Does it mean anything? This feels like twenty years of creating something made of hours of standing and waiting and nerves as you approach famous people, so many of whom have no idea they are part of a piece of art.

You can learn more at the official site.

The MVD DVD release of The Book of Harth has commentary by Harth and Guillet, plus deleted scenes with Harth getting signatures from Bruce Springsteen, John Williams, O.J. Simpson, Andrew Cuomo, Stevie Wonder, Michael J. Fox and Julian Assange. You can get it from MVD.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Prince Fatal Secrets (2022)

This TMZ documentary is directed by David Thies and tells what happened to Prince on April 21, 2016 as he died from a drug overdose. He had been dealing with the flu but may have overdosed another time a week before.

His loss was a major shift to the world, a loss that I never thought would happen. Prince always just was a force in my life since I was young and always someone that I knew would be releasing music and making contributions to culture. His loss changed the world for me.

What I didn’t like about this documentary is how they sensationalized his drug use. He was in pain most of his life from performing. Aren’t rock stars supposed to do drugs? No one at TMZ has ever had an addiction? It all comes off as very wrong to me.

I think it’s so weird that the pills that ended Prince’s life came from Walgreens. It seems so normal and generic and not a rock and roll thing. I guess it proves that anyone can have an addiction and it can be something as simple as you pick up at your pharmacy.

When I was young, Prince — unlike every other performer — scared people. Who was this small black man singing in a high pitch and combining sex and religion? I loved his edge and how he seemed to cultivate a secret world around himself. I wish he was still here.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Mysteries from the Grave: Titanic (2022)

 

The voyage of the RMS Titanic only lasted five days and over a century later interest in the disaster still exists. This documentary takes viewers into the depths of the ocean and shows what happened to the 1,500 people who died in the ship that was said to be unsinkable.

They found descendents of passengers to be in this and also people who are still blaming Captain Edward Smith 110 years later. In the same way I debate Italian movies, I bet there are people obsessed with the Titanic that are screaming during this.

I once had to do ads for a charity that was a married couple who built their entire house to look like the dining hall of the Titanic and would have charity events that served the last meal on the ship. Every idea we showed them, they grew upset and said, “Why are you making the Titanic into a joke?” I’m not the one that lived in the Titanic 24/7 so maybe I wasn’t so understanding. I also worked on a Titanic sequel in Pittsburgh that had the sinking filmed in a wave pool and I was told that their CGI was going to make it look great. My response? “Is your CGI better than James Cameron?”

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Gone Before Her Time: When the Music Stopped (2022)

Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse, Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes and Selena all died way too young. Why?

Aaliyah, an R&B singer and star of Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned was killed in an airplane accident in the Bahamas along when the overloaded aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff. The pilot had drugs and alcohol in his blood and was not qualified to fly the aircraft.

Amy Winehouse released one of the best-selling albums in UK chart history, Back to Black. She struggled with substance abuse, mental illness, bulimia and addiction, dying of alcohol poisoning at the age of 27. After her death, her album became the UK’s best-selling album of the 21st century.

Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was a member of TLC along with Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins and Rozonda “Chilli” Thomas. She was infamous for setting Andre Rison’s home on fire before she died in a car crash in Roma, Jutiapa, Honduras, while volunteering at a children’s development center. Days before, her assistant had accidentally killed a young boy, Bayron Isaul Fuentes Lopez, and she believed that a spirit that followed her choose him instead of her.

Selena was the Queen of Tejano Music and becoming a crossover star in America. She is still one of the most influential Latin artists of all time even after she was shot and killed in 1995 by Yolanda Saldívar, her friend and the former manager of her Selena Etc. boutiques.

This documentary takes you through the lives, the successes and challenges of these women, as well as what happened to all of them. Each of their lives ended way before they could have done more and is a tragedy in its own way.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Suburban Nightmare: The Menendez Brothers (2022)

Directed by Victoria Duley and written by Shelby Clip, this goes back to one of the first true crime cases that were debated in real time, Lyle and Eric Menendez murdering their parents José and Mary Louise “Kitty” Menéndez.

The brothers would reveal that for years their father abused them mentally, physically and sexually. Tried alone, both of their investigations led to a mistrial but when they were in court together, they were deemed guilty and sentenced to sentenced to life without parole.

A reason why you can see why that they are in jail is the remorseless nature of the murders.

On August 20, 1989,Lyle and Erik entered their parents’ home carrying shotguns. They shot José six times, including the fatal shot in the back of the head, and Kitty ten times, including a shotgun blast to her cheek while she was crawling away from them. Lyle even went to his car to get more bullets so he could shoot her in the face.

The brothers have been in jail for over 27 years now and yet there is still interest in the case, as this show proves. If you’re new to true crime, start here.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Evil Among Us: Ted Bundy (2022)

After more than a decade of court cases, Ted Bundy confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978 but may have murdered even more. He used charm to win over women, often meeting them in public and asking for help before beating them and taking them elsewhere to be killed.

Written by Adam Meyer, this Tubi original breaks down his murders, how he was caught, how he escaped and how he was caught again and tried.

If you watch true crime, you know that he would go back to the dead bodies and keep making love to them, as well as keeping their heads as trophies. He was so horrific that even a member of his last defense, Polly Nelson, said, “Ted was the very definition of heartless evil.”

I still can’t believe how many times he escaped the police. He jumped out of a window at the Pitkin County Courthouse law library and no one caught him for some time, leading him to Florida and even more murders.

He also turned his trials into entertainment, even using one to marry Carole Ann Boone. He also offered his services to those seeking other serial killers as he kept putting off the death penalty until 1989, an event that was celebrated by some like a public holiday.

If you already know all that, you may not need to watch this. If you don’t, this is a good beginning for a horrible person.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Pass the Mic (2022)

I feel like I’ve reached that moment when I have no idea who the kids are listening to which is fine because I’m 51 and pop music is no longer for me. Yet even I know who Lizzo, Lil Nas X and Kendrick Lamar are. I don’t like any of their music, but I can respect the fact that at least the first two have made it pretty far in pop culture despite her being plus sized and him being an out country artist who flirts with Satanic imagery. As for Lamar, it seems like more of the same. But hey — this is a movie blog not me commenting on music.

This seemingly is the perfect movie for grandparents or older aunts to watch so that they have something to talk about with their grandchildren, nieces and nephews whenever things get quiet. “I heard that Lizzo plays the flute” and “Kendrick Lamar is from Compton, just like NWA” would be good starts to the next music talk you have and then they’ll tell you they’ve moved on to something else but in the circle of life, soon they will become old and struggle to know who the next big thing is and require a documentary like this.

I thank Tubi for this public service.

You can watch this on Tubi.

TUBI ORIGINAL: Suburban Nightmare: Chris Watts (2022)

On August 13, 1988, a pregnant Shannan Watts disappeared along with her two daughters, four-year-old Bella and three-year-old Celeste. Her husband Christopher Watts went on television to plead for their safe return knowing that he had already murdered his wife and dumped her in a shallow grave and jammed his children into an oil tank in the hopes that he could start a new life with his girlfriend.

Written by Vince Sherry, this brings in friends, family, reporters and experts to discuss the case. At this point, if you’re watching this, you’ve probably already seen this story on several shows and watched American Murder: The Family Next Door on Netflix. I know I’ve seen this before and I just listen to these shows while I work on the site because my wife runs the TV and I just try and think about a world not filled with family annihilators. But that said, if you can’t get enough true crime, here is this show for you to watch and learn how a family fell apart, how Shanann kept using social media to present a perfect family and how her husband found a really attractive new girl and took her sand surfing.

You can watch this on Tubi.