Author: Robert Greenberger

­After a lackluster summer where there were far more misses than hits, audiences were hungry for something fresh, something different. Lionsgate met that need with the surprise hit, Knives Out, which is out now on disc.

It’s a contemporary take on the kind of murder mysteries Agatha Christie made a career out of and like the film adaptations of her works, this comes with a stellar cast. Rian Johnson, who wrote and directed the feature, serves up an incredibly enjoyable tale, letting familiar performers work outside their familiar character types.

We have world-famous author Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) and his immediate family gathering for an 80^th birthday party, but by midnight, he’s dead with all four children suspects in the crime.

Lieutenant Elliott (Lakeith Stanfield) and a trooper Wagner (Noah Segan), perhaps the weakest written characters in the film, have been taking statements and investigating but seem to be getting nowhere. Sitting quietly in the shadows, observing is Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), a private investigator mysteriously hired to ferret out the real killer.

Could it be Harlan’s daughter Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis), or her husband Richard (Don Johnson) or even Richard’s ne’er-do-well son Hugh Ransom (Chris Evans)? Maybe it was Harlan’s son Walt (Michael Shannon) or his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome), or Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette), the widow of Harlan’s deceased son Neil. Or we could skip a generation and cast a jaundiced eye at Walt and Donna’s alt-right son Jacob (Jaeden Martell), Joni’s daughter Meg (Katherine Langford), or even Harlan’s elderly mother Wanetta (K Callan).

Helping fill in some of the gaps while hiding secrets of her own is Harlan’s nurse Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas), who the family treated as one of their own until their true selves were teased out through Blanc’s questioning.

We get plenty of flashbacks until the truth is revealed to the audience and then the fun begins with the weakest car chase of all time, projectile vomiting, and plenty of scenery-chewing. A great time can be had with this delight of a film.

Johnson clearly had fun crafting this and his cast gave it their all, turning de Armas, next seen with Craig in No Time to Die, into the current It Girl. The box office success h meant work already has begun on a new Blanc mystery to solve.

The film is out on a variety of formats including the Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD combo. The AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1 works fine and only the most discerning may quibble at some of the color changes. Really, it looks fine and the Dolby Atmos audio track is crisp and clear.

I wish the special features were a little more special but they’re okay. We have In Theater Commentary with Rian Johnson, Deleted Scenes (4:57) complete with optional commentary from Johnson; Making a Murder (1:54:07), a fine behind-the-scenes look; Rian Johnson: Planning the Perfect Murder (6:17); Director and Cast Q & A (42:09) derived from a 2019 screening in Westwood, California; Marketing Gallery, three Trailers, viral ads for Thrombey Real Estate (00:34), Blood Like Wine Publishing (00:56), and Flam (00:34); and Ode to the Murder Mystery (1:43).

I was just the right age for Swamp Thing when he shambled into comics back in the early 1970s. I had years of super-heroes committed to memory so I was primed for something different. Along came Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson’s creation and it dealt nicely with familiar horror tropes but with enough of a twist to feel different along with continuing characters and exquisite artwork.

The arrival of Swamp Thing on DC Universe was equally well-timed in that we’ve had plenty of super-hero films and live-action television so it was a welcome addition to their initial lineup. Then came the news that there was trouble on the set, the series order was cut, then canceled after one ten-episode season. We were left with plenty of unfulfilled potential.

For those who missed out on the show, Warner Home Entertainment has released Swamp Thing the Complete Series in a fine Blu-ray package. I need to stipulate that one of the executive producers and writers of the show is Mark Verheiden, a long time friend so I am biased. Where I am not biased is in saying this is incredibly superior to the Wes Craven films and USA series from the 1990s.

The show takes its cues from the Wein/Wrightson stories but has totally reimagined the characters and settings, adding in other characters from across the DC Universe. Let’s start with Alec Holland (Andy Bean) as a disgraced scientist having worked for Avery Sunderland (Will Patton), who is a cross between Lex Luthor and Huey Long in this version. He and his wife Maria (Virginia Madsen) still mourn the loss of their teen daughter, harboring blame on Abby Arcane (Crystal Reed), who left town as a result. She now works for the CDC but when things go wonky in Marais, Louisiana comes home to investigate.

We have Holland becoming the Swamp Thing (Derek Mears), who is horrified at his transformation and slow to learn his abilities. His is being hunted, though, by Holland, who recruits Jason Woodrue (Kevin Durand), who subsequently becomes the Floronic Man, and Lucilla Cable (Jenifer Beals), the local top cop, and her son, Matt (Henderson Wade).

As much as this a horror/supernatural show, it is told through the prism of a soap opera with various entanglements complicating motivations and subsequent actions. Sometimes this provides for interesting drama, and other times is a distraction. Additionally, Nimue Inwudu, a.k.a. Madame Xanadu (Jeryl Prescott) is underused and Daniel Cassidy/Blue Devil (Ian Ziering) feels tacked on and his role may have suffered from the truncated episode order. We even get the Phantom Stranger (Macon Blair), who needed more to do.

Len Wiseman, from the Underworld franchise, and James Wan are among the executive producers and each brings their own approach to the storytelling, so we have plenty of gory, horrific set-pieces. The swamp setting and small rural town are nicely depicted and the shadows help with the mood. As a result, the 1080 dpi transfer was vital in capturing the colors and shades, and they do a fine job here, so you avoid getting lost in the muck.

All ten episodes are included with no special features, which is a disappointment, but the series is well worth watching for fans. It’s also reassuring all is not lost as we saw Swamp Thing both before and after the Arrowverse’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. One can hope we get a chance to revisit Earth-19.

Parasite has been the critical darling since its unanimous win of the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and this weekend took a Best Screenplay award while it stands a chance at winning the Best Foreign Film award at the Oscars. It has also been nominated or including Best Picture and Best Director.

I don’t get the fuss.

The film, out now on disc from Universal Home Entertainment, is a South Korean production cowritren, co-produced, and directed by Bong Joon-ho. While it appears on the surface to be a story about a low-income family struggling to survive, it addresses class distinctions and demonstrates the lengths to which people will go in order to live. Apparently, the parents, Ki-taek (Song Kang-ho), and Chung-sook (Chang Hyae-jin), and their teen children Ki-woo (Choi Woo-shik) and Ki-jeong (Park So-dam), go from temporary job to temporary job, barely able to cover food and rent. We see them ineptly folding boxes for a pizza restaurant, reflecting their haphazard approach to improving their situation.

Providence arrives in the form of Ki-woo’s friend, who is about to study abroad and tells him to be his replacement as English tutor to sophomore student Da-hye (Jeong Ji-so), eldest child to a wealthy family. No sooner does Ki-woo get the job then he and his sister launch a plot for the entire clan to infiltrate the upscale home, each taking over a job and pretending not to be related to one another.

In surprisingly short order, the plan works and all four now serve as tutors, driver, and housekeeper for Mr. Park (Lee Sun-kyun) and his seemingly clueless wife Mrs. Park (Cho Yeo-jeong). The daughter is a gifted artist but cynically suggests the youngest child, Da-song (Jung Hyeon-jun) needs expensive Art Therapy, which she would happily provide.

Rather than explore the class differences and the interactions between counterparts, Joon-ho can’t make up his mind as to what tone to strike. The family, once desperate, become sarcastic, displaying their poor manners and taking full advantage of the Parks’ largesse rather than cultivate their roles to ensure longevity. While Mr. Park opens up a bit about his wife’s shortcomings, Mrs. Park offers nothing but effervescence and Ki-woo’s romance of someone far younger is just icky. About the only thing the Parks find odd is a certain odor from the newly hired quarter, something the son notices first and then bothers Mr. Park. While the family recognizes the need to change soaps for each, they never seem to do so since the odor, a metaphor made manifest, remains a plot point.

As if he ran out of material, halfway through the film briefly becomes a farce as we learn the previous housekeeper has been hiding her husband in the hidden underground bunker. She begs Chung-sook to keep their secret and keep feeding the man, who apparently is being hunted by loan sharks for unpaid debts. When the impostors are revealed, things threaten to spiral out of control.

Events build with less logic in each passing scene, such as a rainstorm that backs up the sewers, ruining the impostor’s apartment, climaxing at an impromptu garden party where farce gives way to thriller and violence replaces plot. Some revelations are preposterous with an over-reliance on Morse Code.

What should have been everything the critics said Parasite was, this is a poorly plotted, underwritten and flatly performed production that doesn’t deserve the heaps of praise it has garnered. Decide for yourself.

The film’s digital production means the resolution of 6.5K and finished at 4K looks stunning in 1080p. It is evenly matched with the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack, which comes in Korean, requiring you to use English subtitles.

For a film that’s a critics’ darling, the sole special feature offered is Parasite — Fantastic Fest 2019 Q&A with Joon Ho (19:03), nowhere near enough to explain what was on his mind.

Apparently, not even James Cameron can salvage The Terminator franchise. Returning to his 1984 creation with Terminator: Dark Fate, he made the bold (and probably correct) decision to jettison everything that happened after the first sequel. Recognizing that all subsequent stories have failed to recapture the thrills of these two, he decides to wipe the board clean and upend all the audience expectations.

Cleverly, he picks up with clips from Terminator 2: Judgment Day then makes a clean break by having John Connor shot dead, creating a branching timeline that prevented audiences from knowing what came next. However, what we discover is that Skynet may not exist, but Legion, an equally vile AI, has taken control and is sending their version of Terminators — Rev-9 (Gabriel Luna) — after the next “savior”, a young woman Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes). In the end, its different but startlingly familiar.

Apparently, in Cameron’s mind, mankind is destined to self-destruct, with just bleak prospects for survival. Still, humanity remains an indefatigable force, both today and tomorrow. Much as young Sarah Connor had no clue what was happening, neither does Dani as the Rev-9 blows away her father and targets her at work. After a car chase, it seems ready to eliminate her when up pops the weathered Sarah (Linda Hamilton).

And if we get Sarah back, you can bet we’re getting the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and we do in one of the more interesting interpretations we receive.

The problem, though, is that it’s Sarah, Dani, and T-800 versus the unstoppable Rev-9. We’ve seen all this before and by film’s end, the future hasn’t been altered. In fact, the new characters added here are pretty much disposed of, leaving us with Sarah, lonely, grieving, and angry.

It’s certainly pretty to look at and Director Tim Miller keeps the action moving at a nice clip. There are way too few scenes that let the characters actually breathe and talk to one another, depriving us of the emotional connection to them, notably Dani, whose interactions with Sarah could be a cautionary tale.

The film is out from Paramount Home Video in the usual assortment of packages including the 4K Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and Digital HD combo. Here, the film benefits from being seen in the 2160p Dolby Vision configuration with very sharp images throughout. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is excellent.

The film’s special features, though, are lackluster. These can all be found on the Blu-ray disc and are more perfunctory than fascinating. We start with Deleted and Extended Scenes (8:54) including I Need Your Car, Internet Café, Augmentation Volunteer, The Crossing, Alicia Confronts Sarah, and Let Me Save You. You get some of the necessary backstory to reimagining the franchise in A Legend Reforged (20:11), as Miller and Cameron look at the process. Then there is World Builders (32:46) which explores the special effects process and location shooting in Spain. Dam Busters: The Final Showdown (8:30) looks at the climactic battle. There’s another VFX Breakdown: The Dragonfly (2:33) which briefly looks at the future sequences.

The Many Lives of James Bond
By Mark Edlitz
Lyons Press, 300 pages, $27.95

Now that No Time To Die’s April release feels imminent, now may be a good time to catch up on some past James Bond history. Always remember that the past is prologue for the James Bond series. Prolific interviewer Mark Edlitz is back, this time with the recently released book The Many Lives of James Bond.

James Bond has been explored in just about every manner imagined and yet, Edlitz comes through with a collection of discussions that is unique in its breadth. Subtitled “How the Creators of 007 Have Decoded the Superspy”, he offers insights from not just the actors, but the directors, songwriters, novelists, artists, designers, and more.

The book is broken into five parts: Bond on Film, Bond in Print, Being Bond, Designing 007, and Bond Women with an appendix on the Quotable Bond. It’s interesting to read how directors Martin Campbell, Roger Spotiswoode, and John Glen each saw the elite spy and the challenges of maintaining the nearly 60-year-old franchise’s consistency.

Edlitz nicely looks under rocks and deep into the shadows to bring little known aspects of the legacy to light. For example, did you know Big Band leader Hoagy Carmichael was Fleming’s model for the look? His son, Hoagy Bix Carmichael, shared some anecdotes. Similarly, there are quotes from Bob Holness, who portrayed Bond on a South African radio adaptation of Moonraker in the 1950s.

The print section shines a little-seen spotlight on the novels that followed Ian Fleming’s death as Anthony Horowitz dishes on dealing with the film producers and Eon Productions while John McLusky reviewed his work on the British comic strip, and Mike Grell recounted his work on writing and drawing a Bond adventure for Eclipse Comics.

Several of the actor interviews may seem familiar if you had read Edlitz’s 2015 How to be a Super-Hero which takes a similar in-depth and out of the box approach to the subject. While he couldn’t get to Sean Connery directly, Edlitz has a long piece with Glen A. Schofield who clues us in on what it was like to work with Connery, who recorded Bond’s voice for the video game From Russia with Love which has proven to be the actor’s final time in the role.

Lan Wood represents all the women who wooed and were wood by the spy while Lisa Funnell, who edited For his Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond is on hand to take the long academic view.

Being an unauthorized book, Edlitz is limited in illustrations using a handful of fair use images and a series of adequate illustrations from Pat Carbajal.

The nice thing about a book like this is you can read an interview or two and come back for more, a very nice way to pass the winter until the new feature arrives.

Young Justice has two overlapping, somewhat rabid, fan followings. First, there are those who delighted in Peter David’s energetic take on the young adult team, which led to the animated series on Cartoon Network.

In the hands of former DC assistant editor Greg Weisman, Young Justice developed a very unique voice of its own, carving an animated continuity all to itself, enjoying two seasons on cable before vanishing. Weisman, Brandon Vietti, and their team were rehired by DC Universe to produce a 26-episode third season, dubbed Young Justice: Outsiders, which aired in two sections throughout 2019.

The entire season is now a four-disc Blu-ray set from Warner Archive so if you don’t want to spend for the service, you can see what you’ve missed. We pick up some two years after season two and Meta-human trafficking is rampant, with the people turned into WMDs. Meanwhile, the UN in their infinite wisdom imposes strict guidelines that prompt many of the heroes to quit the Justice League.

The animation looks about as good as we got the first two times around along, on a par with some of the direct-to-video offerings from Warner Animation. They also took the time to rethink the looks of several characters, redesigning Arrowette, Thirteen and Spoiler.

So, who are the Outsiders? Promo art told us they would be Tigress (Stephanie Lemelin), Black Lightning (Khary Payton), Superboy (Nolan North), Katana, Geo-Force (Troy Baker), Forager (Jason Spisak), Halo (Zehra Fazal), Metamorpho and Nightwing (Jesse McCartney), a very mixed bag.

The team, which has continued to morph throughout the seasons, remains although the first episode shakes up the status quo so they’re still active as is the League and even Infinity, Inc.

Many characters have entirely different personalities, relationships, and professions from the comics so you do need to be somewhat steeped in the 2010-13 series to make sense of where things stand. For example, good old Lex Luthor is now UN Secretary-General, which explains why he’s made it tough on the JL.

There is plenty of episode to episode continuity with the usual assortment of prolonged fight scenes and explosions. Overall, though, the pacing works nicely and there are good character bits throughout the season.

The writing is also good, especially with so many previous people coming back, including, thankfully, Peter David, who continues to entertain with these heroes. His “Triptych” dwells on Aquaman and Atlantis, things he knows well. Weisman and company have mined the comics continuity with abandon, including obscure people like Bash Bashford (Troy Baker), created by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown, and Wally Wood in an issue of Superboy back in1969. Weisman even plunders other animation as he uses Queen Perdita (Ariel Winter), who he created for DC Showcase: Green Arrow and has her date Gar Logan.

Watching these, you come to appreciate how the creators judiciously took advantage of the non-commercial arena, streamlining the stories without need for mini-cliffhangers to insert commercials, along with the slightly more mature themes and approaches to the characters. Things wrap up well enough although the final episode drops a Legion Easter Egg and we now know work is proceeding on the fourth season.

The fourth disc has a Bringing Back Young Justice with Whitney Moore: five Behind-the-Scenes features – Inside the Writer’s Room, The Animation Process, Voice Recording, The Post-production Process, and Recording Doom Patrol Go! – that first appeared on the streaming service, totaling over 48 minutes.

It has been an exceptionally disappointing year for smart, serious science fiction on the screen. In a short period, we had the crash and burn of Ad Astra and Lucy in the Sky, the latter of which has been made available for streaming by Fox Home Entertainment ahead of its inevitable release on disc.

Where Noah Hawley’s Legion was a surreal character study that got you involved with the characters, this film, co-written with Brian C Brown and Elliott DiGuiseppi, keeps every character at arm’s length. We open with mission specialist Lucy Cola in space and follow her re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere.

Clearly, like so many real-world astronauts, the experience was deeply affecting, but unlike the others, she is now forever altered and no one notices. Those closest to her, such as her husband Drew (Dan Stevens) and grandmother Nana Holbrook (Ellen Burstyn), seem oblivious.

At NASA, her psychiatrist Will Plimpton (Nick Offerman) and colleague Mark Goodwin (Jon Hamm) suspect something’s off, but the former does little about it while the latter embarks on a torrid affair with her. He’s been to space and becomes the only one she even attempts to articulate how being among the stars has altered her perceptions.

Over time, Lucy begins spiraling out of control with minimal efforts to help her, while Mark gives up on her in favor of Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz), an astronaut/rival. All of which builds up to Lucy being denied a return to space so stalks Mark accompanied by her niece Blue Iris (Pearl Amanda Dickson.

The back half of the film is heavily influenced by the 2007 incident that saw Capt. Lisa M. Nowak arrested after attacking Colleen Shipman, an Air Force captain she saw as a romantic rival.

Across the 2:05 of the running time, we don’t get to know any character with any depth nor do we sympathize with Lucy as reality slips from her grasp. There’s a sterility to the storytelling that leaves you looking at your watch and wondering who thought this was a good way to make a film.

Kudos to Hawley and cinematographer Polly Morgan for playing with the aspect ratio, making it an actual part of the story, honing in and out of Lucy’s perceptions.

The streaming edition was reviewed and looks just grand on your home television screen. The film is accompanied by four Deleted Scenes (9:47), one of which attempted to show another side of Lucy and one which gave Mark some character. There are four other pieces — Directors Journey (5:12), Creating Magical Realism (6:50), Making Space (5:42), Lucy Cola (4:15) – are all too short and all too on the surface to be involving or help explain how this misfired.

Shortly after HBO released Game of Thrones: The Complete Eighth Season, the Golden Globe nominations were unveiled and its considered a surprise that the series was virtually shut out. After the long wait, the truncated final season arrived this year and rather than take a victory lap, it was showered with complaints.

When the series, adapting George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire novels, arrived, people were stunned at its scope, sweep, violence, sensuality, and strong performances. You weren’t sure who to root for as the status quo kept shifting and beloved characters kept dying in unexpected, messy ways.

Phrases and names seeped into public consciousness just as the series began exhausting the extant prose and then charged ahead while Martin struggled to finish the current novel, in the cycle. Series Executive Producers/Writers/Directors David Benioff & D.B. Weiss got direction from Martin and then increasingly veered off in their own direction. Starting with season seven, we have no idea what’s really going to happen in the source material.

Judging season eight on its own merits reveals that going for six longer episodes rather than more standard-length episodes hurt the build-up to the climax. Events and reactions to events are telescoped, largely designed to isolate Daenerys (Emilia Clarke), pushing her to fulfill her destiny as the Mad Queen.

Her lover and rival, Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) remains a largely passive figure in the first five episodes so his action in the finale doesn’t feel particularly heroic. He may not want to be King of the North or even King of the Seven Lands, but he never makes clear what he does want.

It is interesting, though, to watch Daenerys’ rival, Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) refuse to bend the knee or compromise in any way, also isolating her so when she dies, it’s with just her brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), who never fully redeemed himself. She is gone, unmourned, and quickly forgotten.

If anyone “wins”, it’s Jon’s sister Sansa (Sophie Turner), who has held the North intact despite misogyny and political strife.  But, as the third female pillar of power, she too is isolated. Not from her people like the others, but from her family. To be queen means letting her sister Arya (Maisie Williams) go off to exploring the unknown and for Jon to return to the Wall (unaware that what he wants is to go farther north where he could be free).

The final episode helps redeem the uneven quality of the first five, but as a season, it was more whimper than bang despite the huge opening with the battle against the Night King (Vladimír Furdík), who is ultimately dispatched with relative ease making one wonder what all the fuss was about.

I will give credit to the producers for the irony of Bronn (Jerome Flynn), the ultimate survivor, winding up as Westeros’ Master of Coin. And thank goodness Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) managed to redeem himself, however, consigned to help Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) rule.

The sumptuous look of Westeros remains intact so from a production standpoint, the final season is strong. The music, the performances, the special effects, and so on remain top-notch. It’s the writing that proves most disappointing, a shame since the series was born from the word.

The final season comes in a handsome box set with a lovely 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Yes, some of the bright effects seem pixilated and some of the night scenes murky, but it accurately captures what we experienced last spring so any fault isn’t to be blamed on the disc. On the other hand, the Dolby Atmos track is superb, as is the lossless Dolby Digital 5.1 track.

A series of this nature tends to generate a lot of special features and this box set skips none of the goodies for those seeking even more Game of Thrones details. Every episode comes with a recap and preview for those with faulty memories. There are also Episode Guides that offer text pop-ups. Every episode comes with Audio Commentaries — Episode One with commentary by Co-Producer/Writer Dave Hill and Production Designer Deborah Riley; Episode Two with commentary by Co-Executive Producer/Writer Bryan Cogman and Daniel Portman (Podrick Payne); Episode Three with commentary by Director Miguel Sapochnik, Director of Photography Fabian Wagner and Camera Operator Sean Savage; Episode Four with commentary by Director of Photography David Franco, Jacob Anderson (Grey Worm), Nathalie Emmanuel (Missandel) and Pilou Absek (Euron Greyjoy); Episode Five with commentary by Director Miguel Sapochnik, Director of Photography Fabian Wagner and Conleth Hill (Varys) or Producer Chris Newman, Special Effects Supervisor Sam Conway, and Visual Effects Supervisor Joe Bauer; Episode Six with commentary by Executive Producers/Writers/Directors David Benioff & D.B. Weiss, and Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen).

Additionally, there is When Winter Falls (29:13), a “making of” documentary on the Battle of Winterfell and Duty is the Death of Love (31:36) for the series’ final episode. The week after the series ended, HBO offered fans Game of Thrones: The Last Watch (1:52:58) which is thankfully included here.

Finally, we have smaller glimpses of King’s Landing (2:55), The Greyjoy Rebellion (5:31), The Blackfyres (5:15), The South (2:30), The Defiance of Duskendale (5:17), Maegor the Cruel (5:18), and, of course, Deleted Scenes (8:28).

The Teen Titans have proven remarkably flexible since their mid-1960s debut as a collection of sidekicks. They appealed to the young readers with Bob Haney’s laughable “hip” language and as the readership grew up, so too did the members of the team, addressing adult issues with changing times and tastes.

They were propelled from mid-list to top-seller status by the Marv Wolfman and George Pérez run starting in summer 1980. These were teens on the verge of adulthood and had problems and issues that the college-age readership were drawn to. The blend of supernatural, science fiction, and super-heroics meant the stories could, and did, go anywhere.

In 2003, things went full-circle as the more mature incarnation was youthified for younger viewers as the Teen Titans hit the Cartoon Network in a five-season run. This success led to the even younger Teen Titans Go! so all the characters and their conflicts were scaled back to digestible amounts. Both series have their fans although I am not the target audience and therefore not among their number.

That said, I find Teen Titans: The Complete Series, out now from Warner Archive, entertaining. The six-disc set includes all 65 episodes and a nice assortment of special features.

The roster was pretty much locked to being limited to Robin (Scott Menville); Starfire (Hynden Walch); Cyborg (Khary Payton); Raven (Tara Strong), and Beast Boy (Greg Cipes). All play their archetypal roles with little variation nor do their civilian alter egos ever factor into the stories. They are perpetually allies and friends, never unmasking or interacting with their mentors. Instead, they swell in Titans Tower, located on the west coast in Jump City.

Their main antagonist is Deathstroke (Ron Perlman) and once he’s established, the second season loosely adapts “The Judas Contract” with the infiltration of Terra (Ashley Johnson) into their ranks, minus the icky sexual exploitation aspect.

For variety, season three brings in Brother Blood (John DiMaggio) and H.I.V.E. although neither resemble their comic book counterparts. We do, though, get a Titans East team featuring Aqualad (Wil Wheaton), Speedy (Mike Erwin), Bumblebee (T’Keyah Crystal Keymáh), and the newly created Más y Menos (Freddy Rodriguez).

Season four shifted the focus to Raven as the threat of daddy dearest, Trigon (Kevin Michael Richardson), arrives to enslave the world. Once he’s defeated, the final season brings in the Brotherhood of Evil. Here, we meet Beast Boy’s Doom Patrol teammates including Mento (Xander Berkeley), Robotman (Peter Onorati), Elasti-Girl (Strong), and Negative Man (Judge Reinhold) as they take on the threat from The Brain (Glenn Shadix), Madame Rouge (Walch), Monsieur Mallah (Shadix), Jinx (Lauren Tom), and others. This season brings in Red Star (Jason Marsden) and Kid Flash (Michael Rosenbaum) plus Kole (Strong), a character creating just to be killed during comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths.

In some ways, the fifth season is the strongest and most fun even if they squander the good mood with a nonsensical final episode. But how could you not love a season chock full of fabulous heroes and villains including Ding Dong Daddy, voiced by the great David Johannsson?

The Blu-ray transfer is quite fine with strong visuals and audio, as one expects from Warner Archive. The discs come with several special features repurposed from previous single season releases including: “Finding Their Voices: The Secret Information Behind the Making of Teen Titans ” (7:52); “Comic Creations: From Comic Book to Cartoon” (21:55), Puffy AmiYumi, the Japanese pop group that provided the theme song (13:15); “Catching Up With … Teen Titans” (4:58);  “Teen Titans: Know Your Foes”, shorts on the villains from seasons three and four; and, “Teen Titans: Friends and Foes” (25:12) from season five.

The 75-minute director to video Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo is included and caps this incarnation’s video run. It’s noisy.

A real treat is “The Lost Episode”, a 12-minute short featuring the team against new villain Punk Rocket (Greg Ellis). It was available only through a promotion from Post Cereals involving a token code to log into their website to watch. In addition to the team, there are appearances by many other characters throughout the series.

I have never seen a film in the Fast & Furious franchise so approached the latest release, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, with fresh eyes. I’ve certainly managed to absorb via pop culture osmosis the gist of the series’ evolution and the saturated play of the trailer all spring, certainly got me curious. So, kudos to the trailer’s editor.

While the premise behind the series does little for me, I enjoy a good buddy film and my understanding is that stars Dwayne Johnson and Jason Stratham had such different approaches to acting that I was curious to see how well they played together.

This is what we used to call a popcorn film: just enough plot to tie the action sequences together, appealing cast, and lots of things going boom. On those terms, the film works wonderfully and it is rather entertaining.

Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby) is an MI6 agent now carrying the deadly CT17 “Snowflake” virus in her bloodstream and becomes the target of the cybernetically enhanced self-proclaimed “Black Superman” Brixton Lore (Idris Elba). When she’s framed for crimes, rivals DSS Agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and mercenary Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), whose sister is in trouble, are tasked with recovering the woman. As one expects from the franchise and Johnson, there are heavy doses of humor leavening the by the numbers plot, making this a cut above the usual.

Whilke the action set pieces beggar the imagination, the fun shifts gears into fresher territory when Hobbs brings the fight home. We shift the action to Samoa where we see him reconnect with his brother Jonah (Cliff Curtis), paralleling Shaw’s own sibling issues. And if you have the Shaw siblings, you can bet their mother, Magdalene (Hellen Mirren), won’t be far behind. So right there, Elba and Mirren have me hooked.

There are enough connections to the previous films and threads for the next one, already in production, to satisfy the series’ legion of fans. Me, I can take it or leave it; it all comes down to how compelling the next trailer is.

The film, out now from Universal Home Entertainment, is available in the usual assortment of formats including the tried and true Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD combo pack. The 1080p high definition transfer is excellent so you won’t miss a single flame or grain of sand. You may marvel at the Rock’s pecs or Elba’s high-tech gear thanks to the crisp visuals. The Atmos soundtrack does a fine job making things pop.

The Blu-ray comes packed with above average Special Features for the diehard fan. We start with an Alternate Opening (10:14); Deleted/Extended/Alternate Scenes (34:29), only some of which is missed from the feature; Johnson & Statham: Hobbs & Shaw (3:38); Progress of a Fight Scene with Director David Leitch (4:57); Practical Action (3:43), all about the fighting choreography; The Bad Guy (2:00); The Sister (3:58); Hobbs’ Family Tree (3:20); The Matriarch (1:35); New Friends (2:01), Ryan Reynolds and Kevin Hart cameo; Elevator Action (1:59); Stunt Show and Tell (3:41); Keeping it in the Family: A Conversation with Roman and Dwayne (5:02); Blind Fury (1:50) ; Dwayne and Hobbs: Love at First Bite (1:36); and finally, Audio Commentary from director David Leitch.