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When Star Trek: The Motion Picture debuted in theaters, it had been ten years since the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise had come together on television. For the fans, it was a huge event that made largely forgivable the opportunity taken by the SFX department to show how cool computer generated fractal graphics could look. It was the launchpoint for five more movies to come, sometimes calling back to the television show but mostly introducing new concepts and new aliens.

Dogs and mysteries have been the peanut butter and jelly of children's cartoons for decades, featuring such sniffing sleuths as Woofer and Wimper, Dynomutt, Hong Kong Phooey, and the whole gang from Disney's 101 Dalmations. But, of course, the king of them all has always been Scooby-Doo, the Great Dane mascot of Mystery Inc. For years, Scooby and the gang have been busting mysteries and proving that the things that go bump in the night are nevery more than a greedy person in a rubber mask.

On the other hand, however, there's Courage, a little pink mutt from Nowhere who defends his family from true weirdness, monsters, alients, and the like, often without them realizing it and always without reward. But never has the weirdness been anything explainable as a prosaic prank.

Arrow Video brings to Blu-ray the long-awaited special edition version of Bernard McEveety’s 1971 film, The Brotherhood of Satan.

The film follows the recently widowed Ben, his girlfriend Nicky, and his daughter K.T. on a road trip across the Southwest. During the trip they are witnesses to a horrific accident and head to the nearby isolated desert town of Hillsboro to report it to the Sheriff (played by L.Q. Jones). While there, they are met with a not-too-welcoming reaction from the locals, who are gripped by paranoia and fear due to a series of gruesome deaths and the mysterious disappearance of eleven of the community’s children. As more disappearances and deaths continue during their visit, Ben and his family find themselves joining the sheriff, a local priest and the town’s doctor, Doc Duncan (Strother Martin, Cool Hand Luke), but all clues lead to an evil satanic cult that is slowly gripping the town and its inhabitants.

Warner Brothers police drama with a twist, Prodigal Son, gets the Blu-ray release for its second season. Malcolm Bright (Tom Payne) continues in his role of consulting profiler for the police department, bringing his unique perspective to the solving of unique homicides. That perspective comes from the fact that his father, Dr. Martin Whitly (Michael Sheen), is the infamous serial killer known as The Surgeon. From his special accommodations at the Claremont Psychiatric Hospital, Martin stands ready and eager to "help" his son get into the minds of the various psycopathies he must unravel, all while getting further into Malcom's head as he struggles with repressed memories.

More relevant than ever, Profile is a story told in the daring cinematic method of screen grabs and video Skype calls. It' a slow burn of a film that ignites in supernova intensity in the third act.

Valene Kane plays Amy, a freelance journalist looking to break into a full time job with a huge story. Using Facebook, she establishes a profile that falls in line with those of other young girls in the U.K. who had been recruited by ISIS as brides. Once she makes contact with Bilel (Shazad Latif), private messages evolve toward video calls with each other, as Amy tries to make herself the perfect victim to be recruited.

But the longer Amy pursues her relationship with Bilel, the more she finds herself sympathizing with him, his motivations, and his causes, to the extent that she begins to isolate those around her -- who in turn act toward her in ways that mirror the rejections that seemingly forged Bilel into the man he is.

The second part of Batman: The Long Halloween didn't take long to release, thankfully overcoming the expiration of expectations that can hamper a story cut into two pieces like this. And it doesn't waste any time rushing through a number of holiday murders during which time Batman... does nothing. Why? Because Bruce Wayne (Jenson Ackles) has been mind-controlled by Poison Ivy (Katee Sackhoff), and has been regularly signing over assets at her bidding to her boss, Carmine Falcone (Titus Welliver). Fortunately for Bruce, Catwoman (Naya Rivera) not only notices his absence but also knows his secret identity, mounting a rescue mission that brings Batman back into the thick of things after nearly four months of stupor.

A Quiet Place I & II is one of those rare set of films where you can actually watch them back-to-back and get the feeling of having absorbed a single epic film. That's because AQP2 actually picks up right where the first leaves off (with a bit of a flashback that shows the arrival of the "totally not Gormogon" aliens and how quickly they begin to wreak havoc.

The aforementioned aliens have not so much invaded Earth as they have crashed into it. They're giant bugs -- blind, but attracted to the slightest noise to hunt their prey. The key to survival is to learn to remain as quiet as possible -- a difficult proposition for the Abbott family, who rig up a special oxygen-tank enclosed carrier for their infant son in order to keep him quiet. Mom Evelyn (Emily Blunt) does her best to protect the children while father Lee (Director John Krasinski) works on finding other survivors by monitoring radio equipment.

Flight to Mars is one of the earliest Atomic Era science fiction films that capitalized on the dream of interstellar flight. Being a product of its era, the story has an inherent charm in its simpllicity, and yet still delivers a story with political intrigue and raw action and romance.

Dr. Jim Barker (Arthur Franz) heads up a team of scientist who will be making the first manned mission to the Red Planet. Also accompanying him will be his scientifically capable assistant, Carol (Virginia Huston), who carries a torch for him that he's too blind to see. But Steve (Cameron Mitchell) sees it, and he works to get Carol to see that he's the right guy for her, even though he's just an embedded journalist there to document the flight and not a brainy rocket scientist.

Somehere in space live The Herculoids. That somewhere happens to be the planet Quasar, a quaint little rock inhabited by civilized cavemen and bizarre creatures. It's not much of a tourist attraction, but it must have immeasurable resources because the only visitors it ever gets either want to conquer the planet, take its resources, bury treasure on it, or enslave the inhabitants.

No wonder The Herculoids are such separatists. You land on Quasar, you get one warning and then you're done.

Almost Famous tells the story of William Millier (Patrick Fugit), a high school music journalist whose work gets noticed by Rolling Stone magazine, who then assign him his first story: a profile piece on an up-and-coming band, Stillwater. What the magazine doesn't realize, however, is that William is only 15 years old, having been promoted through school early due to some odd machinations by his mother (Frances McDormand) to obscure his age.

Touring with the band, William's experiences are both everything you would expect from living a rock-and-roll lifestyle, but also everything you would not expect, as the stereotypical band members and groupies are humanized through their personal struggles and foibles. Yes, there's the drugs and sex, but director Cameron Crowe shows this in a near tragic light, with all the consequences that come along with a life of excess.

When I first heard that Gotham was going to be followed up by a series called

Pennyworth, I thought, "Okay, Gotham was a wee bit of a stretch, going back to a pre-Batman version of the setting, but going back to Alfred's younger days is probably beyond a capable grasp."

I believe I was correct in this assumption. Even with Bruno Heller attached, Pennyworth seems to very little connection to the Fox series.

In this second season, Alfred (Jack Bannon) is something of a war profiteer. He runs a night club catering to both sides of the war, and puts his former military skills to the test by taking on the odd mercenary job here and there. Some of these jobs are at the behest of CIA field agent Thomas Wayne (Ben Aldridge), who enjoys a tenuous romantic relationship with resistance fighter, Martha Kane (Emma Paetz).

Arrow Video finally brings to Blu-ray the DAIMAJIN films. All shot in 1966 and produced by Daiei’s Kyoto studios, these films brought together two of Japan’s most popular film genres at the time: the samurai films in the vein of Zatoichi, and the giant monster kaiju films ala Godzilla and Gamera.

All three Daimajin movies are presented in this single boxed set (that has been long overdue for a Blu-ray release in America) and this will be the first time ever this short-lived series will be available to be viewed in the UK.

Darren Lynn Bousman's torture machine continues to crank out product, this time branching out of the SAW franchise into an inspired copycat storyline: SPIRAL. And with this iteration, Bousman brings in some of Hollywood's big guns to lend their faces to the project.

Detective Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) is a pariah on the force, seen as disloyal to the blue because he turned on a dirty cop and had him put away, when his father, Marcus Banks (Samuel L. Jackson)  was in charge of the precinct. It's made him angry, and it's made him take risks, something which is difficult for his new partner, Detective William Schenk (Max Minghella), to accept.

His Dark Materials is a series of books by Sir Philip Pullman which plays on the subject of parallel worlds that blend fantasy and reality, magic and technology, and quantum physics and religion. It's like a recipe card where all the ingredients sound delicious, but which have to be mixed just so in order for the final product to measure up to expectations.

While I am familiar with the books, I am not someone who has read them. Therefore, I cannot comment as to how closely HBO adheres to the story in their serial adaptation of the adventure, which finds Dafne Keen playing Lyra Silvertongue, the young heroine of the story. I can say that, having watched the first two seasons now, the live action version has done little to motivate me into reading the source material.

Arrow Video brings to you on Blu-ray the 2020 indie film by first time director Adam Stovall. Bringing together many genre's of film from Humor to Horror, from Drama to Romance, A GHOST WAITS has it all.

The story begins with Jack traveling to his next job as a handyman and caretaker for his company's properties. Desperately phoning his friends along the way to find a place he can crash for the next few nights due to his own place being fumigated, he arrives at the house he is to be inspecting and notices all the previous tenants belongings are still there. Confused by this, he phones his boss and discovers the home has a history of renters breaking their leases suddenly and without warning -- and it is now Jack's job to inspect the house from top to bottom to find any issues with this property so it can be rented out once more.

The latest DC Universe animated epic has been released, this time adapting the Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale graphic novel that took a novice Batman and forced him to forge his detective skills. The connective thread of this adventure was that a killer was taking out people close to mob boss Carmine Falcone, establishing the pattern of commiting the murders on major holidays. The Holiday Killer was a mystery to be solved, and each of the 13 issues that made up the series carried the reader through the year in near real-time, with various Batman villains popping up where appropriate.

GODZILLA VS. KONG is the fight we've all been dying to see, wrapped up in one hot mess of a plot salad. Yes, I've heard several fans say they didn't care about the plot, they just wanted to see the giant monkey fight the giant lizard. And that's fine. Unfortunately, in regards to the whys and wherefores of giving this gargantuan slobberknocker a reason to happen, an attempt was made, and so we have to consider it as well. So let's try to parse it out as best we can.

There are a few different theories of time travel that fit into fiction. The first is that the past can't be changed. The second is that changing the past creates an alternate timeline. The third is like the first, but with the twist that whatever you change in the past is what causes the present problem you initially went back to fix.

Freddie Highmore (The Good Doctor) plays Thom, a brilliant engineering student on the verge of graduation and already turning down job offers from mulitple oil companies after a patent of his saved them millions in oil spill cleanup. But when he's approached by Walter (Liam Cunningham, Game of Thrones), a salvage ship captain who has had his most recent salvage taken from him by the Spanish government, he gets drawn into an engineering puzzle that he can't ignore.

Super 8 holds the distinction of being one of the best 80s films not actually made in the 80s. Pre-dating Stranger Things, Super 8 is a wonderful sort of mash-up of Stand By Me, It, Cloverfield, and E.T.

A launch vehicle for the career of Joel Courtney, who plays Joe Lamb, the son of Deputy Sheriff Lamb (Kyle Chandler), Super 8 also starred A.J. Michalka (of the Birds of Prey series and the AJ half of pop duo Aly & AJ), and (already a veteran actor) Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard, the daughter of town drunk Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard). There's bad blood between Deputy Lamb and Louis Dainard that they push onto their children, setting up a sort of Romeo & Juliet dynamic between the two coming-of-age teens.