“The Colosseum. The Roman Empire distilled to its most basic essence. It is a symbol of conquest. It’s a symbol of dominance. It’s a symbol of imperial power radiating throughout the Roman world. Any emperor had the Colosseum at his disposal to use as a tool to reassert his power and authority. The message of the Roman people is that life is a combat. It was also a judicial warning: do not test the power of Rome.”

After over 2000 years of both heavy use and neglect, much of the structure still remains. It survived the many sacks of Rome and its rebirth as a Christian empire. The building survived the bombings and invasions of two World Wars, and it remains. Its history is a testament to the best and worst of human nature. Now History has given us a series of eight television episodes that explore both the mystery and the majesty that was the Roman Colosseum.
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One of the things that stands out to me the most about Voodoo Macbeth has very little to do with the true story about how Orson Welles, who at the time he was only 20 was hired by the Negro Theater Unit to direct  a stage production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth with an all black cast in Harlem. What’s more intriguing to me is that the film was actually the first feature film to come out of USC and gain theatrical distribution, but the film is listed with having 10 directors and eight screenwriters. With hat much ego and creative talent, it is impressive that they managed to squeeze out a cohesive story, and one that looks pretty good, though it does have some issues.  I applaud the ambition to tackle a period piece and also a story that is a bit of both film and theater history, considering this was one of the first and most wildly successful stage productions with a black cast, but is also the production Orson Welles  helmed before stepping behind the camera to direct his first film, a little thing called Citizen Kane.
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“There is an old saying that blood is thicker than water.”

We’ve had Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Gene Simmons with his Family Jewels, and even Snoop Dog’s Father Hood. It’s become a bit of a trend to follow these celebrity families around and watch the drama of their privileged lives unfold on our television screens. You might think it’s a relatively recent phenomenon, but would you believe they were doing it back in the infant days of television when we followed around a musician named Ozzie and his wife way back in 1952? No, we’re not talking about Ozzie Osbourne and his family. I’m talking about Ozzie and Harriet Nelson. They were television’s darling family before we ever heard about Lucy and Desi. The show actually started on radio like many of the fledgling industry’s early hits including the likes of Gunsmoke. Four years after the radio brought us The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet, they moved to television.
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“On the day America remembers its dead, a special salute today for the war dead in Vietnam. An American serviceman who died there took his place today in a place of honor, The Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier. Almost 10 years after the last American left Saigon, the men who fought in Vietnam got their parade. Muffled drums and dirges. A coffin and a flag wrapped in plastic to protect it from the rain. Families of the men still missing in Vietnam waited for the coffin and remembered. They wonder if their sons are still alive and why the world sits back and allows the Vietnamese government to flagrantly violate the Geneva Convention. Rumors of physical and mental torture have made the wait more agonizing.”

If the story sounds somewhat familiar, there are two reasons for that.
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I get it. At first glance Ghost Warrior seems like a movie that is easy to disregard, but if you are looking to step outside the mainstream and dip your toe into the murky waters that is B cinema, Ghost Warrior is a heck of a fun place to start. The film is produced by Charles Band. He’s pretty much royalty when it comes to B cinema. His biggest claim to fame is the creation of Full Moon Features, and if you were around in the mom and pop video store days, you more than likely passed plenty of his work on the video store shelves. Movies like Puppet Master and little gems like Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama were Band’s bread and butter, and he’s been successful enough to produce well over 350 films. When it comes to Ghost Warrior, this is before Full Moon became notorious for low-budget horror, but this film does show that he could produce a quality film on a thin budget and have a running time of only 81 minutes.
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A possibly innocent military man facing treason and war crime charges, a devoted wife who finds herself drawn to a man who is not her husband, and a prosecutor who is beginning to doubt the conviction of a lifetime. I can honestly say that Sergeant Ryker piqued my interest with this dynamic. And for me what was the key component to my successful viewing of the film, Lee Marvin of The Dirty Dozen fame embodies Sergeant Paul Ryker, an American solder charged with treason for allegedly aiding the enemy following a failed raid during the Korean War. Bradford Dillman plays Captain Young, the JAG officer who prosecutes Ryker for treason, who comes to doubt the conviction that could launch his career. Then there is Vera Miles of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho fame as Sgt. Ryker’s neglected wife, who begins to have eyes for the young captain. What can I say, I dig the drama.
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One the worst things that can happen to a cop is to be forced to do a shooting in the line of duty. All the training in the word does not make living with action any easier, especially if it results in a fatality. It is among the most traumatic events that can occur for a police officer. No matter what, that officer is likely to second guess every decision that led to that point. Could they have found another way to resolve? Did they have to shoot? Could they have talked the person down? Did the person have to die? Those are just a few of the question that are likely to arise. What makes that situation even worse is if person is found to have been at fault. And herein lies the premise for Warning Shot. David Janssen of TV’s The Fugitive fame plays LAPD Sergeant Tom Valens in this crime drama where he finds himself in that exact situation. During a routine stakeout, Valens fatally shoots what he perceives to be an armed suspect. However, upon a comprehensive investigation, the purported weapon is nowhere to be found. This premise alone was enough to intrigue me, but while watching the film, I became more engrossed in the crime drama with every passing detail. Rounding out the cast are Ed Begley and Joan Collins, as well as the “First Lady of American Cinema,” herself, Lillian Gish.
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Coming off the success of James Cameron’s The Terminator, just about every studio was looking to piggyback off that gold mine, and what followed was a parade of knockoff films that for the most part failed to match The Terminator in quality and in box office draw. One of those bottom-of-the-barrel knockoffs is the 1987 film Programmed To Kill, also known as The Retaliator. While in the 80’s this was a film that could be appreciated  in drive-ins and later on late-night cable, nowadays the unexpected draw for this film is that it has the late Paul Walker in one of his earliest roles playing Jason, the son of the film’s lead character, Eric Mathews (Robert Ginty). Former CIA agent Eric Matthews is hired to lead a group of mercenaries to rescue a pair of kidnapped kids from a group of terrorists. In the process of performing the extraction, Samira (Sandahl Bergman), one of the terrorists, is critically wounded. For some reason, the mercenaries bring Samira with them. Samira is then brought to a group of government scientists who do experimental brain surgery and in the process turn her into a cyborg
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