Disc Reviews

This season of the Paramount Plus long-running series did a bit of shaking up. For one, the series said goodbye to a main staple of the series with the departure Delroy Lindo’s Adrian Boseman. This departure came as a surprise, as he’d been with the series from its opening, and it wasn’t as if his character had been relegated in recent years. However, I suppose everything changes with time. Don’t imagine that it will be long before we see Delroy on the small or big screen again, as the actor already has four projects in production, including the MCU’s revamping of Blade (no confirmation on who he will be playing in the film, but my gut tells me Abraham Whistler). Now if the Lindo departure shocked you, brace yourselves, because he isn’t the only cast member who made their exit. Cush Jumbo, who’s played Lucca Quinn, is also saying goodbye. Lindo’s exit surprised me, but Jumbo’s floored me. Jumbo’s Lucca Quinn has been a significant part of the series, and with her gone, the show in a sense is losing the paradigm of the old lions vs the young wolves. Well, if you need a fix of Jumbo’s quiet presence, you can catch her on a Netflix adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel.

Edgar G. Ulmer started his career working for the early German masters of Expressionism like Fritz Lang and F. W. Marnau. He set out on his own doing ethnic films in the Ukraine before coming to America and trying his hand here. His most notable film has to be the 1934 The Black Cat, which brought Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi together for the first time and remains a classic to this very day. Unfortunately for Ulmer, he fell in love with the wife of Carl Laemmle, the head of Universal Pictures. He later married Shirley, but the result was he was barred from every major studio in Hollywood. He had a huge box office success in 1934 with Universal, but his affair in 1936 ended any chance he would get to ride that future. He was relegated to the independent studios where he had little money and a hard time getting good actors or distribution.

So, I fully expected this movie to be one of those films that I would have to subject myself to in order to appease my wife. I mean, I was familiar with nearly every member of the cast, but given the film’s plot, I expected to be bored and to find it cheesy. It just seemed like a clash. Like it should be two separate movies: one that deals with the secret daughter of the king, and the other a story about a mermaid. However, it would appear that I’m eating my words, as The King’s Daughter proved to be a far more entertaining tale than initially advertised. Based on the 1997 novel of The Moon and the Sun, the story follows Marie-Josephe (Kaya Scodelario, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), a rebellious, free-spirited young woman who grew up in a convent. Her days are normally spent giving the Abbess a hard time. Unbeknownst to her, she is actually the daughter of the legendary monarch, King Louis XIV (Pierce Brosnan).

"There are some aspects of the life of an Earth savage that are exciting and rewarding; things that are missed by the brains on my planet Arous."

When I was a kid going to the drive-in movies was a pretty big deal. In those days your parents would hide you under a blanket on the back seat floor or even in the trunk just to shave off a buck from the admission price. I don't think the guys running those things really minded. It was kind of an open secret, and after saving a dollar or two, my pop would blow ten times that at the concession stands. He thought he was pulling one over on the management, but I think he was the one getting snookered. Still, it was a good time, and my mom and sisters usually fell asleep before the first of what was always a double feature even started. They were getting a little sleep, but I was getting an education. It was there along with the Friday night Shock Theatre shows on television that I was first introduced to Hammer's horror films, AIP's Poe classics, and countless schlock features from the likes of Roger Corman and William Castle.

"You know, things change. Sometimes not so much ..."

Someone at CBS must have eaten a lot of alphabet soup as a kid. Today the longest running show is NCIS, about to enter it's 20th season along with a couple of sibling shows, one of which is also in double-digit seasons. It also happens to be their highest rated show over many of those 20 years. Before NCIS was crowned champ it, was another assortment of letters that reigned supreme at the eye network. That was CSI. It was the show that never looked like it had a chance. The series substituted lab work montages for car chases and explosions and featured a lot of talking heads that delivered some of televisions deepest techno-babble. Didn't stand a chance. The flagship series lasted 15 years

When watching this 1980 classic, it’s impossible to not notice its influence on films that would come later, most notably American Beauty (which would also win Best Picture in 1999). I bring this up not because Hollywood has a habit of recycling ideas, but more to point out that sometimes all it takes to make a great movie is to keep it simple, focus on issues that everyone deals with, and give it one hell of a cast that is willing to pour their hearts out onto the screen. The film is about 42 years old, and you could release it today, and it would still resonate with audiences; that’s what I feel makes a film great and where it merits the term classic. Paramount is dusting this title off from its catalog to release it under its Paramount Presents umbrella, and it’s definitely one of the standout releases they’ve put out. If it’s a film you haven’t seen yet, this is one that I consider a bucket list film everyone should see before dying.