“Careful with vengeance. You never know where the blood will land.”

Well, this was a revenge story if I’ve ever seen one, and a top-tier cast to sell it. Based on an award-winning play from playwright Aleshea Harris, who also penned and directed this adaptation. Apparently, Harris only initially intended to write the script, but through the encouragement of the film’s producers she decided to direct it as well. I like that. After all, who would be better equipped to direct the silver-screen adaptation than the playwright responsible for the play that received three Obie awards (Off-Broadway Theater Awards)? I’ve long been a proponent of the idea that the creator should be involved in any adaptation of their work when possible. And while I can’t speak to any deviation between the film and the play (because I’ve never seen the play), I’m confident that those changes were minimal. Additionally, just as it is important to have the right storyteller, it is equally important to have the right people to bring that story to life. And with Is God Is, I do believe that was the case here, with the likes of Kara Young, an accomplished Broadway and off-Broadway actress with healthy movie and television credits under her belt, as well as Julliard graduate Mallori Johnson.

“Not to me. Just … unheard. Unseen. A respectable person, disrespected in a place where murder is easy.”

I would say that this was a pretty faithful adaptation of the popular Agatha Christie novel, albeit with a few instances of poetic license being taken. And I do mean that this novel is popular. This addition marks the sixth adaptation of this novel, with the previous incarnations being for film, theater, radio, and television, with the previous TV version being adapted for a Miss Marple episode which famously featured Benedict Cumberbatch. This two-episode version features David Jonsson of Alien: Romulus and The Long Walk fame, Morfydd Clark of Rings of Power fame, and Dame Penelope Wilton. And while the series does exercise that poetic license, these changes actually add a degree of depth to the overall adaptation in my opinion. Such as the reinvention of Jonsson’s Fitzwilliam as a Nigerian attaché arriving in 1954 Britain. When done right, these deviations from the source material can act as a fresh commentary on a beloved piece of fiction.

"Julian Sklar here. Your mother would like me to tell you not to quit art school. Seriously, do. Those clowns at Camberwell will poison you with their Sainsbury's aisles and ideas, processed, packed in plastic. The stalest up front so that you buy into those first. Grow your own, I say. Go organic! Although I hear that's all rubbish, too. Do you know how much plastic we eat in a week? A credit card's worth. It's in the water now. It's hopeless. So, happy birthday, stay in school, blah, blah, blah."

Ian McKellen stars as elder artist Julian Sklar.  He's old and not expected to be alive for long. That's at least how his two children feel about it. Sallie (Gunning) and Barnaby (Corden) hire an art restoration artist that Sallie once went to school with. Lori Butler is played by Michaela Coel. What they want from her isn't a simple restoration. She has a bit of a grudge against Sklar, and they try to use it to their advantage. Sklar is most famous for a series of paintings called The Christophers. They were of a lover he had in his early days. The kids believe there is a third series but that Sklar never completed them. They want Lori to pose as his assistant so she can access the work he has done and secretly finish it. The paintings will be worth a fortune, and Sklar doesn't feel quite so generous toward his children. It all plays out in the latest film from Steven Soderbergh, The Christophers, out on Blu-ray.

"I was walking under the overpass as primly dressed secretaries and weary window washers march onwards and upwards to start their days. The cold winter wind whipped in my face, and a card caught my eye. I flipped it over to find joker. Joker, joker, joker. All things in life are rarely here to stay. The good and the bad. So worry not, me. I smile at the cards I'm dealt. Just like the snow, it shall melt. What are you hearing, Indianapolis? It is Tuesday, February 8th. The time is 8:45 and 55 seconds. I'm DJ Fred Temple. And this is Deodato."

That's an important date and time both for our movie and in history. It was on that date that a frustrated man named Tony Kiritsis took a man  and both kidnapped and held him hostage for days with a shotgun wired to his head, the titular dead man's wire. The story has been told both in a memoir written by the man held hostage and a 2018 documentary. But this is a story we've seen before in cinema, from Denzel Washington's desperate father in John Q. to the mad-as-hell-and-he's-not-going-to-take-it-anymore frustrated news anchor in Network. But Gus Van Sant's Dead Man's Wire offers more of a callback to Dog Day Afternoon than anything like those other films. That might also be reinforced because Al Pacino stars in a bit of an extended cameo in the film. And while Dead Man's Wire never quite captures the public mania that both Network and Dog Day Afternoon captured, it hints strongly enough that Van Sant allows our experiences with those films to fill in some of the blanks with this one. But was that a great approach? You can find out for yourself with the Blu-ray release of Dead Man's Wire, now out by Alliance Entertainment.

"So come up to the lab and see what's on the slab."

It was 1975. Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa goes missing. South Vietnam falls. The Superdome opens in New Orleans. Elizabeth Seton becomes the first American saint. Patty Hearst ends her fugitive run. George Carlin hosts the first episode of Saturday Night Live. Phil Collins replaces Peter Gabriel as the lead in Genesis. And The Rocky Horror Picture Show opens to absolutely terrible box office numbers. Under normal circumstances the Rocky Horror story should have ended there. Thirty-five years later, it should have been just one of thousands of films that came and went with hardly a whimper or notice. Today, that most assuredly would have been the case. But things were just a little bit different in 1975. When a film finished its first run, there were plenty of theaters that ran dollar matinees and midnight showings of these movies. There wasn't a home-video industry at the time. The next step for these films, particularly the big losers, was a run in these "second run" venues where the studios provided them inexpensively in an attempt to recoup some of their money. It was no different for Rocky Horror. It appeared all over the nation at midnight screens. But something rather extraordinary happened at these screenings. People began to turn these screenings into events. They started to bring props and costumes. Eventually entire amateur troupes were performing shadowcasts of the film during the screenings. Theaters began to take advantage of the growing trend, and Rocky Horror events began to spread like wildfire. Before long the rituals became somewhat standardized, and an entirely new form of entertainment was born. Now this box office failure of a movie is the longest-running film in box office history, and not by a little bit. It's been 50 years, and the film is still playing at movie houses all over the world. Shadowcast groups have turned into generational organizations as the traditions have been handed down and passed along. It was 1975. A cultural phenomenon was born. So let's do The Time Warp ... thanks to the release of Strange Journey: The Story Of Rocky Horror now out on Blu-ray from Magenta Light Studios.

"This is your captain speaking ... Prepare for impact."

It's been 50 years since Steven Spielberg made his bones on a hot summer movie called Jaws. Based on a Peter Benchley bestseller, the film made millions of people all over the world think twice before dipping their toes into the wild environment of their local beach. We all think about it. We go anyway, but Spielberg made us think about it for the rest of our lives. The trend spawned a flurry of 1970's nature-attacks films from bees to grizzly bears. When cable came about, we got Shark Week every year for decades. There's just something about that 1975 film that continues to impact our entertainment. Now we have the "shark" movie as a genre, and for all of those 50 years everyone has been chasing that one movie's atmosphere and excitement. It should be rather easy when you think about it. Spielberg bit off more than he could chew by taking on the film. He was a young, rather inexperienced director, and he soon discovered shooting out in the water is one of Dante's layers of Hell. They created a large lifelike mechanical shark they called Bruce. And as realistic as Bruce looked, he kept breaking down, so that we ended up seeing much less of him than was planned. That's what filmmakers now call a fortunate disaster. Now filmmakers can create anything we can imagine. Someone has got to be able to deliver goods that Spielberg couldn't even dream of delivering. But so far no one has. Accomplished director Renny Harlin can be called many things. Inexperienced isn't one of them. Could he be the one to finally break through that saltwater wall? It's time to find out with the Blu-ray release of Deep Water, out from Magenta Studios this week.

"We try to walk that line between high-tech thriller and workplace comedy."

It all started so long ago that many of you reading this were likely not even a thought in your parents' brain. JAG appeared way back in 1995. It was created by Donald P. Bellisario, and it took us behind the scenes of the United States Navy's prosecution of crimes under their military jurisdiction according to the Navy's Service Code. The series lasted 10 years, and toward the end of that run a new character was introduced. He was Leroy Gibbs, played by Mark Harmon. The episode served as a backdoor pilot for a new franchise called NCIS. You could say that NCIS is the Order to JAG’s Law. The NCIS is a real government agency that deals with criminal activity inside or involving the US Navy or Marine Corps, but now for the investigation and catching of the bad guys. The show has proven even more popular than its parent series. That means branching out like the CSI and Law & Order franchises have done so well in the past. For a while it was other places like L.A., New Orleans, Hawaii, and Sydney, Australia. For the most part these shows have come and gone, and a new kind of spinoff was started. After Mark Harmon left the show, we knew he wasn't gone forever. Along came NCIS: Origins, which is in its second year and follows the exploits of a much younger Leroy Gibbs. This allowed a very popular character to continue beyond his involvement with the mothership now enjoying its  upcoming 25th year. But Leroy Gibbs wasn't the only beloved character to leave the show. Of course, I'm talking about Michael Weatherly's character, the obnoxious but lovable Tony DiNozzo.