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Category:    Home > Reviews > Monster > Slapstick > Horror > Superhero > TV > Slasher > Animation > White Elephant (2022/RLJ Blu-ray)/Yellowbrickroad (2010/Lightyear Blu-ray)

Bigfoot or Bust (2022/Blu-ray*)/DC Legends Of Tomorrow: The Complete Seventh Season (2021/DC Comics Blu-ray**)/Dr. Lamb (2010/Unearthed/*both MVD Blu-rays)/Green Lantern: Beware My Power 4K (2022/DC Comics 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray/**both Warner)/White Elephant (2022/RLJ Blu-ray)/Yellowbrickroad (2010/Lightyear Blu-ray)



4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B/B+/B+/B+/B+/B Sound: B/B+/B+/B+/B+/B Extras: C/C+/C+/C+/D/C+ Main Programs: D/C+/C+/B/C+/D



Now for some new genre offerings, wacky and otherwise...



Bigfoot or Bust (2022) feels like one of those movies that was made by a group of friends on an extremely low budget filmed in Los Angeles or thereabouts that's full of inside jokes, cleavage shots, and very bad improv. While it's marketed as some sort of adult version of a Bigfoot movie or something, it's just a really bad Z grade movie that may have been written by a hormonal teenager. To call it a B movie would be too high of a mark. For instance, the Bigfoot costume looks like it was bought at a thrift store, and despite it being heavily centered on the female anatomy (its tag-line is 'The Breast Bigfoot Movie Ever Made!'), it doesn't really even come through in that regard as it could easily be rated PG-13 because it doesn't show anything.


The film is by the director of the cult classic Chopping Mall and The Return of the Swamp Thing, Jim Wynorski, and neither of those films are necessarily known for their groundbreaking filmmaking or stories. The film stars Melissa Brasselle, Becky LeBeau, Lisa London, Cindy Lucas, Gail Thackray, and Christine Nguyen.


The plot, if there is much of one, just features big-breasted women who stumble upon each other to hunt the Bigfoot monster seeking fame and fortune. Every filmmaking trope you can think of to waste time is on display here. Multiple music montages, a scene where they play with a sound effects board, a trampoline jumping scene, and just mainly moments when the girls strip down, but stop at lingerie, of course. For what this movie is supposed to be, you would expect a record number of nude shots, but alas the movie is a pretty big tease in that department. They even blur out the nudity! This will likely disappoint the audience this it's geared towards because of the marketing. If you're going to make a film of this sort you might as well go the whole way. If you're expecting Bigfoot to do more than walk around and watch the girls from a distance and jump around like a high school football mascot, then you will be sorely disappointed.


Bigfoot or Bust is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and a lossless, English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). Shot digitally, the film is mostly shot outdoors with little to no lighting in the California mountains. The HD transfer looks and sounds fine, but this is pretty unimpressive filmmaking on a whole, but not necessarily bad... just passable.


Special Features:

Music Video / Trailer / Commentary and Deleted Scene.


Bigfoot or Bust is just really terrible. I didn't expect it to be necessarily good, but you can tell the editor stretched moments out where they had nothing to work with just to get the edit to a 90 minute runtime. For the type of film that this is supposed to be it should star 18-21 year old swimsuit models rather than the ones cast here. To not sound too rude or mean, the women in this picture are middle aged or older and aren't being helped by the HD transfer. In terms of content and overall effort, this is just really bad in every imaginable way. Avoid at all costs unless you want to torture yourself or those around you.



DC Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Seventh Season (2021) comes out on Blu-ray disc from DC Comics and Warner Bros. The action packed superhero series reaches its final season, this time with the time traveling heroes stuck in the 1920s time period. This give an interesting change of pace to the series and helps add to the fun of the time travel theme. These fun genre elements make this series a bit more interesting than Supergirl, Batwoman, and Arrow.


The series stars Caity Lotz (Arrow, Mad Men), Tala Ashe (Smash, The Carrie Diaries), Jes Macallan (Mistresses, Shameless), Olivia Swann (Doctors), Adam Tsekhman (The Twilight Zone), Shayan Sobhian (The Chosen), Lisseth Chavez (Chicago P.D.) and Amy Louise Pemberton (Arrow, Suspense), with Nick Zano (What I Like About You), and Matt Ryan (Constantine).


13 episodes include The Bullet Blondes - The Need for Speed - wvrdr_error_100<oest-of-th3-gs.gid30n>not found (yes, that's the actual name of episode) - Speakeasy Does It - It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Scientist - Deus Ex Latrina - A Woman's Place Is In The War Effort! - Paranoid Android - Lowest Common Demoniator - The Fixed Point - Rage Against The Machines - Too Legit to Quit - Knocked Down, Knocked Up.


DC Legends of Tomorrow is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and a lossless, English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). The season spans three Blu-ray discs and are presented commercial and network-watermark free. The transfers look pretty good for the format and up to standards.


Special Features:

Gag Reel

Deleted Scenes

and Captain at the Helm: DC's Legends of Tomorrow 100th Episode.



Dr. Lamb (1992) is a pretty brutal foreign thriller that's similar to films like Taxi Driver and Maniac. Recalling his crimes, Dr. Lamb liked to stalk women in a taxi cab and then murder them and do grotesque things to their bodies after the fact. This certainly isn't an easy film for a normal person to stomach. But if you're into most of the films that Unearthed Films put out then you get an idea of what to expect. The film is beautifully photographed and is pretty well done, however, so if you're into gore films this one is worth checking out in its fully uncut glory in this release.


The film stars Danny Lee, Simon Yam, Kent Cheng, and Erik Kei.


Dr. Lamb is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.20:1, and mixes in Cantonese and Mandarin LPCM 2.0 Mono with optional English subtitles. This is a new 2K restoration and certainly bests any previous versions that were released.


Special Features:


Audio Commentary From Art Ettinger (Ultra Violent) And Bruce Holecheck (Cinema Arcana)


Lamb To The Slaughter: An interview with filmmaker Gilbert Po, who initiated The Dr. Lamb Film Project


Cut And Run: Film Academic Sean Tierney a.k.a. The Silver Spleen remembers Dr. Lamb


Three Times The Fear: Film critic James Mudge on the Golden Era of Category III


Collectors Booklet and Trailers.


Dr. Lamb is definitely a horror cult classic and this is a nice release from Unearthed Films.



Green Lantern: Beware My Power 4K (2022) is a DC Universe animated film in the same animation style as other entries in their home video library. This film centers on the Green Lantern John Stewart (there are several Lanterns, if you're unaware), and also features favorites Green Arrow, Martian Manhunter, Thanangarian Hawgirl and others in a battle against the infamous villain Sinestro, who is pretty much the main villain of the Lantern-verse.


Overall, the animation seems a little lackluster this time around. Not that it's horrible, but personally I don't understand why they don't try to achieve a look similar to the art seen in the actual comics. Make the panels come to life from the page more or at least change up the styles from animated movie to animated movie. Otherwise, it's easy to imagine how cool this film would be live action with a big budget and the right filmmakers onboard. It is a shame that the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern film wasn't more memorable, but it seems to still make Warner Bros / DC a little shy when it comes to the character. Perhaps this animated film is testing the waters to see where the interest level for the character still lies. There is certainly a lot of similarities to this story as opposed to the live action version.


Aldis Hodge (Black Adam, One Night in Miami, City on a Hill) takes the title role as John Stewart/Green Lantern, closely supported by Jimmi Simpson (Westworld and The Man Who Fell To Earth TV revivals, Pachinko) as Green Arrow. The voice cast includes Ike Amadi (Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge, Superman: Man of Tomorrow) as Martian Manhunter, Brian Bloom (The A-Team, Mass Effect) as Adam Strange, Jamie Gray Hyder (Law & Order: SVU, True Blood) as Hawkgirl, Mara Junot (Call of Duty franchise, Genshin Impact) as Lyssa Drak & Banth Dar, Jason J. Lewis (Justice League Action) as Ganthet & Captain Kantus, Keesha Sharp (Empire, Lethal Weapon) as Vixen, Simon Templeman (Uncharted franchise) as Sardath & Console Voice, Rick D. Wasserman (Batman: The Killing Joke) as Sinestro, Sunil Malhotra (Mortal Kombat 11, The Legend of Korra) as Power Ring and Rannian Commander, and additional voices provided by Nolan North (Young Justice, Rick and Morty, American Dad!).


Green Lantern: Beware My Power is presented in both a 2160p on 4K UHD disc in an upscaled 4K image, an HEVC/H.265 codec, HDR10, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and audio mixes in English, lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). Also included is a 1080p high definition version on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and another lossless, English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). There is a noticeable difference in quality between the two discs and both solid for their respectable formats.


Special Feature: John Stewart: The Power and Glory featurette.


Green Lantern: Beware My Power 4K isn't terrible by any means, but the animation style seems a bit lacking compared to some of the Batman animated cartoons by the same studio.



Jesse V. Johnson's White Elephant (2022) has a top notch action cast with Michael Rooker, Bruce Willis, Olga Kurylenko (Black Widow, Quantum Of Solace) and John Malkovich and some explosive shoot out scenes to boot. It seems like just about everyone in this film is playing their usual role - Rooker is the crazy villain, Olga is the sharp shooting woman you don't want to mess with, and Malkovich and Willis aren't exactly trying anything new with the material either. That being said, White Elephant isn't too bad, just your typical action movie.


When an assassination attempt is witnessed by two cops, an ex-marine-turned-mob-enforcer (Rooker), is ordered by his mob boss (Bruce Willis) to eliminate the heavy hitting assassins and rival gangs that threaten him. As bullets fly, the drama ensues.


White Elephant is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1, and a lossless, English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). The presentation overall is fine especially considering that the budget here isn't huge.


No extras.


If nothing else, White Elephant will be remembered for being one of the last films in Bruce Willis' long career.



Yellowbrickroad (2010) looks like a creepy Wizard of Oz-inspired horror thriller on the package, but it's more likely to give you a headache than actually scare you. Sort of inspired by found footage films like the Blair Witch Project, the movie starts out kind of interesting but once the bulk of the film rolls out, it starts to be a total bore with nearly unbearable over acting and an ending that makes little sense. I think this would've been a better short rather than an hour and forty minute movie. There's a few interesting ideas peppered throughout, but sitting through this one is a real endurance test.


The movie stars Cassidy Freeman, Anessa Ramsey, Lee Wilkof, Clark Freeman, and Laura Heisler.


In 1940 when, after a viewing of the 1939 classic version of The Wizard of Oz at a movie house, the residents of the small town of Friar, New Hampshire, walked up a mountain trail and mysteriously disappeared into the wilderness. One survivor later went insane. Fast forward seventy years later and a group of filmmakers go out to make a documentary about the incident but end up going insane themselves. Don't expect any Wizard of Oz cosplaying slasher villains or anything fun really. There's no real humor in this or characters you can relate to.


Yellowbrickroad is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.20:1, and a lossless, English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit). The film takes place mostly outdoors in the sunlight with some interesting still photography bits thrown in during certain scenes.


Special Features:


Behind-the-scenes featurettes: "Practical Blood FX on an Indie Budget" and "Walking the YellowBrickRoad"


Cast and Crew Interviews: Director/Writers Andy Mitton & Jesse Holland, Actors/Executive producers Clark and Cassidy Freeman, Producer Eric Hungerford


and Original Directors' Commentary with Andy Mitton & Jesse Holland.


Yellowbrickroad could have been a lot more intense and interesting than it actually is or wants you to believe it is.



- James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/



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