Remember how I posted about ROLLING THUNDER coming to DVD and how that means John Flynn’s never-on-DVD Parker adaptation THE OUTFIT was “now officially #1 on my list of Shit That Needs To Come Out”?
I guess the Warner Archive people saw that and their response is:
It’s not clear yet when ROLLING THUNDER can be ordered, but THE OUTFIT is already available here. Says it’s widescreen and newly remastered, too, so it shouldn’t be the version I heard played on some HD channels.
It’s all happening so fast, I haven’t had time to formulate a new list. There are two Parker adaptations that have never even been on VHS (at least that I’ve ever heard of). Those are THE SPLIT and MISE EN SAC. The first one I’ve seen and it’s good, the second I haven’t but I’ve heard it’s good and it’s based on a real cinematic book where Parker and crew try to take down an entire mining town.
I’m not sure what should be number one on the list though. I know THE WOMAN CHASER is on there somewhere, and I’d like people to be able to rent PENTATHLON and LAST NIGHT AT THE ALAMO, but what’s left with the same urgency as ROLLING THUNDER and THE OUTFIT?
I usually think it’s corny when a blog (short for weblog) post ends with “What do you guys think?,” but I guarantee sincerity here. I wrote this post first to let everybody know about THE OUTFIT and second to ask what movies you love or are dying to see still haven’t made it to a legitimate DVD at all.
So, uh, what do you guys think?

The first 
SQUIRM is an odd duck. (note: come up with worm pun, save “odd duck” for killer duck movie, or DON’T TORTURE A DUCKLING.) This killer worm movie pulls a bait and switch (get it, bait? not switch though, that’s not part of the pun) where it’s setting up the characters before it gets to the killer worm mayhem, then it starts to reel you in (reel) to what’s going on with these characters to the point where you don’t even care that it doesn’t show the worms much or kill very many people.
aka CHALLENGE OF THE NINJA, SHAOLIN VS. NINJA, SHAOLIN CHALLENGES NINJA
SOLOMON KANE (James Purefoy) is a cruel bastard of a treasure hunter. I’d say he’s like a meaner Indiana Jones except in the opening scene I honestly thought he was the bad guy. He fights his way into some kind of ancient temple and even kills demons that pop out of the mirrors. But then he gets locked in a chamber with a flaming-sword-wielding-gentleman who introduces himself as “The Devil’s Reaper.” And this is when Solomon Kane realizes he’s reached rock bottom. For Richard Pryor it was running down the street on fire, alot of guys it’s waking up with no pants in an unfamiliar backyard, crawling home with no keys, having to break in, only to discover the place trashed and the wife’s closet empty, things like that. This guy it’s when the Devil’s Reaper shows up and tries to literally drag him to Hell.
COLD PREY 2 picks up right after part 1 at a nearby hospital that’s in the process of being shut down. If more of the crazy mountain man’s victims had gotten away with injuries instead of getting tossed into the crevasse then I’m sure business would’ve been booming. But no, he’s too god at what he does, leaving these poor doctors and nurses without much to do except sit around using the internet to look up how to solve a Rubik’s Cube.
The internet belongs to the nerds. Or to the geeks, I forget which one. I always get alot of grief for getting the lingo wrong, I mix up “nerd” with “geek” and I say “comic strips” instead of “illustrated graphic novels for grown adults” and I say “Ziggy” instead of “Tom Wilson’s Ziggy.” I’m either confused or sometimes just jokin around but I mean no harm and people still get upset. Especially if I do it on The Ain’t It Cool News everybody acts like I yelled out the n-word or something. I would write several paragraphs of detailed and thoughtful analysis laying out a series of arguments and backing them up with examples but if I chose “comic strip” instead of “comic book” to describe a stapled together pamphlet of non-comical drawings then that would be all they would respond to and declare my input invalid.
The last couple Octobers I was on the hunt for undiscovered slasher gems. I would go through the video store where they keep all the slasher type business, looking for ones I never noticed or never bothered to pay attention to, especially VHS since if it’s not on DVD yet it’s gonna be pretty obscure. This led to some really shitty ones and a few minor discoveries. Last year I also learned to look in the murder mysteries, it turned out there were a few good ones like
This year’s TRUE LEGEND is Yuen Woo-Ping’s first directational work since IRON MONKEY 2 in 1996. During that break he’s done some classic fight choreography, including some of the best ever in American movies (the MATRIXes, the KILL BILLs), but just hasn’t put himself in charge of a whole movie. So this is fun because it’s great wushu mythmaking and the master’s trademark fights working with a new pack of stylistic and technological weapons that didn’t exist 14 years ago. 

















