Thor: Love and Thunder by Oktay Ege Kozak As much as I loved (almost) every second of Thor: Love and Thunder with the giddiness of a geeky teenager soaked in 1980s pop culture, I can also fully understand why it might have rubbed some MCU fans the wrong way. The so-called self-aware "MCU humor" that has been bugging a lot of fans lately is in full effect in Taika Waititi's latest Thor epic. After two entries that tried to treat this cheesy character as Shakespearean mythology, Waititi swept in with the terrific Thor: Ragnarok and finally tapped into the goofy 1980s machismo parody potential of the titular Norse god. Ragnarok almost killed Thor's badass charisma and Love and Thunder rages in with a glorious kaleidoscope of 1980s kitsch to finish the job. This is as close to a rip-roaring ZAZ or Mel Brooks parody of the MCU that just happens to be a part of the real deal. There have been attempts at delivering...Read the entire review »

Martial Club (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movieirected by Lau Kar-Leung, 1981's Martial Club is a later-era martial arts entry from Shaw Brothers that once again teams the director with Gordon Liu, who was still very much a box office draw, after they'd previously worked together on Challenge Of The Masters, Executioners From Shaolin and Heroes Of the East.As it was in Challenge Of The Masters, Liu once again plays Wong Fei Hung. In Canton, his father, Wong Kei Ying (Ku Feng), runs a martial arts school. He and his students get along just fine with the Chan School, also a martial arts academy and everything seems to be calm, peaceful and sensible. The members of the Lu School, however, have different ideas in mind. They've got a bone to pick with Wong Kei Ying and come up with various schemes to knock him down a few pegs and hopefully put an end to the success of his scho...Read the entire review »