Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have the long awaited release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair leading the way. Today also features the release of The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Mortal Kombat II, among high profile sequels. What else is on the slate and hitting shelves? Read on to find out…
Joey’s Top Pick
Cinematography by Robert Richardson
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
As almost everyone knows by know, the reason Quentin Tarantino‘s Kill Bill film was split up into two parts in the first place was due to Harvey Weinstein. Whether you agree or not with the logic that audiences would not have sat through four hours of Tarantino’s epic revenge flick, it has always been a white whale for a certain type of cinephile. Well, after a limited theatrical run, the movie is here, on 4K and Blu-ray, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. Now, QT fans will no longer have to only watch Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 back to back. Now, you can see it as it was originally intended, in all its incredibly bloody glory.
Mortal Kombat II
I thought Mortal Kombat II was a nice improvement upon Mortal Kombat, giving audiences more of what they wanted, and less of what they didn’t. In fact, when I spoke to screenwriter Jeremy Slater, that’s a lot of what we discussed, too. My conversation with him is here and worth listening to, while my review here began like so:
Five years ago, when I reviewed Mortal Kombat (here), I said that it was “not bad” and that there was “fun to be had with this deeply silly, overly violent, and paper thin action flick.” Well, that all holds true with Mortal Kombat II, though this time around, there’s a bit of a course correction here with the things that held the first one back. Now, part of the upward trend here is actually coming out in theaters, as opposed to a hybrid day and date release on HBO Max due to Covid, but there’s also a sense that this film paid attention to what worked and didn’t work last time. Here, we have a silly movie, but one that does succeed more than it fails.
Mortal Kombat II is an upgrade over the first one due in large part to it not only knowing what kind of a film it is, but also knowing what it doesn’t need to be. There’s far less generic action/fantasy stuff here, though it’s still peppered throughout. Instead of it being the main course and the fights being the tasty treats, the fighting tournament is what makes this movie turn. That allows the flick to lean into its strengths, alongside an added dose of welcome comedic beats.
Also Available This Week
The Devil Wears Prada 2
Diane (Blu-ray)
End of Watch (4K)
In the Grey
In the Mouth of Madness (4K)
Is God Is
King Creole (4K)
Overlord (4K)
The Paper: Season One (TV)
Pillow Talk (4K)
Pressure
South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (4K SteelBook)
Soylent Green (4K)
Stranger Things: The Complete Series (TV)
Undine (Blu-ray)
*No Criterion Collection releases this week. They’ll be back next week, so sit tight!*
Stay tuned for more next week…
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