Beer League (2006/Blu-ray*)/Cobra Kai: Season Three (2021/Sony DVD Set)/Edgar Allen Poe Double Feature: Tell Tale Heart (1960)/Legend Of Horror (1971/VCI DVD*)/Horizon Line (2020/Universal Blu-ray)/Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway (2019/Arrow Blu-ray/*all MVD)/One Night In Bangkok (2020/Lionsgate DVD)

Picture: B/B-/B-/B+/B+/B- Sound: B/B-/B-/B+/B+/B- Extras: C+/D/D/C+/B/C Main Programs: C+/B/C+/C/C/C+

Now for some titles you may have missed...

Artie Lange's gross out comedy Beer League (2006) hits Blu-ray courtesy of MVD. On par with the same brand of humor seen in movies that starred early Adam Sandler and Chris Farley, the film centers around Artie, whose an unemployed loser whose main concern in life is his minor league baseball team. As his team faces extinction, he ends up getting into a relationship with a woman (Cara Buono of Stranger Things) who ends up inspiring him. As his life starts to take a good turn, he ends up back to his own tricks and loses her. Can Artie get his life together or will he continue to spiral out of control?

The lighthearted comedy also stars Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid), Anthony DeSando, Jimmy Palumbo, and Joe Lo Truglio. The film is from writer-director Frank Sebastiano (SNL, Dirty Work.) There's also two cameos in the film from comedians Tina Fey and Jim Bruer.

Beer League is presented in 1080p Blu-ray with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and a standard DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 English surround sound mix. Also on the disc is a 2.0 stereo mix. The film looks and sounds like for the format and looks as good as you'd expect. Being a comedy, the cinematography isn't too stylistic and the tones are pretty natural throughout. This is certainly the best that this film has looked on a home video release yet.

Special Features include:

'Beer Goggles' Short

Beer League: Behind the Scenes featurette

'Live from CineVegas' featurette

Artie Lange Behind the Scenes of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' and 'The Best Damn Sports Show'

In the Studio with Artie Lange: Jokes and Ringtones

Raw Interviews

Photo Gallery

and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Speaking of Macchio, Cobra Kai: Season Three (2021) brings back hit characters from the original Karate Kid series and updates the story to modern day. Fans have been loving this series, which premieres regularly on Netflix and not on YouTube, and now you can get the series (oddly) on DVD and not Blu-ray as of yet. Seems a little silly to this reviewer to not go all out with the Blu-ray or even a 4K edition. But it is what it is.

The season stars Ralph Macchio, William Zabka, Courtney Henggeler, and many others.

Episodes this time include Aftermath, Nature vs Nature, Now You're Gonna Pay, The Right Path, Miyagi-Do, King Cobra, Obstaculos, The Good, the Bad, and the Badass, Feed the Night, and December 19.

All of this episodes are collected together and presented in anamorphiclally enhanced, standard definition on DVD with a 1.78 X 1 widescreen aspect ratio and lossy 5.1 Dolby Digital audio mix. This is about the same if not a tad worse than the original HD broadcast, or at least comparable. An all-out 4K edition would make fans happy, especially since the feature films are getting that treatment.

No extras.

The Cobra Kai series is great to fans of martial arts or maybe just the original film series in general and has some interesting characters and well orchestrated fight sequences.

Next we have an Edgar Allen Poe Double Feature: Tell Tale Heart (1960)/Legend Of Horror (1971,) two old time adaptations of classic Edgar Allan Poe literature are brought together in this nice collectible disc from VCI.

Legend of Horror (1971): Directed by Bill Davies, two men escape from prison and one of them becomes a murderer. Based on The Tell Tale Heart, the film stars William Bates, Karin Field, and Fawn Silver.

Tell Tale Heart (1960) Directed by Ernest Morris. While named The Tell Tale Heart, this one isn't as close to the original text. The film stars Laurence Payne, Adrienne Corri, and Dermot Walsh.

Both films are presented in black and white on standard definition DVD and share one disc. They are presented in their original full frame aspect ratios of 1.85 X 1 (Legend) and 1.66 X 1 (Tell Tale Heart) and are in lossy Dolby Digital Mono English with optional subtitles. Compression issues native with the format aside these old films don't look too bad here.

No extras.

It's nice of VCI to release these two films both based on Poe's infamous texts even if they aren't the most faithful adaptations.

Universal's Horizon Line (2020) is an interesting thriller that starts out semi realistic, but as the stakes get greater and greater starts to lose some of its believability. A sort of couple end up on a small flight to a wedding where the pilot has a heart attack and dies and they end up stranded in the air over a never-ending ocean unknowing of where they are or where they are going with a deadly storm creeping in behind them.

The film is interesting in that its a sort of isolation piece, but in a doomed aircraft. The situation becomes more and more complicated as the film progresses whether its terrible weather, a radio that doesn't work, or a cut in the fuel line... there is one scene where the guy has to physically go outside the plane to try to fix the fuel line that's a little far fetched... but this is a popcorn movie.

The film stars Alexander Dreymon, Allison Williams, and Keith David, with direction by Mikael Marcimain (Call Girl).

This 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 an English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix. The film is quite colorful and translates well to 1080p and would look even better on 4K UHD. The film employs visual effects in an interesting way when you consider that the lot of the film is on a plane set with the backgrounds being digital. The storm computer generated effects look pretty realistic overall.

Special Features: Deleted Scenes.

Horizon Line isn't a terrible movie, and likely one that lost a theatrical run due to the pandemic. Now that it is available, it's worth a watch if you like white knuckle thrillers. The acting is a little dodgy at times and I feel like this could have been a more buzzed about movie with stronger A-list leads.

Miguel Llanso's Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway (2019) is an obscure avant-garde cult film that throws everything in but the kitchen sync when it comes to over the top weirdness and has a cast that includes Daniel Tadesse, Guillermo Llanso, Agustin Mateo, Solomon Tashe, Gerda-Annette Allikas, and Rene Koster.

A Special Agent Gagano (Tadesse) decides to leave the CIA for a chance to open a business with his wife Malin (Allikas). A strange cyber virus attacks Psychobook, the CIA's operating system, forcing Gagano to enter cyberspace via virtual reality to combat the incoming threat and leaves his dreams in the dust.

Jesus Shows You The Way To The Highway is presented in 1080p high definition on Blu-ray disc with a varying widescreen aspect ratios of 1.85:1 / 1.33.1 / 2.35:1 and lossless audio mixes in DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 and English LPCM 2.0. The presentation here is a very nice and comes across nicely here on disc. There's nothing much to complain about in terms of presentation.

Special Features:

New audio commentary by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Anton Bitel

From Talinn with Love, a new visual essay by critic Will Webb exploring the influence of exploitation cinema on Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway

Exclusive audio interview with director Miguel Llanso, conducted by critic Josh Hurtado

Crumbs (2015), Miguel Llanso's feature directorial debut and spiritual predecessor to Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway (Limited Edition Exclusive)

Chigger Ale (2013) and Night in the Wild Garden (2015), two short films by Miguel Llanso

Original proof-of-concept trailer

Theatrical trailer

Image gallery

Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Austin Hinderliter

Double-sided fold-out poster

Limited Edition illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on Jesus Shows You the Way to the Highway by Barry Forshaw and Crumbs by Anton Bitel

and Limited Edition of 2000 copies.

Lastly, we have action star Mark Dacascos (John Wick 3) gets a leading role in the action flick One Night in Bangkok (2020), which is now out on video courtesy of Lionsgate. The film reminds me a lot of the Tom Cruise movie, Collateral, for its general plot at first glance but it ends up being its own thing towards its epic conclusion. For action fans there is plenty of shooting and bloodshed to satisfy.

Dacascos stars as a man who pays a taxi driver to drive him around and kill the targets of his revenge. His family members were murdered and he's out to kill those responsible. A police detective (Kane Kosugi) ends up on Dacascos' tail in an effort to prevent further blood from being spilled.

The film also stars Julia Condra, Vanida Golten, Kane Kosugi, Daboway, Shivam Pawa, and Sahajak Boonthanakit. The film is directed by Wych Kaosayananda.

One Night in Bangkok is presented in standard definition on DVD with a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix. The film is nicely photographed for being on the lower action movie budget spectrum and has some production value behind it. The film's score is high budget and some of the editing techniques make it feel a bit stylized, which is nice.

Special Features include:

Behind the Scenes of One Night in Bangkok

Trailer for this and other Lionsgate action movie releases.

One Night in Bangkok isn't going to win any awards for originality but it works fine as an action vehicle for Mark Dacascos, who is quite talented and capable as a leading man.

- James Lockhart

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