Class of 1984
Blu-ray (Collector’s Edition)
Director: Mark L. Lester
Screenwriter: Mark L. Lester, Tom Holland, John Saxton
Cast: Perry King, Roddy McDowall, Timothy Van Patten, Michael J. Fox, Lisa Langlois, Keith Knight, Stefan Arngrim
Scream Factory
Rated R | 98 Minutes
Release Date: April 14, 2015

“I’m gonna cut you, white-meat!”

I remember seeing the Class of 1984 VHS tape at the local mom-and-pop video store in my hometown. As a Vestron Video title, there was something inherently dangerous and infinitely interesting about the cover art. If you were a kid in the ’80s, you probably saw the cover art for Mark L. Lester’s film on shelves, with punk rock kids on the cover proclaiming, “We are the future… and nothing can stop us!”

Synopsis: Andrew Norris (Perry King), an idealistic and naive music teacher, has moved into a new community with his pregnant wife, Diane (Merrie Lynn Ross), only to find his new job is an academic abyss. Appalled by the crime-infested school, Norris soon crosses paths with its teenage kingpin, the shrewd and sadistic Peter Stegman (Timothy Van Patten). With Norris setting his sights on reforming Stegman and the young punk declaring war on his teacher, the duo is on a collision course for a fateful showdown.

Boardwalk Empire — The Complete Second Season
Blu-ray l DVD
CREATOR: Terence Winter
DIRECTORS: Timothy Van Patten, Allen Coulter, Jeremy Podeswa, More
WRITERS: Terence Winter, Howard Korder, Steve Kornacki, More
STARRING: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Jack Huston, Shea Whigham, Aleksa Palladino, Michael Stuhlbarg, Stephen Graham, Vincent Piazza, Anatol Yusef, Gretchen Mol, Paz de la Huerta, Michael Kenneth Williams, Dabney Coleman, William Forsythe, Anthony Laciura
HBO Studios
RELEASE DATE: August 28, 2012

I’ve made my love for HBO no secret, with two of my all-time favorite shows going strong right now in Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire, and a slew of others I’ve adored over the years. So instead of reviewing season 2 of Boardwalk on Blu-ray, I’ll just be swooning about it for a bit before sharing what bonus features there are to enjoy.

Where season 1 established the incredible collection of characters the show has to offer, season 2 expands on them (those who have survived, anyway), creating an intricately crafted web of often interconnecting storylines. The primary focus of the second season is again Enoch “Nucky” Thompson (Steve Buscemi) and James Darmody (Michael Pitt). But instead of being the boy Nucky helped to raise, Jimmy has reunited with his estranged father, the Commodore (Dabney Coleman), and is leading the charge to take control of Atlantic City and the alcohol coming in and out of it. As you might expect, Nucky isn’t fond of anyone trying to muscle him out of his position of power, let alone the man he’s helped to make who he is, and the two go to war. The results of this power struggle trickle down, affecting anyone associated with the two parties and leading to some interesting new business partners.

Game of Thrones
Episode 1 (Winter is Coming) & 2 (The Kingsroad)
Directed by: Timothy Van Patten
Written by: David Beinoff and D.B. Weiss adapted from George R.R. Martin
Starring: Mark Addy, Alfie Allen, Sean Bean, Emilia Clarke, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Fairley, Aidan Gillen, Jack Gleeson, Iain Glen, Kit Harington, Lena Headey, Issac Hempstead-Wright, Harry Lloyd, Richard Madden, Rory McCann, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams

I’ve got a confession to make.

I haven’t read a single book in George R.R. Martin‘s A Song of Fire and Ice series.

Unlike last year’s big literature-to-television adaptation, Walking Dead (of which I’ve read every issue), I wanted to go into Game of Thrones fresh, without any prior knowledge or expectations of the series. I wanted to see how a 694-page book would translate over to HBO. I’ve seen the big-screen adaptations of fan-favorite fantasy novels like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but I was interested in seeing how showrunners David Deinoff and D.B. Weiss would handle Martin’s material on a week-to-week basis without confusing the hell out of everyone.

So far, they’ve done an outstanding job.