Consumer Notice - Dynamic Disc Sells Former Rentals As New
By Paul Rudoff on Aug. 7, 2018 at 2:15 AM in Home Video, Public Service Articles

Here in New York, there is a budget media (DVD, Blu-ray, audio CD) distributor called Dynamic Disc. I believe they were formerly known as Dynamic Disc Company or Dynamic Disc Distributors. I used to find their products stocked in Pathmark and Waldbaums supermarkets all across Long Island (Nassau County, specifically). Since those chains went out of business, I still find Dynamic-distributed product in Rite Aid and, most recently, National Wholesale Liquidators. Normally, I like Dynamic Disc as they distribute product that I like for prices that I love. However, a recent purchase has soured me on the company, and I felt the need to share the experience with all of you as a way to give you a heads-up.
Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend Parody/MST3K Review
By Paul Rudoff on Jul. 30, 2018 at 11:30 PM in Home Video

Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend (1985) is a movie that is a part of my childhood, though I don't think I ever saw it when I was a child. What I remember most about the movie was owning the Topps trading card set.
It wasn't until recently that I finally saw the movie itself. Seeing the crudeness of the special effects in the card photos, and how dingy the whole thing looked even in stills, I was expecting something dreadful. I was pleasantly surprised to find a movie that, while not bad in and of itself, is so perfectly ripe for an R-rated parody remake that I can't believe Paul Feig didn't chose this over Ghostbusters. His brand of raunchy, juvenile humor is so perfectly suited for this movie, that I just had to write up this review/rundown of the movie (kinda in the style of Mystery Science Theater 3000), pointing out where parody humor would have been more appropriate in place of the movie's semi-seriousness.
SPOILER WARNING: This article will run through the entire movie, and as such, it will spoiler any surprises for you. Not that there is much to spoil. You are shown who the villain is in the first few minutes, and you know there are dinosaurs in the movie. Anything else, you could figure out on your own without me telling you. Also, this article is going to be very image-intensive and long. You'll likely read through it quicker than it took me to write it, but I just wanted to give you a heads-up before you proceed any further.
H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon Blu-Ray Review (Vestron Video Collector's Series #16)
By Paul Rudoff on Jul. 27, 2018 at 2:29 PM in Home Video, Horror

H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon arrives on Blu-ray as the 16th entry in Lionsgate's Vestron Video Collector's Series, "a line of classic genre films newly remastered and with a wealth of supplementary features." I have reviewed several other titles in the series.
Beyond Re-Animator Blu-Ray Review (Vestron Video Collector's Series #15)
By Paul Rudoff on Jul. 26, 2018 at 11:30 PM in Home Video, Horror

H.P. Lovecraft's Beyond Re-Animator arrives on Blu-ray as the 15th entry in Lionsgate's Vestron Video Collector's Series, "a line of classic genre films newly remastered and with a wealth of supplementary features." I have reviewed several other titles in the series.
Rampage 2018 Blu-ray + DVD Review
By Paul Rudoff on Jul. 24, 2018 at 1:47 AM in Home Video

Rampage (2018) is a film adaptation of the classic 1980s arcade video game (which is also available in the Lego Dimensions Midway Arcade Level Pack). We all know how video game movies tend to be, but will this be an exception to the rule? Read on to find out...
Tomb Raider 2018 Blu-ray + DVD Review
By Paul Rudoff on Jun. 11, 2018 at 11:30 PM in Home Video

Tomb Raider (2018), which comes out tomorrow, is a reboot of the film series that started in 2001 with Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life. Alicia Vikander takes over for Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, the heroine of the long-running video game series. Whereas Jolie's Lara was based on the original series of games, Vikander's Lara is based on the 2013 game reboot.
The Fairfield Company Target Walking Dead Mystery Repack Box Review Break
By Paul Rudoff on May. 13, 2018 at 11:22 PM in Mystery/Blind Bags

Last year, I wrote about The Fairfield Company's wrestling mystery boxes. I haven't seen those $4.99 Eraseez/Teenymates/Cards boxes in any Target since then, but just recently I found a new Fairfield mystery box. This new one is for The Walking Dead, and is priced at $14.99 - three times as much as the wrestling box - and contains 4 dog tag packs, 2 Tokenz packs, 4 trading card packs, and 1 Chibis pack. Let's break one of these boxes open and see what's inside...
Convert PlayStation 3 Jurassic Park The Game Saves To Xbox 360
By Paul Rudoff on May. 6, 2018 at 12:00 PM in Video Games

In a previous blog post, I explained how to convert PlayStation 3 game saves to Xbox 360 game saves. At the time, I had tested the technique out on a few games and found that only one game could be successfully converted: Murdered: Soul Suspect. Well, I'm happy to report that I have found a second game whose saves can be converted. As you can see from the title and image above, that would be Jurassic Park: The Game, released in 2011 by Telltale Games.
I'm not going to go over the whole conversion technique again, as I already did that in my previous blog post. So, I'll just keep it simple, and assume that you're smart enough to connect the dots. (Please don't prove me wrong.) Download the Horizon and Brute Force Save Data programs mentioned in that post, and let's move on.
1. You'll need your own Jurassic Park X360 save. Just copy it from your console to a USB drive, then copy it to your computer. On your USB drive, it will be in your console ID folder, in a subfolder named "443607D0". Copy that to your hard drive. If you're thinking about using multiple saves for each of the episodes, put multiple copies of your save into different folders named "Episode 1", "Episode 2", etc. That way you can convert each of them separately.
2. We'll be using the Jurassic Park: The Game PS3 Save Set by Mark1 and xSOADx. This contains two saves for Episode 1, and one save for each of the other three episodes. Extract the files to your hard drive.
3. Run Brute Force Save Data and navigate to the extracted PS3 saves. Select them, right click, and use Decrypt All Files. Exit the program, and ignore the warning.
4. Run Horizon, go to Tools - Package Manager. Click on Open, and find the "TTG" package file buried deep within your X360 save folders. Click on the Contents tab and you'll see that it contains three files: prefs.prop, autosave.prop, and autosave.save. The PS3 save contains these same three files, although they have different names:
C6962541 = prefs.prop
FCDA626F = autosave.prop
06D29D5B = autosave.save
5. Simply put, you will right click on each of these files in Horizon, select Replace, and replace them with the equivalent files from the PS3 save. You will see a "File replaced successfully!" message.
6. Click on Save, Rehash, and Resign to save it. You will see a "Saved, rehashed, and resigned!" message. (If you want to save it directly to your USB drive [assuming you have it plugged into the computer], click on Save To Device in the upper right corner of the window.)
7. Repeat for any other PS3 saves you want to convert.
8. Remove the USB drive from your computer, put it in your X360, and copy the save to your X360. Then play the game and select Load Game.
That's all there is to this. Once you understand what you're doing, it's all really simple. As a bonus, I am providing the entire Xbox 360 converted save set, which also includes one "end of Episode 4" save (Save #2) created by me that places you at the very last checkpoint in the game, right after the annoying "keep the green dot in the circle" part of the T-Rex fight at the dock. (A full set of instructions is included in the file.) You will need to resign this X360 save set for your own console, and change the folder structure to rename the folder with my Console ID (E00005BDFA630D61) to whatever your Console ID is. See my previous blog post to learn how to do that.
Bruteforce Save Data contains a file named "games.conf", which contains all of the keys to decrypt the save files. In the unlikely event that your copy doesn't include Jurassic Park, add this text to the file (open it in Notepad or any plain text editor):
If you need any help with the game, you can consult this Achievement Walkthrough or the PS3 walkthroughs for Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3, and Episode 4.; "Jurassic Park The Game (Episodes 1-4)" [NPUB30499/NPUB30652/NPUB30653/NPUB30654] ;disc_hash_key= secure_file_id:*=102C1C0F33444E9A57089A714DB001FE
Jurassic Park is also available on the PC, and I would bet that the prefs.prop, autosave.prop, and autosave.save files from those saves could be used in Horizon to replace the same-named files in the X360 saves as we're doing with the PS3 files. I did not test this out, because the only PC game saves I could find are "100% complete" which would be pointless for our purposes. They would be equivalent to "all chapters unlocked". Should you like to try it for yourself, here are some PC save links: PC Save #1, PC Save #2, PC Save #3, PC Save #4, PC Save #5, PC Save #6, PC Save #7, and PC Save #8.
Free Comic Book Day - Spider-Man Homecoming Toys R Us Comic
By Paul Rudoff on May. 5, 2018 at 9:00 PM in Miscellaneous

In honor of Free Comic Book Day, and in memory of the soon-to-be-departed Toys R Us, I present to you a very special issue of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Entitled "Fight or Flight", this brief story by Marc Sumerak, with art by Craig Rousseau, was a promotional giveaway at Toys R Us stores during the Summer of 2017 as a tie-in with the motion picture of the same name. (Target-exclusive Blu-ray+DVD+Bonus Disc+Comic.) This 8-page comic book was given away to customers who purchased $25 of Spider-Man merchandise from July 6–29, 2017. Now that Toys R Us is going out of business, you may be able to find some physical copies at your local store, as I did at mine last week. I took the liberty of scanning it in and making it into a PDF, which can be downloaded by clicking on the cover image below. Enjoy!
"FIGHT OR FLIGHT" CREDITS
Writer: Marc Sumerak
Artist: Craig Rousseau
Colorist: Guru eFX
Cover Art: Andrea Di Vito
Letterer: VC's Joe Sabino
Production: Mara Pantano
Project Manager: Katherine Brown
Editor/Project Manager: Darren Sanchez
VP Custom & Digital: Jonathan Parkhideh
Editor In Chief: Alex Alonso
Chief Creative Office: Joe Quesada
President: Dan Buckley
Executive Producer: Alan Fine
END
Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell Blu-ray + DVD Review
By Paul Rudoff on Apr. 25, 2018 at 11:30 PM in Home Video, Horror

Tremors: A Cold Day In Hell, which comes out this Tuesday, May 1st, is the sixth film in a series that has spanned nearly 30 years! It all started back in 1990 with the original Tremors, starring Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, and Michael Gross (not to be confused with Ghostbusters producer Michael C. Gross). Handymen Valentine McKee (Bacon) and Earl Bassett (Ward), along with gun enthusiast Burt Gummer (Gross) and the rest of the inhabitants of the small isolated desert town of Perfection, Nevada, fought off the underground sandworms known as Graboids. When Earl found himself in Mexico outgunned against the Graboids, and the new bipedal Shriekers in Tremors II: Aftershocks (1996), he enlisted the help of his old friend Burt. Burt came back to Perfection to fight the good fight with the remaining residents (including several returning secondary cast members) against the Graboids, the Shriekers, and the new aerial Ass-Blasters in Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001). After closing out the trilogy, Tremors 4: The Legend Begins (2004) saw the series placed in the Old West of 1889 (100 years before the first film), as the citizens of that small town battled Graboids for the first time. Thanks to the efforts of Burt's ancestor, Hiram Gummer (also played by Gross), the town of Rejection was rechristened Perfection. The franchise rebooted itself, in a manner of speaking, with Tremors 5: Bloodlines (2015). Burt and his new sidekick/cameraman/son Travis Welker (Jamie Kennedy) are called in to rid South Africa of those nasty Graboids, Shriekers, and Ass-Blasters. The new movie, Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018), continues where Bloodlines left off. If that's not a good recap for you, here's Burt to give you his version.