Author: Steve DiMatteo

Source: NECA I appreciate cinema as much as the next person. And like millions of other people, I love to collect memorabilia from my favorite films, which includes that of my favorite movie of all time, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. So why are you looking at me like that when I tell you that I’m purchasing the $300 life-size Greta the female Gremlin puppet from NECA? Obviously, I’m aware of how objectively sexy the filmmakers made Greta, and how she has an inescapable aura about her that, in the film, culminates in her mating with Robert Picardo’s lucky character…

Source: Warner Bros. When doing extensive background work for the Gremlins 2: The New Batch episode of the Revenge of the ’90s podcast, my crack team of two hundred primate researchers found a tremendous nugget: There was once a Warner Bros. Studio Store in the World Trade Center. For those of a younger generation, you might be asking just what in the hell a Warner Bros. Studio Store might be. Well, believe it or not, but major studios like Warner Bros. and Disney used to have hundreds of retail locations throughout the country as another way to help people -…

“This would be so much better if my shirt was off!” Society’s necessary changes seem to move at a glacial, unacceptable pace and I am sick of it. I understand our world has plenty of issues to sort out but I’m officially requesting we move this one up the list: We HAVE to normalize taking your shirt off at a restaurant when you’re eating a hefty bowl of incredibly hot chili. First I ask: Have you ever had a bowl of piping hot, spicy chili at a restaurant? You’re sitting there in your best button-down shirt tucked into your finely…

Baseball truly is the greatest sport in the world. Not only is it America’s pastime, but it’s ingrained into the very fabric of our lives, which I credit to the game’s daily presence for more than six months of the year. The best part of the baseball season is that each day present a new opportunity. It’s the chance to keep a hot streak going, or to put a rough previous day behind you and look forward to the promise of a brand-new day, a clean slate. Baseball requires patience, determination, and an ability to look at the big picture…

Like just about everyone else on the planet, I was utterly captivated this summer by Top Gun: Maverick, the thrilling sequel to the 1986 film starring Tom Cruise. So when the movie finally began streaming on Paramount+ earlier this month, you better believe I threw that puppy on faster than Captain Pete Mitchell hitting Mach 10. And trust me, I’m completely aware of how this film could be seen as an effective recruiting tool for the military, what with the glorification of service and the overall good vibes emanating from destroying a faceless rogue state while seemingly skirting around many…

Like every other person on the planet, I was left in awe by the aerial cinematography of Tom Cruise’s new movie Top Gun: Maverick. It’s an engrossing action spectacle unlike anything else we’ve ever seen before, and it demands our repeat business on the biggest screen possible. On top of Cruise’s recent stunt heroics in the Mission: Impossible series, which continue to push the envelope further with each installment, I’ve realized that I’ve developed an addiction. I have now cultivated an insatiable desire to watch Tom Cruise defy death on screen and I require that he immerse me in the…

Credit: Sony/Marvel I, like just about everybody else in the world it seems, loved Spider-Man: No Way Home, a truly impressive feat of event moviemaking. And the opportunity to see every Spider-Man actor on screen at the same time, saving the world – really, the universe – together will no doubt go down as one of the best moments ever in a superhero film. But with No Way Home opening up the multiverse and a limitless number of Spider-Men, I couldn’t help but feel taken out of the film anytime the character Gary Parker, the fourth Spider-Man in the movie…

I consider myself something of a cinephile, so I hope I don’t shock you with this take, but I have found that 1994’s Speed, starring Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock, Dennis Hopper, and Jeff Daniels, is FAR AND AWAY the best film to ever feature a bus that will explode if it goes below fifty miles per hour. And before you say anything else, I am certainly well-versed in this particular area. In fact, I have devoted much of my pandemic time diving into the history of bomb-strapped runaway bus filmmaking, dating back to Dario La Matteo’s tremendous Autobus in Corsa…

When it comes to movies about infinite time loops taking place over Groundhog Day, you can’t find anything better than Bill Murray’s 1993 classic Groundhog Day. An essential rewatch this time of year, I was struck in my two-hundredth or so viewing here that nothing is ever really explained in this scenario. Why is Phil Connors in an infinite time loop? Who put him there? How exactly did he get out of it? It never really appears that Connors learns too much of a lesson either because, ultimately, it can be argued that he does still just use his time…

Credit: Gudellaphoto – stock.adobe.com We know when you think of holiday cheer, Metallica is the first thing that comes to mind, so we’re doing a Metallica-themed Advent calendar to help put a little metal up your ass as we make our way to Christmas. Sometimes a song just completely alters a band’s perception and trajectory. For Metallica, that song is “Enter Sandman.” Simply put, this took Metallica from being thrash gods to just being gods. With this first track off their self-titled fifth album in 1991, Metallica became a true cultural force, now opening themselves up to a more mainstream…