Cereal At Midnight

Let's dig deep into the new special edition DVD release of Alice Cooper's "Welcome To My Nightmare" concert film from 1976. This disc also features the 1975 ABC TV special "Alice Cooper: The Nightmare" for the FIRST TIME EVER ON DVD! Is this worth picking up, or should you pass? Check out the video to find out.

I'm such a fan of these Disney animated shorts, and this one is perfect for Halloween. 

I just sat down and re-watched the 2005 remake of John Carpenter's 1980 classic The Fog . I had seen it when it was new, which I guess makes sense, since I was in my mid-twenties back in 2005 and pretty much the entire cast was also of a similar age at the time. You could even argue that the movie was tailor made for me: it stars Tom Welling, whom I really enjoyed on Smallville, Maggie Grace, who I watched on Lost, and Selma Blair, who was--and still is--reason enough to watch any movie. So by starring actors I was interested in and who were also close to my own age, The Fog  felt current. And yet that movie failed to make much of an impression on me in 2005, so much so that my memory of it since then has been that's it's okay, but really just "meh." But in the years since I saw the remake, I did see (and subsequently fell in love with) John Carpenter's original. Furthermore, John Carpenter has gone from a director whose films I knew and thought I apprecia...

This is not my video, but I'm putting it here because it fits right in with what Cereal At Midnight is all about. This Halloween special aired on October 29, 1976 on the ABC network. You really have to see it to believe it. Starring the flamboyant comedian and actor Paul Lynde, who I still can't quite believe was embraced by middle-America, this special mirrors his acerbic-yet-silly tone. It also featuring appearances by Margaret Hamilton (the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz ), Tim Conway, Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly, Florence Henderson, Billy Barty, Betty White, Donny and Marie Osmond, and the rock band KISS . The seventies were nothing if not insane, and this is the proof.

Witness the dangers of expired breakfast foods! Beware, o cereal connoisseur, the pitfalls of greed and gluttony! Woe to the mortal that suffers the revenge of Count Chocula!!!

Check out this massive collection of cassette tapes from a recent yard sale find! Also, a discussion about physical media and the relationship we have with our stuff.

 As a fan of The Rolling Stones, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this is the first one of their "From the Vault" releases that I've purchased, though I believe this is the seventh one they've put out. Part of what's been keeping me away is that there are simply too many choices. Consider this release, which can be bought on a DVD/3-LP set, a Blu-ray/CD combo, a DVD/CD combo, and a standalone Blu-ray. Too many options means I can't decide which one of those I want the most. They all have their pros and cons. In the end, I chose the Blu-ray/CD combo, so that's the source for this review. I'll mostly be talking about the Blu-ray of the concert itself, because the music on the CD is the same. Sticky Fingers  is widely regarded as one of the band's absolute best, coming three-quarters of the way through their absolute artistic and creative power. There are four albums that prove the Rolling Stones to be the greatest rock and roll band eve...

Let's crack open the brand new DVD/Blu-ray set of Stranger Things Season One, a Target retailer exclusive. But first, Heath vents his frustration with a rant about how things like this are often mishandled in the stores themselves. Uninformed employees and limited stock combine to make for a retail nightmare.

The big trailer for Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi has arrived, and it seems to echo the story beats of The Empire Strikes Back perfectly. What does this mean? Will The Last Jedi be a reheated version of everyone's favorite Star Wars movie?! We break it all down and give our thoughts!

Take a walk on the dark side of Marvel Comics with a look at some of their "Marvel Essential" horror collections. From Tomb of Dracula and Tales of the Zombie to Ghost Rider and Moon Knight, which introduced characters like Blade and Mephisto.

Just in time for Halloween, the folks at Legacy Recordings (a subsidiary of Sony) have issued a new compilation featuring some of Michael Jackson's most hard-hitting, aggressive, and spooky tunes. Sure, a lot of these songs are part of MJ's greatest hits catalog and have been featured in other compilations before, but this single-disc collection is comprised (almost) entirely of songs fueled by Jackson's love of Halloween and scary movies. This is ESSENTIAL listening for the month of October.

Chucky, the killer doll who first terrorized our nightmares in 1988, returns yet again in an inventive and gory sequel.

It's finally here! We recount the story of waiting in line at Target to get the mini console and then open the box to see what's inside!

Just in time for their 50th anniversary, this new compilation of every single that The Doors ever released is sure to light your fire, but what makes it different from all the other compilations on the market? As it turns out, a whole lot.

I've begun working my way through Mill Creek's "Drive-In Cult Classics: 32 Movie Collection," which is comprised entirely of films from the Crown International catalog. That studio was (is?) one of the biggest names in cult, exploitation, and low-budget fare; when I think of the seventies grindhouse movies with chunka-bow-bow funk scores and flashy cinematography, I'm becoming more and more aware of the role Crown International actually played in creating those cliches.In researching these movies from the set, I'm seeing a lot of one-sentence or one-paragraph reviews, as if the craziness or brilliance or cheesiness contained in each Crown International movie could be  encapsulated or dismissed with a single statement. I was bothered by the trend, so here's my attempt to do service to the movies that demand more than that (some of them don't demand more than that), starting with a movie that I don't think has gotten its due. Pick-Up  is a 1975 f...

We go through Marvel's "Captain America: Man Without a Country" Epic Collection and talk about what works and what doesn't. 1995-1996 was a crazy time for comic books! Plus, did Bucky fart on Red Skull?!

European horror has always been a little bit challenging for me because the sensibilities are different from my own. If I'm being honest, some of the European film-making traditions are just difficult for me to relate to because they're so rooted in a particular way of life and tradition that's simply foreign to me. Having said that,  Catacombs isn't fully Euro-horror; i'ts directed by an American but is shot in Italy using a cast drawn from both countries. This attempt to walk the line between both European and American horror traditions yields mixed results.

Come along on a full tour of the 2012 Johnny Cash box set which contains every album he recorded for Columbia Records. See all 63 discs, the book that comes with the set, and learn how to complete your Johnny Cash discography with the albums not included in the box.

This ambitious Australian science fiction movie from 1987 never quite lives up to its own hype. Exhibit A: the poster for The Time Guardian  depicts a muscular guy in a sleeveless shirt and sunglasses, blasting what appears to be a robot or cyborg in the face with a huge laser cannon while the world around him crumbles and burns. The tagline reads "Time is just about the only thing he won't waste." This image and blurb conjures a Schwarzenegger-style action movie in which our hero takes on cybernetic hordes with no holds barred, delivering one-liners as he serves up destruction. In grand exploitation movie fashion, nothing in the actual movie comes close to being as cool as what this poster promises.

A conversational video about movie collecting complete with an update on new pick ups. Talk includes Scream and Shout Factory movies, Charles Band's Empire Pictures, The Cannon Group, Vestron, and a talk about collecting in a market where boutique label prices are rising. I even talk about how Kevin Costner's movies are usually too long.

In 2006, Pocket Books published a trio of novels in celebration of  Star Trek 's 40th Anniversary. These books looked back affectionately at the original 1966 television series, but with a fresh twist that turned established stories on their head. Each book of David R. George III's "Crucible" trilogy highlighted a member of the show's trinity (Kirk, Spock, and McCoy), and explored how their pasts and futures hinged on one very pivotal event. The first of these books was Crucible: McCoy - Provenance of Shadows , and it's one of the best Star Trek  books I've ever read.

Sometimes revisiting something you loved when you were younger can be a double-edged sword, and eagerness to recapture a past thrill can leave us shaking our head when we discover that the object of our affection isn't actually very good through modern eyes. I'm happy to say that revisiting Highlander --specifically the 1986 feature film, has been a very rewarding experience. It's even better than I remembered.

A quick video overview of the Marvel Epic Collection range of trade paperbacks and the pros and cons of the Epic line replacing the Essentials line.

Pour a bowl of C-3PO's cereal, put on your favorite John Carpenter synthesizer score, and dust of the VCR, because we're going analog.

Pay a virtual visit to David and Melinda Bakara's fantastic attraction and passion project located in Cherry Log, GA (also known as Blue Ridge, GA).