News

Fans of Marvel’s new series, Daredevil: Born Again, should check out this other action-filled adaptation of a comic book legend. The Punisher, released in 1989, starred Dolph Lundgren as the police officer turned vigilante in a troubled film that has been hailed as one of the most honest adaptions of the character. Scorned by critics and early audiences, The Punisher has managed to gain quite an impressive following in the years after its release. And now, thanks to Tubi, the film is getting ready to meet a whole new audience… for free.

The Punisher stars Lundgren as Frank Castle, aka The Punisher. After an attack leaves his family dead and the wounded cop presumed the same, Castle turns vigilante as he ignites a mafia war and tracks down the people who killed his family. What starts as a revenge story turns into a battle crisis as a new enemy arises...

Before the blockbuster behemoth that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, comic book movies were pretty few and far between. Not only that, but they were a seriously mixed bag (even more so than now), often straying far from the source material. To remind comic book fans of how things used to be, the 1989 Marvel effort The Punisher – which finds action icon Dolph Lundgren in the title role – has set its sights on free streaming.

Directed by Mark Goldblatt and, of course, loosely based on the Marvel Comics' character of the same name, The Punisher stars Dolph Lundgren as Frank Castle who, in this version, is a police officer who embarks on a deadly one-man war against crime after his family is murdered. So, at least some of the elements are still in place.

The rest of the cast includes Louis Gossett, Jr., Jeroen Krabbé, Kim Miyori, Bryan Marshall, Todd Boyce,...

Anna Sawai, star of FX's award-winning historical drama Shōgun, has responded to rumors she's attached to play Yoko Ono in a series of four Beatles biopics directed by Sam Mendes. The actress told reporters at the Screen Actor's Guild Awards following her winning outstanding performance by an actress in a drama series, "I think a rumor is just a rumor." So we likely won't be seeing Sawai as Ono anytime soon.

As far as what her next project might be, Sawai says she is still looking. "I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do, so I'm reading a lot of scripts. I'm also doing a lot of meetings and I just want to make sure that what I’m choosing is the right thing. So it might take time for me to find the right project, but I'm trying to be selective so that I can...

In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Datalore", the Enterprise-d is called to a distant colony where the android Data (Brent Spiner) was found years earlier. When Data was first discovered, he had no memories, although he knew he was constructed by a rogue genius named Dr. Noonien Soong. Soong was blackballed from the scientific community many decades earlier and had to retire to a distant colony to continue his work. Back when Data was discovered, by a starship called the U.S.S. Tripoli, the colony had been destroyed and Soong was missing, presumed dead. Data had no memories of what happened. 

In "Datalore," the Enterprise found something else surviving among the rubble. Pieces of a second android, identical to Data, were found in a previously sealed area. Data and the Enterprise engineers reassemble it and find that it is Lore (also Spiner), another Soong android. Lore, unlike Data,...

Before “ER,” “Chicago Hope” and “The Good Doctor,” there was a great little medical drama called “St. Elsewhere.” Today, it’s not unusual to have topics like rape, abortion, domestic abuse, breast cancer discussed. But 40 years ago, such issues were taboo. Much as “Hill St. Blues” revolutionized police dramas in the early 1980s, “St. Elsewhere” pushed boundaries and opened discussions about issues that affected viewers everywhere.

“St. Elsewhere” refers to hospitals who take in the patients no other hospital wants to deal with; the fictitious St. Eligius is such an institution in Boston, a teaching hospital with more budget issues than personnel. But within the crumbling walls is a staff of doctors and nurses who struggle to provide the best care possible for the string of often difficult to diagnose, difficult to understand and difficult to tolerate patients who come through the doors, while balancing their personal lives and own...

Trailblazing medical drama series “St. Elsewhere” celebrates its 40th anniversary on October 26. Gold Derby recently gathered together 10 cast members of the NBC program for a special reunion. All episodes from the six-season original run are now available for streaming on Hulu.

The series never had the greatest of overall ratings but was saved time and again by the Peacock network due to its Emmy wins and nominations, plus excellent demographics among the 18-49 viewers who advertisers coveted. The show was set at the fictional Boston hospital St. Eligius (nicknamed St. Elsewhere because its rundown conditions), tackling topical medical subjects with unexpected deaths among the patients and staff members throughout the six seasons airing 1982-1988.

SEEEmmys Best Drama Series gallery: Every winner in Emmy Awards history

“St. Elsewhere” was nominated at the Emmy Awards for all six seasons as Best Drama Series but lost to “Hill Street Blues” twice, “Cagney and Lacey” twice,...

Well here it is, my second issue of 'Comic-Book Heroes, Then & Now', and this time I'll be looking at Dolph Lundgren in 1989's 'The Punisher', as well as Thomas Jane in the role in 2004's 'The Punisher'. For those of you who missed my first issue where I looked at 'Batman', check it out Here The Punisher (1989) Directed by Mark Goldblatt Starring: Dolph Lundgren - Frank Castle/The Punisher Louis Gossett Jr. - Jake Berkowitz Jeroen Krabbe - Gianni Franco Kim Miyori - Lady Tanaka Budget - $9-11 million Gross Revenue - N/A Now it's been quite a long time since I've seen this movie so I'll have to rely mostly on memory and the internet to help me write this. Not many people have seen this version of The Punisher due to it not having a theatrical release in the Us because of extreme financial difficulties at the time,...

Chinese-American women of three generations (and one far-flung family) pile into an RV and take a roundabout tour of California's deserts and mountains in "My American Vacation", winner of the best dramatic feature prize at 1999's Worldfest Houston.

A well-intentioned but unpolished family film playing at Laemmle's Grande in downtown Los Angeles, "Vacation" (mostly in English, with a few subtitled scenes) is another in the durable genre of East-meets-West comedy-dramas aimed at ethnic audiences but not without its points of interest for the eclectic moviegoer.

Screenwriter-director VV Dachin Hsu (whose feature debut was 1990's "Pale Blood", co-directed with Michael W. Leighton), born in Hong Kong and a UCLA Film School grad, creates a labor of love with the family-themed "Vacation", a movie with light humor, whimsy, turmoil and even physical danger, but nourished to achieve a soothing effect on the viewer, including a structure inspired by tai chi.

Venerable Chinese film, television and stage actress Tsai Chin (Michelangelo Antonioni's "Blowup", ABC's "Fantasy Island", "The Joy Luck Club") stars as Grandma Lee, widowed mother of grown daughters Ming-Yee (Kim Miyori) and Ming-Na (Deborah Nishimura). Bossy and ambitious Ming-Yee, a single mom raising daughter Melissa (Sasha Hsuczyk) to know her divorced father is a "jerk," is delighted to have Grandma come from Taiwan for a visit.

A journalist and happy with husband Henry (Dennis Dun), Ming-Na is younger than her sister and more carefree. She is not that thrilled to play host to nosy Grandma, who arrives with many loaded-with-meaning gifts. The sisters more or less call a truce, and the whole gang, including Henry, decides to acquire a motor home and head to Colorado.

They don't get very far after choosing an expensive model and packing it up for a trip of ill-defined purpose and length of time. The adventurers make it to Joshua Tree, Lake Isabella and finally Sequoia National Forest but never leave California. With The Great Outdoors as a backdrop, several family and personal conflicts are worked out.

Grandma dishes out much wisdom and mediates frequently between the warring sisters.

The writing is overly episodic, the humor is light, the jokes are often predictable, and occasionally the choice of musical accompaniment is questionable, but one can suspend disbelief enough and overlook manipulative devices to enjoy Hsu's "Vacation" largely because of the heartfelt performances.

Ultimately, the spirit of Chin's character prevails during what becomes a nearly disastrous trip. She pens a series of bogus postcards to her friends back home and dreams of her dead husband as a young man (Roger Fan), while hurting every time Ming-Yee and Ming-Na go at each other. What's not to live for?

So it goes, the joys and pains of a family coming together. East saves West and vice versa, with Grandma almost dying during a scene worthy of an old-time western serial. Meanwhile, the shores of the Kern River and the towering sequoias are wonderful settings for the gentle movements of women performing tai chi.

MY AMERICAN VACATION

American Vacation Prods.

Winn Entertainment

in association with CACC Investment

Screenwriter-director:VV Dachin Hsu

Producers:VV Dachin Hsu, Cindy Sison, Frank Gargani

Executive producer:Winston H. Chin

Director of photography:Dean Lent

Production designer:Fu-Ding Cheng

Editors:Marc Grossman, Clarinda Wong

Costume designer:Sheri Grider

Music:Joel Iwataki

Color/stereo

Cast:

Grandma Lee:Tsai Chin

Ming-Yee:Kim Miyori

Ming-Na:Deborah Nishimura

Melissa:Sasha Hsuczyk

Henry:Dennis Dun

Ming-Yee-Ba:Roger Fan

Running time -- 88 minutes

No MPAA rating...