Innerspace (1987, Arrow Video, 4K Ultra HD or Blu-ray, PG, 120 min.). In 1966, “Fantastic Voyage” had a team of specialists miniaturized in a submarine and then injected into a comatose scientist’s body to repair a life-threatening brain clot, with a Cold War slant. For “Innerspace,” two decades later, the slant was comedy, as Martin Short, full of physical comedy, plays Jack Putter, a neurotic hypochondriac who accidentally gets injected with a miniaturized pod containing test pilot Lt. Tuck Pendleton (Dennis Quaid). Once again, there is a time element, as Tuck only has so much oxygen.

The science fiction elements take a back seat to comedy here, although Industrial Light and Magic's impressive miniatures of a tiny the pod navigating the interiors of a human body did win an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects for Dennis Muren, Bill George, Harley Jessup and Kenneth Smith. Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment produced the film and Joe Dante (“Gremlins,” “The Howling”) directed.

The film features one of the most engaging performances of Quaid’s career, which also includes “Far from Heaven” and “The Day After Tomorrow.” Early on, Tuck has a nearly naked breakup with girlfriend Lydia Maxwell (Meg Ryan of “Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “When Harry Met Sally”) in front of her taxi driver. Tuck, who likes to drink a lot, even to having a robot arm to pour drinks in his apartment, is the type of test pilot who enjoys taking chances.

Jumping forward two months, Tuck is hired to test pilot the miniaturized pod, the plan to be injected into a rabbit. However, during the test, a gang of thieves breaks in before the injection and scientist Ozzie Wexler (John Hora, cinematographer of “Gremlins”) escapes the lab and is chased into a mall by one of the bad guys. Desperate, he injects the pod with Tuck into Jack’s ass after bumping into him.

Over the next couple of hours, Tuck interfaces with Jack’s optic nerve – learning he is not in a rabbit – and then Jack’s middle ear, so they can communicate. To help convince Jack the situation is real, Tuck blows up his TV. Two of the bad guys are sent after Jack, once the inject-off is discovered, and Jack flees to Tuck’s apartment. There is great comedy when Jack dances to “The Twist.”

A twist in the plot is that two chips are needed to control the miniaturization, with Tuck having the second one with him in the pod. Kevin McCarthy (“Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “UHF”), in a nice nod, plays Victor Scrimshaw, head of the bad guys.

Along the way, Jack teams with Lydia for help and they arrange a meeting with Scrimshaw and the Chicago fence who is to buy both chips. Unexpectedly, Tuck has the ability to change Jack’s face to resemble the fence’s (Robert Picardo, later the holographic Doctor of “Star Trek: Voyager,” as The Cowboy, who likes disco).

The film’s action turns a bit excessive towards the end, including a fight between two miniature people and Lydia and Jack, as he drives, but overall, the film is a good blend of comedy, romance, espionage and even buddy action.

The extras are extensive, including two audio commentaries. The archival one is by Dante, producer Michael Finnell, Muren and actors McCarthy and Picardo, while the new one is by film critic Drew McWeeny. There is a fine making-of documentary with new interviews with Dante, Finnell, Muren, visual effects artist Jessup and model shop supervisor George (58:53). Also included are Dante’s behind-the-scenes videos during production (23:32); a behind-the-scenes look at ILM (20:16); a storyboard gallery (8:27); Polaroids for continuity and behind-the-scenes (10:23); production stills (14:34); and a poster gallery (1:37).

The disc also comes with a double-sided poster, with two original artwork options; and a perfect-bound booklet with new writing by film critics Charlie Brigden, Michael Doyle, Josh Nelson, Jessica Scott and Andrea Subissati, as well as a short guide to Dante’s stock company by Scott Saskow and the original exhibitions pamphlet. Grade: film 3.75 stars; extras 3.5 stars

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

Purchase link for some titles: https://moviezyng.com?bg_ref=ApLKdWV51k

Once Upon a Time (China, 2017, Well Go USA, Blu-ray, NR, 109 min.). Based on the fantasy novel “Three Lives Three Worlds, Ten Miles Peach Blossoms,” the film is the story of Bai Qian (Liu Yifei of “Mulan”), a queen who lives in a peach blossom forest. Suffering from memory loss, she is invited to a party where she encounters people who recognize her. Her former lover, Ye Hua (Yang Yang of TV’s “The King’s Avatar,” “Love 020”) had been searching for her, and now he must win her love back.

The film opens with a blindfolded woman running across the clouds and then falling to Earth, apparently after feeling betrayed by her lover. She was then Empress of Qingqiu, but now 300 years later, she is the Royal Immortal Bai Qian, 10,000 years old. When she travels to a party in the Eastern Sea, she meets His Royal Highness Yea Hua and is told they are supposed to wed. Ye Hua is 90,000 years younger than her and has a son, A Li (Ze Su Peng). However, the Queen of the Demon Clan seeks to keep the couple apart and to steal A Li to replace her dead son.

The film is quite colorful, at times seemingly like an animated fairy tale come to life. The story, though, is a bit fractured and thereby hard to follow. There is a strange monster late in the film, as well as a huge battle with hell’s forces. Basically, it is a romance with fantasy elements. Grade: film 2.75 stars

Wandering Ginza Butterfly Collection (Japan, 1972, Arrow Video, Blu-ray, NR, 172 min.). The two films contain the same two main characters, but the second is a remake rather than a sequel, with the female character changing her specialty from pool to card gambling and not previously knowing the male character.

On the same year that she defined the action heroine with her role in the “Female Prisoner Scorpion” series, Japanese screen legend Meiko Kaji teamed up with future “Sister Street Fighter” director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi for these two films of gambling, deception and violence on the mean streets of 1970s Tokyo. “Wandering Ginza Butterfly” and “She Cat Gambler” are the two films.

In the first, Kaji's character Nami, aka "The Red Cherry Blossom," returns to her old stomping ground in the seedy Tokyo district of Ginza after three years in prison for killing a yakuza boss. On the train back, she meets Shinnosuke Matsudaira (Tatsuo Umemiya of two “Prince of Space” films), trying to avoid two pursuers. She moves into her uncle's pool hall and works as a hostess at Club Broncho. Ryuji (Tsunehiko Watase) works at the pool hall and helped get her the hostess job. When ruthless yakuza Owada (Koji Nanbara of “11 Samurai”) attempts to take control of the club, Nami and her uncle devise a plan to take him down, involving a pool showdown. The game they play is a three-cushion one, of which I was totally unfamiliar.

The film has a very violent ending. There is a new audio commentary by Japanese film experts Patrick Macias and Matt Alt, hosts of the Pure TokyoScope podcast, and an archival commentary by Japanese cinema expert Chris D.

In the second film, Kaji is paired up with the equally legendary Sonny Chiba at his most charismatic as he takes over as the streetwise Ryuji, who takes a shine to Nami and decides to help her on her quest to avenge her father. They first meet at a card game, during which he takes off his pants to bet them. Together, they comb through every seedy gambling den and lowlife ruffian of the Ginza underworld. The film again is directed by Yamaguchi.

The Ryuji character is more comic this time and he tries to start a prostitution ring. The ending again is violent, with Ryuji brandishing a sword and Nami using a pistol and then a sword.

Extras include a visual appreciation of the second film by Macias and Alt (21:21); an archival interview with Yamaguchi (37:30); and an archival appreciation of Kaji by Japanese action and pink film expert J-Taro Sugisaku (10:59). The booklet has new writing on the films by Asian cinema expert Andy Bourne. Grade: both films 3 stars; extras 3.25 stars

Agent Zero (France, 2025, Well Go USA, Blu-ray, NR, 85 min.). Revenge also is the theme of this film by director Guillaume de Fontenay (“Sympathy for the Devil”). It stars Marine Vacth (“Young & Beautiful”) as former French intelligence undercover unit Alpha assassin BADH Siracine who refuses to kill women and children, after killing the males inside a dwelling in Raqqa, Syria in 2018. As she leaves the property, the building is blown up by another French agency spy to kill all witnesses, including Siracine.

Now seven years later, Siracine is living in Essaouira, Morocco, when two men on a motorcycle shoot her boyfriend Ilias, putting him in a coma. Out for revenge, she kills both men as well as others in a sauna. That makes her a target for her former French agency, as the killers’ father is Manour Khoury (Slimane Dazi of “Only Lovers Left Alive”), who is feeding French intelligence information on potential terrorists in exchange for weapons he can sell to ISIS.

Khoury is not a nice man. When he learns of his sons’ deaths, he kills a servant by smashing his head repeatedly on the dinner table. He orders an attempt to kill Siracine while she is being held in jail for the sauna deaths, but the attempt fails and she escapes on a motorcycle, starting one of the film’s many chases. The film’s location shooting, including two rooftop chases, is its best aspect.

The ending is weird and bad camerawork obscures who helps her during the ending. Grade: film 2.25 stars

Under Current (Hong Kong, 2025, BayView Entertainment, Blu-ray, NR, 115 min.). In the film, directed and co-written by Alan Mak (the “Infernal Affairs” trilogy), conscientious lawyer Ma Yingfung (Aaron Kwok of “Port of Call”) teams up with "playboy sheriff" O Dingbong (Francis Ng of “Infernal Affairs 2”) to investigate charity chairman Gou Singman (Simon Yam of “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life”), only to discover that beneath the guise of charity, "public goodwill" is being treated as "capital business."

The film starts at the annual Tsai Bat Tong Charity Gala, when suddenly the hanging body of the charity chairman drops down behind the speaker. On his shirt, it reads “Clear my name.” An investigation turns up that 200 million in donations has gone missing. We then see Ma getting off a rape defendant in court, despite his distaste for his client.

The film’s plot seems overly complicated and it does not help that the subtitles are white, instead of yellow, and therefore often hard to read against light backgrounds. Grade: film 2.25 stars

Captains Courageous (1957, Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, G, 117 min.). Spencer Tracy won the first of his two Academy Awards as Best Actor for playing Portuguese fisherman Manuel in this solid adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale. Manuel is given the task of teaching hard work and human values to 12-year-old Harvey Cheyne (a wonderful Freddie Bartholomew, also of “Little Lord Fauntleroy”), the spoiled son of a millionaire (Melvyn Douglas of “Hud,” “Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House”).

The very manipulative Harvey has been suspended from Green Hill School and his father takes him on a transatlantic cruise, but Harvey one day drinks too many milkshakes and falls overboard. He is found by Manuel, who, as usual, was fishing alone by line, and brought back to the fishing schooner owned by Capt. Disko (Lionel Barrymore of “Key Largo,” “Grand Hotel,” “It’s a Wonderful Life”) that operates out of Gloucester, Massachusetts. To Harvey’s dismay, he will be stuck on the boat up to three months, as it will not return to port until it is filled with fish.

Harvey at first resists any work, but Disko puts him under Manuel’s control and, as the weeks go by, the pair form a strong friendship and Harvey learns to be a productive member of the crew.

Highlight scenes include the launching of the fishing skiffs into rough water, and Manuel telling Harvey the story of his fisherman father, heaven and Jesus Christ’s manipulation of fish and bread. Late in the film, Harvey delivers a touching prayer in church.

Overall, the film has outstanding on-the-water photography and a score by Franz Waxman.

Tracey earned nine Oscar nominations as Best Actor in a Leading Role, with this the middle of a three-year run. The previous year, he was nominated for “San Francisco” and the following year he won again for “Boys Town.” Bartholomew went on to become an executive producer of the TV soap operas “As the World Turns” (1979-1980) and “Search for Tomorrow” (1982-1983).

“Captains Courageous” received three other Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Writing Screenplay (Marc Connelly, John Lee Mahin, Dale Van Every) and Best Film Editing (Elmo Veron).

Extras include the Robert Benchley short “How to Start the Day” (10:10), the cartoon “Wayward Pups” (8:28) and the audio “Leo on the Air,” covering three scenes from the film (12:23). Grade: film 4 stars; extras 1.75 stars

The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952, Film Masters Archive Collection, Blu-ray, NR, 113 min.). African photography lifts this adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s semi-biographical short story. Gregory Peck (“To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Roman Holiday,” “The Omen,” “Cape Fear”) stars as former journalist Harry Street, a book author and big game hunter who reflects on his life while he is dying from an infected leg in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Much of the film is told in flashback as Harry’s wife Helen (Susan Hayward of “I’ll Cry Tomorrow,” “I Want to Live!”) is out hunting game for dinner. Harry’s leg became infected either when he scratched it while chasing an impala or when he confronted a disturbed rhino in the river to rescue a safari servant.

In addition to his attempts at writing and book successes, much of the flashbacks deal with the great love of his life, Cynthia Green (Ava Gardner of “The Night of the Iguana” and “On the Beach,” also with Peck), whom he met after reporting for The Chicago Tribune in Europe. They move in together, but instead of settling in Paris and starting a family, which she wanted, he takes her on his first African safari. They then go to Madrid, Spain to watch bullfights, but Cynthia mysteriously leaves him. The next woman in his life is sculptor Countess Elizabeth (Hildegard Knef), a wealthy woman who lives on the Riveria.

Despite being “engaged,” Harry takes off after Elizabeth destroys a letter from Cynthia. He next is fighting in the Spanish civil war and looking for Cynthia, who is a combat nurse. This leads to an overly dramatic reunion.

The story is rather ho hum, but there is some exciting African footage, including dozens of hippos swimming across a river, even if scenes are stitched together from stock footage and rear projection techniques. The film received Academy Award nominations for cinematography (Leon Shamroy) and art direction-set direction (Lyle R. Wheeler, John DeCuir, Thomas Little, Paul S. Fox). It was listed as one of the top 10 films of the year by the National Board of Review, but 1952 was a time when images of Africa were still new to the general public. Grade: film 3 stars

For the Love of DILFs: The Complete First Season (2023, OUTtv, 2 Blu-rays, NR, 348 min.). An internet search comes up with this definition of a DILF: “An attractive older man, usually a father, who is regarded as a sexual object.” Well, there are no fathers in this eight-episode dating show that attempts to pair five gay “daddies” with five younger “himbos.” The show is hosted by porn actress Stormy Daniels, who attempts to add some comedy. The winning couple will earn a measly $10,000.

The show has been called “a queer ‘Love Island’,” and there is quite a bit of drama thanks to himbo Tokeyo, a 29-year-old rapper from West Hollywood. Joining him are 27-year-olds Tony from New Jersey and Phoenix of West Hollywood; Mateo, 23, of Mexico; and Nathan, 22, of Los Angeles. Tokeyo and Phoenix already know each other, as Tokeyo had dated Phoenix’s best friend. Mateo at one time was ranked No. 2 in Mexican men’s tennis.

The initial five daddies are Gordon, 37, of Alberta, Canada; Alex, a sex worker; Bobby, a bartender from Boston; Tony, a banker and underwear model from Long Island; and Jeffrey, an actor from New York City. The initial pairings are determined by having the younger guys select which pair of the older ones’ underwear they like best. That quickly gives a taste of what the show will be like. Later competitions include strip dodgeball, wrestling (more just pushing) and beer pong.

The show quickly complicates things by adding new competitors, including himbos Matt, 26, of Los Angeles on day two; Demilo, 27, of Philadelphia on day four; and Prince Johnson, a go-go dancer from Hollywood on day five. New daddies are Charles, 40, a London photographer, on day three, and Leryia of New York on day four. There also are eliminations and double eliminations. One daddy voluntarily withdraws, and another couple withdraws from the final voting.

If one likes shirtless gay guys, this may be a show for you. Only a few of the participants have stories that draw a viewer in. There have been two subsequent seasons. Grade: season 2.75 stars