Mike Spring
What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – July 14, 2026
This is one of those weeks that feels a little all over the place, release-wise. Which I guess means there’s something for everyone, if you want to take the ‘glass half full’ approach. Dig in to see what to watch (or read!) and what to skip!
In This Week’s Column:
- Deep Water (Blu-ray)
- The Office: The Complete Series – Superfan Extended Episodes (Blu-ray)
- The Last Starfighter (Graphic Novel)
- The Christophers (Blu-ray)
- Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (4K Ultra HD)
- Starbright (Blu-ray)
- Sugar Cookies (Blu-ray)
- Rise of the Super Tromettes (Blu-ray)
- The Year Before the War (DVD)
Deep Water (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A group of international passengers en route from Los Angeles to Shanghai are forced to make an emergency landing in shark-infested waters. Now they must work together in hopes to overcome the frenzy of sharks drawn to the wreckage.
The Movie:
Renny Harlin used to be one of the most reliable action directors around, with the likes of Cliffhanger, Die Hard 2, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Cutthroat Island under his belt. Of course, he also directed one of THE quintessential shark movies of the past 30 years, Deep Blue Sea, which is easily my second favorite shark movie after Jaws.
And it’s not like he’s a bad director nowadays, he’s just… average. Deep Water sees the director returning to familiar waters (pun intended) with another shark movie, this time paired with a disaster film, as we see a jumbo passenger jet go down in the middle of the ocean and the survivors trying hold out for rescue and not get eaten by a number of very mean and nasty sharks.
Here’s the thing: it’s a perfectly serviceable movie. Aaron Eckhart does a good job in the lead role, and there are some tense sequences, even if the sharks look a little too CGI for my tastes. But the movie feels like it’s just doing paint-by-numbers filmmaking. Brave captain with a troubled home life trying to get back to his kids? Check. Brave flight attendant safeguarding an abandoned child? Check. Overly aggressive jerk who needs to get his comeuppance? Check. Technology that helps save the day that shouldn’t work at all? Check. It’s like there was a Shark Movie Bingo Card and they just threw darts at it until they had enough to fill 90 minutes.
Ultimately, Deep Water is a decent enough way to kill 90 minutes, and as a shark movie junkie, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it at all, it’s just one of those movies you’ll forget about the minute it’s over.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on the disc.
Digital Copy Included: No
The Office: The Complete Series – Superfan Extended Episodes (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
Get ready to work overtime with The Office: The Complete Series – Superfan Extended Episodes featuring over 25 hours of unaired* footage woven into the original broadcast episodes! Join Michael Scott (Steve Carell), Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) and the rest of the employees at Scranton’s most infamous paper company, Dunder Mifflin, as they have the ups and downs of their everyday work lives chronicled documentary style. Developed for American television by Primetime Emmy® Award winner Greg Daniels, he and the original creative team behind the show have expanded and reconstructed every single episode in the series to bring you The Office like you’ve never seen it before! *During initial TV broadcast run.
The Show:
I’ve made no secret over the years that I’m not a big fan of The Office. And honestly, at this point, it’s irrelevant; the show has entered the pantheon of the most loved comedies of the past 30 years, and nothing I say is going to change that. And ultimately, that’s fine, I want people to enjoy what they’re watching, regardless of how one single reviewer feels about it.
Instead, let me praise Universal for a top-notch release of a show that is near-universally loved. Although, at first glance, I couldn’t figure out why this box set was released. After all, a complete series box set was released in 2021 and is still readily available (at about twice the cost of this newer set.) Was this just a cash grab? Well, it turns out this new 30-disc box set includes the Extended Superfan Episodes, which means that EVERY single episode in the entire series has had unaired footage and deleted scenes added back in.
I know some of these aired on TV back in the day during summer re-runs and such – and my recollection was that the extended episodes were kind of a greatest hits thing, offered up on select episodes only — but this collection gives you the extended versions of EVERY episode from all nine seasons. You literally get over 25 hours’ worth of footage edited back into the episodes, cumulatively speaking. Even better, show creator Greg Daniels and his creative team were responsible for the re-edited episodes, not some network hack or production intern, so whether the footage makes the episodes better or worse is up to you to decide, but at least you know it’s material that one or more of the show’s creators felt was worth seeing.
The only major complaint about the box set is the lack of bonus features. The previous box set included a lot of them, and this one has none. Now, a big chunk of that was deleted scenes, which are obviously no longer necessary, but there were also audio commentaries, webisodes, bloopers, and more, which are missing. Personally, I suspect most people will be rewatching the extended episodes much more than the bonus features, but it’s still a little disappointing. Still, other than that complaint, The Office: The Complete Series – Superfan Extended Episodes is a stellar release for fans.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on this set, aside from the 25 hours of footage edited back into the episodes.
Digital Copy Included: No
The Last Starfighter Movie Adaptation (Graphic Novel)
Official Synopsis:
In 1984, The Last Starfighter thrilled movie-goers all over, and for comic book readers hungry for more science fiction, it was a relevation. Now the three-part comic adaptation of the beloved film gets new life in an exclusive collection! With covers by Jackson Guice, story by Bill Mantlo, and art by Bret Blevins, The Last Starfighter Movie Adaptation is a hidden gem ripe for rediscovery.
The Book:
Last year I wrote a book called I Want My Two Dollars: 20 Cult Classics From the 1980s (available here!) and one of the 20 movies I chose to spotlight was 1984’s The Last Starfighter. So it goes without saying that I’m a big fan of the movie. At the time of its release, Marvel had a magazine sized comic book series called Marvel Premiere which would collect Marvel’s various movie adaptations into oversized reprints. That’s where I first read the comic book adaptation of The Last Starfighter, which was also published as a three-issue miniseries by Marvel in 1984.
Naturally, both versions of the adaptation have been long out of print and only available in the aftermarket, at least until now. With Mad Cave publishing a brand new The Last Starfighter monthly comic, it was the perfect time to reprint the original movie adaptation. (And if you haven’t picked up the first issue of the new comic, I can’t recommend it highly enough; it’s really fantastic!)
The adaptation was written by Marvel mainstay Bill Mantlo with art by Bret Blevins. I’ll be honest, my biggest complaint about the book is Blevins’ art, as I’ve just never been a big fan of his work. That said, you do get awesome covers by the great Jackson Guide, and a gorgeous brand-new cover on the trade paperback by Davide Tinto and Francesco Carotenuto. It’s not the greatest comic in the world on its own merits, but as a Last Starfighter collectible (of which there are very few), it’s a great pick-up and a solid read for fans.
The Specs:
- Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
- Format: Softcover
- Page Count: 88 pages
- Cover Price: $17.99
The Christophers (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A mainstay of the London art scene since his starry breakout in the creative explosion of the 1960’s, Julian Sklar (Ian McKellen) has drifted into a cluttered, self-imposed seclusion. His two estranged children (James Corden, Jessica Gunning) enlist Lori (Michaela Coel), a young painter and sometime-forger, to pose as a prospective assistant and gain access to a fabled series of unfinished canvases Julian has buried deep in his home studio, in a deceptive bid to secure an inheritance for themselves.
The Movie:
I know that sometimes I end up repeating myself in these columns, so I apologize for what seems to be a theme this week, but I’ve never been a Steven Soderbergh fan. (Also, didn’t he retire? Why have we gotten three movies out of him in the past two years?) I mean, I like a couple of his films, but by and large, I’ve always found him incredibly overrated. And if you read the reviews of The Christophers, it seems like that affection for the director’s works isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, even if I veer from consensus on that opinion.
The film has an intriguing concept: the adult children of an aging and once-famous artist hire a forger to complete an infamously unfinished series of paintings so they can “inherit” them when he dies and make a windfall. Okay, I’m intrigued. What ultimately plays out, however, is something akin to a filmed stage play, with the driving action being a series of conversations between Ian McKellen and Michaela Cole’s characters about art, legacy, and other heady stuff. Ed Solomon is a generally great screenwriter (Men in Black, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure) and his script combined with outstanding performances by the leads carry the movie, but ultimately, it’s a little on the forgettable side. And because I’m not a Steven Soderbergh fan, I can justifiably say that I think just about anyone else could have directed this movie and it wouldn’t have made one bit of difference. All of Soderbergh’s “talent” feels wasted here. Or maybe that’s just who he is as a director.
That all said, the film is intriguing and even engaging at times; if for nothing else, watching McKellen and Cole parry and thrust is enjoyable, but The Christophers never quite gets wherever it is it’s going.
The Bonus Features:
- Conversation with Screenwriter Ed Solomon and Charlie Kaufman
- Trailer
Digital Copy Included: No
Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend (4K Ultra HD)
Official Synopsis:
The thrilling follow-up to Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, director Li Liming’s Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend follows the Wing Chun icon as he attempts to open his own martial club after leaving his police career behind. When a western boxing gym buys up all of the property belonging to the local martial community, it’s up to Ip Man to save this tradition from destruction.
The Movie:
What does this make, six Ip Man movies now? That’s pretty impressive for a movie franchise that started off as just an embellished biopic of one of the guys who trained Bruce Lee. In the previous film, Ip Man: Kung Fu Master, we went back in time to earlier in his life, but now he’s a legend, so Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend moves to a bit later in his career (but still before he worked with Bruce Lee.)
In this outing, our man has retired from being a police officer and is focusing on opening his own martial arts school. Of course, big bad guy real estate developers want to get the land for themselves, so then it becomes our intrepid hero against various mustache-twirling baddies. (They don’t literally twirl their mustaches, but you know what I mean.)
Now, I like a good martial arts movie as much as the next guy, but I think maybe the filmmakers have started to drain this well dry. The film is light on action and heavy on exposition, and the characters are right out of central casting for generic bad guys. There’s no real suspense and while the action scenes are engaging, they’re too few and far between. I found this one to be a little less toothless than I was hoping for.
The 4K Video/Audio:
Ip Man: Kung Fu Legend is a largely impeccable A/V presentation in 4K. The imagery is outstanding, with deep black levels, vibrantly saturated colors, and razor-sharp picture clarity. The surround soundtrack comes in (subtitled) Mandarin or dubbed English, but each one utilizes the surround speakers well, creating a dynamic atmosphere, even in scenes where not much is happening. At the very least, you always feel like you’re in the world of the film, which is a really impressive experience from the A/V perspective.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on the disc.
Digital Copy Included: No
Starbright (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A grieving farm girl guards a fallen star and, with unlikely allies, must survive one miraculous night against ruthless hunters. On a weathered farm at the edge of a fading town, Aisling (Alexandra Dowling, Emily, The Musketeers) shoulders grief far too heavy for her young frame. The days move slow, the nights slower, and the silence of loss presses in on every corner of her world. Then, under the shadow of an eclipse, the sky splits open and a star falls to earth. From its glow steps Raphael (John Rhys-Davies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade, and the Lord of the Rings Trilogy) — not quite angel, not quite man — who places the living star into a locket at Aisling’s heart and entrusts her with its keeping.
But Aisling is not alone in this night. Beside her stands Joshua (Diego Boneta, Terminator: Dark Fate, Luis Miguel: The Series), a young man bound to the ruins of a once-grand chateau across the water, a house haunted by debts, memory, and the expectations of a powerful father. Joshua knows loss as she does; his dreams, like hers, have been dimmed by sorrow and circumstance. With Raphael’s strange guidance, Aisling and Joshua are swept into a single, unbroken night of wonder and peril. The living star can turn lead to gold, despair to hope — and word of its power has drawn dangerous men from the shadows: thieves, debt-collectors, and a ruthless figure who will burn the town to claim it. Through empty fields, crumbling halls, and moonlit roads, the young pair flee and fight to protect a light that was never meant for greedy hands.
Mastered from the original 4K Dolby Vision / Dolby Atmos Master, Starbright makes its global home media debut in this Special Edition Blu-ray and Soundtrack CD release!
The Movie:
Oh, how I wanted to love Starbright…
Let me clear, Starbright is NOT a bad film. It’s a film whose heart is in the right place, with a game cast, that simply loses its way in trying to do too much and not do it with enough focus. The story is relatively simple: a star crashes to earth and the angelic being within gives his light to a grieving farm girl to protect. Throughout the night, she must face unscrupulous men, new friends, and possible romance to keep it safe and survive. On the surface, that’s a beautiful idea, and the movies wants to be beautiful, which I commend.
The problem is, there’s way too much beautiful. At two-and-a-half hours, the film need to be trimmed by about 40 minutes. There are too many moments where the beauty and hope and romance in the characters is talked about or pontificated on instead of being shown, and you feel every minute of it. This is the ultimate case of “show, don’t tell” needing to be a sign that someone held up every time the filmmakers started to film another inspirational speech.
There’s a lot of good in the movie as well, starting with great performances by Alexandra Dowling, John Rhys-Davies, and Diego Boneta, plus a supporting cast of familiar faces including Elizabeth Rohm (love her!), Christine Ebersole, Ted Levine, and others. I applaud the filmmakers what they were trying to do, I just wish someone had reined them in a bit and given the film a more focused approach. As it is, Starbright is worth watching, but make sure you have a little extra time and a little extra patience.
The Bonus Features:
- Starbright – In The Making Documentary
- Francesco Lucente’s First Short Film ‘This Old Man’
- Deleted Pier Scene
- Bloopers
- John Rhys-Davies Poem
- Director’s first short film ‘THIS OLD MAN’
- Trailers
- Soundtrack CD
Digital Copy Included: No
Sugar Cookies: Tromatic Special Edition (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A producer and her lover join forces to find an innocent young acting student and transform her into the exact replica of a dead movie star.
Welcome to the world of wealth and privilege…where everyone lives life in the fast lane! Meet the beautiful people…at their most thrilling and dangerous sex game. A producer and her lover join forces to find an innocent young acting student and, in a bizarre experiment, transform her into the exact replica of a dead movie star. Sugar Cookies is filled with the mystery of an Alfred Hitchcock classic. It has the mystery and action of Prizzi’s Honor and the sensuality of Emmanuelle. Sugar Cookies is directed by Theodore Gershuny and Oliver Stone, as Associate Producer.
The Movie:
Lloyd Kaufman’s Troma Studios are something of a unique entity in Hollywood. Ultra-low-budget movies with genre trappings and exploitation at the forefront, they’re clearly not for everyone. Personally, I’ve never really gotten into the whole Troma vibe, but I can see why people can have fun with it.
Sugar Cookies is an early 1973 offering from the studio that skips the monsters, samurai, mutants, and explosions to focus on being more of an erotic psychological thriller. Starring B-movie queen Mary Woronov (Night of the Comet, Death Race 2000, Rock N Roll High School), the film is somehow both more and less coherent than the typical Troma outing. Set in the real world (and Hollywood adult filmmaking specifically) the movie feels more grounded than usual, but it is twisty and turny and far from traditional. It’s exploitative as you’d expect, sure, but in a different way than you might be used to.
With an interesting story and some actual decent performances, Sugar Cookies is a cut above typical Troma fare, although the comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock, Prizzi’s Honor, and Emmanuelle in the description above feel like a bit of stretch. And I’d expect no less hyperbole from Troma.
The Bonus Features:
- Classic introduction by Lloyd Kaufman
- Archival Interviews with Lynn Lowery, Mary Woronov, and Lloyd Kaufman
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- Tromatic Extras
- Coming Distractions
Digital Copy Included: No
Rise of the Super Tromettes (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A mysterious virus is infecting the men of Tromaville. It’s up to the vigilante team known as The Super Tromettes to unite and tackle this threat.
The Movie:
On the other side of the Troma spectrum, we have one of their newest movies, released 52 years after Sugar Cookies, in 2025. Amazingly, in 50+ years of making movies, very little has changed for Troma productions.
In this entry, a virus is affecting all the men of Tromaville, so a bunch of women team up as de facto superheroes to try and save the town. But lest you think this is a movie to be taken seriously, it wants to remind you that we are squarely in Troma territory (Tromaville, I guess.) It’s got a budget of approximately 35 cents, it’s got plenty of gross-out scenes, the acting is abysmal, the jokes are bad, the special effects are non-existent, and it is certainly not trying to win any awards or be politically correct.
But here’s the thing: it does all of that on purpose. Could the filmmakers have found better actors? I’m sure they could have, but they had no interest in doing that. This is low-budget and cheesy for the art of being low-budget and cheesy, and I guess I have to give Troma some begrudging respect for that. Did I like Rise of the Super Tromettes? I did not. Do I respect Rise of the Super Tromettes? Not really. Did the filmmakers of Rise of the Super Tromettes achieve exactly what they were going for? I’m pretty sure they did.
The Bonus Features:
- Brand New Introduction Featuring Mercedes The Music and Lloyd Kaufman
- Super Tromettes Assemble! Making-of Mini Doc
- Mercedes The Muses’ Totally Toxic Tour
- The Troma Intelligence Test
- See The Troma Team In Albania
- Coming Distractions
Digital Copy Included: No
The Year Before the War (DVD)
Official Synopsis:
As Europe teeters on the brink of World War I, Hans (Petr Buchta), an ordinary doorman in Riga, is swept into a whirlwind of radical ideologies, political upheaval, and rising nationalism. His journey becomes an odyssey across a continent in turmoil, carrying him from utopian communes to imperial capitals. Bearing witness to violence, passion and intrigue, he crosses paths with some of the era’s most influential figures – including Mata Hari, Sigmund Freud, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, and Leon Trotsky – amid the unraveling of the old order.
The Movie:
It’s not really accurate to call The Year Before the War ‘Forrest Gump in World War I,’ because it’s really nothing like that Tom Hanks blockbuster. But when you have an ordinary character getting caught up in extraordinary circumstances that lead to him meeting luminaries such as Sigmund Freud, Joseph Stalin, and the Mata Hari, it’s hard not to at least some connective tissue.
Here’s the thing: The Year Before the War is not a straightforward narrative film. It’s part drama, part history lesson, and part art project… or at least that’s how it feels. This isn’t a documentary or anything like that, but it’s clearly not just trying to be a regular old war movie, either. I’m sure there’s a much deeper meaning here than I picked up on, and I’ll leave it to people much smarter than me to figure it out, but that’s not the kind of movie I usually get into. The Year Before the War is visually interesting and intriguing, but I can’t say I ever really found it enjoyable. I suspect people more into arthouse films than me will find something here to like, though.
The Bonus Features:
There are no bonus features on the disc.
Digital Copy Included: No
