Arrow Video Archives - Unwinnable

A screenshot from the trailer for Conan the Barbarian, where the title warrior is shirtless on a beach swinging with his sword drawn gracefully above his head

What is Best in Life: Conan Movies on 4K

By Orrin Grey • February 14th, 2024

When the pouty virginal princess asks Zula how one goes about getting a man, no one but Grace Jones could sell her response, as she growls, “You grab him! And take him!”

close crop of the cover of the Arrow Video boxed set featuring a comic illustration of many characters from the movies, including adorable couple in matching robes, undead orc and his precious dolls, mullet wizard, and a whole bunch more in a video store in the background

Building Empire: Arrow Video’s Enter the Video Store – Empire of Screams Collection

By Orrin Grey • July 13th, 2023

In their latest boxed set, Arrow Video pays tribute to these days of amazing trash at your local video store, with a collection of five films spanning nearly the entirety of Empire’s short tenure.

Title card for Silent Running, with a beaming sun visible just over the top of a spiked geodesic dome floating through space

Everyone Has a Job: The Future of Silent Running (1972)

By Orrin Grey • December 13th, 2022

Anyone who complains that modern movies are too didactic probably shouldn’t watch Silent Running, which puts all its theses into the mouth of Bruce Dern’s space-bound ecologist.

A stoic cop in a suit and sunglasses is walking stoically through some stoic traffic

Lunatic Meets Lunatic: Two Good-Natured Caper Films from Hong Kong Director Johnnie To

By Orrin Grey • August 17th, 2022

A pair of surprisingly lightweight and amiable caper flicks in the vein of more recent thriller confections such as 2013’s Now You See Me.

Keifer Sutherland is sidding criss-cross-apple-sauce in a room with high arched windows and afternoon yellow light with a lone lamp for company

Today’s a Good Day to Die: Reliving the Past with Flatliners (1990)

By Orrin Grey • August 9th, 2022

It’s no surprise that Schumacher made the campiest of Batman movies, because there’s an extravagance to the production design here that would have been right at home in Burton’s Gotham City.

A still from the trailer of The 8-Diagram Pole Fighter, featuring the lead monk standing with a bloodied lip next to his praying companion and a fellow fighter

Carnage and Blood: Two Kung Fu Movies from Opposite Ends of the Genre’s Heyday, Both with Numbers in the Titles

By Orrin Grey • June 2nd, 2022

One is a bloody Saturday morning cartoon that barely bothers to connect its interminable fight scenes with any kind of story, the other an elegiac lament about the inadequacy of heroism in the face of death.