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The Nico Mastorakis Collection
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Arrow Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (11th September 2024). |
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The Film
 "He's back! One of the most infamous B-movie maestros to have ever sat in a directors chair, Nico Mastorakis returns to Arrow Video with a collection of sci-fi shenanigans and screwball comedies that will take you out of this world!" The Time Traveler: Ever since her astronaut husband died in accident in space, Andrea (The Fog's Adrienne Barbeau) has sought to get way from all signs of technological progress, settling on a remote Greek island with her young son Tim (Valerie's Jeremy Licht) and their dog. Tim's imagination, however, remains in the stars. In the aftermath of a sudden electrical storm the night before, Andrea and Tim discover a naked man (2001: A Space Odyssey's Keir Dullea) washed up on the rocks. The man claims to have no memory of his identity with only a number tattooed on the back of his shoulder. Andrea and Tim name him Glenn and let him move in with them as they try to help him recover his identity. Others are not so open-minded, however, with fisherman/unrequited romantic interest Yanni (Never on Sunday's Phaedon Gheorghitsis) suspecting that the man may be a murderer who the radio reported had escaped the authorities by jumping off a ship. Alcoholic doctor Barnaby (The Andromeda Strain's Peter Hobbs), however, believes that Glenn is someone (or something) much more mysterious when the stranger asks him pointed questions about Jesus Christ who he had just learned about during a visit with Andrea to a church. When Barnaby discovers that Glenn has strange supernatural powers, he warns him of the drawbacks to being a messiah and that he should go back where he came from but Glenn is drawn to Andrea and Tim. When his powers are exposed with a miracle performed out of compassion and desperation, an inadvertent tragedy may seal his fate when his only loyal followers are an over-imaginative kid and a drunk. The "Christ allegory" film usually featuring a man emerging from the sea is something of a pretentious clichι among directors, but they usually get it out of the way with a student film or an early, low-budget effort. Independent producer/director Nico Mastorakis' The Time Traveler, originally titled "The Next One" referring both to a possible second coming and the film's coda, posits as interesting idea a science fiction take on the origins of Christ as John Carpenter's later Prince of Darkness (while possessing a tone more similar to Carpenter's Starman) but it is quite an overlong slog in its execution. Outside of the gorgeous views of Mykonos both in landscape and in culture with some sequences of religious processions and everyday life as captured by the cinematographer Aris Stavrou whose Mastorakis productions gave him an opportunity to show some slickness in contrast to his other exploitation credits including the British co-production The Devil's Men and yet another rich score by Stanley Myers (The Wind) deserving of a better picture and this one with some electronics courtesy of Richard Harvey (Half Moon Street) predating Myers' mentorship of Hans Zimmer (Gladiator) the film treads so slowly that it pretty much telegraphs every surprise while remaining vague about Glenn's recovered memories. Far more interesting than the central romance is the more conflicted relationship between Yanni and widow Anna (Who Pays the Ferryman?'s Betty Arvaniti) which is dropped as soon as Yanni has served their convenience to the plot. While Dullea has to remain a blank slate for much of the film out of necessity, Barbeau is not given enough to do so the viewer really has no idea how she is supposed to respond to machinations (or manipulations) surrounding the film's surprise ending. Following this attempt at profundity, Mastorakis' filmography moved towards the more overtly commercial.  Sky High: A trio of prototypical Southern California dude-bros surfer Bobby (The Bold and the Beautiful's Clayton Norcross), loudmouth Mick (Frank Schultz), and computer nerd Les (My Chauffeur's Daniel Hirsch) head to Greece for a year in an exchange program where the real aim is getting laid as much as possible. While Bobby and Mick are scoping babes at the Parthenon, Les is accosted by a man who gives him an audio cassette before he is taken out by an assassin. After Les finally convinces Bobby and Mick of what happened, the trio head to the American Embassy where cultural liaison Boswell (Girls on the Road's John Lawrence) readily believes them and suggests that they have the KGB after them for whatever is on that tape (which Les claimed he lost in the confusion). When the boys listen to the tape together, they discover that it is coded with a frequency through which its late inventor reveals to them that he was developed a mind-controlling frequency which he has kept separate from the frequency on another cassette sent by other means to its the dead man's intended contact in Mykonos to prevent its misuse as a weapon of mass destruction. The frequency on the tape they have gives them a hint of that destructive power but mainly elicit pleasurable effects, acting like a drug and conjuring up different levels of pleasure and physical stimulation based on their body chemistry. While Les just wants to get the tape to its intended recipient, Mick and Bobby are eager to exploit the tape's potential; that is, until an encounter with a trio of alluring prostitutes lead by American bombshell Sally (Lauren Taylor) turns out to be an attempt on their lives averted by the arrival of Boswell. Boarding a cruise ship to Mykonos, Bobby runs into Sally who claims she was just trying to make some money after her boyfriend abandoned her, Mick hooks up with assertive radio advice columnist Joanna (Janet Tyler), while Les samples the pleasures of the tape again only to wake up to two attempts on his life that leave two dead bodies for the trio to hide. On Santorini, Les meets Stefani (Karen Verlaine) who gives him a makeover and enough of a confidence boost to suspect that things may be too good to be true as the KGB closes in on them and Boswell may not make it to his impending retirement rescuing them repeatedly. Mastorakis' Sky High is a bit of a lopsided comedy with a Cold War backdrop, having the look of an American sex comedy of the period but not really earning its R-rating until the latter half of the film where suddenly clothed grope sessions, the suggestion of mind-controlled orgasms, and more talk than action gives way suddenly to sunny topless frolicking. The setup is pretty laborious because the three leads are charisma vacuums, and just as their characters start to become more distinct Les' makeover makes Hirsch hard to tell apart from Norcross (who I initially thought was Hirsch having seen him in Mastorakis' subsequent and superior slasher/action hybrid The Zero Boys). The mind-control musical montages take the form of an original music video set to a not-exactly-chart-topper by "Lady in Red" singer Chris De Burgh along with the commercial music video to Feelabeelia's "Feel It" filmed off a video monitor kinescope-style which was also the manner some of the video switcher mind-control effects were "filmed" although strangely not twice-heard awful disco song "Sandrina" for which Mastorakis elsewhere apparently did direct a music video, while a helicopter shootout is rendered in slow-motion almost turning it too into a music video (Jackie DeShannon's "Wings of Victory" is one of the few good songs on the soundtrack). The adventure concludes in a nonsensical fashion in which none of the main characters really get hurt in spite of the depraved indifference with which they deal with the main bad guy who Mastorakis does not have the heart to kill despite him going out with a bang. The format and overall scattershot, episodic approach of the film would end up setting the tone to Mastorakis' subsequent comedies including the ones in this set.  In Terminal Exposure, Lenny (Mark Hennessy) is spending the summer between classes working for a photography studio and spending his days on Venice Beach with buddy Bruce (Twisted Nightmare's Scott King) in a potentially money-making photo book study of "assology" only to spot a crucial clue in a black rose tattoo on a shapely rear as a telltale clue when Lenny inadvertently photographs blurry details of what looks the assassination of drug dealer Ned Carson (Smokin' Aces' Patrick St. Esprit). Lenny's bully of an older brother Skip (Blood Diner's Steve Donmyer) hustles his last dollar out of him providing the information they need, identifying the owner of the tattoo as Las Vegas stripper Christie (Hard Ticket to Hawaii's Hope Marie Carlton) who Lenny was in the process of "immortalizing" before she discovered he was related to Skip. Bruce is up for an adventure in Vegas while Lenny is eager to prove Christie innocent of a murder for which there is no body, but they are not the only ones interested in this particular case. Hitman Eskenezy (Beach Babes from Beyond's Joe Estevez) is trailing them and following their leads. When Lenny and Bruce do track down Christie at a bachelor party for a mobster's son, a mix-up between a water pistol and a real gun has the trio on the run from mob and right into the path of drug dealer Karruthers (Savage Streets' John Vernon) whose Marilyn Monroe-lookalike wife (Night Killer's Tara Buckman) whose affairs complicate his business affairs and whose Rolls Royce has a body in the trunk that is a surprise even for him. Terminal Exposure is an improvement over Sky High if only because its convoluted plot keeps moving over its hundred minute running time. Hennessy and King are reasonably engaging actors, and Carlton is more than a nice body, and it helps that most of the supporting performances are so much broader with only Vernon delivering his lines as the heavy without chewing the scenery (the same cannot be said for The Love Boat's Ted Lange as a beach wino and font of information and philosophy). The comedic elements are lowest common denominator including an ice cream fight that seems as idiotic a way to fight hired killers as the egg-throwing car chase of Sky High, but the climactic chase in full view of the beach-going public is well-choreographed and more ambitious than one would expect, but one also suspects the likely true assertion that some of the film's elements were included so that Mastorakis could enjoy them behind the scenes like the hot tub limousine that figures into the opening title sequence fantasy and Karruthers' mansion which was rented by Mastorakis during the shoot and subsequently became his home. Shot just after his atmospheric Greek-set thriller The Wind (which also used the mansion in the opening sequence before heading abroad), the film was one of composer Hans Zimmer's first solo assignments but the scoring is not particularly noteworthy nor are the song choices. Oddly enough, while the setup of a hapless duo anticipates more of Mastorakis' comedies to come, the photographic milieu, beach setting, and some of the stylistic touches of Cliff Ralke's (Nightmare at Noon) cinematography anticipate Mastorakis' later take on the erotic thriller In the Cold of the Night.  Glitch!: Wheeler-dealer-Hollywood-spoof-exploitation-producer Julius Lazar (Fun with Dick and Jane's Dick Gautier) rushes his secretary/mistress Missy (Lust for Freedom's Amy Lyndon) off to Hawaii confident that she has taken care of all of the arrangements from turning off the air conditioner and sprinklers to scheduling the auditions for his next film "Sex and Violence" for next week. "Of Mice and Men"-sque burglar duo T.C. (A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child's Will Egan) and Bo (Terminal Exposure's Steve Donmyer), however, discover upon breaking in that Missy has in fact done the opposite of everything Lazar told her to do. The only other people who seem to have prepared for Lazar's departure are gardeners Paco (Fernando Garzσn) and Lee (stuntman John Kreng) who have formed a coalition with other abused immigrant gardeners to rob their employers. Idiot Bo's disturbing alter-ego Simon makes short work of Paco and Lee and dumps their unconscious bodies in the wine cellar, but it is going to take more brains to fool inquisitive patrol officer Harmon (Gary Jochimsen) so T.C. poses as Lazar himself and Bo as his director. When a hundred bikini-clad models arrive a week ahead of schedule to audition for nudity-required roles in Lazar's latest film, T.C. and Bo decide to have a blast before making off with whatever is not nailed down. Unfortunately, mafia hitman DuBois (Terminal Exposure's Ted Lange again) has turned up looking to collect The Family's share of Lazar's underreported box office takings on his last film "Pink Thunder" and T.C. finds himself falling for actress Michelle Wong (K2's Julia Nickson) who has turned up solely to take Lazar to task for perpetuating big screen sexism. Bo gains access to his "natural intelligence" from hypnotist Mookie (Mandingo's Ji-Tu Cumbuka) and becomes quite savvy in wrangling models and mobsters while fey bodyguard Brucie (Wizards of the Demon Sword's Dan Speaker) provides muscle with flair. Another zany comedy from Mastorakis, Glitch! shuffles some of the elements of Terminal Exposure including mobsters, beautiful women, and inept heroes in a much looser assemblage that exists almost solely to show off oodles of scantily-clad women so many that some familiar faces are hard to point out including "Take on Me" girl Bunty Bailey (Dolls) and Laura Albert (The Unnamable) billed as "Topless Girl" including pre-hardcore Teri Weigel (Savage Beach) amid roughly ninety woman billed in the end credits as "Beauties". The other reason for the film's existence revealed by Mastorakis himself was to find a Malibu mansion that he could use as a "home away from home" for a couple weeks, and the end credits even cite the house's use in other popular films like Blind Date and Maid to Order. Unlike the previous film, Egan and Donmyer actually do carry the film for the most part even though their scenes seem to be written around a checklist of situations building up to a climax where the characters become mouthpieces for Mastorakis' cynical views on the industry. Songwriter Thomas Marolda provides the film's score and would provide songs for Mastorakis' next two films while camera operator-turned-cinematographer Peter Jensen would also shoot the Mastorakis-produced slasher Grandmother's House.  Ninja Academy: American ninja Adleman (Project: Nightmare's Seth Foster) has never forgiven colleague Chiba (Big Trouble in Little China's Gerald Okamura) for being chosen over him to take over the school of their sensei Yamazaki (The Lost Empire's Peter Pan). Adleman's school in Los Angeles has proven highly-profitable for him, what with the promise of a Black Belt if the check clears. When his school takes second place to a completely unfamiliar Topanga Ninjitsu Ryu in a major martial arts magazine's list of the top five schools, Adleman sends spy Gonzales (Deathstalker IV: Match of the Titans's Art Camacho) to scope it out. The new school is just about to have an influx of new students: wastrel Josh (Glitch!'s Will Egan) whose father cuts off his allowance unless he actually follows through with something, suave secret agent 007-11 Philip (Michael David) whose superiors want him to take a refresher course in martial arts when his "phallic dependency" on his gun racks up too high a body count, a Venice Beach mime (Jeff Robinson) who gets shook down daily by bullies for his takings, beach bunnies Suzy (Kathleen Stevens) and Lynn (Zapped!'s Lisa Montgomery) who need a confidence boost, psychotic weekend warrior George (Bad Channels's Robert Factor), and hopelessly inept nerd Claude (Jack Freiberger). Where sensei Chiba sees promise with Josh, his granddaughter and top student Gayle (Kelly Randall) sees an immature blowhard, but the rest of the students seem no more promising. When Adleman discovers that the school is being run by his old enemy; however, he launches an all-out assault on the school when the more experienced students are away. Josh and the other students must put their own spin on what little they have learned when they refuse to leave Chiba behind. Although there had been a boom of American ninja and martial arts films that was still ongoing in 1989, Ninja Academy is obviously patterned more along the lines of a Police Academy cash-in at a time when that franchise was starting to get long-in-the-tooth with five sequels. After the callback to the martial arts genre with the unresolved conflict between two rivals, the film spends a drawn-out first act introducing each of the students and yet the only thing that really defines any of them are the cliches with only Egan's lead and Randall's love interest given much in the way of meaningful backstory. The training takes a backseat along with the will-they-won't-they relationship between Josh and Gayle to training sight gags, recurring jokes about Claude's ineptitude, Gonzales' hapless spying, the students' dreams about how they will use their newfound abilities, and peaks into a nudist camp that borders the school in the Griffith Park woodlands (which lends the film its R-rating more than any of the tame sexual innuendo or profanity). Okamura and Foster do the only real fighting along with a few hooded extras IMDb lists Brotherhood of the Wolf's Mark Dacascos as an uncredited member of Adleman's team but ultimately, Ninja Academy is a pretty painless experience along with Glitch! that leaves viewers unprepared for what is to come.  The Naked Truth: Frank Guggenheimer (Robert Caso) and Frank Rostopowich (voice artist Kevin Schon) meet on a plane to Los Angeles where they both hope to find fame and fortune. They hit it off right away to the extent that they have already guessed the plot when federal witness Garcia (Blood Simple's M. Emmet Walsh) slips crucial evidence against ketchup mogul and drug dealer Hess (The Odd Couple's Herb Edelman) into Rostopowich's suitcase just before is assassinated by Hess' long-suffering chief thug Bruno (The Terminator's Brian Thompson). On their way out of the airport, the Franks deliberately take the wrong bags and stow away in drag as stylists Ethel and Mirabelle on a coach bus carrying a host of international beauty pageant hopefuls to Hess' guest house for his latest drug smuggling scheme sending the contestants on a tour to various South American countries. Guggenheimer becomes distracted and flattered when Hess takes a liking to Ethel while Rostopowich is pressed into helping Joanne (Courtney Gibbs), an FBI agent disguised as a contestant who had intended to seduce Hess herself to find evidence against him. Although the film continues Mastorakis' formula of a hapless duo getting involved in a scenario involving crime and mistaken identity, The Naked Truth was originally intended to be a sequel to Glitch! but really wants to be The Naked Gun with a side of Airplane! ("The bathroom is for unloading only. No homosexuals!") and Some Like It Hot. Plenty of beauty queens provide some R-friendly skin but their screen time wars with a bevy of mostly unfunny celebrity cameos including Playmate and erotic thriller diva Shannon Tweed (Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle Of Death) as a ditzy stewardess, Billy Barty (Willow) as a diminutive bell boy, Yvonne de Carlo (The Munsters) as Hess' wife, Norman Fell (Three's Company) as a psychotic dentist, Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk) as a blockheaded federal agent, an unrecognizable John Vernon along with Ted Lange again, Erik Estrada (CHiPs) as a local guide when the protagonists end up in Columbia (well, Puerto Vallarta actually), and Little Richard for a Grey Poupon commercial spoof. Things can only get worse as the end of the film becomes a long monochrome Casablanca homage with Bogart-lookalike Robert Sacchi (The French Sex Murders). Zsa Zsa Gabor had already lampooned the incident where she slapped a police officer for the opening credits of The Naked Gun 2 1/2: The Smell Of Fear and appears here as a trash-talking stewardess but the film stays tastelessly a bit more current lampooning the Rodney King beating. Caso and Schon are pretty obnoxious from the get-go establishing their rapport but become more bearable once the "plot" is set in motion. Thompson is much more entertaining typecast in his usual roles as a tough but playing it for laughs (as Mastorakis' then son-in-law, he had previously had a lead role in Hired to Kill) but Edelman as broadly as he plays it is the most engaging performer while one cannot help but feel embarrassed for Walsh no matter how much he treats the role like any other character actor bit part. After this, Mastorakis returned to Greece where he produced a reboot of the local version of "Candid Camera" as he had in the seventies and subsequent documentaries on Greece with his only other feature being .com for Murder, an experience he reportedly did not enjoy. 
Video
Despite the more commercial title change, The Time Traveler was released theatrically as "The Next One" in the U.S. by American National Enterprises and VHS by Vestron Video while in the U.K. it went directly to video from Video Space. Like most of Mastorakis' library, the film was remastered by him in 2003 and released on DVD by Image Entertainment using the "The Time Traveler" moniker (which was also used for the 2021 CD soundtrack). Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative. While the opening credits might have been redone and possibly the end credits newly overlaid over the background the film looks pristine, with well-exposed sequences evincing palpable textures in the Greek architecture, rocky coasts, woodwork, and dιcor as well as nice detail in the film's close-ups. Grain is heavier and noisier during some of the run-and-gun available light night and early morning exteriors particularly during the climactic festivities but this does lend a sense of verisimilitude to these ethnographic looks at Mykonos outside of tourist season.  Sky High skipped the theaters and was part of the mid-eighties video boom with a VHS from Vestron in the U.S. and in the U.K. from PolyGram. Stateside, Image Entertainment debuted a DVD in 2003 of a remastered transfer so the materials were already well-archived when Arrow revisited the negatives for a new 4K scan for their 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray. The image does not look quite as slick as some of the other Mastorakis productions, with scenes shot in controlled conditions like interiors and the Oceanos ship looking the best while a lot of the run-and-gun night exteriors have a softer, grainier look and some of the bright, sunny touristy scenes on the beach and at the Parthenon do not have the best fill in the shadow areas; yet, this is undoubtedly the best the film has ever looked. The kinescoped music video and video switcher effects shots look the best they can without the additional smeariness of the video master.  Also known as "Double Exposure" in some territories a title no more suited but less annoying than the film's attempting to coin the word "terminal" as slang Terminal Exposure scored a theatrical release through United Film Distribution Company (UFDC) whose output was quite varied during the mid-to-late eighties and then on video by Vestron Video while in the U.K. it went straight to video from PolyGram. We are not aware of whether this film was remastered by Mastorakis in the early 2000s like his other titles as there was no Image Entertainment DVD and we do not have any specifications for the Australian DVD; at least, stateside, it may have been the case that Vestron's rights had not yet expired for a late eighties acquisition. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray is a new scan but it seems like the photography is the reason for the more variable look, generally benefiting from being predominately set in sunny exteriors and a few well-lit night exteriors (including quite a few ones where the production actually had permits). Some darker scenes are a bit noisy as expected, although the blue-lit photo studio sequences look slicker here and less murky than they did on VHS (which can only be expected).  Glitch! went straight to VHS in the United States from Academy Home Entertainment and in the U.K. from Medusa (with fifteen seconds cut for a "15" certificate). While some of the Academy titles popped up on DVD from Simitar Entertainment at the dawn of the format, Simitar's DVD of Glitch! was part of an early Mastorakis deal using the existing tape masters. Mastorakis' remaster turned up on DVD in 2003 from Image Entertainment. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray comes from a new scan and it looks great owing to the film being shot in sunny exteriors that were mostly private property and in bright interior environs, the better to resolve miles of bare flesh (wet, oiled, or otherwise).  Ninja Academy went straight-to-video in the United States via Quest Entertainment and in the U.K. through Guild Home Video (with a running time that suggests it might have been pre-cut with the BBFC's attitude towards martial arts weaponry in mind). As with Glitch!, the tape master turned up on DVD from Simitar Entertainment in the late nineties and was then upgraded with a Mastorakis remaster for Image Entertainment's 2003 DVD. Arrow's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray looks spectacular (and is also uncut for concerned British viewers). Apart from the opening shot which uses diffusion to give the Japan-in-Los Angeles location an "exotic" feel, the cinematography of prolific television DP Steven Shaw (Unmasking the Idol) is crisp and well-exposed even with the film predominantly set in woodsy exteriors (the same stomping grounds Shaw lensed the Mastorakis-produced The Zero Boys with some similarities in his treatment of night interiors and exteriors).  The Naked Truth went straight to cable in the United States and onto VHS in the U.K. from Medusa Home Video. A Simitar followed in 1999 from the video master followed by Mastorakis' 2003 remaster on DVD from Image Entertainment. Being not only the most recent title in the set but also one shot by Mastorakis' best DP Andreas Bellis (Blind Date), the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen transfer is stunning throughout proving that Mastorakis knew where to put the money even when everything else was bottom-tier. 
Audio
The Time Traveler was Mastorakis' first film mixed in Dolby Stereo which is included in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 as well as a conservative 5.1 remix that Mastorakis did for the film back in the early 2000s for DVD. Directional effects are well-utilized during the electrical storm with its sci-fi sound effects while most of the film has rather sedate front-oriented sound design with the score getting the most spread until the action picks up later in the film. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included. Sky High includes a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 rendering of the Dolby Stereo soundtrack which demonstrates directionality in the action scenes along with the sci-fi sound effects executed by Mastorakis himself on the Emulator II synthesizer as is credited on a number of his productions. The 5.1 remix was created during the early 2000s remastering but it is respectful to the original mix and does not do anything wild with the surrounds, just spreading music and foley out a bit wider which a Dolby Digital decoder could do to the matrixed 2.0 track. Optional English SDH subtitles are also included.  Unlike the other titles in the set, Terminal Exposure only includes a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 rendering of the Dolby Stereo mix. The lack of a 5.1 remix might either suggest it was not one of the titles Mastorakis remastered in the early 2000s or that the stems might not have been available for remixing. Dialogue is always clear and music is boisterious but the sound design is a bit less ambitious than Mastorakis' other films in the set. Optional English SDH subtitles are included. Glitch! features the Dolby Stereo mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 along with a 5.1 remix. The film provides many opportunities for directional effects and rear channel material including crowd noises from the extras, exaggerated foley during the fight scenes, and sound effects denoting Bo's switch from stupid to smart to stupid again. The scoring and songs sound typically boisterous but never muffle the dialogue or important aspects of the sound design. Optional English SDH subtitles are included.  Ninja Academy was mixed in Ultra Stereo a Dolby Stereo-compatible format commonly believed to be inferior by the results of a lot of poor mixes rather than the encoding since Ultra Stereo only charged for their licensing and did not require the mix be audited by a consultant like Dolby and that track is presented here in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 along with a 5.1 remix Mastorakis prepared for the remastered DVD licensing. As with his other films, Mastorakis himself created some effects on the Emulator II and the mix also provides opportunities for exaggerated directional effects in the training sequences, the secret agent's high-tech weapons, and the fight scene foley while the scoring of Jerry Grant who scored a number of subsequent Mastorakis projects starting with the India-lensed Bloodstone is more varied with "oriental" elements and motifs for some of the individual characters. The Naked Truth includes English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and a 5.1 remix of the Ultra Stereo track. Dialogue is always clear and Mastorakis gooses the sound design throughout with exaggerated foley effects as well as providing opportunities for more conventional directional activity including gunfire, dental drills, and two climaxes involving an out-of-control airplane and a car chase. Optional English SDH subtitles are included. 
Extras
Besides a theatrical trailer (2:28), The Time Traveler is accompanied by "Nico's Self Interview: The Time Traveler" (23:48) in which he explains the origins in his project in his interest in positing an origin for the historical Christ. He also suggests that it was Carpenter paying homage to him rather than the other way around regarding parallels with Starman noting that Carpenter may have seen the script since he was married to Barbeau at the time as well as working with Dullea and the challenge of working with child actors and animals. Besides the theatrical trailer (3:42), Sky High is accompanied by "Nico's Self Interview: Sky High" 2024 director interview (18:24) in which Mastorakis reveals that he intended to fund the film with the sale of a library of English-language Greek war films to an American video label that fell through, necessitating him putting the budget on his American Express card, seeking other funding by night including a loan shark who tried to get more out of him, and shooting on the Oceanos which sunk a few years later. He also discusses casting Hirsch who would continue working with him on subsequent American projects and found the Hollywood Hills mansion that Mastorakis would buy and live in as well as use in a number of his film. Hirsch appears in a video interview excerpt as well, and the piece is also illustrated with footage from the film's MIFED promo. The Hirsch interview excerpt is part of "Dan Hirsch: A Revealing Self-Interview" (11:22) who compares his roles in the film and The Zero Boys preferring the nerd role here, as well as discussing his other film work with Mastorakis, his aging out of such roles and owning some theaters for a time before retiring to Hawaii.  Besides the film's theatrical trailer (3:51), Terminal Exposure's only other extra is "Nico's Self Interview: Terminal Exposure" (12:07) in which he recalls coming up with the script idea while mixing another film in London and getting it into production two weeks after his return to the states. He also reveals that Zimmer asked him to give him a solo project, and that the composer allayed his concerns about his inexperience by promising to pay any overtime in the studio and ended up bringing the score in on time and under-budget. Besides the film's theatrical trailer (3:29), Glitch! features another "Nico's Self Interview: Glitch!" (17:07) in which he notes the use of the mansion as a place to spend three weeks including its use to house some of the actors and even the editing deck. His discussion of the casting focuses on the women, noting some who went onto more work as well as Weigel telling him she was more comfortable acting with her clothes off as well as her subsequent career in adult films.  Besides the film's theatrical trailer (3:23), Ninja Academy includes "Nico's Self Interview: Ninja Academy" (15:42) who talks about the challenges of casting actors who could both do comedy and were able to do some basic stunts and fighting. The interview not only includes some behind the scenes fight footage and some screen testing but also includes a self-interview with composer Grant who discusses the challenges of scoring the film including coming up with themes for individual characters and an interview excerpt with Okamura from the following extra. In "Gerald Okamura, Ninja Academy's 'Chiba' Remembers" (15:53) recalls how the production had to age him for his character, training the actors before the shoot, and a funny anecdote about how Randall's underwear ended up in his pocket and his wife's reaction to it. Besides the film's theatrical trailer (3:40), The Naked Truth includes "Nico's Self Interview: The Naked Truth" (20:37) in which the discussion primarily focuses on the celebrity cameos and the beauties. 
Packaging
Packaging consists of three keep cases with reversible sleeves featuring newly commissioned artwork by Colin Murdoch packaged in a slipcase with an illustrated collector's booklet featuring new writing on the career Nico Mastorakis by critic Barry Forshaw (not supplied for review).
Overall
While The Nico Mastorakis Collection seems lopsided with the inclusion of The Time Traveler with five comedies, presumably Arrow thought that these titles would be less viable as individual editions like the rest of the Mastorakis library divided stateside between Arrow and Scorpion Releasing and in the U.K. between Arrow and 88 Films.
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