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Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theaters and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.

But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Under Siege (1992)

A long, long time ago, I was a young man obsessed with Martial Arts action flicks. Films like Enter the Dragon and the Big Brawl were the height of the genre until Chuck Norris came along and proceeded to revolutionize the whole style again by filming a non traditional kung fu action flick named Lone Wolf McQuade in 1983. McQuade was about an unconventional martial arts hero who drinks hard, drives a big truck, shoots big guns and kicks everyone's ass. It was a subtle as a brick to the forehead, completely unapologetic about it and was seventeen kinds of awesome. It stood as the ultimate martial arts action film for a long time, and nobody else even came close for almost a decade.

Well, not until Steven Seagal arrived. Seagal appeared in a couple of martial arts action films in the early '90s and he completely re-drew what a martial arts action film could be. First of all, he was tall, dark and reeked of potential violence. He was also an extremely skilled aikido master and he demonstrated that talent aptly by breaking arms, faces and elbows in a couple of films that rapidly turned him into a cult favorite. Chuck Norris cut his teeth with powerful kicks to the teeth, and he was emulated by a lot of action heroes. Seagal brought something entirely new to the screen and nobody else was doing anything remotely close to what he was demonstrating. Like it or not, Seagal changed the action hero game for a while. His fighting style was brutal, efficient and gruesome all at the same time, and Hollywood couldn't get enough of him.

This gave Seagal a lot of clout. And before he started squandering this by getting self absorbed, fat and preachy, he used that clout to get the writer of Pretty Woman (J.F. Lawton) to write and help him produce a film, and with that clout he managed to sign some A-list talent to surround himself with. This was important, because as a martial artist he was (and still is...) amazing. As an actor, not so much.

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