Catalog titles! Disney is unleashing two of their most beloved action films from the 90’s with Tombstone and Armageddon. The first follows Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) and his brothers (Sam Elliot, Bill Paxton) as they team with Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) to fight off the Clantons, Curly Bill Brocius (Powers Booth) and his gang of cowboys, while in Armageddon Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis) leads a crew of his oil drilling team (including Will Patton, Ben Affleck, Owen Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan and Steve Buscemi) with assistance from NASA to destroy a giant Meteor heading to kill everyone on Earth. These are manly movies, even if they have love interest subplots that detract from men doing men things – like getting in gunfights and drilling for oil. My reviews of the Blu-rays of Armageddon and Tombstone after the jump.

There is one thing concerning the USA that we can be proud of in recent history, one that we all should get excited about no matter what your politics are.  If you are a flower child, heavy metal death rocker, goth, red-neck, square, sports fan, dweeb or whatever… NASA and the United States space program deserve your attention and respect.  Man’s progress in the pioneering of space is really the most exciting endeavor that humankind is involved with, and it is too often overlooked and even ignored.  Cinema fans know one of the best films documenting the epic saga of American space flight is The Right Stuff (1983) that covered everything that we need to know about the early days of the space program from breaking the sound barrier to landing on the moon.  Ten years later, filmmaker Ron Howard gave us a very special movie about the space program that focuses on one particular part of the Apollo missions: the hair-raising and heroic tale of the Apollo 13. More after the jump:

The Playlist reports that Steven Soderbergh, the hardest working man in show business, has once again lengthened his to-do list.  Soderbergh will re-team with The Informant! scripter Scott Z. Burns for Contagion, an “action-thriller about the outbreak of a deadly virus.”  The film doesn’t have a distribution deal yet, but with such heavy hitters as Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Marion Cotillard attached to star, you can expect a bidding war for the rights.  More on the origins of Contagion and the rest of Soderbergh’s slate after the break.

Much has been made about the upcoming Oscars battle between exes Kathyrn Bigelow and James Cameron – with their movies, The Hurt Locker and Avatar, respectively, tied with a leading nine nominations each – but as you’ll see from this crazy music video, they often had a lot of fun when they were still on speaking terms.

The clip is for the song “Reach” by an ’80s new wave band called Martini Ranch, which just happened to feature actor Bill Paxton (which was all news to me until just now), and the video was directed by Cameron himself. As you’ll see on the jump, it’s the definition of ’80s excess, and will have you yearning for the days when music videos at their best were elevated to mini-movies. In something that looks like a surreal mashup of Bigelow’s Near Dark (still her best movie in my book) and Deadwood, Paxton stars as a bank robber on the run in the Wild West, and Near Dark stars Adrian Pasdar and Lance Henriksen make appearances, as does Judge Reinhold. Best of all, however, is that Bigelow herself leads an all-female posse of bounty hunters on his trail, and to be as piggish as possible, just looks sensationally hot doing it.

To tell you any more would just spoil the fun, so hit the jump for the video.

According to The Playlist, Bill Paxton has now replaced Dennis Quaid in director Steven Soderbergh’s (Ocean’s Eleven, The Informant!) upcoming action-spy-thriller, Knockout.   The film stars MMA fighter Gina Carano as a black ops specialist who goes on the run once she’s been double crossed and framed by her own teammates.  Quaid was going to be playing the role Carano’s father but had to bow out due to scheduling conflicts with his upcoming film Soul Surfer.

The Playlist also reports that French actor and director Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie) has also joined his cast, but his role in the film is still unknown. Kassovirz and Paxton will now join the pretty impressive ensemble cast which includes Michael Douglas, Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, and Michael Fassbender.

I love Dennis Quaid and he was great last time when he teamed up with Soderbergh on Traffic, but I really love me some Bill Paxton and it’s always great to see him on screen again.  Knockout starts filming Monday in Dublin and the wait to see what Soderbergh has planned for this one shouldn’t be that long since the film is set to be released sometime later on this year.

Apparently, even all the beautiful women he’s surrounded by on Big Love aren’t enough to get Twister out of Bill Paxton’s mind, but does he really think anyone in the world would want to see a sequel to that unnatural disaster?  According to an interview with Bullz-Eye, the answer is, “Yes.”  In an interview to promote the HBO show’s Sunday night season premiere, Paxton said he got the inspiration for the idea from a trip to the Ozark Mountains last Spring, and has already talked with movie bigwig Kathleen Kennedy about it.  Hit the jump to read what he said and my commentary on his mad ravings.

On one hand it’s great Fox has been releasing their catalog titles in 1080p and in DTS looking great. On the other hand, they haven’t put in that much work to jazz it up for audiences buying it a second time. None of the films here have anything new, but all look appreciably better in their Blu-ray iterations. After the jump are my reviews of “Predator 2″, “Fargo” and “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” on Blu-ray.