If you’re of a certain age, you’ve lived through multiple generations of entertainment media. Given the current state of physical media, people have finally had enough and are refusing to let go of Blu-Rays. Before Blu-Rays, before DVD, there was VHS. It revolutionized movies when it arrived, but left with a whimper. VHS hung around longer than you think, since the last movie on VHS was the understated and underrated 2005 release, A History of Violence. 21 years later, and the film is tearing up the HBO Max charts since it arrived.
A History Of Violence Has A History Of Success
March 14, 2006, is the day that A History of Violence was released on VHS. Nearly a year after its May 2005 debut in theaters. A slow burn of an action thriller about a man trying to escape his past, and the damage it does to his family, is an unlikely release during the start of the Summer blockbuster season, but Warner Bros (via New Line Media) had faith in the film. $61 million dollars at the box office later, and that faith was rewarded.
A History of Violence adapts the Vertigo DC graphic novel by John Wagner and Vince Locke, making it the unlikeliest DC movie. Viggio Mortenson, fresh off Lord of the Rings, plays Tom Stack, the mild-mannered diner owner whose life is turned upside down when two men from Philly enter his diner. Maria Bello is his loving wife, Edie, and together, they have two children, Jack and Sarah. It’s an idyllic life. Until it’s not.
The Best Bad Ass Dad Movie Of All Time
Unlike later films in the “suburban dad is secretly a badass” genre, A History of Violence doesn’t glorify the violence. The action is short, brutish, and bloody, with the real harm being done in what comes after a man is shot … or stabbed. It’s an intelligent, thought-provoking take on the action genre lost in the noise of Nobody 2, Liam Neeson, and countless other imitators.
The thoughtfulness and intention behind every shot is clear once you realize the director is David Cronenberg. The Master of Body Horror and Viggo Mortenson would continue to work together four more times, including 2007’s Eastern Promises, an even more violent and extreme film.
The End Of An Era
A History of Violence on VHS is now a collector’s item, with sealed copies going for upwards of $500 on eBay. Other films, including Cars, were released after, but only as part of special, limited-release promotions, and not the wide, dump it in a Wal-Mart scale of Cronenberg’s hit. As for why it was the last film, it came down to timing. Distribution deals were inked years earlier when VHS was obviously on the way out, but still in a majority of homes, before DVD players became commonplace. Sometimes, it’s really that simple.
Since debuting, re-debuting actually, on HBO Max, A History of Violence has been in the top 10, reaching, as of the time of this writing, the top five. It’s well deserved for one of the best movies of the 2000’s and a career highlight for all involved. If you’re bored of the schlub dad turns out to be an assassin genre, you need to watch this movie and fall in love with the genre all over again.
I track TV prices year-round, so I know that these 15+ TV deals ahead of Prime Day are actually worth it
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Best TV deals ahead of Prime Day
Prime Day season is one of the best times of year to buy a TV on sale. That’s been etched into our mental calendars in July for the past decade, but this year, hype for one of the year’s biggest shopping events starts in June: Prime Day 2026 will run from June 23 to 26. As always, worthwhile TV deals are already popping up in the weeks preceding the event.
The good pre-Prime Day TV deals aren’t just at Amazon. Half the time, the reason that TV deals during Prime Day go so hard is that competing retailers like Best Buy refuse to let Amazon get all the attention — and it has already started this year. If you don’t want to wait until the end of the month to grab your new TV, here are 15+ of the best TV deals I’ve found at Amazon and Best Buy ahead of Prime Day. Most models in this list match or beat their all-time record-low price, according to Amazon price tracker camelcamelcamel.
Hisense finally launched its highly-awaited RGB TVs on June 2. While both the UR8 and UR9 RGB TVs are on sale at Best Buy, there’s another 2026 Hisense TV with a much wilder discount: The 75-inch Hisense U7 Mini LED TV is just $1,197.99 after a massive 40% price drop from its usual $1,999.99.
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Just released in March, the Hisense U7 series has a pretty incredible lighting system for its price range. Its backlight benefits from full-array local dimming, which uses clusters of tiny LED bulbs that can fully turn themselves on or off for more precise contrast during any scene or livestream. Other impressive numbers include a peak brightness of 3,000 nits (great news for FIFA fans trying to watch a game during the daytime) and a native 165Hz refresh rate (great news for gamers on a budget).
This past weekend, Freddie and I sat in the park and played cards. The game was fun, but you know what was even more compelling? People watching. Couples, families, and a gazillion Knicks fans walked by us, and I realized that there’s a definite print of the summer…
Gingham! Do you wear it? It looks so cool and summery. Here are 15 pretty pieces — including the gorgeous shirt above — in partnership with Nordstrom…
Thoughts? If money were no object, this sundress is beautiful — and don’t forget about classic picnic baskets. 🙂
(Gingham shirt at top by Döen. This post is sponsored by Nordstrom, a retailer we’ve loved and worn for decades.)
By now, most audiences are aware of Liam Neeson’s status as an action thriller star, best known for taking on hordes of enemies at once in non-stop thrill rides such as Taken, The Grey, and The A-Team. In 2014’s mystery thriller A Walk Among The Tombstones, Liam Neeson stars as a private investigator hired by a drug kingpin to solve a mysterious crime. The film is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
A Walk Among The Tombstones combines two of Liam Neeson’s best qualities as a performer, allowing him to show off his impeccable fighting skills as a physical powerhouse while making great use of the actor’s unflinching humanity.
One Of Neeson’s Best Action Flicks
A Walk Among the Tombstones follows Liam Neeson’s Matt Scudder as he pays his bills performing private detective work in New York. As a disgraced former detective, Scudder is willing to work outside of the law with a number of unsavory characters, including a local drug dealer named Kenny Kristo. Kristo explains to Scudder that his wife has been kidnapped and subsequently murdered despite having paid the ransom that the kidnappers demanded.
In A Walk Among The Tombstones, Liam Neeson’s Matt Scudder is joined by a street-wise homeless youth named TJ (Brian Bradley), who assists him in making connections among the criminal underworld. Scudder and TJ begin to follow ledes that uncover corruption within the DEA, as well as a conspiracy by international drug trafficking rings that threaten to start an all-out gang war on the streets of New York.
As tensions continue to rise, Scudder brings TJ under his wing after learning that the boy has sickle cell anemia and is in declining health.
From there, Scudder and his team set up a sting in order to catch the kidnappers in the middle of a handoff with their next victim. When a shootout ensues, A Walk Among The Tombstones becomes an all-out gunfight, featuring one of Liam Neeson’s most gripping action sequences to date. The conclusion features a revolving door of gunshots that ring out, killing hordes of thugs, leading to the police finally taking down the drug traffickers.
Matthew Scudder’s Novelized Legacy
The film was written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Scott Frank, best known for screenwriting the hit 2017 film Logan, starring Hugh Jackman. Frank later went on to create, write, and direct the Netflix mini-series The Queens Gambit, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.
A Walk Among The Tombstones stars Liam Neeson alongside a number of big-name actors such as Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens, The Predator‘s Boyd Holbrook, and Stranger Things‘ David Harbour. The film is based on a 1992 novel of the same name written by American crime writer Lawrence Block and serves as the second time the character of Matt Scudder has been brought to the big screen, according to IMDb.
Before the character appeared in A Walk Among The Tombstones, Matt Scudder was portrayed by Jeff Bridges in the 1986 film 8 Million Ways To Die. Block has penned 20 novels in the long-running series, the most recent of which was released in 2023. The events of A Walk Among The Tombstones adapt the tenth book in the long-running series as a standalone adventure.
Though A Walk Among The Tombstones did very well at the box office, the film received mixed reviews from critics.
The Liam Neeson-led movie made over $62 million at the worldwide box office against an estimated production budget of only $28 million, opening at number two at the box office behind The Maze Runner. The film holds a solid 68 percent score on the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, though the audience score clocks in at only 53 percent.
To this day, A Walk Among The Tombstones remains one of Liam Neeson’s most underrated movies, which fans of the Northern Irish actor would surely be elated to check out. Though modern film fans have largely forgotten the over decade-old movie, it holds some of the best action sequences in Liam Neeson’s long and storied career while still giving the actor room to perform as a deep and nuanced character.
