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Netflix's Forgotten Disaster Movie Has The Hottest Icons Of The ‘90s

By Chris Snellgrove
| Published

The ‘90s were filled with so many crazy blockbuster films that it’s easy for many of them to fall into our collective pop culture memory hole. For example, did you know this decade featured an over-the-top natural disaster movie starring the biggest names from the James Bond and Terminator franchises? The film in question is Dante’s Peak (1997), starring Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, and you can now stream this forgotten blockbuster film on Netflix. 

The premise of Dante’s Peak is that a volcanologist is sent to explore a town in Washington (the titular Dante’s Peak), which is right next to a stratovolcano. While he tries to figure out what is going on with this town (including multiple mysterious deaths and a contaminated water supply), an earthquake causes the aforementioned volcano to explode. This expert is suddenly thrust into a race for his life, and he may be the only one who can save everyone before it is too late and their town is completely engulfed in lava. 

When Franchise Worlds Collide

The cast of Dante’s Peak includes some great character actors, including Jamie Renée Smith (best known for Hidden Canyons) and Charles Hallahan (best known outside this movie for The Thing). However, the real draw of the film is Pierce Brosnan (best known for his James Bond films) as a rugged volcano expert whose esoteric knowledge is all that stands between a tiny town and certain death. Meanwhile, Linda Hamilton (best known for her Terminator films) plays a hands-on mayor whose willingness to trust an outside may or may not be enough to save her constituents from a fiery fate.

Dante’s Peak wasn’t a box office bomb, but it didn’t exactly set moviegoers on fire when it first hit theaters. Against a blockbuster budget of $116 million, the movie earned $178.1 million. That’s not exactly box office bomb territory, but the studio was hoping for a larger profit, and the fact that this ambitious film couldn’t even crack $200 million is a big part of why we never got a sequel.  

Critics Were Neither Shaken Nor Stirred

When Dante’s Peak came out, many reviewers thought it was more of a disaster than a disaster film. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a rating of 30 percent, with critics claiming that the dialogue and characterization are poor but that the movie is pretty solid once all hell is breaking loose. That was the general consensus of Siskel and Ebert, who each gave the film two and a half stars, while the former (who claimed “the movie really starts to cook” after the volcano erupts) sarcastically asked, “can I recommend half of a movie?”

So, before you blow your top like a volcano, I need to answer the obvious question: why should you watch a movie that disappointed at the box office and that critics generally hated? First of all, I agree with Siskel and Ebert’s take that this movie gets downright compelling after the volcano explodes. This leaves us with nearly an hour of witnessing nature’s fiery wrath, and if you like natural disaster movies for the “disaster” part, Dante’s Peak is a movie that delivers in spades.

A Cast That Knows How To Have Fun

Additionally, natural disaster movies have something in common with horror movies: they are more enjoyable when you actually like the various everyman characters who must stare death in the face. In Dante’s Peak, those characters are played by ‘90s action icons Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton, two seriously attractive actors with charisma to spare. Even when the writing in this forgotten thriller falls flat, you are left with smart, sexy characters and killer special effects, all of which add up to some serious spectacle.

At the end of the day, spectacle is the main reason to watch Dante’s Peak: it’s got all the cheesy pomp and explosive circumstance that you’d expect from a natural disaster movie. I personally found Pierce Brosnan and Linda Hamilton quite entertaining in this film, and they have an easy chemistry that helps to animate their many shared scenes. Even if you hate these characters, though, you’ll be entertained by the vivid special effects that have held up surprisingly well and look so much better than anything you’ll get from a modern made-for-streaming movie.

Will you agree that it’s worth climbing Dante’s Peak, or is this one natural disaster opus that you’d rather leave in the past? The only way to find out is to grab your remote and stream this forgotten blockbuster on Netflix. If nothing else, this movie is the perfect excuse to turn your living room into a game you haven’t played since childhood: The Floor Is Lava.


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How to unblock Pornhub for free in Texas

TL;DR: Unblock Pornhub from Texas with a VPN. The best service for unblocking porn sites is ExpressVPN.


More than a third of U.S. states have introduced age verification laws for online adult content, including Texas. In response, Pornhub banned access for users in those locations. That means millions of users in Texas are now unable to access Pornhub.

There are complicated reasons for this restriction, but the workaround is simple. If you want to unblock porn sites like Pornhub for free from Texas, we have all the information you need.

How to unblock Pornhub for free in Texas

VPNs are useful tools that can hide your real IP address (digital location) and connect you to secure servers in other locations. This straightforward process bypasses geo-restrictions so you can access sites like Pornhub from anywhere in the world.

Unblock Pornhub by following these simple steps:

  1. Sign up for a VPN (like ExpressVPN)

  2. Download the app to your device of choice (the best VPNs have apps for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Linux, and more)

  3. Open up the app and connect to a server in a location that supports access to Pornhub

  4. Visit Pornhub

$139 only at ExpressVPN (with money-back guarantee)

The best VPNs for unblocking porn sites are not free, but most do offer free-trial peiods or money-back guarantees. By leveraging these offers, you can unblock porn sites like Pornhub without actually spending anything. This is obviously not a long-term solution, but it does give you the opportunity to temporarily retain access to Pornhub before recovering your investment.

If you want to retain permanent access to sites like Pornhub, you’ll need a subscription. Fortunately, the best VPN for bypassing content restrictions is on sale for a limited time.

What is the best VPN for Pornhub?

ExpressVPN is the top choice for unblocking porn sites like Pornhub, for a number of reasons:

  • Servers in 105 countries

  • Easy-to-use app available on all major devices including iPhone, Android, Windows, Mac, and more

  • Strict no-logging policy so your data is always secure

  • Fast streaming speeds free from throttling

  • Up to eight simultaneous connections

  • 30-day money-back guarantee

A two-year subscription to ExpressVPN is on sale for $139 and includes an extra four months for free — 61% off for a limited time. This plan also includes a year of free unlimited cloud backup and a generous 30-day money-back guarantee.

Unblock Pornhub for free in Texas with ExpressVPN.

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Perfect, Forgotten 80s Thriller Is Hitchcock Meets Mad Max

By Robert Scucci
| Published

Road Games 1981

Road thrillers always make for a great time because there is nothing more unnerving than barreling down the highway when you are either in danger yourself or trying to help somebody else who might be. 1981’s Road Games, an Australian thriller that plays like a strange middle ground between Mad Max and a Hitchcock-style serial killer story, has no shortage of tense moments. It shows just how badly the road can mess with your head after a long day’s work as a commercial trucker who just wants to grab a few hours of sleep between jobs. Perspectives grow hazy, lines begin to blur, and you are almost certain you have seen that green van and its driver doing something suspicious on multiple occasions, even if you cannot quite prove what they are up to.

A tense, white knuckle experience from start to finish, Road Games is a lean thriller built around an exceedingly simple plot. That simplicity should not lull you into a false sense of security, though, because not everything is what it seems, especially once the horizon darkens, the road goes quiet, and a radio news broadcast suggests you may be sharing the highway with somebody who is very, very dangerous.

A Road Best Left Untraveled

Road Games 1981

Road Games introduces us to trucker Patrick Quid (Stacy Keach) and his pet dingo, Boswell. Patrick makes a point of telling anyone who will listen that there is a difference between a man who drives a truck and a trucker, implying that he views his current line of work as something beneath him, even if it pays the bills for now. He travels alone with Boswell, often taking back-to-back jobs against his better judgment. There is nothing to suggest Patrick is unstable, but his dispatcher encourages him to push through sleep deprivation with caffeine pills so he can take on more work.

While sleeping in his truck outside a motel one night, Patrick notices a man driving a suspicious looking green van who checks in with a female hitchhiker. The next morning, Patrick sees the man leave alone after stopping at the dumpster and climbing into the van before heading back out onto the road.

Once he is driving again, Patrick encounters a recurring group of colorful characters. There is an elderly man hauling a boat, a face-masked motorcyclist who keeps popping up, a nagging woman named Frita (Marion Edward) and her visibly annoyed husband, and another woman standing roadside looking for a ride. Against his better judgment and company regulations, Patrick picks up Frita after her husband abandons her on the side of the road. During this stretch, he spots the green van again, this time catching its driver burying suspicious looking bags in the desert and carrying around a small cooler.

Frita becomes uneasy with Patrick’s calm attitude about the encounter, especially after hearing a radio report about a possible serial killer operating in the area. She eventually parts ways with him, but not before Patrick picks up the hitchhiker he passed earlier, known only as Hitch (Jamie Lee Curtis). The two hit it off almost immediately, and Hitch reveals herself to be Pamela Rushworth, the heiress of a wealthy US diplomat who wanted to go on an adventure of her own, suggesting that she may have been reported missing from her high-profile life. As Patrick continues his route with Pamela, the green van keeps resurfacing, prompting them to investigate its driver under the assumption that he is the killer mentioned in the news.

A Series Of Escalating Events

Road Games 1981

As sleep deprivation takes hold, Pat and Pamela get separated, and Pat finds himself unsure of who he can trust. Everywhere he turns, the green van seems to be there. He starts pushing his truck at reckless RPMs to make his delivery on time, becoming increasingly unhinged along the way. Pat is convinced he needs to track down the green van to stop anyone else from getting hurt, but things spiral further when Frita reports him to the authorities. She suggests that Pat himself might be the killer, and that the story about the green van is nothing more than a distraction.

As Pat unravels while searching for Pamela and the van, all while evading police and trying to finish his route, his sanity is put into question. Every possible pressure point is hit, and Pat is fully aware that he is starting to lose his grip. With law enforcement closing in, his hitchhiker companion missing, and the green van’s driver still at large, Pat is forced to pull himself together and see his increasingly bizarre job through before the road swallows him whole.

Road Games toys with the familiar tropes you see in films like the grossly underrated Black Dog. Hallucinations feel inevitable, and the job itself takes a back seat to the strange, inexplicable encounters that keep piling up. Stacy Keach’s straight faced performance as an expatriate American trucker tearing through the Australian outback with a pet dingo is half the fun. His deadpan presence grounds the film even as everything around him starts to feel unreliable.

If you want to find out whether Pat finally snaps or if the world around him is the real problem in Road Games, you can fire it up on Tubi, where it is currently streaming for free.


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Sci-Fi Hit That Redefined Summer Blockbusters Now On Netflix

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published

Steven Spielberg invented the Summer blockbuster with Jaws, and then did it again with E.T. and Jurassic Park, but in terms of sheer spectacle, Roland Emmerich invented the visual language used by today’s Summer blockbusters with 1996’s Independence Day. The shot of a massive alien ship hovering over the White House and then blowing it to smithereens was everywhere that year, from the Super Bowl to every primetime TV ad break.

Story became secondary, special effects on the biggest screens possible took over as the real reason to go to the theaters, and Hollywood was never the same. Now you can relive the experience on Netflix.

Welcome To Earth

Will Smith

Independence Day wastes no time starting off the massive alien motherships moving into position above the world’s largest cities. In the most realistic moment of the entire film, there’s a group of people who decide to gather directly under the ships to welcome the aliens. That’s when they open up and unleash a devastating blast that destroys Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. It’s hard to understand today what it was like to see this level of devastation on a scale never seen before, with this budget and looking this good. 

The other half of Independence Day, the plot, is supported by an all-time great cast, including Jeff Goldblum, Vivica A. Fox, Judd Hirsch, Mary McDonnell, Randy Quaid, Mae Whitman, Brent Spiner, Bill Pullman as one of the greatest fictional Presidents ever, and the breakthrough role of a sitcom star: Will Smith. No one cares that the plot is as thin as Flat Stanley. From top to bottom, every member of the cast understood the assignment. This is one of the most fun movies ever. 

You can pinpoint the exact moment when Will Smith became a movie star. After Captain Steven Hiller is shot down, he walks right over to the alien fighter he took with him, pops open the hatch, and drops a one-liner, “Welcome to Earth,” as he punches the alien in the face. He was no longer The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air; he was King of the Summer Blockbuster. 

Independence Day Reshaped Movies Forever

independence day series

According to Rotten Tomatoes, Independence Day has a critic rating of 69 percent and an audience rating of 75 percent, both of which seem irrelevant. Roland Emmerich’s follow-up to Stargate is a pure popcorn movie. For every bit of horrible dialogue, there’s Bill Pullman’s triumphant speech. For every contrived plot device, there’s an extended dogfight between alien saucers and F/A-18 Hornets. This is the ultimate “turn off your brain” and enjoy movie. 

At the time of its release, Independence Day became the second-highest-grossing film of all time with $817 million, making Jeff Goldblum, star of Jurassic Park, the then-highest-grossing film star of all time and one of the most successful box-office stars of the 90s. Decades later, every superhero movie, every Summer blockbuster, can trace its visual style back to Emmerich’s groundbreaking disaster film. 

For years, fans wanted more. Finally, in 2016, the sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, which brought back Pullman, Goldblum, and Hirsch, hit theaters with Liam Hemsworth as the new hotshot pilot. After 20 years, no one cared. 

Don’t let the forgettable and pointless sequel deter you from going back and streaming Independence Day now that it’s on Netflix.  Some movies are hits, some become cult classics, and then there’s Independence Day, which managed to transcend Hollywood and reshape the world of entertainment in its image. Whether it’s the hundredth time or the first time, you will get hyped when Will Smith punches the alien, Bill Pullman announces today is our Independence Day, and when Randy Quaid gets his revenge. Just don’t think about it too hard. It’s not that type of movie.


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