In many ways, HELL YEAH! is self-explanatory. It’s life, energy, derring-do, and enthusiasm most of all. Basically, it’s a round-up of whatever I’m enjoying. Maybe I’ll write about my beloved special sandwich at iPho here in St. Paul. Maybe I’ll write about the new Madeline Cash novel. Maybe I’ll write about Carnosaur 3: Primal Species, a direct-to-VHS classic I recently picked up at Time Bomb Vintage. Are you interested in reading my thoughts on the new James Bond game dropping on PS5 later this month? Let’s hope so.

1: Hard Boiled on 4K

Like a lot of folks my age, I got turned onto Hard Boiled after seeing The Matrix. The gun fu of the Wachowskis blew my pubescent mind, and I spent an alarming number of hours in high school mouthing along with Keanu Reeves and fantasizing about leather outerwear. Hard Boiled was the Hong Kong antecedent, progenitor of a certain over-the-top action that combined the contemporary-set theatrics of Die Hard with a flair for the dramatic reminiscent of the Shaw Brothers pictures of the ‘60s and ‘70s. I didn’t know any of that as a kid, however. All I knew was that Hard Boiled starred Chow Yun-fat—who I loved from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—and that it was directed by John Woo—who also helmed Face/Off, Mission Impossible II, Broken Arrow, and Hard Target in the west. Hard Boiled made an impression on me back then simply because it was so difficult for me, a teenager in Pennsylvania’s coal valley, to access Hong Kong action. It was singular and alive, a beacon from another seemingly distant world. Did I understand any of the subtext beyond bang bang bang Chow Yun-fat saved a baby? Absolutely not. I was a kid and also an idiot.

That’s why I’m so grateful that Shout Factory released this plush version of Hard Boiled on 4K. If you’re an enthusiast for transfers and bit rates, the new version looks absolutely stunning, like Chow Yun-fat or the sublime Tony Leung from Wong Kar-wai fame could step out of the television and play jazz clarinet in my living room. But even if you can’t tell the difference between a DVD or streaming transfer, the full disc of special features and 50-page booklet are a treasure trove of insights. I’d never thought about how the 1997 hand over of Hong Kong looms over the film and that all its characters have arrived at a crossroads where they must either commit to their home or leave forever. That tiny but essential bit of subtext—which I missed as an ignorant American teenager—altered the film for me, and I’m so grateful that companies like Shout, Arrow, and Vinegar Syndrome are giving the Criterion treatment to movies that would probably never be nominated for an Oscar. Plus, Hard Boiled just flat out rules, and if you haven’t seen it, you should watch it immediately.

2: Margot’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe

This novel totally took me by surprise. I’m not sure what I expected, but I definitely wasn’t anticipating a madcap meditation on capitalism, patriarchy, sex work, and the double standards facing women. The book’s funny and memorable with characters who pop off the page, but it’s also a page-tuner with a lot of surprises and zags. There’s also A LOT of pro wrestling, and, as a huge wrestling mark myself, I’ve always been interested by the number of writers who love the genre. It’s clear that Thorpe’s no interloper—not that it would matter if she was—and there’s a genuine enthusiasm for pro wrestling and all the gonzo elements that summon fans to it again and again: what is reality, what is fake and what is real, what is the limit of pageantry? I’m glad I read this novel, and I’m looking forward to grabbing Thorpe’s earlier books.

3: Dragon Warrior Monsters

Known as Dragon Quest in Japan, Dragon Warrior Monsters is a spinoff of the Dragon Quest series, a traditional JRPG in the vein of Final Fantasy. But DWM, released in 2000 in the states, is a clear Pokémon rip-off, and, because of that, I absolutely loved it. I play a lot of new video games, and there’s so much great work being done right now—Night in the Woods, Expedition 33, and the Trails series are just a few of my favorites—but nothing fills me with calming nostalgia like running through an old NES or GameBoy Color game. The fuzzy music, the pixels, it just completely washes over me and puts me in a childlike mindset that’s healthy to return to now and again. DWM is absolutely not a great game. It’s tedious like almost all GameBoy games, and it’s about eight hours too long. But if you enjoyed the first two generations of Pokémon and never tried this series, you absolutely should. It feels like a hidden relic from childhood.