Hey, everyone. “Moriarty” here.

I know right now it’s cool to be giddy over the various HD releases showing up in our homes via On Demand premieres or on Blu-Ray disc, and believe me... as soon as I get my PS3 back (long story and longer process) from Sony, I plan to spend about 72 hours watching all the Blu-Ray discs I have stacked on my desk and unopened right now...

But let’s not get crazy. DVD is still where most consumers are buying and renting, and there is a lot of amazing content that is only coming out on standard-def. Case in point, my item for the day, the latest in one of the very best ongoing DVD series right now...

Once again, Synapse Films has put together a mix-tape of exploitation gems, two hours of some of the craziest, coolest, funniest trailers you could hope to see played together. As much as I appreciated the work Don May did on the XXX-TREME edition of the series, where he put together some of the most well-known and entertaining hardcore porn trailers of the ‘70s and ‘80s, I’m not just going to throw on a porn compilation while I’m working. This latest entry is fun, packed with a lot of action and horror stuff from the ‘80s. Lots of Cannon films. FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH, complete with the KILL BILL/IRONSIDE sting. Italian horror films. PATRICK. JENNIFER. BUG and PHASE IV. KILLER FISH and BLOOD BEACH. Lots and lots and lots of ‘80s titties. SURVIVE!, which is a low-budge riff on the story of the cannibal soccer players in the Andes. A based-on-a-true-story Jim Jones film that looks really lurid and trashy and, shocking, stars Joseph Cotten. I loved the TABOO trailer with Maud Adams and Bruce Dern, and now I’d love for someone to release the goddamn film on DVD, please. Bronson. Jerry Reed.

I mean... seriously. Jerry Reed co-starring with Peter Fonda. Do I need to say more?

What I find most entertaining about a two-hour block of these trailers is the way it sort of plays as all one movie in your memory when you think back on it. Like you’ve got Donald Pleasance and Ali McGraw and Bert Convy and Karen Black and Lee Van Cleef and Sho Kosugi and Peter Cushing and Adam West all in this one totally batshit flick. Some sort of Bizarro-MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

And if you want to hear one of the most relaxed, informal, and entertaining commentary tracks in recent memory, check out Michael Gingold, Chris Poggiali, and Edwin Samuelson chatting about these films as the trailers play. It’s just like hanging out with three incredibly well-prepared film geek friends... genuinely informative but entertaining first.

I hope there are 20 more discs in this series at least. And if there are, I’ll feature every single one in this column, because that’s just how good they’ve all been so far. If trailers aren’t your thing, then maybe this recommendation will leave you cold, but for anyone who ever felt like the best part of an afternoon in the theater was the previews, or for anyone who can’t help their fetish for pop trash of a previous era, this is an essential addition to a collection.

Drew McWeeny, Los Angeles