Derek Malcolm has been covering the worlds of tech and entertainment for more than two decades.
Before coming to How-To Geek in 2025, Derek was a contributing editor and writer for the A/V and Home Theater section at Digital Trends, where he wrangled and wrote everything from what to watch on Netflix to reviews, explainers, and guides on the latest Bluetooth speakers, turntables, projectors, and other A/V gear.
Based in Toronto, Derek graduated from Humber College's Journalism program in 1999, after which he started covering the worlds of music, movies, TV, and celebrity for publications such as TV Guide, Hello! magazine, and Inside Entertainment. He then got the bug for covering tech and gadgets in 2006, when he served as editor-in-chief of Canadian tech magazine Connected for more than a decade.
An avid skier, when all the snow's gone Derek can be found at home spinning vinyl with his daughter or cheering on his favorite F1 team, McLaren.
Prime Video's deeply odd and delightfully weird library of documentaries and docuseries is the gift that keeps on giving, allowing you to bounce around from true-crime to cryptids to sweeping sports docs to super-specific subcultures.
For this fine spring weekend (March 27 to 29) and beyond, I've emerged from Prime's rabbit hole again with a basketball doc, an absolutely bonkers Mulder and Scully-worthy mystery in small-town West Virginia, and an Oscar-nominated exploration of the drug cartels operating along the U.S.-Mexican border in the early-to-mid 2010s.
3 Meal Ticket The origin story of the iconic McDonald's All-American Games
In the lead-up to this year's McDonald's All-American Games high school basketball showcase next week, this new documentary on Prime Video is arriving just in time. The somewhat unfortunately-named Meal Ticket is an in-depth and gorgeously produced 95-minute nostalgia trip that looks back at the origin story of what has become a launchpad for some of the best basketball players in the world.
Directed by first-timers Carlton Gerard Sabbs and Corey Colvin, and produced by Jay Z's Roc Nation, Meal Ticket uses interviews and never-before-seen archival footage that goes back to its founding in 1977, to trace the history of the event that has been a proving ground for the NBA and WNBA, and has included everyone from Jordan and LeBron to Kobe, Shaq, and Candace Parker. The long-running games feature the top boys' and girls' high school graduates, who go head-to-head in two games and also compete in a fun skills competition the night before. The doc is a touching ride down memory lane, with greats like Shaquille O'Neal, A'ja Wilson, and Grant Hill sharing what this rite of passage game has meant to them in their careers.
If you're a fan of basketball docs like Hoop Dreams or The Last Dance, Meal Ticket will be a satisfying watch with some great footage of some of the sport's icons back when they were young rising stars.
2 The Mothman of Point Pleasant Small-town legend or something far stranger?
Everyone has a friend or two with a tale of something inexplicable they once saw -- a strange floating mist figure in a window, or the hovering light in the sky that shot off like a bullet. The Mothman of Point Pleasant is the unbelievable story of one of those tales, but this one was shared by dozens over the course of more than a year, and it has solidified itself in the lore of the small West Virginia town.
For 13 months between 1966 and 1967, residents of Point Pleasant reported seeing a winged, devil-like creature with red piercing eyes appearing on roads, and other areas around the state -- they called it the Mothman. The sightings continued until the tragic collapse of Point Pleasant's Silver Bridge, which killed 46 people, altering the town's identity forever. The Mothman was never seen again.
What was it? Was it some kind of supernatural warning of the impending disaster? The Mothman of Point Pleasant examines the myth, using archival footage, interviews with living residents who claim to have seen the entity, and a digitally-animated reconstruction of the chronology, to weave a doc that's an odd but compelling watch, unlike many you're likely to see.
1 Cartel Land Vigilantes, cartels, and a dangerous gray zone
Cartel Land is an intense and powerful documentary from 2015 that examines the deadly and complex Mexican drug war along the U.S. / Mexico border. Filmed between 2013 and 2014, its director/cinematographer Matthew Heineman (City of Ghosts), along with his crew, literally dodged bullets and put themselves directly in harm's way as they embedded on both sides of the border with two vigilante groups taking the law into their own hands against the Knights Templar cartel.
Heineman first spent nearly five months in Arizona, with militia leader Tim "Nailer" Foley, patrolling the border for cartel members. He then spent a further nine months in the border town of Michoacán, Mexico, as José Manuel Mireles and his citizen-united Autodefensas coalition armed themselves and started taking back their Templar-occupied towns when the corrupt government failed to do so.
With war-correspondent-like access, Cartel Land offers a frontline view of this complex situation that doesn't leave the moral gray areas alone either, even getting up close in the jungle hideouts of cartel meth cookers for their point of view.
Executive produced by Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, Cartel Land is an excellent watch, well deserving of its best documentary feature Oscar nod and its 90% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
If your weekend watchlist needs a shake-up, these Prime Video picks deliver stories that are stranger, messier, and more gripping than fiction. Be prepared to be entertained, and maybe even a little unsettled.
Amazon Prime Video Subscription with ads Yes, via Prime membership or $9/month Simultaneous streams 3
Prime Video has a large volume of content to watch. The other Amazon perks are a bonus as well.
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