Into the Blu

I will confess that as a kid, I was a wrestling fan. I continued to enjoy watching wrestling on and off even into my adulthood but haven’t followed it at all in a long, long time. I had the opportunity to sit in the locker room at a match at the Spectrum in Philadelphia in the 1980′s, invited by a friend who worked in TV and was to meet and talk with George “The Animal” Steele, Big John Stud, Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful. before and after their matches. What I learned from meeting and chatting with these guys is how difficult the sport is on them physically and emotionally. Yes, it is staged, but they still have to go through the stunts, night after night, for over 300 days as year. It sure takes its toll. It is this aspect of wrestling that The Wrestler captures so beautifully. Continue Reading

The origins of South Pacific date back to 1946, in a collection of short stories titled Tales of the South Pacific. This in turn inspired the 1949 Rodgers and Hammerstein stage adaptation; a simplified and condensed version dubbed South Pacific. That brings us to 1958 and yet another adaptation this time to film in the form of a musical, which always gets mixed reactions from me. I absolutely loved Sweeney Todd, and on the flip side absolutely hated High School Musical. What I’m trying to get across is, within each genre there’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Will what most refer to as a classic identify with me, or will something have been lost in time? Continue Reading

If you haven’t already seen Gulliver’s Travels I imagine you have at least heard the title, at least in passing. Not that the film has garnered so much attention, but the fact that the title is synonymous when regarding classic literature. Cue another history lesson, this time dating back to 1726 and across the pond. Jonathan Swift a Dublin born satirist and poet wrote the appropriately titled Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships. Almost sounds like the ramblings of a crazy old man, but it’s very highly regarded and an early form of satire on human nature, still relevant in this day and age. Continue Reading

Bueller….Bueller. Those two words, spoken with Ben Stein’s characteristic monotone, really brought back memories. I hadn’t seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in what seems like ages. The film was released in 1986 and was a film that I really enjoyed in the theater all those many years ago. Gee, time has really flown by! Has it really been that long? I was curious to see just how well the film would hold up all these years later and how it would look transferred to high def on Blu-ray. I am pleased to report that it holds up quite well as a film and even better, looks great on Blu-ray. Continue Reading