Into the Blu

After seeing some rather heavy faire at our local cineplex recently, we decided to take in a light romantic comedy at home the other night. At least that was what we thought we were getting with All About Steve, teaming America’s sweetheart, Sandra Bullock, up with Bradley Cooper and Thomas Haden Church and the producers of one of Sandra Bullock’s prior hits, Miss Congeniality. Well, we were wrong, as there is nothing remotely romantic or funny for that matter about All About Steve. Continue Reading

It had all the right ingredients; a script by Monty Python’s Terry Jones, The Muppet’s creator Jim Henson in the director’s chair, a soundtrack by David Bowie and produced by George Lucas as well. Released in 1986, Labyrinth failed to find an audience in theaters, but did it deserve better? Continue Reading

My Name is Earl was part of NBC’s comedy line-up from 2005 and was abruptly canceled in 2009, ending the show on a cliffhanger that unfortunately would never be concluded. With the final season, the question arises of does the season take a dive in quality, making it clear why NBC pulled the plug, or does it do the season justice. So is karma still a funny thing? Continue Reading

District 9 was not a film I had the chance to see in the theater. However, it had a really interesting premise, that of an alien spaceship hovering motionless over Johannesburg, South Africa of all places, for months and the inhabitants of the ship finally removed and placed into what can only be described as a ghetto, away from the human population and forced to submit to humiliating treatment and scientific experimentation. Knowing that it was produced by Peter Jackson, I was expecting a good film with excellent video and audio presentations. Were my expectations met? Read on! Continue Reading

No one’s perfect. Even the greatest of athletes fail to come through in the clutch occasionally. The big slugger who knocks one out of the park will occasionally pop one up or whiff with the game on the line. The same is true for directors, who, even with the greatest of resumes come out with a clunker every now and then. Which brings us to Mike Judge, the man behind the film that is the subject of today’s review, Extract. Mike Judge has quite a resume of his own with Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill and the film Office Space. Will Mike come through in the clutch again or will he whiff? Unfortunately, he whiffs this time around. Again, no one’s perfect. Continue Reading

The Montreux Jazz Festival is arguably the finest music festival in the world. It has always been a dream of mine to attend the festival and hopefully, one day, I will be able to do so. However, with Blu-ray, with its high definition picture and lossless multichannel audio capabilities, we now have the technology that can transport us to a concert venue without us ever having to leave the couch. How successful this experience is in our home depends, in part, on the quality of the video and audio on a given disc, which can vary widely from release to release. The question to be answered today is how successful Eagle Vision’s Carlos Santana Presents Blues at Montreux 2004 is in being able to transport us to Montreux. The short answer, pretty darn good. Continue Reading

Two Girls and a Guy is a 1997 independent comedy starring Robert Downey Jr. and Heather Graham, it focuses on love, lust, trust and everything in between in modern relationships.

It tries to examine and reflect on some sort of universal truths about new age relationships. However with an ambitious script and the expectations that come with a pitch like that, if done poorly the film just has a higher height to fall from… Let’s see what happens. Continue Reading

Every now and then, a movie comes out of nowhere to become a big hit, catching the critics and studios by surprise. This summer it was the subject of this review, The Hangover. Perhaps audiences were looking for some lighthearted comedy in today’s tough economic times. Whatever the reason, this film was a huge commercial success, grossing well over 10 times its cost of $35 million. I guess I was one of the few who didn’t see The Hangover in theaters as I can’t say that the subject matter appealed to me very much. However, when the Blu-ray arrived for review, I didn’t hesitate to pop the disc into the player to see what the fuss was all about. Much to my surprise, I found the film to be enjoyable although far from a comedy classic. Continue Reading

I guess you could say that I am a relative newcomer to the world of Harry Potter at least in regards as the books are concerned. My wife loved the books and had read them before the movies started to arrive but I did not. I went into each of the early films without any knowledge of the plots other than that Harry was a wizard. That was about it. The films were well done and were easy to get into even without any prior knowledge from the books. Perhaps that was even better as I had no clue what was coming next. Continue Reading

Adding your typical Jerry Bruckheimer action fare and his team’s excellent CGI capability with a kids story about guinea pigs who are trained by the FBI to be secret agents sounded like an iffy proposition. The trailer did look promising so I was hoping to get my hands on a review copy of the film G-Force once it debuted on Blu-ray. Well, the review copy arrived yesterday and I popped it in to the player for a look last night. I was glad I did. Continue Reading

Premiering at the Toronto Film Festival in September 2008, Eden Log was met with mixed reviews as the directorial debut of co-writer Frank Vestiel. The film is dubbed as a futuristic science fiction film and is shot entirely with hand-held cameras. Originally distributed by Bac Films in France, Magnolia Pictures decided to give this French language film a release in North American release. I hadn’t heard much else about this film so naturally I was quite eager to check it out. Continue Reading

It’s hard to believe that it was a decade ago when the South Park movie came out.  I didn’t remember much about it so I was eager to jump back into the snow-covered town and revisit what Kyle, Kenny, Stan and Cartman had been up to in theaters in 1999.  How has the film faired over ten years and how was its transition to Blu-ray?  Grab your cheezy poofs and read on to find out… Continue Reading