They say that truth is stranger than fiction and in the case of The Blind Side, that is certainly true. Had the book and the film been a work of fiction, we all would have rolled our eyes and said, you’ve got to be kidding me! What a tall tail! However, die to the confluence of too many improbable circumstances to count, The Blind Side is true. While it is a an enjoyable film featuring several wonderful performances, the question to be answered today is how well does it look and sound on Blu-ray? I guess you will just have to keep on reading. Read the full story

Ever since Toy Story burst on the scene with its incredible computer generated images, hand drawn animation began to fade away. After the release of Toy Story, each new CGI feature seemed to outdo the others, advancing the state of art even further, with more realistic and lifelike animation and movement. When it comes to CGI, the sky really seems to be the limit. However, lost in all this technical advancement was the sheer beauty of hand drawn animation, the kind that the folks at Disney Studios made so famous. I guess it was fitting that Disney, under the helm of John Lassiter of Pixar fame, would be the ones to bring hand drawn animation back to the screen with 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, which has finally made its way to Blu-ray. Read the full story

“Promise me no one will get hurt.” “No one will get hurt, I promise.” Once those two sentences are uttered near the beginning of Armored, you knew just how this film was going to unfold and that despite the promise, there will be quite few fatalities. Armored, the subject of today’s review, is a heist film that is rather formulaic and predictable. Be that as it may, is is still worth a look on Blu-ray? Sort of. Read the full story

I will admit that I did not know what to expect when Broken Embraces arrived for a review. The fact that it stars Penelope Cruz was a good sign. That plus the fact that it was directed by Academy Award winning writer and director Pedro Almodovar was even better given his past track record. I had also heard some good critical buzz about the film but have found in the past that good critical buzz is not necessarily a harbinger of an enjoyable film or one that would be assessable to a mass audience. Thankfully, Broken Embraces, merits the praise that has been heaped upon it by the trade press and contains yet another in a string of amazing performances by Penelope Cruz. Read the full story

I guess with the economy being what it is, I can’t begrudge anyone for taking any job they can get to get by. The difference between Hollywood and the rest of us is that when actors take whatever is offered irrespective of quality, millions of dollars are involved. There is nothing like cashing in on your name in Hollywood to fatten up the old bank account. Exhibit A of such a practice is the subject of today’s review, a mildly humorous and forgettable comedy starring Robin Williams and John Travolta, Old Dogs. Read the full story

Making a movie out of a popular book is hard enough. Having the condense several hundred pages of text into a coherent two hour film can be quite a daunting task. The list of great books being made into mediocre films is long indeed. Even more difficult I would imagine is taking a very popular short illustrated children’s book and fleshing it out into a full length motion picture, while keeping true to the spirit of the book. Well that is just what director Spike Jonze has accomplished with the subject of today’s review. Where the Wild Things Are. Read the full story

One of the problems with the study of history is that it can get rather dry when you limited yourself to the printed page. Movies on the other hand, can really help to bring historical characters to life, offering a glimpse into the lives of those figures that you wouldn’t otherwise get to see, even though films often times take a bit of liberty with the facts for the sake of a more interesting film. Such is the case with the film that is the subject of today’s film, Amelia, which gives us a glimpse into the life of the famous aviator, that one may not have been able to appreciate from the pages of history. Read the full story

The old joke about The History channel was that the H stood for Hitler, as it seemed that every time you turned on the channel, there was a show about World War II. Recently, the History Channel has changed its focus, from actual history to what I will charitably refer to as pseudo-history. One of the staples of that “pseudo-history” is the fixation with end of the world prophecies, and in particular, the claim that the Mayan calender ends on 12/21/2102 and that somehow, this fact portends the end of the world. Read the full story

I guess you can say that I am in the very distinct minority in the US when it comes to soccer. I love it, especially English football, which has a rick, deep and at times, crazy history. Teams like Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Everton, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Nottingham Forrest, Reading and Derby Country, just to name but a few. Even the names of the stadiums evoke the richness of that history, with monikers such as Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Anfield and Craven’s Cottage immediately coming to mind! Better than the Wachovia Center don’t you think? Read the full story

Steven Soderbergh’s films are if nothing, very complicated, with layer upon layer of intrigue. From Ocean’s 11,12 and 13 to Traffic it can get to be very difficult to keep up with the action and figure out where the film is heading. Dealing with an actual historical event and the lives of real people, it is a bit easier to follow a film as you already know the actual outcome. Making these characters and these stories into a great film is much more difficult than with works of pure fiction. Which brings us to the subject of today’s review, The Informant. Read the full story

There are some actors who are natural born bad guys, a real heavy, ones that just have that edginess that makes you believe that they are ready to step over the edge and do something very dangerous. I can’t say that I ever thought of Meg Ryan as that type of actress. However, that is the type of role she is cast in in the film that is the subject of today’s review, Serious Moonlight. Can she pull it off? Read the full story

I can’t really say that I am fan of country music. In fact, I try to avoid it as much as I can as it is not really my cup of tea. However, I am a big fan of well written and acted films with compelling story lines regardless of the subject matter. yes, even if it involves country music. One of those films is the subject of today’s review, Walk The Line, the bio pic that tells the story of the early career of Johnny Cash and his life long love affair with June Carter Cash, which has finally made its way to Blu-ray. Read the full story

William Fridkin has had quite a career to say the least with great films such as The French Connection and The Exorcist on his resume. One of his best films and for me, one that is every bit as good as the more well known The French Connection, is the subject of today’s review, To Live and Die in L.A. which has made its debut on Blu-ray. Read the full story

In the early days of Blu-ray, the releases were skewed to what I would describe as the PS3 crowd, with far too many releases consisting of bad sci-fi and slasher/horror films for my taste. Even today, I am often a bit confused as to why some really mediocre films are rushed to release on Blu-ray while other much better films have yet to see the (Blu?) light of day. One such film is The Last King of Scotland which hit theaters in 2006. One would have thought that with Forrest Whitaker winning the Oscar for his role as Idi Amin in that film, that it would have made its way to Blu-ray much sooner than early 2010. Thankfully it finally has. Was it worth the wait? Read the full story

In light of my name, I thought a review of a film entitled Whip It would be a natural. I had never heard of the film before and only knew that it starred Ellen Page and involved Roller Derby, a “sport” that I thought had disappeared from view long ago. You never know about these things as every now and then a film comes up that takes you totally by surprise with how entertaining it is. Whip It is just such a film. Read the full story

Pride & Prejudice is one of my wife’s favorite books and one of the best looking films ever released on the ill-fated HD DVD format. I loved the cinematography in the film and the VC-1 encode was simply fantastic. This is one of the Universal films that I eagerly waited for release on Blu-ray. Well, without much in the way of fanfare, Pride & Prejudice has finally found its way to Blu-ray and I, for one, am glad it has Read the full story

Making a very popular book into a film is more often times than not, a very tricky business. An author may devote several pages to rather minute detail that is important to the story that just can’t be translated to the screen very easily. The same is true for some plot twists which have to be dropped due to time constraints that just don’t exist with the printed page. However, when the subtle details and minor plot lines are dropped, the flow of the story and our understanding of the characters is often changed, more often than not, to the detriment to our enjoyment of the film. Read the full story