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Blu-ray & DVD Reviews
Blu-ray & HD DVD Reviews
RedLine
Bill Moyers: God and Politics
DVD
Bill Moyers: God and Politics - Have you heard that a brisk discourse about religion and politics with someone of an opposing opinion is the better way to buff up your brain cells and defeat dementia? If true, Bill Moyers lives the cure.
The Bretts
DVD
The Bretts: The Complete Collection - Admittedly, The Bretts' appeal is for a niche audience: Anglophiles, theater buffs, fanatics of historical fiction, fans of family drama and aficionados of Upstairs, Downstairs.
The Beaver
Blu-ray
The Beaver - Enjoyed is not the right word to describe my emotions about a film about a manic depressive whose tenuous grip on sanity and life itself depends upon a nappy, toothy, cockney, rodent of a hand puppet - let's just say, I was moved by Gibson's performance.
Reggie Perrin
DVD
Reggie Perrin: Seasons 1 & 2 - The mutable faces of Martin Clunes may superglue you to the tube. Portraying Reggie Perrin, watch him shape-shift from sheepish, anxious, audacious, nauseous, pompous, bemused or bewildered to anything in between, yet another English treat for American TV.
Prime Suspect: Season 2
DVD
Prime Suspect: Season 2 - While 20 years old, this Emmy Award winning series has aged well. Except for the absence of iPhones and DNA testing, it could happen today. Among the prime and primed suspects, there are competing compelling candidates, each one with a persistent tracker.
Wish Me Luck
DVD
Wish Me Luck: Season 3 - Written by two women, Jill Hyem and Lavinia Warner, Wish Me Luck is about heroines, heroes and the not-so-heroic, from World War II. Naturally, there is romance, espionage, suspense, drama, blood and plenty of treachery.
Leaving Las Vegas
Blu-ray
Leaving Las Vegas - If you like films that are gritty (yet tender), gutsy (yet touching), graphic (yet humane) and high on talent, see Director Mike Figgis's Leaving Las Vegas. Ben (Nicolas Cage) is a devout, determined, dedicated, unrepentant alcoholic; and Sera (Elizabeth Shue) is a dependable, skilled, successful, bruised prostitute.
The Manchurian Candidate
Blu-ray
The Manchurian Candidate - The story is about good versus two evil isms: truth versus Communism and McCarthyism. Closely based on Richard Condon's spooky novel, George Axelrod's script baffles, bewitches and beguiles with its conspiracies, nightmares, homicides, hypnosis, hydrangeas, eurekas, an Oedipus kink and the mesmeric Janet Leigh.
The Misfits
Blu-ray
The Misfits - despite the adversities, it is Marilyn - as such a breath-taking beauty, in such a pure performance, and with so much magnetism - who ignites this despairing solitary stud flick cinegraphed in Nevada's mustang-country.
The Horse Soldiers
Blu-ray
The Horse Soldiers - Though I find this 1957 movie less compelling than other John Ford classics, he tells this Civil War story (based on the 1863 exploits of a Union cavalry unit sneaking behind Confederate lines to disrupt the Rebel supply trains) in an appealing straight forward style.
Doc Martin
DVD
Doc Martin: Seasons 1 - 4 - He's a brilliant surgeon, but has the bedside manner of a carp, the tact of a trout, the face of an eel and is as comfortable with himself as any fish out of water. Worse yet, he panics at the sight of blood - a quixotic combo that only the Brits could convert into dramatic comedic award-winning television.
Lorna Doone
DVD
Lorna Doone - For actor aficionados, film fans and Anglophiles, it's fun to see the fledgling career moves of screen talent. For both Owens and Walker, this production was an early outing. Here, Clive can't yet act, but he can flaunt those exotic lips. And the alluring looks of Polly helps minimize all other shortcomings.
Tron Legacy
Blu-ray
Tron & Tron Legacy - Disney's Tron five disc combo pack offers a buffet of ocular and cerebral morsels that will sate Tronnies and videophiles alike. The dilemma is where do you start nibbling - the 3D Blu-ray of Tron Legacy or the Blu-ray of the newly restored, original Tron?
Friday Night Lights
DVD
Friday Night Lights: The Fifth and Final Season - In fictional Dillon, Texas, an itty-bitty town where football is humongous, head coach Eric Taylor (Chandler) rides the spiral of a wildly erratic pigskin spinning out of control. And his wife and working mom Tami Taylor spends her smarts and sagacity juggling more errant kid's ids than anyone can.
Every Day
Blu-ray
Every Day - Writer and director Richard Levine, perhaps because he is plumbing from his own life, does not present this tableau as a devastating calamity but rather as a series of challenges that families have to confront and resolve, every day.
Rain Man
Blu-ray
Rain Man - What can be written about this film that hasn't been scribbled in the twenty three years since it won four Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and for Best Actor, Dustin Hoffman as the emotionally distant but loveable, autistic savant, Raymond Babbitt.
Upstairs, Downstairs
DVD
Upstairs, Downstairs - From the upper opulent bowers to the bare-bones bowels below, the Bellamy family and their servants inhabit tony 165 Eaton Place in Tory London. The 40th Anniversary compilation of this beloved series contains 21 DVDs that chronicle their lives - five years of superb television by substantive artists telling substantial stories.
Last Tango in Paris
Blu-ray
Last Tango in Paris - From the opening title sequences with the gnarled Francis Bacon paintings, you know that you are in for a contorted cinematic dance that your senses will not soon forget. And indeed, Director/Screenwriter Bernardo Bertolucci intertwines his actors, Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, into an existential psycho-sexual relationship with no names.
Moonstruck
Blu-ray
Moonstruck - The moon is the mortar, the motivator, the troublemaker, the revelator, and the liberator as an uninhibited Nicolas Cage unwinds the uptight Cher in this unfettered farce about Italian families living the vita loca in Brooklyn.
Dances with Wolves
Blu-ray
Dances with Wolves - has been released for the first time on Blu-ray. And with Dean Semel's Academy Award winning cinematography of the sweeping vistas of the South Dakota Badlands, this epic tale definitely deserves this gorgeous re-mastered high-def treatment.
Raging Bull
Blu-ray
Raging Bull - Considered one of Martin Scorsese's greatest films, this boxing classic features a bravura performance by Robert De Niro as the self destructive middleweight, Jake La Motta. The black and white cinematography on this new Blu-ray release looks both lush and raw at the same time.
Thelma and Louise
Blu-ray
Thelma and Louise - This Blu-ray release marks the 20th Anniversary of this buddy-film/road-picture/truckstop-western starring Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis, (Louise and Thelma), who saddle up for the ride of their lives in a sexy 1966 turquoise T-bird convertible.
Secretariat
Blu-ray
Secretariat - is about the quintessential equine's quest for racing's rare grand slam, the Thoroughbred Triple Crown. The consort in this 1973 Sport of Kings was Penny Chenery Tweedy, who harnessed her assets to her ambition and bet all her money on a horse. Literally.
17 Again
Blu-ray
17 Again - I can understand how Zac Efron throbs those hearts beating in heaving adolescent chests. Who could resist the windswept peek-a-boo bangs and devil-may-care smile?
Dollhouse
Blu-ray
Dollhouse - Season One - Joss Whedon has sprinkled the cast with flavors for almost every taste and enough eye candy dolls to keep your libido in a sugar rush.
Sin City
Blu-ray
Sin City - Based on Frank Miller's graphic novels, the movie is faithfully recreated in graphic B & W with splashes of vivid colors.
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Blu-ray
The Day the Earth Stood Still - Despite what our expectations might be today, the original 1951 classic still is compelling.
The Dark Knight
Blu-ray
The Dark Knight - At the bleakest time of day when shadowy characters come to play, bedeviled heroes and benighted villains fight their demons...
Dr. No
Blu-ray
Dr. No - Fox/MGM recently released six Bond titles on Blu-ray featuring three of the most famous 007's
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Blu-ray
Journey to the Center of the Earth - A limited edition of this Blu-ray disc contains 2D and 3D versions of the movie
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Blu-ray
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - The good guys race and chase the bad guys to save the world.
IronMan
Blu-ray
IronMan - The Ultimate 2-Disc Edition, is a masterstroke for a multitude of film fans.
Transformers
Blu-ray
Transformers - Now on Blu-ray - Gargantuan origami robots fold into and out of big rig 18-wheelers.
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Blu-ray
The Spiderwick Chronicles - A creature feature about cute kids fleeing the jaws of death...
The Bucket List
Blu-ray
The Bucket List - A geriatric buddy pic. A senior's road flic...
There Will be Blood
Blu-ray
There Will be Blood - The cold blooded, steely veined Daniel Plainview...
P.S. I Love You
Blu-ray
P.S. I Love You - If you prefer a hanky box to boxer's gloves...
Next
Blu-ray
Next - With its time-warping story oscillations...
Indiana Jones - The Adventure Collection
DVD
Indiana Jones - The Adventure Collection - If you need a refresher course on the Indy saga...
No Reservations
Blu-ray
No Reservations - Handsome man defrosts chilly beauty by warming up her ward...
Sweeney Todd
DVD
Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street - A macabre melodrama, a murdersome musical and a quasi-comedy...
Michael Clayton
Blu-ray
Michael Clayton - Despite Clayton's haute post as clean-up-guy and fixer - skills that elude him in his personal life...
Into the Wild
Blu-ray & HD DVD
Into the Wild - A road trip and vision quest based on the life of Christopher McCandless...
Things We Lost in the Fire
DVD
Things We Lost in the Fire - Halle Berry returns to her serious side...
Transformers
HD DVD & Blu-ray
Transformers - Gargantuan origami robots fold into and out of big rig 18-wheelers...
Beowulf
HD DVD & Blu-ray
Beowulf - The classic epic tale with a few refreshing twists and Angelina Jolie...
A Mighty Heart
HD DVD
A Mighty Heart - History, whether in word or image, is gummy glue...
Elizabeth - The Golden Age
HD DVD
Elizabeth - The Golden Age - This is the costume drama to flaunt the color range of your HDTV...
Evan Almighty
HD DVD
Evan Almighty - Evan Baxter has been elected to Congress only to find a higher calling...
Eastern Promises
HD DVD
Eastern Promises - Director David Cronenberg's chronicle is about broken promises and token hope...
Phantom of the Opera
HD DVD & Blu-ray
Phantom of the Opera - Though soap operatic, the infectious musical flaunts an excess of artistic genius...
Inside Man
HD DVD
Inside Man - Crammed with tangled twists, the perfect bank robbery warps good and bad in this cat, mouse and rat's tale...
Talk to Me
HD DVD
Talk to Me - Don Cheadle, the talented chameleon, once more struts his amazing range across the screen...
Pride & Prejudice
HD DVD
Pride & Prejudice - An endearing family picture about the innocence of Eighteenth century English romance, when heavy petting meant slow dancing at the ball...
300
HD DVD
300 - The bloody tale has been boldly told in innovative artistic detail...
What Dreams May Come
HD DVD
What Dreams May Come - The movie is about death and suicide, but if you can live with that, the scenery is - well - heavenly...

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Reader Comments

Posted Nov 3, 2009 11:58:04 PM

By rachelle

i also like this blu-ray dvd ..:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF6mmaawyws

Posted Nov 3, 2009 11:49:26 PM

By rachelle

Blu-rays have great quality..:)
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