Chris Chiarella

Audio Video News
RIP, Ivan Reitman
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 14, 2022  |  1 comments
Filmmaker Ivan Reitman enjoyed a wildly successful career spanning more than four decades, with his name appearing on some of the most popular and enduring comedies of all time. A savvy producer as well as an inspired director, he possessed a shrewd understanding of the business, including home entertainment, and how his movies fit into it.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
No Time to Die
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 11, 2022  |  1 comments
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Daniel Craig's fifth and final outing as the world's most famous secret agent (umm...) is a fitting farewell to an era that saw old-school spy James Bond struggling to find his place in the contemporary world. That's no small task when his reputation as a gun-toting, martini-swilling, two-fisted womanizer precedes him, and so the plots often revolve around his apparent unsuitability for the job of protecting England and the rest of the planet—before he proves the haters wrong, of course.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Criterion Collection in 4K: The First Wave
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 28, 2022  |  0 comments
Once the Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format showed that it had legs, one question I found myself regularly being asked was, "When is The Criterion Collection going 4K?" The esteemed boutique label certainly didn't rush in, but by the end of 2021, fans and collectors were offered four premiere releases: Citizen Kane, Menace II Society, Mulholland Dr., and Uncut Gems.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Suicide Squad
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 21, 2022  |  0 comments
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Blurring the line between sequel, reboot and remake, The Suicide Squad fairly leaps off the screen with something too often conspicuously absent from the DC Cinematic Universe: a sense of fun. Written and directed by James Gunn after his famous firing from Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy series (and before he was rehired), The Suicide Squad gleefully embraces excess in every way imaginable. It's rated R for its gore, language, and nudity, yet seldom misses an opportunity to pause and appreciate the absurdity of it all—a drastic tonal shift from its joyless 2016 predecessor, simply titled "Suicide Squad."

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
2021 Blu-Ray Holiday Gift Guide
Chris Chiarella  |  Dec 07, 2021  |  0 comments
It's been a strange year for the entertainment industry, with controversial showdowns involving streaming versus the in-theater experience calling the future of both into question. We continued to hear news of physical media's demise as well, yet here we are again looking at ten gift-worthy new regular and Ultra HD Blu-ray options.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Labyrinth
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 05, 2021  |  0 comments
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After making Return of the Jedi, Executive producer George Lucas was looking for fresh creative frontiers, and he would embark upon new cinematic collabs with previous and first-time cohorts. One such experiment was his team-up with mastermind Jim Henson for the family-friendly fantasy, Labyrinth. With a playful script by Monty Python alum Terry Jones, the story follows an angry teenager Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) with a fondness for fairy tales.
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Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Spiral
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 29, 2021  |  0 comments
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An attempt to revive the popular Saw franchise, Spiral (full title "Spiral: From the Book of Saw," whatever that means) continues the legacy of creative torture-horror under the direction of Darren Lynn Bousman who long ago helmed Saws II-IV. The sadistic madman-with-an-axe-to-grind known as Jigsaw is long dead and now a new serial killer is on the loose, an apparent copycat except this time the murderer is specifically targeting dirty cops with his elaborate, painful deathtraps. Once again, the victims must make the brutal choice to do something horrible to themselves to escape or die in gruesome fashion.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Silence of the Lambs
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 22, 2021  |  0 comments
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Serial killers. Cannibalism. A disturbing journey into the darkest recesses of the human psyche. The Silence of the Lambs has more than its share of horrors, yet, through it all, the movie tells the very personal story of FBI trainee Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster, nabbing a second Best Actress Oscar here). Haunted by loss and her guilt over a childhood failure, she seeks redemption in a high-profile missing persons case that requires her to work closely with notorious murderer Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins, who netted a Best Actor Oscar). An outstanding piece of filmmaking in every way, Silence of the Lambs has transcended the thriller genre to become a genuine classic.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Quiet Place Part II
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 08, 2021  |  0 comments
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Anyone seeking to make a horror sequel would do well to study writer/ director John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II. A magnificent expansion of the established characters and story, this film wastes nary a second, framing the narrative with a bit of new backstory before picking up immediately after the events of the 2018 original and taking us in bold, terrifying new directions.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Zack Snyder's Justice League
Chris Chiarella  |  Sep 24, 2021  |  1 comments
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In what will surely go down in history as a textbook example of a successful online campaign to release a much-wanted movie, the #releasethesnydercut movement ultimately convinced Warner Bros. to complete and distribute director Zack Snyder's original vision for his DC Comics Extended Universe ("DCEU") team-up flick, Justice League. Snyder's departure from the project during production led to the hiring of Joss Whedon to oversee final work on the movie for its November 2017 theatrical debut, writing and directing new scenes on the way to a two-hour cut. That version largely left audiences cold, particularly fans of Snyder's previous DCEU films, despite co-star Gal Gadot's wave of popularity from her Wonder Woman solo film a few months earlier.
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