Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Fred Kaplan  |  Jan 15, 2016  | 
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Timbuktu is a film of soaring beauty, sly humor, and urgent sorrow. An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, it should have won if the actual winner, the Polish masterpiece Ida, hadn’t. Shot in Mauritania, which stands in for Mali (of which Timbuktu is capital), it unspools the tragic ways in which a peaceful village is robbed of family, tradition, and the stuff of a full life when occupied by armed jihadists bearing the black flag of ISIL. At first, the dissonance seems comical: clueless outsiders, proclaiming a ban on music, soccer, and exposed female flesh, while camels block the roads and the locals lounge indifferent.
David Vaughn  |  Nov 05, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tinkerbell.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Journey into the world of Pixie Hollow and discover the origins of Tinker Bell (voiced by Mae Whitman). Enter a land of adventure and mystery as she and her four best fairy friends turn winter into spring&#151;and with the power of faith, trust, and a little pixie dust, learn the importance of being true to yourself.

David Vaughn  |  Sep 23, 2010  | 
Tinker Bell (voiced by Mae Whitman) finds herself trapped in the bedroom of Lizzy (Lauren Mote), a polite and lonely nine-year-old in dire need of a friend. While Tink's friends launch a dangerous rescue mission braving the hazards of a summer rainstorm, Tink and the young girl develop a special bond during their time together.

Disney has created quite a franchise around the adorable Tinker Bell with a series of books, apparel and toys, video games, and these Tink-specific films. While my family is older than the intended demographic, the story is heartfelt and the animation is spectacular. Normally I shy away from direct-to-video releases but the house of mouse have given these films the A-list treatment.

David Vaughn  |  Oct 21, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tinklost.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>The head of Disney Animation, John Lasseter, once said, "From the beginning, I kept saying it's not the technology that's going to entertain audiences, it's the story. When you go and see a really great live-action film, you don't walk out and say 'that new Panavision camera was staggering; it made the film so good.' The computer is a tool, and it's in the service of the story."

David Vaughn  |  Oct 20, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tinklost.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>It's autumn, and the fairies are on the mainland changing the colors of the leaves, tending to pumpkin patches, and helping geese fly south for the winter. The rare blue moon will soon rise to pass its light through the magical Fall Scepter so Pixie Hollow's supply of pixie dust will be restored. But when Tinker Bell (voiced by Mae Whitman) accidentally puts the community in jeopardy, she must travel across the sea in order to set things right.

Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 13, 2013  | 
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How do you make a blockbuster film based on the all-too-familiar tale of the doomed luxury liner Titanic? Try giving it a context of modern-day exploration and discovery, weave in a resonant theme of class struggle and the folly of ambitious men, and put at its heart a romance that epitomizes the sweet stupidity of young love. And don’t forget to execute it all with an unprecedented technical genius.
David Vaughn  |  Aug 01, 2010  | 
Jake (Randy Wayne) and Roger (Robert Bailey Jr.) were best friends up until the ninth grade and the two drifted apart. Jake became the star of the basketball team and landed the hottest girl in school and Roger didn't fit in with his new group of friends. Three years later Jake's world crashes down around him when Roger enters the school with a handgun and takes his own life. Wracked with guilt, Jake begins to question his life choices and wonders if there was anything he could have done to save his childhood friend.

Calling a film "religious" will ultimately alienate a large portion of the population, but as long as the script isn't too preachy, I can usually enjoy them. That's certainly the case here where the message being spoken—care about thy neighbor—is commendable, especially to the targeted teen audience. The script certainly has a Christian slant to it, which isn't too distracting, but the story is very melodramatic and runs about 20 longer than it should.

David Vaughn  |  Apr 29, 2010  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tombstone.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>After a successful career as a lawman in Dodge City, Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell) and his two brothers retire to Tombstone, AZ looking for peace and quiet as entrepreneurs. When a band of outlaws called the Cowboys descend upon the town, the Earp's and their good friend Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) take-up arms in order to protect the town from the ruthless villains.

David Vaughn  |  Dec 15, 2008  |  First Published: Dec 16, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tommyboy.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>The good news is that Tommy (Chris Farley) has finally graduated from college after seven long years&#151;and no, he didn't go to medical school. Fully educated and ready to make his mark on the world, Tommy goes into the family business of selling car parts. When his father suddenly dies, he needs to save the company from financial ruin by hitting the road with company sycophant Richard (David Spade) to sell a new line of brake pads.

David Vaughn  |  Jan 22, 2016  | 
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As a youth, Frank Walker is full of hope and aspiration, which is almost snuffed out when his entry into the 1964 World’s Fair science competition is shot down by one of the judges before he even gets a chance to enter it. But fate has a different plan for Frank, and with the help of Athena, a mysterious young girl, he’s taken to a magical place where his hopes and dreams can come true. Fifty years later, we meet Casey Newton, a science-minded teen who dreams of going to the stars and will stop at nothing to sabotage NASA’s efforts to dismantle the last remaining launch pad—that is, until the police catch her. Upon posting bail, she finds a mysterious pin among her belongings. When she touches it, she gets a glimpse of the magical world of Tomorrowland, a futuristic city that’s light-years ahead of Earth technologically.
David Vaughn  |  May 10, 2010  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/toothfairy.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>When a professional hockey player (Dwayne Johnson) tries to spoil the belief of the Tooth Fairy of a young six year old, he gets a summons from the "Department of Dissemination of Disbelief" and is sentenced to two weeks hard time as the Tooth Fairy.

Mike Mettler  |  Jun 09, 2006  | 

With a slew of superheroes in theaters this summer - X-Men: The Last Stand, Superman Returns, My Super Ex-Girlfriend - we feel a musclebound DVD assessment is in order. Batman Begins, a benchmark title, ascended beyond this list to the pantheon of torture test discs and will be revered in a future issue.

Corey Gunnestad  |  Aug 09, 2013  | 
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I was a senior in high school when Top Gun came out in 1986. After that, every guy in my class, including myself, wanted to be Tom Cruise. He just epitomized coolness in a way that transcended even his iconic turn in Risky Business. Our Navy recruitment officer was extremely happy that year because enlistment was at an all-time high. No, they didn’t ensnare me, thankfully. My admiration for Mr. Cruise and this film went only as far as the box office and not swabbing decks on some aircraft carrier. But I remember we drove an extra 20 miles out of our way to see Top Gun at a brand-new theater that was the first in the state equipped for THX sound. And it made all the difference.
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 12, 2022  | 
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Someone once posited that the way to gauge the quality of a sequel is to plot the delta—better or worse—from the movie that spawned it. Employing that metric, Top Gun: Maverick might be the best damned sequel that I've ever seen.
Roger Kanno  |  Feb 05, 2021  | 
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Total Recall is a near-perfect mix of sci-fi action, plot twists, and the kind of warped tongue-in-cheek humor we expect from director Paul Verhoeven, delivered here with gusto by Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Douglas Quaid, a construction worker. More correctly, Schwarzenegger is Carl Hauser, a secret operative for the "Agency" who believes he is Quaid due to a memory implant. After being attacked by agents from the "Agency," Quaid escapes to Mars to aid the rebel independence movement and discover his true identity.

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