Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Kris Deering  |  Nov 12, 2008  | 
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4.25/5
Extras: 3.5/5
When a secret government agency lets out a deadly chemo virus causing the reanimation of the dead, the first place to get hit is Rhino's, a hot underground strip club. As one of the strippers gets the virus, she turns into a supernatural, flesh-eating zombie stripper, making her the hit of the club. Do the rest of the girls fight the temptation to be like the star stripper, even if there is no turning back?
David Vaughn  |  May 15, 2009  | 
Every Pixar release so far has looked outstanding on Blu-ray, and A Bug's Life is the perfect movie to debut our new Ultimate Demo series. The image has impeccable detail in both foregrounds and backgrounds to show off your display's capabilities, and the audio is just as impressive in both scenes highlighted below.

Early in the film, the grasshoppers, led by Hopper, arrive at the ant hill for their food offering. When they can't find it, they invade the hill to confront the queen.

David Vaughn  |  May 14, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/bugslifeblu.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>After one of his failed inventions destroys his ant colony's annual offering to the grasshoppers, Flick (voiced by David Foley) must venture off the anthill in search of some warrior bugs to help fend off the hungry predators. Unfortunately for Flick, the crew he hires to protect the colony turns out to be a group of down-and-out circus performers who think he's booking them for a gig.

David Vaughn  |  Oct 24, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/achristmasstory.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Taking place in Indiana in the 1940s, the story centers on Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) and his one wish for Christmas&#151;a genuine Red Ryder 200-Shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. Unfortunately, whenever he expresses this wish, he's greeted with, "You'll shoot your eye out!" Will Ralphie get his wish? If so, is his vision safe?

Chris Chiarella  |  Sep 09, 2022  | 
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On the way to cooking up the all-time great spaghetti western, Sergio Leone began here with Rawhide star Clint Eastwood, eager to break out of his "white hat" TV persona and take his craft and career to the next level. Together they birthed an anti-hero who would become known as The Man with No Name, indelible and ultimately at the center of For a Few Dollars More (also new to 4K) and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (released last year).
Fred Kaplan  |  Sep 18, 2014  | 
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I saw A Hard Day’s Night in a theater in 1964, when it first came out and I was 10 years old. I saw it three times, and it was pure joy. I felt the same sensation watching this fantastic Blu-ray transfer. Was it at least in part nostalgia? Probably, though it’s worth noting that the movie—which came out in August, six months after The Beatles’ appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show—is what won over our parents to the Fab Four: so smart, witty, and talented after all (traits that we kids had long appreciated). And my own kids, born two decades later, love the movie and the group too.
Chris Chiarella  |  May 14, 2013  | 
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Interactivity
With each passing year, we seem to be witnessing the further shrinkage of the gender gap, and so movies like A League of Their Own are ever-more fascinating. It shares with modern movie audiences the little-known true tale of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created to help keep the national pastime alive while the menfolk were off fighting World War II. The idea was met with much resistance at the time, and so the girls face challenges off the field as well as on.
Mike Mettler  |  Mar 06, 2012  | 

“Winter is coming.” That ominous mantra hangs heavy over the full arc of the inaugural 10-episode season of Game of Thrones, one of the best-looking and best-sounding shows on broadcast cable TV. And it’s even more fulfilling on Blu-ray — yet another high-water mark for HBO, undisputed kings of desirable packaging, high-def visual presentation, and fully engaging surround soundtracks.

David Vaughn  |  Mar 21, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/mighty.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Based on Marianne Pearl's account of the life and death of her journalist husband, Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman), <i>A Mighty Heart</i> provides an inside view of the chaotic weeks following Daniel's kidnapping and Marianne's search to find the truth. Marianne (Angelina Jolie) becomes intimately involved in the investigation, and her resiliency is put to the test during this trying time.

Anthony Chiarella  |  Feb 09, 2015  | 
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Son of a corrupt Russian general, suspected Chechen terrorist Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) illegally sneaks into Hamburg and, with the help of his lawyer (Rachel McAdams), seeks to recover his father’s ill-gotten fortune from banker Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe). American counterterrorism spies led by Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) plan to seize him, but German intelligence agent Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and his team have other ideas, hoping to use Karpov’s inheritance to help catch a prominent Muslim who, Bachmann believes, is secretly funneling money to terrorists. Inspired acting and insightful direction flatter John le Carré’s espionage thriller.
Jamie Sorcher  |  Mar 25, 2003  | 
If you consider today's monstrous megaplexes and their too-salty popcorn to be cinematic sacrilege, take heart.
Chris Chiarella  |  Dec 09, 2024  | 
The Criterion Collection has added new 4K editions of two very different period pieces: an American production from the 1970s that takes us back to the Depression era, and an epic Japanese adventure set in the country’s feudal 16th century.
Josef Krebs  |  Jul 13, 2008  | 
Sony Blu-ray Disc
Movie •••• Picture ••••½ Sound •••• Extras ••••

Even before the first image appeared

David Vaughn  |  Apr 17, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/417passage.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Adela Quested (Judy Davis) travels from England to India under the supervision of Mrs. Moore (Peggy Ashcroft) to visit Moore's son Ronny (Nigel Havers) in the 1920s. Sequestered in the English enclaves, Moore and Quested want to see the "real" India. Opportunity presents itself when a local doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed (Victor Banerjee), offers to take the ladies on an excursion to the Marabar Caves. When Adela returns injured from the expedition, the relationship between the Indians and the Brits reaches a turning point.

Al Griffin  |  Aug 31, 2018  | 
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Directed by John Krasinksi (star of TV’s “The Office”) and produced by action film director Michael Bay, A Quiet Place is a curious mashup of sci-fi/horror and family drama. The world is under siege by alien creatures who are blind but have powerful hearing capability, which they use to locate human prey. To survive, a family at the story’s center of needs to remain completely silent at all times— not something that’s easy to do when the clan includes young children.

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