Chris Chiarella

Out Of The Blu
Cat Run, Too Big to Fail, John Mellencamp: It's About You
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 15, 2012
After we've fed our intellectual side with a profound music documentary and a first-class dramatization of the 2008 financial crisis, we can kick back with the R-rated exploits of a gun-toting hooker on the run.
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Out Of The Blu
Goon, The Deadly Spawn, Perfect Sense
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 01, 2012
Comedy, romance and horror are on the menu for this edition, with a kinda-true sports opus, a very different sort of love story and one of the most underrated creature features you've never seen.
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Out Of The Blu
Goon, The Deadly Spawn, Perfect Sense
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 01, 2012
Comedy, romance and horror are on the menu for this edition, with a kinda-true sports opus, a very different sort of love story and one of the most underrated creature features you've never seen.
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Out Of The Blu
A Bullet for the General, The Aggression Scale, We Need to Talk About Kevin
Chris Chiarella  |  May 18, 2012
Spaghetti Westerns don't come more delicious than this edition's lead title, while audiences partial to contemporary domestic thrillers won't be disappointed with the little-seen Aggression Scale, either. But seriously: No Oscar love for Kevin?
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Out Of The Blu
Mother's Day (2010), Hell on Wheels Season One, Walking Tall: The Trilogy
Chris Chiarella  |  May 04, 2012
Check out Rebecca De Mornay in a guilty-pleasure remake of an off-the-wall classic, or saddle up for the entire first year of AMC's hot (and sweaty) new Western hit, or pop in all three movies in the beloved series about a lone sheriff facing impossible odds.
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Out Of The Blu
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), The Innkeepers, Titanic (Miniseries)
Chris Chiarella  |  Apr 20, 2012
This year's Oscars no doubt hastened the Blu-ray release of the exceptional original Tinker, while ABC's centennial-timed Titanic approaches the familiar tale from a fresh perspective. And who doesn't love an inspired horror movie?
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Out Of The Blu
Cinema Verite, Corman's World, Torchwood: Miracle Day
Chris Chiarella  |  Apr 06, 2012
Hello, and welcome to my first Blu-ray blog for HomeTheater.com wherein we take a look at a few interesting discs that you might have missed among the weekly cascade of blockbusters and otherwise more heavily advertised releases. In this installment, we check out HBO's Cinema Verite, Anchor Bay's Corman's World, and BBC's Torchwood: Miracle Day.
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Streaming Device Reviews
VUDU Media Receiver
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 02, 2008
Fill it up with movies, not pins.

Regular readers of Home Theater might know that I also write the “Top 100 DVDs of All Time” article each year, which means that I have at least 8.3-dozen discs at home. And those discs tend to pile up. But how else is a cinephile supposed to build an impressive video library? Kaleidescape is too rich for my blood, DVD jukeboxes are too difficult to manage, and downloading movies to my computer isn’t really a living-room experience. So there’s the Apple TV, which recently began high-def movie rentals, not purchases, from major studios directly to the box. The Xbox 360 also allows paid download-to-own TV shows, some in high def, although all movies are rental only. And then there’s VUDU. The VUDU box is essentially a movie machine, a library on a hard disk drive inside a box. It’s an entertainment portal that sits quietly next to the TV until called into action.

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Media Server Reviews
SanDisk Sansa TakeTV Video Player
Chris Chiarella  |  May 04, 2008
Move your TV programs from computer to home theater at the speed of walking.

One of my favorite (to make fun of) bits of business-speak is the phrase “leveraging our core competency.” Not content to say, “We’re doing what we do best,” guys in suits spout this lofty verbiage to inspire confidence as they draw upon their unique strength and experience. As the creators of flash memory cards, SanDisk’s core competency has long been those tiny, solid-state wafers in ever-expanding capacities, manufactured in form factors to fit just about every digital device imaginable. They pushed their products in interesting new directions, with dedicated living-room devices that read from and even record to various cards (the SanDisk V-Mate, May 2007 HT). That’s in addition to their broad and popular line of portable MP3 players, with and without video. But with Apple ruling the roost in video-software downloads, and consumers clamoring to watch their digital videos in the comfort of the home theater, what’s next?

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Media Server Reviews
Alienware Hangar18 HD Entertainment Center
Chris Chiarella  |  Mar 24, 2008
It’s like a UFO landed between your sofa and TV.

You’ve seen me write in these pages about the allure of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system for PC, with its integrated Media Center application for serious next-generation living rooms. And you probably have one or more techy friends who extol the virtues of their multimedia PC, with its countless hours of stored music and video, TV recording, and the benefits of Internet access. But beyond custom-building your own rig or buying a traditional tower to stand next to your stylish A/V rack, how can you introduce a home-theater-friendly computer to your HDTV? Several manufacturers offer PCs with a form factor in the realm of traditional consumer electronics, namely a horizontal box with a remote control and a front-panel readout. The release of Alienware’s first such machine, the DHS-321, kicked off an evolution from that “digital home system” to their new high-definition entertainment center, code-named Hangar18.

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