David Vaughn

David Vaughn | Oct 27, 2010

On its return trip to Earth, the Nostromo intercepts a distress call from a distant planet. The crew is awakened from cryo-sleep by the ship's computer and goes to the planet to investigate. It turns out the signal wasn't a call for help; it was a warning to stay clear. When one of the crew is attacked by an Alien lifeform, the other crew members have no idea what they've unleashed upon themselves by letting the man back on the ship.

In the excellent sequel Aliens, we catch up with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) after her harrowing escape in the first movie. Fifty-seven years have past when she's found floating in space in cryo-sleep and no one from "the company" believes her horrific tale of survival until all contact is lost with the colonists from planet LV-426, which is introduced in the first movie. Soon she finds herself headed back to the dreaded planet with a team of Marines to investigate.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The Pacific (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 25, 2010

Executive producers Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and Gary Goetzman, who brought us Band of Brothers, deliver another WWII masterpiece about the battles in the Pacific. The 10-part miniseries follows the true-life stories of Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale), John Basilone (Joe Mazello), and Eugene Sledge (Jon Seda) as they fight their way across the Pacific Theater from 1941 to 1945. It all starts with the horrific conflict of Guadalcanal, continues to Cape Gloucester and Peleliu, then to the famous combat at Iwo Jima, the terror of Okinawa, and finally their return home after V-J Day and how the mental scars of battle aren't easily forgotten.

Given its massive budget (estimated to be $195 million), I expected the battle scenes to rival those in Saving Private Ryan—which they do in their scope and visceral impact—but it's the psychological struggles of our three heroes that kept me riveted. Not only do they have to fight a relentless enemy in the Japanese, but they must cope with the elements—suffocating heat, malaria, tropical rainstorms—and somehow keep a grasp on their own humanity. If they're fortunate enough to survive and return home, how will they acclimate to the civilized world after spending four years in hell?

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Moulin Rouge (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 22, 2010

Satine (Nicole Kidman) is a seductive courtesan and star of a popular French nightclub that caters to society's decadent elite. When she unwittingly draws Christian (Ewan McGregor) into her spell, true love turns to tragedy.

Moulin Rouge is one of the most unique films of the 21st century featuring outstanding performances by the two leads, elaborate sets, and entertaining music and choreography. Kidman was rewarded with her first of two Oscar nominations (winning the following year for The Hours) and the film received seven additional nominations including Best Picture (winning two awards for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Costume Design). Sadly, writer/director Baz Luhrmann was snubbed for Best Director although I feel he was more than deserving.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Back to the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 20, 2010

Teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) is asked to help his friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) conduct a scientific experiment involving a time machine made out of a DeLorean. Before he knows it, he finds himself transported to 1955 and sets off a time-shattering chain reaction that can wipe out his future. Searching out the 1955 version of Doc, the pair has to figure out a way to fix the space-time continuum and get the teenager back to the future.

In Part II, Marty and Doc travel 30 years into the future in order to stop Marty's son from setting off a chain of events that will ruin the family's reputation. In the process of fixing the future, the pair inadvertently disrupts the space-time continuum (again) and need to travel back to 1955 in order to set things right.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Psycho: 50th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 18, 2010

A wayward traveler (Janet Leigh) comes upon the Bates Motel and makes the fatal decision of stopping for the evening and partaking in a shower. In one of the most memorable scenes in Hollywood history, she's sliced and diced by a mysterious psychopath (Anthony Perkins).

The Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, lulls his audience into a state of comfort throughout the first act of the film only to shock them with the famous shower scene and then slowly unwind the mystery over the last hour. I'm generally not a fan of horror films, but I've seen Psycho countless times over the years and Norman Bates still sends a chill down my spine. One thing's for sure, Hitchcock certainly knew how to keep an audience on the edge of their seat.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The Exorcist (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 16, 2010

A young and innocent girl, Regan (Linda Blair), undergoes a chilling metamorphosis as Satan invades her body. Her frantic mother (Ellen Burstyn) does her best to help, but the doctors and psychiatrists are perplexed by the child's physical and mental changes. Looking for any type of answer, she turns to a local church where poor Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller), who has his own doubts about his faith, calls on the services of Father Merrin (Max von Sydow) to perform an exorcism to expel Satan from the child.

I had reservations watching because I'm not a fan of scary movies and this is one of the scariest I've seen in my life. Blair does an outstanding job playing the possessed child and director William Friedkin definitely deserved his Oscar nomination.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Jonah Hex (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 14, 2010

A bounty hunter of last resort, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a battle-hardened gunslinger who can track down anything but is a man destined to be alone. When the U.S. military approaches him with an offer he can't refuse, he soon begins to track down and stop the sinister terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich).

While the story is loosely based on the DC Comics series, some of the changes made for the movie are too farfetched (conversing with the dead) and it's not very entertaining. Granted, there are plenty of explosions although the story lacks any depth and will insult your intelligence. Furthermore, the addition of Megan Fox as the love interest proves once again that the beautiful young woman can't act her way out of a paper bag, but she looks stunning in 1080p.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Splice (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 13, 2010

Clive (Adrian Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) specialize in splicing DNA from different animals to create new hybrids. In an attempt to revolutionize science and medicine, they're looking for a bigger challenge and want to use human DNA, but when their funding gets pulled, they secretly take the experiment underground.

Other than the unwelcome horror elements, Splice kept me mildly entertained with its thought provoking premise. One thing's for sure, don't screw around with Mother Nature unless you're willing to deal with the consequences of raising a most unusual being as your own.

Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Blu-ray)

David Vaughn | Oct 12, 2010

Two hard-luck drifters (Humphrey Bogart and Tim Holt) team up with an experienced gold prospector (Walter Huston) and venture into the Mexican wilderness in search of gold. As their pile starts to grow so does their greed and paranoia, especially for Dobbs (Bogart), who thinks everyone's out to steal his stash.

With his breakout performance in The Maltese Falcon, Bogart became one of Hollywood's good guys, which makes his performance here even more impressive. At the time, audiences were shocked and disturbed that Bogart would be cast as the bad guy, but it was Walter Huston's Oscar-winning role as the grizzled prospector that stole the show.

Media Server Reviews

Logitech Squeezebox Touch Media Server

David Vaughn | Oct 11, 2010

Performance
Features
Ergonomics
Value

Price: $300

At A Glance: Elegant touch-sensitive screen • Decodes multiple audio formats • Internet radio support • Integrates with Facebook and Flickr

Remember the days when you stacked hundreds, if not thousands, of CDs into towers or bookshelves so you could have your entire music collection at your fingertips? The CD player evolved from a single tray to a multi-disc changer that allowed up to 400 discs per unit, but you still had to find a place for all of those pesky cases. In 1999, the music world turned upside down when 18-year-old Shawn Fanning created Napster, and a new way of music delivery was born. Millions of people around the world digitized their music into MP3s, which compromised quality in favor of convenience. Fortunately, as computing power increased and storage became cheaper, audiophiles could store their digital music in a lossless format (FLAC, WMA Lossless, Apple Lossless, etc.) in order to preserve the integrity of the original recording. But with all of this music digitized, how do you listen to it in your home theater?

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