David Vaughn

Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Greenberg (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jul 15, 2010
After suffering a nervous breakdown, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) house sits for his brother in Los Angeles and tries to reconnect with some old friends. Along the way he falls for his brother's personal assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), whose screwed-up life seems normal compared to Roger's.

This has to be one of the dullest movies I've seen in years. I give director Noah Baumbach props for creating a strikingly realistic world and coaxing strong performances out of Stiller and Gerwig, but the glacial pacing, meandering script, and constant whining by the characters tried my patience.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Insomnia (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jul 15, 2010
Two LAPD homicide detectives, Will Dormer (Al Pcino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), are dispatched to Nighmute, Alaska, to help the small town solve a murder of a teenage girl. While chasing a suspect (Robin Williams) through the fog, Dormer accidentally shoots his partner and blames the shooting on the suspected killer. There's only one problem, there was a witness who knows what really happened.

Christopher Nolan became a household name because of his Batman films, but film lovers have known about him due to his fabulous films like Momento, The Prestige, and to a lesser extent Insomnia. Here he weaves an interesting and suspenseful tale of a man attempting to cope with his guilt of killing his friend and a stressful bout of insomnia.

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Blu-ray Player Reviews
LG BD590 Blu-ray Player
David Vaughn  |  Jul 12, 2010
toppick.jpgPrice: $430 At A Glance: Fast loading of Blu-ray Discs • 250-GB built-in hard drive • 802.11n Wi-Fi • VUDU HDX streaming • CinemaNow • Netflix

More Than Just a Disc Player

LG Electronics has proven itself to be the most innovative manufacturer of Blu-ray players in the world. It was first to market with an HD DVD/Bluray Disc combo player (BH100), a player with Netflix streaming (BD300), and a player with 802.11n Wi-Fi (BD390). To continue its string of firsts, LG’s BD590 is the first standalone Blu-ray player to include a builtin 250-gigabyte hard drive. It provides storage for BD-Live interactivity and can store movies purchased from VUDU, plus you can rip your favorite CDs for easy access. The player also lets you access Gracenote’s vast database of movie and music metadata. You can look up information by pushing a button on the remote. Let’s take a look and see how the BD590 stacks up to LG’s previous efforts.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hot Tub Time Machine (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jul 02, 2010
Looking to cheer up one of their old friends (Rob Corddry) who just attempted suicide, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) take a road trip to a ski resort where they hung out in the 1980s. After a wild night of partying and hot tubbing, the quartet finds themselves transported back to 1986 and they must relive their experiences without causing a "butterfly effect."

Judd Apatow has ruined the typical Hollywood comedy with his sick sense of humor. Granted, he had nothing to do with this production, but it's a pure rip-off of his brand of humor that I personally don't find very funny. The language is so harsh a sailor would blush, there are multiple scenes with projectile vomiting, and too many crude sexual references befitting teenage boys and not grown men. It's pretty sad when the most mature member of the groups is actually a teenage boy.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Predator - Ultimate Hunter Edition (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jul 02, 2010
When the US loses a diplomat over enemy lines, Dutch (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and his covert military team are sent to find them and get out of dodge without being detected. Once on the scene, they find some special forces personnel skinned alive and wonder who or what could have done it.

The 1980s had its share of sci-fi/horror classics and Predator is one of the best and spawned a number of sequels including the upcoming theatrical release of Predators. Schwarzenegger is outstanding as the action hero and director John McTiernan takes a promising concept and delivers the goods with plenty of action and intensity.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Star is Born (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 29, 2010
An alcoholic movie star (James Mason) stumbles on stage when a young singer (Judy Garland) is performing. The kindness she shows him after the incident makes an impression on him and he convinces her to leave her band and take a shot to be a movie star. The two eventually marry and when her star shines brighter than his there's bound to be problems.

For the record, I generally like musicals but for some reason I couldn't get into this film. The dramatic elements are great, but just when things start to get interesting Garland will burst into an overlong and unmemorable song. At nearly three hours, the films pacing is severely challenged and I can see why Warner shortened it over 30 minutes for its theatrical run in 1954. The restored cut includes some still shots since the original footage was destroyed, but the studio found the original full-length audio tracks to make thing coherent.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
She's Out of My League (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 22, 2010
Kirk (Jay Baruches) is a dorky underachiever who through a stroke of fate winds up dating the beautiful and successful Molly (Alice Eve). Now that he's got the girl he has to contend with his own insecurities as his friends and family barrage him negative feedback about his love life.

What a major disappointment and missed opportunity by screenwriters Sean Anders and John Morris. The two leads have genuine chemistry and are so likeable although the supporting roles are so sophomoric and crude any connection to the love story is thrown out the window with a constant barrage of F-bombs. Kirk's friends are a group of losers who don't deserve his friendship and even worse, Molly's best friend Patty (Kristen Ritter) is so crude she could make a sailor blush.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Riverworld (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 22, 2010
After being killed by a suicide bomber in an overseas nightclub, Matt (Tahmoh Penikett) awakes on a mysterious planet populated by other resurrected Earthlings from across history. Determined to find the woman he loves (Laura Vandervoort), he joins forces with a 13th century female warrior (Jeananne Goossen) and riverboat captain Mark Twain (Mark Deklin) as they travel the mysterious waterways of the planet in search of lost love and some answers about the peculiar planet.

Based on a series of novels written by Phillip Jose Farmer, Riverworld had the potential to be a very entertaining sci-fi show. Sadly the excellent first act is wasted with a meandering story that drags through its nearly three-hour runtime. By the final hour I was bored with the characters and couldn't wait for the predictable ending to finally arrive.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Green Zone (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 22, 2010
Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is a U.S. Army officer deployed in Iraq in the early stages of the war who's searching for WMD (weapons of mass destruction). When every search turns-up empty, he begins to questions the veracity of the "solid" intelligence provided by his superiors and goes off the reservation with the help of a CIA operative.

Damon reteams with director Paul Greengrass in this disappointing retelling of the Iraq war. The film is well shot, acted, and edited, but the screenplay is so heavy-handed in its political message it was hard to take seriously.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Darkman (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jun 15, 2010

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/darkman.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>While working one night to perfect his invention of artificial skin, scientist Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is horribly disfigured when an explosion engulfs his lab. Barely alive, he takes some experimental medication leaving him with super-strong strength and immunity to pain, although he's prone to fits of uncontrollable rage. He proceeds to rebuild his lab in an underground hideout and seek revenge against the men responsible for his disfigurement.

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