Kris Deering

Blu-ray Player Reviews
Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray Player
Kris Deering  |  Nov 17, 2008
Price: $400 At A Glance: Affordable BD-Live performance • Great DVD playback performance • Lacks multichannel analog audio support

More Blu for Your Budget

The BDP-S350 is Sony’s follow-up to the popular BDP-S300. One of the most inexpensive standalone players on the market, the BDP-S350 includes some great new features that the BDP-S300 design didn’t have. Sony overhauled its form factor, with a case that’s nearly half the size of the company’s earlier players. The player also employs a sleek new interface that uses Sony’s popular Xross Media Bar. While player prices have not headed farther south yet, the bang-for-the-buck factor is going up, as players at the lower end of the market add more essential features. Sony’s $400 player is BD-Live ready (firmware update pending), Bonus View PiP capable, and includes bitstream support for the next-gen lossless audio formats from Dolby and DTS.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Paris, Je T’aime—First Look (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.75/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 2/5
In "Paris Je T'aime", celebrated directors from around the world have come together to portray Paris in a way never before imagined. Made by a team of contributors as cosmopolitan as the city itself, this portrait of the city is as diverse as its creators' backgrounds and nationalities. With each director telling the story of an unusual encounter in one of the city's neighborhoods, the vignettes go beyond the 'postcard' view of Paris to portray aspects of the city rarely seen on the big screen.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Jewel of the Nile—20th Century Fox (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.75/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3/5
In the blockbuster "Romancing The Stone", novelist Joan Wilder and wanderer Jack Colton went sailing off into the sunset together. In this thrill-packed sequel, Ralph is back on their trail and they're back in the fast lane on a perilous trek through the fierce North African Desert. Not even treacherous tribes, deadly dungeons and seemingly endless villains can stop this trio from finding, once and for all, that mysterious "jewel".
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heathers—Anchor Bay (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 2.5/5
It made overnight stars of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, shocked film critics everywhere and became one of the biggest cult classics of the '80s. Twenty years later, "Heathers" remains the only brilliantly black comedy about peer pressure, malicious croquet and having a brain tumor for breakfast. At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jerk jocks dominate and the most popular girls are all named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and the mysterious and possibly psychotic new kid J.D. to give teen angst a body count.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hancock—Columbia Pictures (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3.5/5
Will Smith stars as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public. When Hancock grudgingly agrees to an extreme makeover from idealistic publicist Ray Embrey, his life and reputation rise from the ashes and all seems right again - until he meets a woman with similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Final Countdown—Blue Underground (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 2.5/5
The time is now. The place is aboard the U.S.S. Nimitz, America's mightiest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier on maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean. Suddenly, a freak electrical storm engulfs the ship and triggers the impossible: The Nimitz is hurtled back in time to December 6, 1941, mere hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. As the enemy fleet speeds towards Hawaii, the warship's Captain, a Defense Department expert, a maverick Air Wing Commander and a desperate Senator in the Roosevelt administration must choose between the unthinkable. Do they allow the Japanese to complete their murderous invasion or launch a massive counter-strike that will forever change the course of history?
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Christmas Story: Ultimate Collector’s Edition—Warner Bros. (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 3/5
Audio: 2/5
Extras: 3/5
The Christmas spirit isn't served up with more heartfelt warmth or observant hilarity that in this beloved adaptation of Jean Shepherd's holiday story. In 1940s Indiana, nine-year-old Ralphie dreams of his ideal Christmas gift: a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. But when gruff dad and doting mom regularly respond with "You'll shoot your eye out!" Ralphie mounts a full-scale, hint-dropping, Santa-begging campaign. He also endures all kinds of childhood calamities from snowsuit paralysis to the yellow-eyed Scotty Farkus affair to the dreaded tongue-on-a-frozen-flagpole gambit. We triple-dog-dare you to unwrap a more welcome Yuletide classic.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Shawshank Redemption—Warner Bros. (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4.25/5
Extras: 3.75/5
A prominent banker unjustly convicted of murder spends many years in the Shawshank prison. He is befriended by a convict who knows the ropes and helps him to cope with the frightening realities of prison life.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
The Polar Express 3-D—Warner Bros. (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 4/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 4/5
Get up, get on, and get ready for the ride of your life! It's Christmas Ever, and you're about to roller-coaster up and down mountains, slip-slide over ice fields, teeter across mile-high bridges and be served hot chocolate by singing waiters more astonishing than any you can imagine. You're on "The Polar Express!" "Seeing is believing," says a mysterious hobo who rides the rails with you. You'll see wonders... And you'll believe. All abooooooard.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Wall∙E—Walt Disney Pictures (Blu-ray)
Kris Deering  |  Nov 16, 2008
Video: 5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 4.5/5
After hundreds of lonely years of doing what he was built for, the curious and lovable "WALL-E" discovers a new purpose in life when he meets a sleek search robot named EVE. Join them and a hilarious cast of characters on a fantastic journey across the universe.
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