Stop Making Sense: 25th Anniversary Blu-ray Disc Review

“And you may ask yourself– Well…how did I get here?”

As incredibly invigorating as it was upon its initial release in 1984, the Talking Heads’ concert film Stop Making Sense is still unlike any concert film made and yet it continues to influence the genre, becoming the singular totem of 80s-era music on film. Though there are plenty of other concert films that may rank higher in historical importance (Woodstock, Gimmie Shelter, The Last Waltz, to name but a few) as cultural touchstones for a generation, the Talking Heads concert, impeccably filmed in an unobtrusive manner by Jonathan Demme (though fully conceived by the Talking Heads) ranks far above them all in terms of cinematic importance as a pure document of rock n’ roll energy that transcends itself to become performance art. Full Story

Blu-Ray Review: A River Runs Through It

A true favorite of mine arrived on Blu-ray over the summer, and I recently took some time away from my own fly fishing excursions to sit down with Robert Redford’s meditative masterpiece, A River Runs Through It. Full Story

Blu-ray review: Coraline 2D/3D

Neil Gaiman is often viewed as a downright genius with a knack for good, dark fantasy stories with intriguing characters … That, many of us already know.  His fantastic comic book works and adult fiction rank him with the best of today’s pop-literary artists, and yet some of his best writing of all is that which is intended for children (though with a certain adult sensibility).  Put him together with the right type of visual artists and you get collaborative efforts that seem absolutely inspired, utilizing the best of Gaiman’s satiric wit and surreal sensibilities.  With Henry Selick’s take on Gaiman’s Coraline, the dark magic of Gaiman’s creation is given a less realistic look with a whimsical spin… but Gaiman’s own, unique vision is still evident throughout.  The Blu-ray and DVD releases are astounding, but only the Blu-ray edition (in both 2-D/3-D) truly captures the visual marvel of Selick’s colorful set design and his unique stop-motion puppets. Full Story

PlayStation3 Slim Review: Part III

The Sony PlayStation Store is not only a place for games (as described in Part II of my PS3 Slim review) but also for movies and television shows.  Unlike Neflix’s all-you-can-watch-out-of-our-existing-streaming-library plan, which mostly offers a standard-def video experience on par with VHS playback or computer-quality streaming (lots of big fat pixels here n’ there, colors that bleed and an image that’s generally muddy), PlayStation Store patrons have a wider choice of true standard-def DVD quality or HD-quality films. Full Story

Review: Playstation 3 Slim (Part II: Setup)

Part II…  Account Setup and the PlayStation Network Experience: Games.

Took about a week, but after much playing around with the new PS3 Slim, I can say it more lives up to the hype of Sony’s marketing and has much potential to truly be an “everything” device as advertised.  The PS3 also acts as a bridge between the 1080p high-density/high-definition Blu-ray format and Video-On-Demand, an intangible format that downloads a variety of media for your viewing and listening pleasure (and while not all titles are yet in 1080P HD, it won’t be long before they will be). Full Story

Review: Playstation 3 Slim (Part I: Setup)

We recently decided to update our reference Blu-ray player to the new PlayStation 3 Slim (120 GB) model that came out over the late summer months. Ours arrived from Amazon.com and the box was almost tripped over in the hectic office we call home. Full Story

Blu-ray Review…The Spirit

Pity Frank Miller’s second feature directorial effort: “The Spirit” pretty much sank and stank in terms of box office returns and critical/public reception, but the film isn’t nearly as bad as you might have heard… it’s not “Catwoman” bad. Though it looks as slick as “Sin City” (which Miller co-directed) and “300,” it never attempts to rise beyond the level of been-there-done-that mediocrity. Miller has essentially done a goof on the silly, scattershot style showcased in the celebrated Will Eisner comic, and yet the film isn’t nearly as fun as it could have been, barely sustaining its momentum due to wooden acting from the lead talent involved and uninteresting plot. Full Story

Black Snake Moan: Blu-ray Movie Review

Black Snake Moan
(Paramount)
Featuring: Samuel L. Jackson, Christina “Exploit Me” Ricci, Justin Timberlake and Kim Richards

This lurid title, redolent of the old miscegenation fallacies of the old American South is actually a morality tale whose title is taken from a blues song written in 1927 by Blind Lemon Jefferson. Other than that, this tale of a sex-addicted young woman named Rae (Ricci, in an shockingly immersive performance) and the religious ol’ bluesman who helps her find herself and overcome her mean demons, is a familiar yet off-beat redemption story told with originality and dramatic heft by the seasoned performers. Director Craig Brewer, of Hustle & Flow fame, continues to fuse his Southern Gothic influenced storytelling sensibilities with gritty, contemporary plotting to come up with engrossing stories that often had me rooting for folks that normally I wouldn’t give an iota of care about. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: IMAX: Blue Planet

IMAX: Blue Planet (Warner)
Featuring: The Beautiful Planet Earth

Imagine being a visitor from another planet (go ahead, imagine it!)… your approach to Planet Earth would be breathtaking in its scope as the small fuzzy blue dot becomes a blue-green and white sphere where obvious weather activity is taking place, but on closer inspection… wait! there seems to be spectacular changes taking place right before your eyes. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: The Untouchables Special Collector’s Edition

The Untouchables: Special Collector’s Edition (Paramount)
Features: Kevin Costner, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith, Andy Garcia and Robert De Niro

Pure entertainment of the first order! The Untouchables (Special Collector’s Edition), Brian DePlama and David Mamet’s film version of the old early 60’s TV show (and based on the real-life exploits of Bureau of Prohibition Agent Eliot Ness), is a completely re-watchable movie from start to finish. Well written by Mamet, it features lots of quotable dialog and memorable sequences staged so brilliantly by Brian DePlama as to overshadow much of his earlier, Hitchcock-style, suspense films. Two of the most well-known sequences, the meeting where Al Capone plays baseball with the noggin of one of his mob “employees,” and DePalma’s tension-filled Union Station homage to Sergei Eisenstein’s “Odessa Steps” sequence from the 1925 epic Battleship Potemkin are amazing in the way they play with audience expectations and the utter audacity with which they’re staged. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Movie Review: The Patriot: Extended

The Patriot: The Extended Cut (Sony)
Features: Mel Gibson, Heath Ledger, Joely Richardson, Chris Cooper, Tom Wilkinson and Jason Isaacs

Based, extremely loosely, on the exploits of the Revolutionary War veteran Francis Marion (aka “The Swamp Fox”), this tale of a father’s love for his sons and his country plays with history the way a child plays with Legos… building whatever comes to mind regardless of what the factual directions say must be built. As historical action movies go, this Roland Emmerich film (his follow-up to the fairly awful Godzilla) is a fairly slick affair on par with the best of Edward Zwick’s historical film output. Centering on the father/son relationship between Benjamin Martin (Gibson), a musket-to-plowshares veteran of the French and Indian Wars, and his headstrong coming-of-age son, Gabriel (Ledger), The Patriot takes very little time in establishing the characters in the period of the American Revolution before plunging Martin’s large family into despair as the violence of war comes to their town in South Carolina. While his father knows of the brutality and misery of war, Gabriel feels it’s his duty to join the Continental Army and fight for freedom against the British… of course, things go awry as the prodigal son returns home bringing trouble with him. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: Bridge to Terebithia

Bridge to Terebithia (Buena Vista)
Featuring: Josh Hutcherson, Robert Patrick, AnnaSophia Robb, and Zooey Deschanel

Fantasy and reality collide in this second, bigger-budgeted film adaptation of the classic Katherine Paterson children’s novel. The story, updated to the 21st century’s pop-culture aesthetic hardly takes any real liberties with the book and instead stays faithful to it— not only in essence, but throughout scene after detailed scene. The child performers (Hutcherson and Robb) are wonderful, and miraculously the film doesn’t pretend all adults are insipid villains ready to make children’s lives miserable, rather each character comes across as genuine, especially when tragedy occurs and must be faced and dealt with. In his first live-action film, Gabor Csupo (of Klasky-Csupo animation studios), acquits himself well… making the film a fantasy with a firm footing in everyday reality, making the characters rounded and sympathetic, while creating a believable child’s world view of conflict resolution and grief. It’s a wonderful family film that doesn’t rely as heavily on CGI elements to tell its tale. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: ‘Blood Diamond’

Blood Diamond (Warner)
Featuring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Djimon Hounsou, Jennifer Connelly, Arnold Vosloo and Michael Sheen

The movie that the De Beers company loves to hate, Blood Diamond actually received less mainstream press than I thought it would upon its premier last year. I figure most of the outrage against “blood” or conflict diamonds has already been generated from years of media reports covering the West African conflicts and South African profiteering that occurred during the 1990’s and eventually ended up in a process for ferreting out illegal diamonds mined out of war zones in order to illegally finance insurgent forces and their respective warlords. This process, called the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (with “Scheme” sounding kinda sketchy, don’tcha think?) is supposed to create transparencies in the diamond trade and make those declaring their effusive love each other feel good about putting a high-grade, 4-C rock on the ol’ ring-finger. And that, with the development of character archtypes we care about, is basically the plot for this earnest film that offers plenty of bloody action for the gung-ho and grim reminders for the socially conscious. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: Flatliners

Flatliners (Sony)
Features: Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin “to the ‘nth degree!” Bacon, and William Baldwin

I’ve never been a huge fan of director Joel Schumacher’s films, but I’m not one of those who slams the fella for either his overly slick visual style, which is so easily marketed by the studios, nor his homosexuality (casually linked and often attacked by those that don’t like his films… see comments via the web for that cinematic debacle known as Batman & Robin bunch, a director of note. Those so-called “… nipples on the Batsuit notwithstanding, the Batman/Boy Wonder partnership was always kinda gay to begin with). Full Story

Blu-ray Disc/HD DVD Movie Review: The Fountain

The Fountain, now available on both Blu-ray disc and HD DVD. This sci-fi film was directed by Darren Aronofsky, and stars Hugh Jackman, Rachel “Hottie” Weisz, Ellen Burstyn. Read this week’s hi def movie review from Scanlines.

The Fountain (Warner) (Blu-ray)
Featuring: Hugh Jackman, Rachel “Hottie” Weisz, Ellen Burstyn Full Story

Hi Def Movie Review: Planet Earth: The Complete Collection

Planet Earth: The Complete Collection (BBC) (Blu-ray)
Featuring: Original narration by Sir David Attenborough

Folks, I’ll put it plain and simple: THIS IS WHAT HIGH DEFINITION HOME THEATER SYSTEMS WERE MADE FOR! Run out now for Tuesday’s dual release in Blu-ray and HD DVD and plunk down the $50+ bucks you’ll find it for at most retailers, then run home and pop in the first disc in this collection and be simply astounded by the breathtaking detail and jaw-dropping clarity of this acclaimed production. This is the full, 11-part BBC series and not the Discovery Channel version that aired in the US with narration by Sigourney Weaver (which was widely panned despite the visual brilliance), rather this is the more thorough version that aired in Britain and Europe with each episode ends with 10-minute Planet Earth Diaries and includes 90 minutes not shown on the Discovery Channel version as well as a bonus movie: The Dream Is Alive. Full Story

Blu-ray Movie Releases April 24, 2007

April 24, 2007. This week’s blu-ray movie review includes the following releases: Deja Vu, Failure to Launch, Night at the Museum, Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series, Secret Window, The Queen, and the Ultimate Avengers Collection. Full Story

Word from the Street: Mar. 27, 2007

This week’s hi def releases include: The Pursuit of Happyness, Happy Feet, March of the Penguins, Children of Men, National Geographic: Relentless Enemies, Incubus: Alive at Red Rocks, and Warriors of Heaven & Earth. Full Story

Blu-ray Disc Review: Casino Royal

Casino Royale [Blu-ray]
from Sony Pictures
Featuring: Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Mads Mikkelsen, and Judi Dench

There’s no doubt about it, James Bond, the venerable double-aught-seven himself, needed a serious make-over. What once worked (surprisingly well) for a jet-setting 60’s crowd of post-Camelot cold-warriors no longer worked for a generation too ADD-addled for the absurd, escapist action and too edgy, even cynical, for they type of tongue-in-cheek ribaldry and blatant sexism that was often present in their parent’s (and grandparent’s!) vision of Ian Fleming’s super spy. Full Story

Word From the Street: March 13, 2007

First, a major correction: Last week’s blog stated that a certain series of Blu-ray releases were slated for last week, March 6th. Apparently, my spell checker doesn’t check for stupidity, so that got sent out and published, and of course, the date should have been March 13th. I also forgot to add ” The Holiday” to that week’s release schedule (well, I argue, it’s a forgettable film). Please ignore the idiot behind the curtain… he means well, and is housebroken, but apparently his editor doesn’t parse his material, so there. Full Story