Blu-ray Movie Reviews

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/410hidalgo.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Famed horseman Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo Mortenson) enters a grueling competition—"The Ocean of Fire"—with his mustang Hidalgo. Together, they must not only survive a 3000-mile race across the Arabian desert, but they must also prevail over competitors who will stop at nothing to win.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403coyote.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) moves to New York to pursue her dreams. Desperate and broke, the shy and innocent Violet is hired as a barmaid in one of the hottest nightclubs in the city&mdash;Coyote Ugly. The small-town girl is in for a wild adventure as she chases her dream in the Big Apple.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403irobot.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Based on the classic short stories of Isaac Asimov, <i>I, Robot</i> takes us to Chicago in the year 2035. Will Smith stars as detective Del Spooner, a technophobic cop who is called upon to investigate the mysterious suicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), the head of robot and cybernetic research for US Robotics. When Spooner starts to believe the cause of death is not a suicide, his prime suspect is Sonny (Alan Tudyk), a robot who might have found a way around the Three Laws of Robotics.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403unbreakable.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Bruce Willis stars as David Dunn, the sole survivor of a horrific train accident who escaped not only with his life, but without any injuries to speak of. Dunn's survival prompts a visit from Elijah Prince (Samuel L. Jackson), a crazed man who believes that David possesses superhuman strength and is a comic-book hero come to life.

Video: 4.5/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 2/5
Sean Penn has been impressing me more and more with both his roles in film and his efforts behind the camera. Into The Wild is a moving film about a young college graduate that decides to go off the radar and embark on an adventure across the country and into the wilds of Alaska. Along the way he makes friends and faces some interesting challenges in the wild. The film is based on true events and I must say it was quite inspiring in spirit. The photography is outstanding, as is the score and original songs by Pearl Jam front man Eddie Vedder. Newcomer Emile Hirsch also gives a stellar performance as the young traveler finding his place and living his dreams.

Video: 4.5/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 3.5/5
I completely avoided this one during its theatrical run due to the bad taste left in my mouth from the first AVP. The first film had a reasonably good premise, but I didn’t care for the execution. Surprisingly this follow up was far more satisfying, though still short of the original Alien and Predator franchises. The film picks up right where the last one left off with the predator/alien half-breed. The ship gets taken over by the new breed and crashes in the woods in Colorado. From there a small town is essentially taken over by the alien. Back on the Predator home world a warrior is sent out to deal with the issue and essentially becomes the primary source of hope for the small town. There are definitely points in this film where the cheese gets a bit much, but I thought the execution was a bit better this time around and fans of the franchise will probably find this a more satisfying addition.

Video: 5/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: N/A
Last year video guru Joe Kane released the first High Definition test disc to the market with Digital Video Essentials. We'd seen this release before on the short lived D-Theater format but this time around the disc offered a more intuitive menu structure and offered two resolutions for test material. Problem was; it was limited to HD DVD only. This new version is available in both HD DVD and Blu-ray and is slightly scaled down. Some of the more advanced test patterns that are good for display evaluation are missing but most of the patterns for display setup are all there. The disc has both 1080p and 720p content making it very adaptable for the two most popular screen resolutions on the market today. This new disc also features more in-depth instructions on the materials and their benefit on display playback. The menu is still a bit cumbersome at times and I wish they would have allowed for storage of some favorites similar to what we see with some HD DVD and Blu-ray releases that have a bookmark function. All of the familiar demonstration material is here from the previous editions as well.