Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Video: 2
Audio: 2
Extras: 4
What’s amazing about watching this movie now is how trite it seems. From the car chase through San Francisco to Steve McQueen’s effortlessly cool lead as an insubordinate cop, it has all been done countless times. But what many people have forgotten is that this was the first time any of that had been done in any real way. The plot is almost inconsequential. This movie is about watching McQueen be the badass that he was—and one of the greatest car chases ever put on film.

Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 1
Before American Beauty and X-Men, there was Kevin Spacey in Bryan Singer’s The Usual Suspects. Easily one of the most engaging crime thrillers of modern film, The Usual Suspects brings you through a dope deal gone wrong, and what led to it, through the eyes of Roger “Verbal” Kint (Spacey). To go into further detail would be to ruin a fun ride with one of the most notorious reveals in cinema.

Video: 4
Audio: 5
Extras: 1
The biblical Babel is the place where God, frustrated yet again by man’s hubris and sin, chooses to scatter a united people and confuse their tongues so that they can no longer understand one another. It marks our division. Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu’s Babel serves to remind us of our commonality; despite those differences of language, culture, and geography, we are inherently united in our humanity—in the love, fear, jealousy, loneliness, and hope that drive us. The story begins when two Moroccans accidentally shoot an American tourist and set off a series of events that will reach as far as Mexico and Japan.

The Criterion Collection Movie •••• Picture •••• Sound •••½Extras ••••

The classic film-noir era of the 1

20th Century Fox Movie ••• Picture •••• Sound ••• Extras ••½

Ably assisted by Judi Dench and the wondrous

Universal Movie ••½Picture •••½Sound ••• Extras ••½

For Buddy "Aces" Isr

Video: 3
Audio: 4
Extras: 4
They made a Miami Vice movie with no pastel colors or Jan Hammer? I’m sorry, you lost me. At least there is a Ferrari (a gray one). Michael Mann fashioned this movie like his “gritty” past few movies, such as Heat and Collateral, enough so that it has very little in common with the TV show (at least the good years). Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell do passable jobs as Rico and Sonny, but they can’t save this movie. After 20 minutes, I had no idea what was going on, and not in the way that would make me want to watch more.