Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Sort By:  Post Date TitlePublish Date
Shane Buettner  |  Jul 25, 2006  |  First Published: Jul 26, 2006

Before there was <I>Rocky</I> there was, in real life, James J. Braddock. Braddock was a respectable fighter and contender in the late 20's who fell on extremely hard times during the depression. He was reduced to poverty like so many millions of Americans and barely put food on this family's table between boxing and working the docks. In the mid-30's he went on the right winning streak at the right time, culminating in his capturing the heavyweight title in 1935. Offering some idea of what an underdog Braddock was in his title bout with Max Baer, he entered the ring that night with the very pedestrian record of 44 wins and 23 losses. The "Cinderella Man's" story inspired millions, not to mention the impact it's had on sports movies over the decades.

Shane Buettner  |  Jul 25, 2006  |  First Published: Jul 26, 2006

"It was whiskey done it, much as anything else." So says William Munny (Clint Eastwood), a man of notoriously vicious and mean disposition, when asked how he killed so many men so easily in his younger years. <I>Unforgiven</I> deconstructs the myth of the western gunman, a character Eastwood himself played to such great effect earlier in his career.
This is a bleak film to be sure, one in which the kindest characters are inflicted with the cruelest fates. In westerns we typically see some rough form of justice meted out by the gunman/hero, and we cheer when the bad guys "get what's coming to them." According to Eastwood's Munny, "we all have it comin."

Al Griffin  |  Jul 05, 2006

The New World (New Line; Movie •••½, Picture/Sound ••••, Extras •••), Terrence Malick's film about the fateful collision of English settlers with Native Americans in 1607, is short on dialogue and long on trippy shots of sunlight leaking through virgin forests.

Brandon Grafius  |  Jul 05, 2006
Paramount
Movie ••½Picture/Sound •••• Extras ••½
Another dystopian vision of the future, another ass-k
Ken Korman  |  Jul 05, 2006
Universal/DreamWorks
Movie ••• Picture/Sound •••• Extras •••½
Five Oscar nominations notwithstanding (including on
Ken Korman  |  Jul 05, 2006
MGM
Movie •••• Picture/Sound ••• Extras ••••
Director John Frankenheimer's last feature, from 1998, remains a near-perfec
Ken Korman  |  Jul 05, 2006
Warner
Movie •••½Picture/Sound •••½Extras •••½
First-time director Shane Black, writer of
Marc Horowitz  |  Jul 05, 2006
Warner
Movie •••½Picture/Sound ••• Extras ••½
George Clooney put on close to 30 pounds, grew an unruly
Marc Horowitz  |  Jul 05, 2006
Paramount
Movie ••• Picture/Sound ••••• Extras ••••
Event Horizon is a suspenseful and entertaining interstellar-hor
Mel Neuhaus  |  Jul 05, 2006

One was a gregarious actor who became a cultural icon. The other was an erudite, poetic soul hiding in a sadistic, foul-tempered drunk ... and arguably America's greatest director.

Rad Bennett  |  Jul 05, 2006
Sony
Series •••• Picture/Sound •••• Extras ••••
This pungent, funny/sad, character-driven show portrays New York City firemen
Rad Bennett  |  Jul 05, 2006
20th Century Fox
Series •••• Picture/Sound ••• Extras ••
Boston Legal is broadcast in high-def on ABC, where its det
Sol Louis Siegel  |  Jul 05, 2006
The Criterion Collection
Movie ••• Picture/Sound •••• Extras •••••
Orson Welles's 1955 attempt to create a European count
Tom Norton  |  Jun 17, 2006

In these still early days of HD DVD, it's a little creepy that three of the releases have been films about bad cops: <I>Assault on Precinct 13</I>, <I>Training Day</I> (see below) and now <I>16 Blocks</I>.

Tom Norton  |  Jun 17, 2006

<I>Training Day</I> is about a bad cop. A very bad cop who has convinced himself that if he can do good in questionable ways and get a little action on the side for himself (not to mention for a few bad cop buddies), that’s the name of the game. When it comes to breaking in a rookie, however, he gets more than he bargained for.

Pages

X