Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Two LAPD homicide detectives, Will Dormer (Al Pcino) and Hap Eckhart (Martin Donovan), are dispatched to Nighmute, Alaska, to help the small town solve a murder of a teenage girl. While chasing a suspect (Robin Williams) through the fog, Dormer accidentally shoots his partner and blames the shooting on the suspected killer. There's only one problem, there was a witness who knows what really happened.

Christopher Nolan became a household name because of his Batman films, but film lovers have known about him due to his fabulous films like Momento, The Prestige, and to a lesser extent Insomnia. Here he weaves an interesting and suspenseful tale of a man attempting to cope with his guilt of killing his friend and a stressful bout of insomnia.

Show: 4.5
Picture/Sound: 3.5/3
Extras: 3

Movie: 4
Picture/Sound: 5/4.5
Extras: 2

Looking to cheer up one of their old friends (Rob Corddry) who just attempted suicide, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) take a road trip to a ski resort where they hung out in the 1980s. After a wild night of partying and hot tubbing, the quartet finds themselves transported back to 1986 and they must relive their experiences without causing a "butterfly effect."

Judd Apatow has ruined the typical Hollywood comedy with his sick sense of humor. Granted, he had nothing to do with this production, but it's a pure rip-off of his brand of humor that I personally don't find very funny. The language is so harsh a sailor would blush, there are multiple scenes with projectile vomiting, and too many crude sexual references befitting teenage boys and not grown men. It's pretty sad when the most mature member of the groups is actually a teenage boy.

An alcoholic movie star (James Mason) stumbles on stage when a young singer (Judy Garland) is performing. The kindness she shows him after the incident makes an impression on him and he convinces her to leave her band and take a shot to be a movie star. The two eventually marry and when her star shines brighter than his there's bound to be problems.

For the record, I generally like musicals but for some reason I couldn't get into this film. The dramatic elements are great, but just when things start to get interesting Garland will burst into an overlong and unmemorable song. At nearly three hours, the films pacing is severely challenged and I can see why Warner shortened it over 30 minutes for its theatrical run in 1954. The restored cut includes some still shots since the original footage was destroyed, but the studio found the original full-length audio tracks to make thing coherent.

Movie: 4
Picture/Sound: 3.5/4.5
Extras: 4