Blu-ray Movie Reviews

A dangerous crime wave hits the beach as legendary Lt. Mitch Buchannon leads his squad of lifeguards on a mission to prove you don’t have to wear a badge to save the day—despite being told to keep away from the trouble by both the police and his boss. Along for the ride are a trio of new recruits including former Olympian Matt Brody, who made the cut because of the positive PR he will bring to the team. To find the mastermind, the team must break some rules, go undercover, and put their careers in jeopardy to keep the beach safe from nefarious business interests.

Ridley Scott’s stunning dystopian allegory about the meaning of life, where technology ends and humanity begins, Blade Runner—from the Philip K. Dick cyberpunk novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?—draws from many influences. Perhaps the strongest are the classic Fritz Lang film Metropolis and the Heavy Metal sci-fi magazines of the 1970s. The story follows gruff lawman Deckard (Harrison Ford) chasing androids called “replicants” that are nearly indistinguishable from humans.

Shot on a budget of $5 million, acquired for $12 million, and promoted with a $20-million marketing budget, The Big Sick grossed $50 million worldwide and claimed much acclaim. For me, The Big Sick initially came across as The Big Suck, but on a second, more sobering screening, it made sense, building from the characters’ youthful shallowness to emotional growth into something like near-human depth.

When I first saw Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon, as a college student, I was bored and, beyond that, puzzled: such a static set piece from the maker of Dr. Strangelove, 2001, and A Clockwork Orange. I wasn’t alone: Box office was middlin’, critics were mixed. The film now strikes me as a masterpiece, although a demanding one, as many masterpieces are. Based on Thackeray’s mid-19th-century novel about the rise and fall of an Irish upstart seeking to connive his way into British high society, it’s a string of gorgeous pictures, as gorgeous as many paintings in a museum, and Kubrick modeled many shots on paintings by Hogarth, Gainsborough, and other artists of the era.

I typically tend to bash films that rely on hackneyed plot devices and laughably implausible action sequences, and Disney’s latest escapade in their beleaguered Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is guilty on all charges. The entire series has anchored its plot lines to a host of supernatural elements like cursed pirates, leviathan sea monsters, and homicidal mermaids.

Captured in 1943, a battalion of British soldiers is forced to work as slave labor to build a bridge for the Japanese over the River Kwai. The sadistic POW commander, Col. Saito, insists the British officers work alongside the enlisted personnel against the bylaws of the Geneva Convention. The British officer, Col. Nicholson, brings this to the attention of Saito, who promptly puts him in the “hot box” until he changes his tune. Nicholson refuses to back down, and a battle of wills ensues. Saito eventually realizes he’s fighting a losing battle and must find a way to inspire the prisoners to work faster, and Nicholson is the key to getting the bridge built on time.