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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Lawless
Corey Gunnestad  |  May 29, 2013
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Making a living during the Great Depression carried with it certain necessities. For three orphaned brothers living in the backwoods of rural Virginia in the early 1930s, making moonshine and selling it to the locals was a very profitable but dangerous business. The fundamental rule of mob warfare applied there, too: If you want to live to enjoy the spoils, you have to have the balls and the will to do what the other guy won’t.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heaven's Gate
Shane Buettner  |  May 29, 2013
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Released before home video could be counted on to save a studio’s bottom line on just about any flop, 1980’s Heaven’s Gate is one of the all-time box-office bombs. Back then, disasters like this took down careers, and few falls were faster or farther than director Michael Cimino’s, who made this notoriously expensive Western as his follow-up to the Oscar-winning juggernaut The Deer Hunter. His career never recovered, and Heaven’s Gate almost single-handedly ended the reign of the director within the Hollywood studio system that produced so many great auteur films in the 1970s.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Up
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 29, 2013
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Threatened with eviction from his lifelong home, Carl Fredrickson cuts loose in an unexpected way and sets off on a journey to the South American wilderness he and his late wife had long yearned to visit. Along the way, he picks up a few unwelcome (at first) fellow travelers: Russell, an 8-year-old Wilderness Explorer; Kevin, a rare bird and a key plot McGuffin; and Dug, a talking dog. Carl also runs into his boyhood idol, explorer Charles Muntz, who turns out to be less of a hero than he had long imagined.
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Bluetooth Speaker Reviews
Review: Native Union Switch
Brent Butterworth  |  May 28, 2013

Hey, who decided we should adjust volume by pushing buttons instead of turning a knob? Whether you have to push the button repeatedly, or push, hold, and wait to hit the right volume, is that really easier than twisting a knob? No, it's not. Unfortunately, I know of only one Bluetooth speaker maker who realizes this: Native Union.

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This Week
This Week in Movies & TV, May 28, 2013: Epic Curious
Josef Krebs  |  May 28, 2013

Cleopatra

For its 50th anniversary - along with the hoopla of a Cannes Film Festival re-release, a limited theatrical engagement in more than 200 theaters, and Richard Burton's posthumously receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame next to Elizabeth Taylor's - Cleopatra has been newly digitally restored in a 243-minute original theatrical cut.

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This Week
This Week in Music, May 28, 2013: Rollin’ with proud Fogerty
Ken Richardson  |  May 28, 2013

John Fogerty: Wrote a Song for Everyone

New release (Vanguard)
Photo by Nela Koenig

Dusting off old songs, a veteran rocker teams up with (mostly) younger musicians for duets: Often, this can be a recipe for tedium, if not disaster. So it’s a joy to report that John Fogerty’s Wrote a Song for Everyone is among the best of such tributes.

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The S&V Interview
Steve Wynn on "Marquee Moon" by Television
Mike Mettler  |  May 28, 2013

Steve Wynn was right there at the forefront when the alternative music scene exploded in the '80s. As a member of The Dream Syndicate, Wynn helped usher in the movement known as The Paisley Underground.

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Audio Video News
Vizio Announces M-Series Razor Line of LED-Based LCD Smart TVs
HT Staff  |  May 28, 2013
Vizio is shipping its M-Series Razor line of LED-based LCD smart TVs offering nine 1080p models in screen sizes between 32 and 80 inches. Available at Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart, the models feature a “near borderless” frame design with a metallic finish, a metal base and neck for added stability, and onboard apps via Vizio’s improved Internet Apps Plus feature.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Django Unchained
Chris Chiarella  |  May 27, 2013
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The antebellum South returned to modern screens by way of ’60s/’70s-style Blaxploitation in Quentin Tarantino’s electric Django Unchained. A surprisingly good-hearted, forward-thinking bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz, Oscar'd again here) purchases and frees the slave of the title (Jamie Foxx) in exchange for his help in tracking down three big-ticket wanted men.
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Track One
Tom Petty Works His Mojo at the Beacon Theatre
Mike Mettler  |  May 26, 2013

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers worked all kinds of magic at the Beacon Theatre in New York City this past week, culminating in a raucous 140-minute long set on Sunday, May 26.

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