Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 3.75/5
Extras: 4.5/5 Rodgers and Hammerstein's "South Pacific" is a towering musical masterpiece and the tender love story of a naive young Navy nurse and an older French Plantation owner on a U.S. occupied South Sea island.
Video: 5/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 2.5/5 Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke star as friends who grew up like brothers on the gritty streets of south Boston. They do whatever it takes to survive, living by the code of their dog-eat-dog neighborhood. Petty crimes and misdemeanors grow into more serious offenses and eventually, they fall under sway to organized crime boss Pat Kelly. As Brian becomes increasingly lost in a haze of drugs and 'jobs,' even the love he has for his wife and his children does not seem like it will be enough to redeem him. Meanwhile, Paulie plans "one last heist" but knows it will take both of them to pull it off. How can they escape the only life they know?
How Do I Know? Love my new Pioneer VSX-03TXH receiver. Love my new Sony BDP-S350 Blu-ray player. But how do I know if Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD Master Audio is working? I have changed settings on both units and actually read the manuals of both units. Pioneer's website has a picture of the receiver with TrueHD lit up on its front panel, but I have yet to see it on my front panel. My units are connected together only with an HDMI cable. Also, as knowledgeable as I am about home-theater stuff, what is PCM?
It's the perfect situation – a dedicated home theater and a completely separate room for critical music listening. One homeowner in Massachusetts was able to realize his dream of the 'perfect' audio system, and still provide the rest of the family with their own home theater.
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/day2008.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Based on the short story <i>Farewell to the Master</i> by Henry Bates, <i>The Day the Earth Stood Still</i> tries to modernize the 1951 classic with modern special effects and a new take on the story. Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) and his robot Gort emerge from a spaceship in Central Park, whereupon he's shot by a nervous soldier. Klaatu is then rushed to a military hospital for surgery, and once he's patched up, he is visited by the Secretary of Defense (Kathy Bates), who denies his request for a meeting with the UN. With the help of Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), Klaatu escapes, and the two end up spending the majority of their time together as all hell breaks loose.
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/despereaux.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>This animated tale is based on Kate DiCamilla's award-winning 2004 book about an unordinary mouse born with big ears and even bigger dreams. Banished from home because of his desire to be a knight, Despereaux (voiced by Matthew Broderick) sets off with Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) on a quest to rescue a princess (Emma Watson).
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/bedtime.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Skeeter Bronson (Adam Sandler) is a handyman at a hotel in Los Angeles. When asked by his sister Wendy (Courteney Cox) to baby-sit her two kids for a week, he spins tall-tale bedtime stories before putting them down for the night. Amazingly, the stories start to impact Skeeter's life in impossible ways, and his dream of running the hotel rests in the kid's imagination.
<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/yesman.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Three years after his divorce, Carl Allen (Jim Carrey) still has the blues and dreads going to work at his dead-end job as a loan officer. In order to get a new outlook on life, he attends a self-help seminar led by Terrence Bundley (Terence Stamp), who challenges people to say "yes" to everything. Miraculously, when Carl embraces this philosophy, events lead him to Allison (Zooey Deschanel), and his life takes a turn in the right direction.
At last year's CEDIA Expo, Sharp unveiled it's first LCD TV with LED backlighting and local dimming. Not only that, it's ultra-thin—about 1 inch at the top and side edges, thickening to 2 inches in the middle. The image it produced on the show floor was stunning, with deeper reds and darker blacks than most LCDs are capable of.