Blu-ray Movie Reviews

The Criterion Collection Movie ••• Picture •••½Sound ••• Extras ••

Despite its B-movie story and overreli

Video: 3
Audio: 4
Extras: 3
Amazingly, the first time I saw this movie was just a few months ago. What can I say? I’m a Batman kind of guy. Superman is campier than many of the more serious comic-book adaptations of late, but, compared with other comic-book movies of the time (and for many years after), it’s downright somber. It holds up well and is still the quintessential Superman movie. Covering the last days of Krypton to the time when Superman saves Earth from a toupeed Gene Hackman, it’s quite a film. It’s not least recognizable for its excellent score, which earned John Williams one of his 4,383 Oscar nominations.

20th Century Fox Movie •••• Picture •• Sound ••½Extras •••

In his first film, Borat, the perpetu

Warner Movie ••• Picture •••• Sound •••• Extras •••½

Although director Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai

<I>The Matador</I> is an off kilter comedy that works by expertly playing on the audience's expectations without being overly manipulative. Erstwhile 007 Pierce Brosnan plays the the low down and dirty version of JB, a hit man for hire with very bad people skills. He's coming to the end of his run at the top, and has enough money to retire, but nothing or no one to retire to, not a single friend or any other human connection. While on a job in Mexico he runs into Danny, played by Greg Kinnear, who's also in town on a business trip, albeit ina different line of work! The two strike up as mcuh of a friendship as Brosnan's Julian allows, and inevitably when Julian's bosses decide he's more of a lliability than an asset Kinnear's Danny is the only friend he can turn to for help.

Got your blanket with you? I have barely a passing familiarity with Douglas Adams' <I>Hitchhiker's</I> series of books. So passing that I actually thought it was a single book, and only found out that it was first a radio creation and then a series of books, TV shows, and other media creations when I read the Wikipdia entry before writing this.