Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Bond is back, and he's a bad man. Yes, 007 has blond hair and blue eyes for the first time, but it's his character that takes on much darker tones here. His license to kill is his primary occupation, not a smart-ass tagline and Daniel Craig is almost feral under the cool veneer of James Bond. This remarkable and gritty new entry takes the series out of the realm of gadgets (no Q anywhere to be found) and special effects, and back into the realm of hard, breathtaking physical stunts, which is something director Martin Campbell, of <I>Mask of Zorro</I> fame, excels at. Even the theme song is grungy, being sung by former Soundgarden front man Chris Cornell. And it's exhilirating from the opening foot chase to the finale. Not only is Bond back, I can't wait for him to return!

Slightly campy, with oodles of gratuitous nudity and violence, writer-director Paul Schrader’s remake of the 1942 Val Lawton classic tells of Irena (Nastassja Kinski), a beautiful young woman who goes to New Orleans to stay with her sinister minister brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell). Irena represses her sexuality, fearing that animal lust will loose the beast and transform her—into a panther. When she falls in love, though, her desire makes her gradually embrace her nature.

When a former elite agent goes rogue with plans to unleash a device that will bring down her canine enemies, cats and dogs must join forces for the first time to prevent a global catastrophe.

My kids simply loved the original Cats and Dogs, especially my daughter, but no one in the family was particularly interested in watching this sequel due to bad word of mouth and uninteresting trailers. So when our expectations were extremely low and although it's flawed in numerous ways, there was enough laughter to keep us interested. My wife and I especially loved the references to other movies (any Bond film and Silence of the Lambs). The first act is horrible but if you resist the urge to eject the disc it get better as you get to know the characters.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/changeling.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>In 1928 Los Angeles, a single mother, Christina Collins (Angelina Jolie), leaves for work on a Saturday, leaving her 9-year-old son at home without any supervision. Upon her return home that night, he has vanished without a trace. Five months later, the LAPD inform her they've found her son in the Midwest and he's on his way home. Regrettably, the boy isn't her son, though the police refuse to believe her and are convinced she's just in shock. Driven by her quest for the truth, she exposes corruption in the LAPD and captivates the people of Los Angeles with her horrific tale.

Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau) doesn’t understand social media. So, when he attacks L.A.’s most powerful restaurant critic (Oliver Platt) on Twitter, their war goes viral and sinks Casper’s career. Hoping to repair the crestfallen chef’s relationship with son Percy, his loving ex-wife (Sofia Vergara) drags him to Miami. There, he buys a food truck and embarks upon a cross-country foodie road trip, which becomes a journey of self-discovery. In addition to his starring role, Favreau wrote, directed, and co-produced Chef, which probably explains why so many top stars agreed to work for scale on this indie film. The result is an intimate, endearing movie, which, with Twitter and food trucks prominently featured, is also quite timely.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/com.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>In the year 2027, the human race is on the brink of extinction due to mass infertility, and life on Earth has descended into chaos. Is Darwinism the culprit? Does the human race deserve to survive? Theo (Clive Owen), a dissatisfied government worker, becomes the unlikely potential savior of the species when he's asked by his former lover (Julianne Moore) to escort a miraculously pregnant girl out of the country to keep her safe.

Chinatown is an impossibly perfect movie from the glory years of the 1970s, when great filmmakers were routinely working within the Hollywood system. Consider that Chinatown’s 1974 Oscar competition was Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II and The Conversation, and you get the idea. Robert Towne’s complex but tightly woven screenplay, set amid L.A.’s 1930s water wars, is a clinic on screenwriting. Every detail is of great consequence as the misdirection peels away and the baser, more painful truths are revealed, culminating in a haunting, unforgettable ending that starkly reveals the cynicism of the film’s title.