Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and actor/director Branagh's adaptation doesn't compromise any of the text. The result is a four hour marathon that virtually flies by, if you're a fan of Shakespeare. I had the pleasure of studying Hamlet three times throughout high school and college and was surprised how much of the text I remembered all these years later. Branagh transports the story from twelfth-century Denmark to the nineteenth, which may raise some eyebrows, but the result is magnificent given the lavish sets and all-star cast.

I love a good action move as much as the next guy and am willing to suspend a certain amount of belief, but director Joe Wright takes things a little too far. For starters, Ronan maybe weighs 105 pounds soaking wet yet has the strength to take down a plethora of Special Forces personnel and latch onto the bottom of a vehicle moving at over 30 mph. Furthermore, despite all of her training, she's like a fish out of water when she encounters electricity in the modern world.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hannahmontana.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>In 2007, teen sensation Miley Cyrus performed as herself and her alter ego, Hannah Montana, in the sold-out concert tour. Scalpers were selling individual tickets for over $1000 apiece, leaving thousands of kids out in the cold until Disney got the bright idea of filming the concert for an exclusive, limited-run theatrical 3D presentation. To my surprise, the theatrical concert raked in $31 million its first weekend and collected a cool $65 million in total.