Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heat (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Nov 08, 2009

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/heat.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>An L.A. cop (Al Pacino) becomes fixated on a deadly thief (Robert De Niro) and his crew (Val Kilmer, Jon Voight) who are wreaking havoc on the streets of the city. When the cops and robbers clash outside a city bank, one of the most spectacular shootouts in film history takes place.

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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 ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heavy Metal
Chris Chiarella  |  May 20, 2022
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Adult-skewing animation wasn't a new genre by 1981 (thank you, Ralph Bakshi), but was the world at that time ready for Heavy Metal? Inspired by the illustrated fantasy publication of the same name, this R-rated feature film served up a disparate series of sex-and-violence-filled short stories, loosely held together by the presence of a deadly mystical sphere called the Loc-Nar. Since each issue was an anthology, with assorted tales from a variety of creators, the range of dramatic tones and visual styles here perfectly captures the spirit of the magazine.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
David Vaughn  |  Nov 10, 2008

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hellboyii.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>A ruthless leader (Luke Goss) defies his bloodline and awakens an unstoppable army of creatures to wage war with the human world. It's up to the planet's toughest, roughest superhero to battle the merciless dictator and his marauders. Along with his expanding team in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Development, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) battles the forces of darkness in the ultimate battle of good versus evil.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Chris Chiarella  |  Apr 28, 2017
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Anchored by a disquietingly reserved performance from star Michael Rooker (The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy), this Portrait is an artful character study of a very bad man. Loosely based upon documented events, Henry explores the unspeakable crimes of an unrepentant murderer, a dark soul whose bleak existence is punctuated by frequent acts of violence. And when he brings his particularly loathsome roommate into the fold, no one in Chicago is safe. The matter-of-fact dramatic style makes the instances of gore hit that much harder, and yet plot developments are sometimes revealed in clever, original ways.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Her
Anthony Chiarella  |  Jul 29, 2014
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One of our most visionary filmmakers, Spike Jonze delights in showing us the unexpected. In Her, his most daring script to date (he won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar), Jonze imagines a future in which romantic relationships no longer require two humans. Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), a writer of other peoples’ love letters, acquires a cutting-edge operating system. Possessed of artificial intelligence, his OS assumes the female persona “Samantha” (Scarlett Johansson), with whom Theodore falls in love. Phoenix is brilliant in what amounts to a one-man show, delivering a richly detailed character study of the dark, introverted geek. In many ways, Johansson has the more difficult task, portraying a new and constantly evolving being, who, lacking physical substance, must define herself through words alone.
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3D Blu-ray Movie ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
Hercules
Corey Gunnestad  |  Feb 19, 2015
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Life isn’t easy when you’re the bastard child of Zeus, father of all Gods, and your name happens to be Hercules. In ancient Greece, it was commonplace for the Gods to descend from Mount Olympus to fornicate with humans and leave mortal offspring in their wake. But Zeus’ infidelity incurred the vengeful wrath of his wife, Hera, who wanted to destroy his illegitimate progeny. When killing Hercules proved problematic, she instead did the next best thing and drove him to madness and the murder of his own wife and children. Remorse then prompted him to undertake his twelve impossible labors to purge himself of his crime.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Here's Your 2024 4K/Blu-ray Holiday Gift Guide!
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 27, 2024
Disc aficionados like us are stalwarts in the face of continued seismic shifts in the physical media landscape, so perhaps the greatest gift the studios can give us is another season filled with their finest offerings. The past few months have brought us some of the most enjoyable releases of the entire year, from back-breaking boxes and single-movie deep-dives to multimedia indulgences that defy simple explanation. So read on, dear collector/gift-giver, and be inspired.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hereafter (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Mar 21, 2011
A childhood illness gave George (Matt Damon) a unique ability to communicate with the deceased and the ability to lead a normal life vanished in the process. A French journalist Marie (Cecile de France) barely survives a horrific tsunami and for a brief moment enters the afterlife and begins to ask questions. Then there's young Marcus (Frankie and George McLaren), who loses his twin brother in an accident and he wonders where he's gone and if he can ever speak to him again. At some point, these three lives will intersect and set their lives on a better path.

Two time Oscar-winning director Clint Eastwood has brought us some outstanding films but his last two, Invictus and now Hereafter, haven't measured up to his better projects. While I wouldn't say this is a bad film by any stretch, but it's pacing is too slow and runs about 20 minutes too long. Overall I thought the topic was interesting and I felt for each of the characters.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hereditary
Al Griffin  |  Oct 26, 2018
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Like its sci-fi counterpart, the horror film genre is packed with “cult classics.” But there are only a few horror titles that can lay claim to “classic” film status. Universal Monsters films from the 1920s through the 1950s notwithstanding (see Boxes of Joy on page 28), my list is limited to The Shining, The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, Halloween, and Carrie.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heroes - Season Four (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Aug 03, 2010
The theme of the fourth and final season of Heroes is "Redemption." Our surviving Heroes mourn the passing of fallen friends and face a dangerous new foe (Robert Knepper), a carnival operator with a plan to gather those with special abilities and seek retribution against humanity.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The first season of Heroes was a critical and commercial success with an interesting premise, entertaining storylines, and compelling and likable characters. Unfortunately, the show lost its mojo along with its audience over the following three years. Maybe I'm a glutton for punishment, but I hung in there until the end hoping to recapture the magic of its first season, but sadly it never came. The writers didn't seem to have a long-term strategy they were following and went off on too many tangents. The fourth season showed some promise, but once again the show focused too much attention on Claire (Hayden Panettiere) and her relationship with her father (Jack Coleman) at the expense of the more interesting characters such as Hiro (Masi Oka) and Ando (James Kyson-Lee).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heroes Season One and Two
David Vaughn  |  Aug 29, 2008

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/heroes1.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Evolution is the process of change in all forms of life over generations. In <i>Heroes</i>, this process manifests itself in a random group of humans who start to develop superhuman powers. Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) has the ability to manipulate the spacetime continuum, Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) is unbreakable, and Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) can read people's minds. These are just a few of the characters we meet in season one as they battle the evil Sylar (Zachary Quinto), a serial killer with a unique superpower. Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia) is the only man capable of stopping Sylar's murderous plans as he struggles to control his own superpowers.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Heroes: Season 3 (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Sep 03, 2009  |  First Published: Sep 04, 2009

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/heroes3.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Due to the WGA (Writers Guild of America) strike in 2007, season two of <i>Heroes</i> included only 11 episodes, and its tepid start and hasty finale left fans with a glimmer of hope that the series would rediscover the mojo it had during its first season. One complaint was its season-long story arc frustrated viewers, so executive producer/creator Tim Kring decided to split the season into two parts, "Villains" and "Fugitives."

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hidalgo (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Apr 10, 2008

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/410hidalgo.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Famed horseman Frank T. Hopkins (Viggo Mortenson) enters a grueling competition—"The Ocean of Fire"—with his mustang Hidalgo. Together, they must not only survive a 3000-mile race across the Arabian desert, but they must also prevail over competitors who will stop at nothing to win.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hidden Figures
Chris Chiarella  |  Aug 11, 2017
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Return to a time when “computers” were exceptionally intelligent, hardworking human beings who crunched the daunting numbers needed to advance the space program. Sadly, this was also an era of rampant sexism in this country, as well as deeply rooted racism, especially in the South where the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was headquartered. In 1961, Russian dominance in outer space put NASA at the heart of the Cold War.
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