Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Horrible Bosses
David Vaughn  |  Oct 12, 2011  |  0 comments
Three friends, Nick (Jason Bateman, Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), and Dales (Charlie Day), are slaving away at their jobs in Los Angeles and have one thing in common; they each have horrible bosses. One night they hatch a foolproof plan to murder them and hire an ex-con (Jamie Foxx) as an adviser. Well, he isn't what they expected and their foolproof plan has a very likely chance to get them thrown behind bars for the rest of their lives.

At some point in your life, you're going to end up with a horrible boss. In fact, I've been unfortunate enough to have a few of them over the years. But as bad as things were, I never once contemplated murder (torture, maybe, but never murder!). Anyway, I found this movie to be mostly entertaining for the first two acts and I actually felt a little something for the characters. Sadly, the third act falls apart with childish antics and plenty of foul language.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hot Fuzz
David Vaughn  |  Sep 16, 2009  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hotfuzz.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Simon Pegg's and Edgar Writt's ode to buddy-cop films was one of the best-looking HD DVDs ever released, and Universal has actually improved things on Blu-ray. Both VC-1 encodes are flawless, but the audio is improved with a kick-ass DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack on the Blu-ray version. The surround channels are extremely active, the bass rocks, and the dialog sounds as if the actors are sitting in the room.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Sep 16, 2009  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hotfuzz.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>London police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is too good for his own good. His arrest record is tops in the department, which makes everyone else look bad, so his supervisor arranges a promotion and he's transferred to Sanford, a small, quiet town in the country. The crime rate is very low, but something is amiss because there are so many fatal accidents, so Nicholas and his bumbling new partner Danny (Nick Frost) are on the case.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hot Tub Time Machine (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jul 02, 2010  |  0 comments
Looking to cheer up one of their old friends (Rob Corddry) who just attempted suicide, Adam (John Cusack), Nick (Craig Robinson), and Adam's nephew Jacob (Clark Duke) take a road trip to a ski resort where they hung out in the 1980s. After a wild night of partying and hot tubbing, the quartet finds themselves transported back to 1986 and they must relive their experiences without causing a "butterfly effect."

Judd Apatow has ruined the typical Hollywood comedy with his sick sense of humor. Granted, he had nothing to do with this production, but it's a pure rip-off of his brand of humor that I personally don't find very funny. The language is so harsh a sailor would blush, there are multiple scenes with projectile vomiting, and too many crude sexual references befitting teenage boys and not grown men. It's pretty sad when the most mature member of the groups is actually a teenage boy.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hotel For Dogs (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Apr 28, 2009  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hoteldogs.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Two orphans, Andi (Emma Roberts) and her younger brother Bruce (Jake T. Austin), find themselves in a foster home with a strict "no pets" policy, so they set out to find a home for their dog Friday. Using an abandoned hotel in their neighborhood, they soon realize it can house more than just their own dog, and they end up creating a haven for all the strays in the city.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hotel Rwanda (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  May 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (Don Cheadle) is put between a rock and a hard place when he's confronted with saving his family or doing whatever he can to save over 1,200 Tutsi refugees from being massacred by Hutu extremists.

The world can be an ugly place and in 1994 the situation in Rwanda resulted in over 1 million deaths. Men such as Rusensabagina show us that despite all the bad in the world, there are truly good people that will stop at nothing to do what is right, even if it means sacrificing their own life. Cheadle's performance earned him an Oscar nomination, but in my opinion he was robbed when Jamie Foxx won for his portrayal of Ray Charles.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hotel Transylvania
David Vaughn  |  Jun 10, 2013  |  2 comments
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When Toy Story launched the digital animation genre in 1995, you just knew that every Hollywood studio would eventually set up its own department to cash in on the latest movie trend. Throw in vampires with the Twilight phenomenon and 3D with Avatar, and it was just a matter of time before all three concepts would be mixed together into one picture, hence we get this entertaining animated tale from Sony Pictures.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
How Do You Know (Blu-Ray)
David Vaughn  |  Mar 23, 2011  |  0 comments
Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) is in the emotional dumpster after getting cut from the Olympic softball team and shacks up with a major league baseball player and ladies' man, Matty (Owen Wilson) while she tries to put her life back together. Shortly after their relationship takes root she meets George (Paul Rudd), a business man facing his own personal issues with his father and a pending indictment by the Justice Department, and the two become good friends but could there be more to the relationship than she realizes?

Writer-director James L. Brooks' has quite a resume and I guess every now and then even the best of writers will release a stinker, and this certainly qualifies. The love triangle storyline had possibilities between Rudd, Wilson, and Witherspoon, but there are too many loose ends with Rudd's neurotic secretary (Katheryn Hahn) and his father (Jack Nicholson) that could have been excluded to quicken the pace and make the film more interesting.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Oct 13, 2009  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/grinch.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>The Grinch (Jim Carrey) doesn't have the Christmas spirit, but why? Cindy Lou Who (Taylor Momsen) is determined to find out and befriends the Whoville outcast in order to spread her holiday cheer. But as the title suggests, the Grinch has plans of his own.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Aug 15, 2009  |  0 comments

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/loseguy.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Columnist Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) agrees to write a first-hand account of what drives a man out of a relationship. Her case study turns out to be Benjamin Barry (Matthew McConaughey), an ad-agency bachelor who just happened to make a bet with coworkers that he can get a woman to fall in love with him in&#151;you guessed it&#151;exactly 10 days.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
How to Train Your Dragon (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Oct 08, 2010  |  2 comments
Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) is a young Viking who marches to the beat of his own drum and is an embarrassment to his father (Gerard Butler). One night while the village is under attack from a swarm of dragons, the young boy shoots down a deadly Night Fury with one of his inventions and discovers it lying in the jungle the next day. Wanting to make his father proud he brandishes his knife and moves in for the kill, but there's something about this dragon that changes his mind and this decision will not only change his life, but those of his people.

DreamWorks animation is best known for Shrek and its numerous sequels but after spending an evening with Dragon, the studio has another hit franchise to exploit. The story is very heartwarming about an underdog misfit who finds his way in the world by developing a most unusual friendship.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 12, 2019  |  0 comments
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The village of Berk is now the overcrowded home not only of our favorite Viking clan, now led by a grown-up Hiccup, but also a huge and motley assortment of friendly dragons. After they encounter a revived gang of dragon-hunters led by the ruthless Grimmel, Hiccup decides that their only solution is to evacuate Berk, where they're an obvious target, and search for a new home where they'll be safe.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Hugo
David Vaughn  |  Mar 13, 2012  |  0 comments

Based on Brian Selznick's book, "The Invention of Hugo Cabret," Hugo is one of the best films from 2011 and it certainly deserved its 11 Academy Award nominations (winning five). Acclaimed director Martin Scorsese brings the magic back to filmmaking and in the process gives the viewers a history lesson on one of the early pioneers in movie making. Going in, I had no idea what this film was about, but was blown away by the reference-quality audio and video presentation as well as the engaging story, believable characters, and exquisite set design. The film was shot on an Arri Alexa digital camera and the level of detail is out of this world. Every shot is razor-sharp in both the foreground and background and I only wish I was sent the 3D version from Paramount because I've read that it has some of the best 3D effects available on Blu-ray. Not to be outshone is the DTS-HD MA 7.1 soundtrack that features stupendous dynamic range, pinpoint accuracy with its discrete effects, and astounding frequency response.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Human Planet: The Complete Series (Blu-ray Disc)
David Vaughn  |  Apr 27, 2011  |  0 comments
From Greenland to Mongolia, Cambodia to Kenya, people are living by their wits, braving the elements, seizing opportunities, and overcoming huge obstacles to survive and thrive. Whether it's a line of woman and children who use star and sand dune patterns to traverse the Sahara in order to trade their wares, or dozens of young Pa-aling fishermen who breathe air through a tangled web of pipes attached to a diesel engine, humans find a way to endure.

BBC Earth has quite a pedigree with hit documentaries such as Life, Planet Earth, and Blue Planet. They've taken us all around the globe and given us a better understanding of what a marvelous place we live. In Human Planet, they weave 80 different stories over eight episodes (Oceans, Deserts, Arctic, Jungles, Mountains, Grasslands, Rivers, and Cities) to show humanity's uncanny ability to adapt and live in every corner of our diverse world.

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3D Blu-ray Movie ReviewsBlu-ray Movie Reviews
Humpback Whales
David Vaughn  |  Dec 02, 2016  |  0 comments
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By the mid-1960s, it was estimated that 90 percent of the humpback whales were gone from the Earth when a moratorium was put in place throughout most of the world. Fortunately, the population started to grow again, and there’s now an estimated 80,000 throughout the world. I’m old enough to remember the “Save the Whales” campaign in the mid-1970s as well as George and Gracie from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home in 1986 where it took the songs of the humpbacks to save Earth from sure destruction by an alien vessel.
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