Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Murder on the Orient Express
Brandon A. DuHamel  |  Jul 13, 2018  | 
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Kenneth Branagh has spent his career as an actor and director tackling the classics, from Shakespeare to Mary Shelley, and this time out he dives into Agatha Christie’s famous mystery Murder on the Orient Express, playing the author’s beloved Belgian detective Hercule Poirot.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsMusic Reviews
Music to your Eyes: Qello
Michael Berk  |  Jun 07, 2012  | 

If you're the sort of person who enjoys watching classic concert films and music documentaries (and let's face it, you're reading Sound+Vision, so I'm pretty sure you are), you probably wouldn't mind having access to a big archive if such things, available from wherever you are on almost any device.

Qello is here to help.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Mutiny on the Bounty (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Nov 26, 2010  | 
The HMS Bounty sails its way to Tahiti with the tyrannical Captain Bligh (Charles Laughton) leading the way with first mate Fletcher Christian (Clark Gable) and midshipman Roger Byam (Ranchot Tone) on board. After witnessing the captain's brutal treatment of the crew, Christian leads a mutiny on the homeward voyage and returns to the tropical paradise of Tahiti. Although Byam takes no part in the mutiny, he's forced to defend himself against the charges when the captain makes a surprising return.

Based upon the true story of the HMS Bounty, the film went on to win Best Picture in 1935 and solidified Clark Gable as Hollywood's #1 male star. The performances are outstanding and the Academy agreed; for the only time in movie history were three stars from the same film were nominated for Best Actor!

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
My Dog Skip (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 05, 2011  | 
Young Willie Morris (Frankie Muniz) has trouble making friends in school and when his idol, Dink Jenkins (Luke Wilson), is shipped over to Europe to fight the Germans in World War II, his life couldn't get any worse. Sensing his need of a good friend, his mother (Diane Lane) gets him a puppy for his ninth birthday and his life undergoes a transformation. The talented pup helps turn bullies into friends and helps Willie earn the affection of the most beautiful girl in school (Caitlyn Wachs).

Good family films are hard to find, but this is one of the best non-animated one I've seen in years. Granted, I'm a sucker for dog movies, but this has a lot of heart and the relationship between Willie and Skip is genuine and fun. It gets a little corny on occasion, especially when Willie tangles with some moonshiners, but the message of friendship and trust between a boy and his dog overcomes any of its shortcomings.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
My Fair Lady
Josef Krebs  |  Feb 19, 2016  | 
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Similar to phonetics expert Professor Higgins’ struggles to save a dirty, guttural-sounding Cockney girl by improving her language and appearance, other experts have tried to save and transform a Lady, too. In 1964, My Fair Lady won eight Oscars, including ones for best film, director, cinematography, sound, music, and for Cecil Beaton’s costumes and set designs. But, 50 years later, does the Lady still look and sound good enough to pass as a dazzling duchess?
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
My Fair Lady
Thomas J. Norton  |  Aug 13, 2021  | 
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George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion premiered in London back in 1913. Loosely based on an ancient Greek myth, its plot involves a linguistics professor, Henry Higgins, teaching a bedraggled flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, to speak proper English—not only well enough to pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball, but to "get her a job as a lady's maid or a shop assistant, which requires better English!"
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Mystic River (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Mar 01, 2010  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/mystic.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Jimmy (Sean Penn), Sean (Kevin Bacon), and Dave (Tim Robbins) were your typical neighborhood kids growing up in Boston until Dave was plucked from the streets and sexually abused for three days. Since that tragic day their lives have gone in different directions. Jimmy's an ex-con trying to straighten out his life, Sean is a police detective, and Dave is married with a son but is tormented by his past. When tragedy strikes the neighborhood the demons of the past rear their ugly head.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Naked Lunch
Shane Buettner  |  Aug 20, 2014  | 
Well, now that I’m Seeing It, What Is It?

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Writer/Director David Cronenberg translated William S. Burroughs’ “unfilmable” book Naked Lunch in a (ahem) novel way, creating an intensely hallucinogenic, psychosexual trip that’s more about the writer himself than the writer’s cultural lightning rod of a book. Cronenberg incorporates bits of the book, but infuses his film with a profound statement on the artistic process, and especially the inner turmoil that fuels many artists’ best work. Cronenberg’s movie sees Naked Lunch the novel through Burroughs’ shame and torment over being a homosexual and his consuming drug addiction. Other aspects of the author’s life are also interwoven into the film’s narrative with the most notorious being that he was married to a woman, Joan, who Burroughs shot and killed during an intoxicated “William Tell Routine.”
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Nanny McPhee (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Aug 28, 2010  | 
Mr. Browning (Colin Firth) has seven children he's trying to raise by himself and they need some serious discipline. When the latest nanny quits the job because of their malfeasance, the frustrated father hears a mysterious voice telling him he needs to hire Nanny McPhee (Emma Thompson) whose magical ways will set the kids on the proper path and strange things start to happen whenever they make the proper choice.

Writer/star Thompson does an admirable job in both jobs, although the film isn't in the same league as Mary Poppins. I liked the message but the story falls apart midway through the second act with its slapstick humor and I began to lose my patience.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Nashville
Shane Buettner  |  Mar 21, 2014  | 
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Rebel director Robert Altman was buried and resurrected countless times in his long career, beating the system and making vital films right up to his death in 2006. 1975’s Nashville was his high-water mark, a great film and the zenith of his 1970s glory years. A musical, a political drama, a romantic drama, a country music mockumentary, and a tragedy, Nashville defies description as a story.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
National Lampoon’s Vacation
Chris Chiarella  |  Apr 08, 2014  | 
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Now celebrating its 30th year, Vacation recalls a bygone era of station wagons, roof racks, sing-alongs, roadside attractions, whiny kids (they never go out of style) and a whole generation that drove everywhere for their summertime frolics. The late, great John Hughes adapted the memorable script from his earlier story in the pages of National Lampoon magazine, and director Harold Ramis scored a sophomore hit following his debut, Caddyshack. But the movie truly belongs to star Chevy Chase...
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
David Vaughn  |  May 23, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/052308nt2.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>With his great grandfather implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) enlists the help of his acrimoniously divorced parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren) to search out clues to clear the family name. From Buckingham Palace to Mount Rushmore, Gates pursues the <I>Book of Secrets</I>, but he must find a way to speak to the one man who has access to it, the President of the United States.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
Ken Richardson  |  Jul 13, 2008  | 
Disney
Movie ••• Picture ••• Sound ••• Extras ••••

I remember walking out of the first National Treasure

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Nebraska
Anthony Chiarella  |  Aug 27, 2014  | 
“Toto… We’re Not in Montana Anymore!”

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We’ve all received “You’ve Won a Million Dollars” junk mail, and some of us have even responded, but naïve old Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) actually drags his son David (Will Forte) on a thousand-mile road trip from Billings, Montana, to Prize Headquarters in Lincoln, Nebraska, to claim his cash. By the time they arrive, David has come to understand and appreciate the father he’d only known as a tight-lipped alcoholic. Dern’s filigreed interpretation of Woody—the crowning achievement of a brilliant career—slowly allows the kindness, complexity, and depth of his seemingly two-dimensional character to unfold. In this, he is aided by a meticulously chosen ensemble cast who bring humor and heartache to a screenplay whose dry, deadpan dialogue is relentlessly hilarious.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Neighbors
Anthony Chiarella  |  Jan 15, 2015  | 
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Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly Radner (Rose Byrne) have a new baby, a new house, and, unfortunately, new neighbors. When a hard-partying fraternity moves in next door, the Radners’ blood pressure skyrockets as their property value plummets and they become locked in a contest of wits and wills with frat president Teddy Sanders (Zac Efron). Funny yet forgettable, Neighbors falls short of Nicholas Stoller’s previous directorial efforts (Get Him to the Greek, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), a consequence of the threadbare script and nonexistent chemistry between the male leads.
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