Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Blue Velvet
Josef Krebs  |  Jul 19, 2019  | 
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S&M, voyeurism, murder, rape, violence, and torture. . . some of the typically wholesome activities to be found in small-town America. This psychosexual possible-murder mystery—set in a neo-Fifties 1980s logging town—soon gets weird when an innocent local finds a severed human ear in a field. Writer-director David Lynch uses various tactics to keep the viewer as off-balance as his attracted-to-the-hidden-underbelly protagonist.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Boardwalk Empire
David Vaughn  |  Jan 23, 2012  | 
HBO has quite a history of delivering fantastic Blu-ray presentations, and it continues the trend here. Be prepared for reference-quality video throughout all 12 season-one episodes in the clothing, sets, and flesh tones. The 1920s costume design is absolutely fantastic, and if you're a fan of period pieces, this is right up your alley. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track is just as impressive and certainly holds its own with its rich atmosphere and crystal-clear dialog reproduction. While it took me a couple of episodes to get into the series, it ranks up there with some of the best I've seen from HBO and is definitely worth a look on Blu-ray.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Body of Lies
David Vaughn  |  Feb 19, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/bodyoflies.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>On the hunt for the mastermind behind a wave of global terrorist attacks, a young and idealistic CIA agent (Leonardo DiCaprio) scrambles around the Middle East looking for clues. At home, his boss, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe), is a cold-hearted CIA veteran who orchestrates the action behind the scenes to place his man in the right place in order to nab the villain.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bohemian Rhapsody
Mike Mettler  |  Feb 22, 2019  | 
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The indisputable success of Bohemian Rhapsody confirms what many of us have known for decades: Queen was one of the biggest rock bands in the world, and their late frontman Freddie Mercury was one of the singularly most polarizing and mesmerizing popular-music performers of the 20th century.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bolt (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Mar 20, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/bolt.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) the wonder dog and his "person," Penny (Miley Cyrus), co-star in one of the biggest shows in Hollywood. Unfortunately for Bolt, he thinks it's real, and when he is accidentally shipped to New York City and separated from Penny, he soon finds out it's a dog-eat-dog world as he tries to find his way home. With the help of two new friends, a street-smart cat named Mittens (Susie Essman) and a hilarious hamster, Rhino (Mark Walton), Bolt soon discovers he doesn't need super powers to be a super hero.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bonnie and Clyde
 |  Mar 24, 2008  | 

Bored with life and looking for adventure, Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) meets the man of her dreams, Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), right outside her bedroom window. In order to impress the girl, Clyde holds up a local store, marking the start of a vicious crime spree that sweeps the Depression-ravaged South in the 1930s.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bonnie and Clyde
David Vaughn  |  Mar 24, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403bonnieclyde.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Bored with life and looking for adventure, Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) meets the man of her dreams, Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), right outside her bedroom window. In order to impress the girl, Clyde holds up a local store, marking the start of a vicious crime spree that sweeps the Depression-ravaged South in the 1930s.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Boogie Nights (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 22, 2010  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/boogienights.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>During the 1970s, the San Fernando Vally in Southern California became the porn capital of the world. It’s here that Eddie Adams, aka Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), enters the industry seduced by the glamour and has the ultimate tool to become a superstar. Under the tutelage of porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds) and his extended “family,” Eddie wants to elevate the industry from smut to an art form.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Boy & the World
Thomas J. Norton  |  Feb 03, 2017  | 
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When a child’s father leaves his home in a small village to seek work in the city, his young son, not understanding why his father has left, sets out on a mission to find him.

That’s the plot of Brazilian director Alê Abreu’s dramatically obscure but stunningly animated film. We’re encouraged to experience the world through the boy’s eyes. If his world doesn’t always make sense to us, that may be the point. The world is a jumble to a young boy, and the result is a brilliant and visually compelling adventure. The film was nominated for a Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2015 (Inside Out won, however).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Boyz N The Hood
David Vaughn  |  Jul 24, 2011  | 

South central Los Angeles wasn't an ideal neighborhood to come of age in the early 1990s given the rampant drug problems and gang violence. John Singleton's debut as a director captures the scene perfectly, following the lives of Doughboy (Ice Cube), Chris (Redge Green), Ricky (Morris Chestnut), and Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) as they try and navigate the mean streets of the 'hood.

Even 20 years after its powerful debut, Boyz n The Hood is one of the most realistic depictions of urban life in America. It portrays the hazards that inner-city youth constantly battle—poverty, rampant drug and alcohol use, broken families, and gang violence. Each of the main characters face their own personal struggles, and Lawrence Fishburne delivers a career-defining performance as Furious, Tre's wise father who dishes out advice on life and survival.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Brüno (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Nov 20, 2009  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/bruno.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Austria's favorite fashionista, Br&#252;no (Sacha Baron Cohen), loses his homeland talk show after causing a ruckus at Milan Fashion Week. He moves to Hollywood with his assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammarsten) in tow to pursue worldwide super-stardom. Every attempt at making it big goes terribly wrong, but the utter ridiculousness of it all is supposed to be funny&#151;<i>not</i>!

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
David Vaughn  |  Jan 22, 2016  | 
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Fourteenth-century prince Vlad Dracula ushers off on a religious crusade to battle his enemies, leaving the love of his life in his gothic castle. Before he returns victoriously, the evil Turks send word to his bride that he has died in battle. Beset with grief, she commits suicide, and upon seeing her lifeless body, Dracula denounces the church in a fit of rage and becomes an undead man whose eternal existence requires him to feed off the blood of other living creatures. Four hundred years later, a London real-estate broker visits Dracula in Transylvania. When Dracula happens upon a picture of the agent’s fiancée and notices her striking resemblance to his deceased bride, he must travel to London to gaze upon her beauty for himself and rediscover true love.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Brave
Thomas J. Norton  |  Apr 25, 2013  | 
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Young Merida may be a princess in the misty highlands of Scotland, but she isn’t happy with her lot. She wants only to practice her horsemanship, archery, and all other manner of un-princess-like behavior. Her father is delighted, but her mother is beside herself and arranges for the neighboring clans to vie for Merida’s hand in marriage. Our heroine, however, isn’t all that thrilled by the idea—and even less by the suitors. Fleeing into the woods, Merida stumbles upon a witch and has her cast a spell to make her mother change. Her mother does change, but unfortunately not exactly as Merida intended.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Brazil
Shane Buettner  |  Jul 01, 2013  | 
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Few films are worthy of a movie about the movie, but director Terry Gilliam’s 1985 dystopian fantasy Brazil is among the legendary few. A flawed but inspired masterpiece, the film remains a Hollywood cautionary tale for the standoff between Gilliam and Universal’s then-chief Sid Sheinberg, who refused to release the film and even ordered a sappy, discordant re-edit that excised some 40 minutes from Gilliam’s original cut. In retrospect, the heavy-handed efforts of Universal’s “black tower” to wrest artistic control from Gilliam only underscored Brazil’s anti-totalitarian satire and unwittingly aided its underground success.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Bridge of Spies
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jun 02, 2016  | 
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In June 1957, Soviet spy Rudolf Abel is captured in New York City. Insurance attorney James B. Donovan is appointed to handle the defense, based on his experience at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Reluctant to take the case at first, Donovan ultimately accepts, passionate in his belief that everyone deserves a fair trial.
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