Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Coraline 3D
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 26, 2010  | 
1010sdsoft.coraline.jpgCoraline Jones is a lonely little girl. She has just moved into a creepy old house, has no real friends, and her parents are so preoccupied with their work on a gardening catalog that they have no time for her. But she soon discovers a small, papered-over doorway in the living room. It leads to another universe—similar to her own but different in important ways. Her “other” parents in that universe are devoted to satisfying her every whim. Her only new friend there doesn’t talk much (actually, not at all), the neighbors who share the old, subdivided house are fascinating rather than merely eccentric, and everything is colorful and fun.

All is not what it seems. Coraline is, at its core, a bloodless horror story. Much like the recent computer-animated film 9 (the first post-apocalyptic sock-puppet movie, and another dynamite audio/video transfer), it gets under your skin in ways that animated fare rarely does and could seriously frighten young children. It also uses stop-motion animation as refined by stop-motion expert Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Monkeybone, James and the Giant Peach).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Corpse Bride—Blu-ray
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 28, 2006  |  First Published: Dec 29, 2006  | 

Tim Burton loves the bizarre, and his Corpse Bride (he shares director credit here with Mike Johnson) is nothing if not that.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Country Song (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Apr 20, 2011  | 
Country music superstar Kelly Canter (Gwyneth Paltrow) enters alcohol rehab after tumbling during a concert and meets Beau Hutton (Garrett Hedlund), an aspiring small town country singer. Once out of rehab, she wants to give Beau a shot at the big time by having him open her comeback concert, but her husband/manager James (Tim McGraw) has chosen a beauty queen (Leighton Meester) instead.

I'm not a big fan of melodramatic stories, and this has over-the-top sappiness seeping over the edges. Writer/Director Shana Feste can't keep seem to make up her mind on what direction she wants to take the film; is it a story about a pair of up-and-coming singers or about the superstar trying to regain her footing? Overall, it's a tiring two hour experience with mediocre music and horrendous dialog.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Couples Retreat (Blu-ray)
David Vaughn  |  Feb 08, 2010  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/couplesretreat.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Eight friends group-rate vacation comes at a price when they discover that participation in the resort's unconventional couples therapy is anything but optional.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Cowboys and Aliens
David Vaughn  |  Dec 05, 2011  | 

This Blu-ray boasts a solid video transfer with rich colors, revealing skintones, and reference-quality contrast, but it's the audio track that steals the show. The enveloping DTS-HD 5.1 mix features chest-pounding LFE when aliens attack, horses gallop, or when a mysterious wrist-mounted energy weapon is unleashed. Unfortunately, the movie itself is a real stinker.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Coyote Ugly
David Vaughn  |  Apr 03, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403coyote.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Aspiring songwriter Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) moves to New York to pursue her dreams. Desperate and broke, the shy and innocent Violet is hired as a barmaid in one of the hottest nightclubs in the city&mdash;Coyote Ugly. The small-town girl is in for a wild adventure as she chases her dream in the Big Apple.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Crazy Stupid Love
David Vaughn  |  Oct 31, 2011  | 
Straight-laced Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is living the dream with a good job, nice house, and a seemingly happy marriage to his high school sweetheart. But when his wife drops the bomb that she's been having an affair and wants a divorce, he becomes a fish out of water when he enters the dating game again. Enter young Jacob (Ryan Goling), a guy Cal meets at a local bar who takes the older man under his wing in order to teach him how to be a ladies' man and to forget his ex-wife.

As far as romantic comedies go, they rarely break from the script, but that isn't the case here. In many ways, this film pokes fun at the clichéd moments found in the genre and the stars do a good job portraying their characters. I especially liked the young actor, Jonah Bobo, as he swoons over his babysitter (Jessica Tipton).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Creed
Brandon A. DuHamel  |  Jul 01, 2016  | 
Picture
Sound
Extras
With Creed, director Ryan Coogler (Frutivale Station) reboots the long-running Rocky franchise for a new generation of fans. Like The Force Awakens, Creed, from a screenplay by Aaron Covington and Coogler, plays it safe, never deviating far from the fundamentals that made the original film such a success.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Crime & Punishment (Web exclusive!)
Steve Simels  |  Jul 28, 2003  | 

Ah, crime and punishment. They go together like . . . Leopold and Loeb, Donny and Marie, Rimsky and Korsakov. Except, of course, in the movies or on TV, when folks sometimes get away with murder (think Body Heat or The Player).

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Criminal
Josef Krebs  |  Dec 23, 2016  | 
Picture
Sound
Extras
When a CIA operative is killed by a team of anarchists, invaluable information is lost—or is it? Not now that a scientist has developed an experimental procedure for transferring memories from a dead man into another man’s brain. The scientist’s name, of course, is Doctor Franks. Not Frankenstein or Frahnkensteeen, but close. The concept’s made all the more unlikely by the choice of recipient—an imprisoned psychopathic murderer called Jericho.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Crimson Peak
Josef Krebs  |  Jun 24, 2016  | 
Picture
Sound
Extras
Set in the late 19th century, Crimson Peak is a Gothic romance, a mystery mixture of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, with a dollop of Young Frankenstein. After the death of her mother from cholera when Edith is 12, the hideously deformed ghost comes back to warn of Crimson Peak. Fourteen years later in bustling, modern Buffalo, New York, the child, daughter of a self-made American building magnate, has become a beautiful aspiring author. She’s swept off her feet by a mysterious, darkly handsome English aristocrat who’s come to America seeking financing for his steam-powered digger of the clay his house is built upon.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Criterion Collection in 4K: The First Wave
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 28, 2022  | 
Once the Ultra HD Blu-ray disc format showed that it had legs, one question I found myself regularly being asked was, "When is The Criterion Collection going 4K?" The esteemed boutique label certainly didn't rush in, but by the end of 2021, fans and collectors were offered four premiere releases: Citizen Kane, Menace II Society, Mulholland Dr., and Uncut Gems.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
D-Theater Update
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 10, 2003  | 

<B>Independence Day</B> <BR> Aspect ratio: 2.35:1. Dolby Digital 5.1. 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment 2005772. PG-13. $34.95. <BR> Picture *** (3) <BR> Sound **** (4) <BR> Film **

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Dan in Real Life
David Vaughn  |  Mar 04, 2008  | 

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/403dan.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Newspaper columnist Dan Burns (Steve Carell) dispenses advice to families in his column, but his own personal life is in shambles. The widowed father of three girls is afraid of letting go and letting his kids grow up. He's so consumed with their lives that he has no time to live his own.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Dan in Real Life
Rad Bennett  |  Jul 30, 2008  | 
Touchstone
Movie ••• Picture •••½ Sound •••½ Extras •••

Steve Carell is Dan, who writes an a

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