Chris Chiarella

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A League Of Their Own
Chris Chiarella  |  May 14, 2013
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With each passing year, we seem to be witnessing the further shrinkage of the gender gap, and so movies like A League of Their Own are ever-more fascinating. It shares with modern movie audiences the little-known true tale of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, created to help keep the national pastime alive while the menfolk were off fighting World War II. The idea was met with much resistance at the time, and so the girls face challenges off the field as well as on.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Pair of B&W Gems from Criterion: Seven Samurai and Paper Moon 4K
Chris Chiarella  |  Dec 09, 2024
The Criterion Collection has added new 4K editions of two very different period pieces: an American production from the 1970s that takes us back to the Depression era, and an epic Japanese adventure set in the country’s feudal 16th century.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Quiet Place Part II
Chris Chiarella  |  Oct 08, 2021
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Anyone seeking to make a horror sequel would do well to study writer/ director John Krasinski's A Quiet Place Part II. A magnificent expansion of the established characters and story, this film wastes nary a second, framing the narrative with a bit of new backstory before picking up immediately after the events of the 2018 original and taking us in bold, terrifying new directions.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
A Star Is Born
Chris Chiarella  |  Mar 01, 2019
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A Star Is Born manages to rise above the nigh-unavoidable clichés of the music drama genre through the sheer, undeniable force of Bradley Cooper's love of his craft. Were this not already the third remake of the 1937 film, the potential cinematic pitfalls of this tale of frustrated singer/songwriter Ally (Lady Gaga), who struggles amid the boozy, druggy stumblings of entrenched headliner Jack (Cooper) would still be many.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ad Astra
Chris Chiarella  |  Jan 24, 2020
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In Ad Astra (Latin for "to the stars"), a curious mashup of 2001 and Apocalypse Now, new facts have recently come to light about the disappearance of a deep, deep space probe launched to find intelligent life in the cosmos. The commander was Cliff McBride (Tommy Lee Jones), the most decorated man in the history of the space program, and now his son Roy (Brad Pitt) is tasked with his own top-secret mission...
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Media Server Reviews
Akimbo Systems Video On Demand Player
Chris Chiarella  |  Dec 28, 2005
Programming delivered fresh from the Internet to your set-top box.

Not to date myself, but I'm old enough to remember when video on demand was one of those coming technologies that made the hip groovesters at the malt shop say, "Neat-O!" even if they had no idea how it would actually work. But video on demand has been a fact of life for some time now, and everyone I know who actually uses it simply adores the power and convenience.

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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Alien: Covenant
Chris Chiarella  |  Dec 08, 2017
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Remember how excited we were when we heard that George Lucas—the man who started it all—was going back to directing Star Wars movies? And a lot of us went to see Episode I and said, “Oh.” And then, a few years older and wiser, we sat through Episode II and said, “Oh. Well.”

Ridley Scott is putting us through much the same ringer with the Alien franchise he began, famously returning for 2012’s technically accomplished but overly complicated Prometheus (also newly available on 4K). And now he’s back again with Alien: Covenant, which might just be the nadir for the series.

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Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Aliens, The Abyss & True Lies on 4K Blu-ray at Last
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 14, 2024
Aliens (1986)
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The Abyss (1989/1993)
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True Lies (1994)
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Across a career now spanning 40 years (if we use the version of his résumé that lists The Terminator as his debut), James Cameron has proven himself as one of our most popular filmmakers. His oeuvre totals fewer than 10 movies, yet they have been much-appreciated mdash; including two that were top box office champs — so newer, superior disc releases are seemingly forever at the top of fans’ wishlists. Fox/Disney recently sent us a trio of long-demanded Cameron films in so-called Ultimate Collector’s Editions, available for the first time on 4K disc: Aliens, The Abyss, and True Lies. Let’s explore them in the order of their theatrical release.

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Media Server Reviews
Alienware DHS-321 PC
Chris Chiarella  |  Nov 07, 2004  |  Published: Nov 01, 2004
No, really: It's a computer!

Savvy readers might be familiar with Alienware. Their built-to-order gaming PCs are as famous as their functional and distinctive cases that prevent dust and birds from nesting between the circuit boards. Taking those two strengths into the living room, Alienware has introduced a Media Center Edition PC like no other, the DHS-321 Digital Home System. This box, which approximates the look of a consumer electronics component in black-anodized, brushed aluminum, runs the Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 operating system.

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Media Server Reviews
Alienware Hangar18 HD Entertainment Center
Chris Chiarella  |  Mar 24, 2008
It’s like a UFO landed between your sofa and TV.

You’ve seen me write in these pages about the allure of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system for PC, with its integrated Media Center application for serious next-generation living rooms. And you probably have one or more techy friends who extol the virtues of their multimedia PC, with its countless hours of stored music and video, TV recording, and the benefits of Internet access. But beyond custom-building your own rig or buying a traditional tower to stand next to your stylish A/V rack, how can you introduce a home-theater-friendly computer to your HDTV? Several manufacturers offer PCs with a form factor in the realm of traditional consumer electronics, namely a horizontal box with a remote control and a front-panel readout. The release of Alienware’s first such machine, the DHS-321, kicked off an evolution from that “digital home system” to their new high-definition entertainment center, code-named Hangar18.

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