Thomas J. Norton

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 26, 2010
1010sdsoft.iceage.jpgAs the third installment of the Ice Age franchise, you’d expect the latest adventures of our odd herd of prehistoric mammal friends—Sid the sloth, Manny and Ellie the wooly mammoths, Diego the saber-toothed tiger, Crash and Eddie the possums, and (off on his own as usual) everyone’s favorite latter-day Coyote, Scrat, the squirrel-rat. Scrat’s role has grown with each entry in the series, and here he gets a love (or rather love-hate) interest in Scrattle, a challenge to his acorn obsession.

The main attraction, and what makes this film the best of the three Ice Age movies, is clear from the title. It’s hard to make a bad movie featuring dinosaurs (although the recent remake of Land of the Lost took its best shot). Dinosaurs disappeared long before wooly mammoths walked the glaciers, but as they appear here in a sort of lost-world environment, we can forgive this bit of creative license.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ice Age: The Meltdown—Blu-ray
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 28, 2006  |  Published: Dec 29, 2006

Animated features are well represented in these early days of HD DVD and Blu-ray discs (though nothing yet from Pixar). This CGI –animated sequel to Ice Age may not have quite the audience appeal of that first adventure with Manny the Mammoth, Sid the Sloth, Diego the sabre-toothed tiger, and, not to forget, Scrat, the acorn-obsessed squirrel-rat, but it's still appealing, funny, and beautifully animated.

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A/V Veteran
Idol Thoughts
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 24, 2007

We may be gear heads here at UAV, but the not-so-secret secret about the consumer electronics business is that it's about music and movies. In other words, it's Show Biz. Without that connection, our equipment racks would be filled with expensive boat anchors.

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A/V Veteran
IMAX Enhanced Home Theater Certification: What We Know So Far
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 30, 2018
IMAX and DTS stirred up a bit of a hurricane at September’s CEDIA Expo when they announced the launch of a new home theater certification program called “IMAX Enhanced.” Here’s what we know…
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CEDIA 2014
Immersive Audio Panel
Thomas J. Norton  |  Sep 13, 2014
On Friday afternoon a CEDIA panel was convened to discus the subject of immersive audio. And we all thought that immersive sound meant 5.1- or 7.1-multichannel! But with Dolby Atmos there's a new kid in town. And Dolby Atmos isn't alone.

The panel was moderated by industry tech guru Michael Heiss, and consisted of Brett Crockett of Dolby, Andrew Jones of Pioneer and TAD, Dr. Floyd Toole, a consultant with Harman Kardon, and Wilfred Van Baelen, the founder of Auro...

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A/V Veteran
In the Black
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 09, 2005

Joel Brinkley's recent comments on black level issues with the new digital video displays was right on the mark for flat panel displays, but things are looking up, at least a little, with front and rear projection sets. I'm currently working on reviews of two new models, the front projection Sony VPL-VW100 SXRD projector and the Hewlett-Packard md5880n DLP. Both of these are 1080p displays—though only the HP will accept 1080p through its HDMI inputs.

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A/V Veteran
In the Black II
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 17, 2005

In my previous blog, "In the Black," I stated that the new Sony VPL-VW100 SXRD projector would not accept 1080p directly. That was the impression I obtained at its press introduction at last September's CEDIA. But I subsequently learned, in completing Part I of my review of that projector, which will be posted on this site tomorrow (Sunday, December 18, 2005), that it will indeed accept 1080p/60 at its HDMI and DVI inputs.

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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
In the Heart of the Sea
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 28, 2016
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Extras
In late 1820, the whaling ship Essex, out of Nantucket, Massachusetts, was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale. The captain and his crew were left stranded in the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles from mainland South America. The true story of their ordeal in tiny whaling boats, where many of the crew perished as the survivors slowly made their way to an eventual rescue, partially inspired both Nathaniel Philbrick’s book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
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Blu-ray Movie ReviewsUltra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Incredibles 2
Thomas J. Norton  |  Dec 21, 2018
Picture
Sound
Extras
When we last left our intrepid superheroes (in 2004's The Incredibles) they had defeated the nasty villain Syndrome. The new film opens with the Incredibles battling the Underminer, the same villain they had encountered at the end of the previous film. They win the day with the help of their superhero buddy Frozone, but the resulting chaos puts the Incredibles back in the doghouse with the law and the public.
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A/V Veteran
Infinity Cinema Now?
Thomas J. Norton  |  May 29, 2018
Ah, summer movies. The summer blockbuster tradition is relatively new, but summer moviegoing likely became a big thing when air conditioning was new and “Air Conditioning” on a theater marque guaranteed an audience.

But as I sat in a nearly empty local theater last week watching Avengers: Infinity War (it was a weekday afternoon and the movie had been out for 2 weeks), I wondered if the now ubiquitous Marvel Universe has painted itself into a corner. There are now too many characters to squeeze into a single film, even if some of the lesser lights were sidelined in this one (on holiday, perhaps—after all, only the future of the universe was at stake). So you have a gaggle of actors, each one of which is expecting significant screen time by getting his or her own little slice of the pie. That means a few meaty and/or witty lines for each of them and then off to the next battle. And if there’s one thing this movie isn’t lacking, it’s a next battle. And the next. And the next...

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