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Synopsis Plot Overview When the Internet boom was still alive and kicking, so was Michael Meyers. In the latest - and probably not the last - film in this long running franchise, Michael goes live on the Internet. Freddie Harris (Busta Rhymes) creates a contest, and the winners get to spend the night in the old Meyers home live on the web. He and his partners rig up the home so that every room is covered on camera. The winners are a mix of people with all but one really wanting to be there. Three of them are close friends, with one hoping to be the next superstar, one a master chef, and one, well, not really sure what she wants to do other than not spend the night in the Meyers house. Little to their surprise, Michael has been living in the house, and he does not much care for them setting up camp. Thanks to the aid of a wireless PDA device, Sara Moyer is able to run from Michael as he stalks her around the house. Commentary What is it going to take to kill this guy? Die Michael, die! The film must have been conceived during the Internet explosion. It does sort of tie in with the latest reality TV craze that is wasting all of the prime time air these days. The most surprising portion of the film is during the opening, with long time Halloween scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis. I will save that enjoyment for you. This film also runs fairly short, at just one minute shy of 90 minutes. If you are a fan of the Halloween franchise, then this film might be worth renting. For most others, you can probably skip over and go on to something more entertaining. Technical The transfer is definitely the best part of this film. In fact, it is very good. Most of the film is spent in low light conditions, and the scenes are free of grain and noise. In short, the film has excellent shadow detail. The soundtrack in this film is a character all on its own. The surrounds are used throughout the film along with several bass riffs. The bass is used to make you feel uneasy before something jumps out and grabs you. The MPEG encoding, while not terrible by any means, does drop to video for longer amounts of time than normal. You may notice occasional glitches on flag based players and HTPCs.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Stitch is the creation of Dr. Jumba (David Ogden Stiers), who put him here to wreak havoc on the world. He was designed to destroy. Dr. Jumba is arrested and the grand council says that Stitch must go. When Stitch escapes and makes his way to Earth, he is “found” in a local pet store by Lilo. Lilo is currently being raised by her older sister Nani. Lilo is also constantly getting into trouble, and this causes a problem for Nani as Mr. Bubbles is her case worker and is threatening to take Lilo away if she can’t do a better job. Dr. Jumba is sent to earth to track down Stitch and bring him back before he causes any more trouble. Commentary Stitch is just down right mean! He was designed to destroy everything he comes into contact with. Throughout the film he causes nothing but trouble. My initial reaction to this film was that it is not for children. I mean who wants to watch a little monster destroy everything out of nastiness? While visiting family for the holidays, I discovered that everyone I knew with kids had bought this film for them, and their kids all loved it. It seems that the young kids don’t really understand that Stitch is mean. They just find him to be a funny creature that is always getting into trouble. So while I stand by my belief that this film is not really for children, it seems that children do love it. With that said, it is a pretty big change from previous Disney work. It is an original concept and one I think that is well executed. The animation style is interesting, and it reminds me of older animation with static backgrounds with characters plopped on top. This is not a dig at the animation but just pointing out the artistic look and feel of the film. There is very little in the way of extras on this disc. This is unusual because Disney has been packing their DVD animations to the rim lately. Technical Most of the recent Disney releases have been direct digital transfers, but this film is not. While it does look excellent overall, there is a bit of noise in saturated colors that is a result of being transferred from film. Because it is an animation, the entire soundtrack is fabricated. Every last detail has to be created, and Disney has done an excellent job here. The soundtrack is very enveloping. In fact, it may be a bit too aggressive for some of the younger children who scare easily at loud noises. Of course if they are just watching this film on a smaller TV, then that will not be a problem. For us adults with 5.1 systems, this disc does rock!
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Without giving too much away, Graham (Mel Gibson) wakes up one morning to the screams of his children. He rushes out to the corn field to discover that someone has plowed down a bunch of his corn. Graham assumes that this is some prank that has been committed by some local boys. Shortly afterwards, Graham and his family see that this same thing has happened around the world and that when viewed from the sky there are visible patterns in the corn. More and more events begin to take place that make Graham wonder if this is really a hoax or not. Commentary I will warn you now that Signs moves at a very slow pace. It takes its time setting up the events. It feels very much like a Hitchcock film from the opening credits until the very end. The film focuses very close on Graham, his two kids, and his brother. A lot of time is spent developing the characters and setting us up for the final outcome. I really liked this film a lot. To put that in perspective, I also like "Unbreakable". If you are looking for a fast paced film or a lot of action, you are going to be disappointed with Signs though. I highly recommend a purchase of this film if you are a fan of M. Night’s work. If you did not care for Unbreakable, you may want to rent this one first. There are a lot of extras on the disc. There are several features from long to short. There are also a few deleted scenes included. As usual I recommend you stay away from the deleted scenes until you have finished watching the film. Technical The film has a mixture of day and night shots. A lot of the action takes place in dark scenes. These scenes are always free of any noise and grain. The opening shots have a tremendous amount of detail up close. Except for some occasional edge enhancement, I consider this a pretty good transfer. The soundtrack in this movie could have been a starring character in the film. The movie is actually quiet on the music front and instead relies on ambient noise to create tension. The film is encoded as an EX soundtrack or 6.1. If your processor has the capability, a 6th channel will be extracted from the left and right surrounds. They make good use of that channel in this film. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Up and coming fashion designer Melanie Carmichael (Reese Witherspoon) has just become engaged with Andrew (Patrick Dempsey) who just so happens to be the son of New York’s mayor. There is one small little problem, it seems Melanie is already married. Of course not wanting to ruin the relationship with Andrew, she heads off to her home in Alabama to get her husband to sign divorce papers. Wouldn’t you know that Jake (Josh Lucas) is still in love with Melanie and is why he has not signed the divorce papers, up until now. So, Melanie wants to marry Andrew, but Melanie is still married to Jake. Jake is still in love with Melanie. Melanie does not realize it yet, but she is still in love with Jake. Commentary The only real problem I had with this film was the predictability. You could see the ending coming from a mile away. That is ok though as the ride to the end was fairly entertaining. Most of the story is spent in Alabama where we slowly learn about Melanie’s wild childhood, a.k.a. “Felony Melanie.” We also learn that this recent fashion success is really trailer trash in disguise. Surprise, surprise! The film is cute and I don’t consider the time spent watching it a waste. It has moments that will make you chuckle and is well worth the rent. I recommend renting it, rather than a purchase. It is a one-time watch. I used to be a huge fan of deleted scenes. However, as time goes on I find myself watching them less and less. I did, however, enjoy the deleted scenes on this disc. There is an entire subplot that has been excised from the film. The subplot was removed based on the audience reactions from early test screenings of the film. Technical There appears to be a fair amount of edge enhancement. The up close shots look fairly clean and detailed, but the long shots show visible haloing around objects. Some of the night shots appear a bit grainy, but all in all it is a good looking movie. I was most surprised by the audio soundtrack of this film. Most romantic comedies are focused on the front soundstage of the room, but not this film. The surrounds are fairly active with ambient environmental noise. The dialog is always intelligible. There does not appear to be any audible distortion caused by mic preamp clipping. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview When the heavyweight champion of the world, Iceman Chambers (Ving Rhames), is accused of rape, he is sentenced to serve a prison sentence. A long time a go, in a galaxy far, far away, an up and coming boxing champion Monroe Hutchens (Wesley Snipes) is convicted of killing a man, so he is sentence to life in prison. Monroe is currently the prison boxing champion and well respected. When the Iceman shows up, the first thing he does is antagonize Monroe. Because of this, Monroe is put into solitary so that a fight won’t ensue. One of the “godfathers” in the prison happens to be a boxing fanatic and sets up a match between Monroe and the Iceman. When the warden tries to stop the fight, he is sent on vacation. Commentary This film sure does play a lot like a mini Mike Tyson story with the whole heavyweight / rape storyline. There are a few scenes where we see the victim being interviewed and we also see his response. We never really know what happened. Monroe came across as being the good guy in this film, but it is hard to feel for him knowing now matter how the film ends, he will still be in prison. They really want us to dislike Iceman as he comes off arrogant throughout the film. I thought both actors played their roles well for what they had to work with. The fight scenes were well executed, but does the mob really have that much control over the prison? Technical The transfer is just ok. There is visible noise in the dark scenes, and there is not a lot of shadow detail present. There is also not a lot of detail in some of the close-ups, and the long shots look overly soft. Other than the crowd noises from the fight scenes, the sound track is pretty flat. Having said that, the dialog is always intelligible, and no audible distortion was present, even during the thick of the fights with the crowd screaming. The flags are about average. There is the usual drop to video with every chapter break. There are more 2-2 sequences than normal, but not too much.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview “Alive” covers the miraculous tale of a large group of athletes – rugby players and friends – surviving months in the Andes mountains after their plane goes down. The October, 1972 event gained wide awareness with the 1993 theatrical release of this movie, spawning a rash of survival movies and parodies. While the worst part is unavoidably the cannibalism, director Frank Marshall polishes the story for the mainstream by playing heavily on themes of conflict, spirit, and resolve. Commentary The pace of “Alive” resembles a roller coaster ride, starting up with a strong, mood-setting monologue by a crash survivor, played by John Malkovich. Shortly after a brief “we’re-having-too-much-fun” horse around, the highly convincing and impressive plane crash rockets past, possessing the momentum for much of the movie. From there, the passengers continually decline while their hopes continue to peak and plummet. That is, until Nando (Ethan Hawke) and Antonio (Vincent Spano) lead the group to the satisfying foregone conclusion. Alive is not only a solid and uplifting survival movie, which succeeds in being powerful even 10 over-stimulated society years after its original release. Much of its lasting success is due to it being a true story, and this enhances your ability to live vicariously through the characters. I did find that I wanted to learn more about the survivor’s personalities and lives than what was provided during the movie. This need was substantially filled in the DVD’s extras, which includes the 1992 BBC documentary “Alive: 20 Years Later” and a hauntingly familiar field trip “Return to the Andes”. The documentary contains interviews with a few of the survivors, who detail their life before, during, and after the ordeal. “Return to the Andes” is a great clip to watch after spending the movie in the “what-if-it-was-me” mindset, and one can only imagine the sudden rush of emotion when returning to such a location. Technical The video transfer was more than acceptable for the documentary styled survival movie. There were some grainy dark scenes and some noise here and there, but it won’t distract from the story. The sound was acceptable, with the only interesting surround content coming on the crash scene. There are a large number of drops to video on this disc, but there is no drop on the chapter breaks.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - Ya-Bing Chu -
Synopsis Plot Overview POS51 is a hot new wonder drug by master chemist Elmo McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson). The new drug is supposed to be 51 times greater than anything on the market (they don't say whether it is a stimulant like amphetamine, or a depressant like heroin) and has sparked a lot of interest. Elmo decides to double cross his boss, the Lizard. He blows up the lab, with the Lizard inside and then heads overseas to England. What he does not realize is that his attempt to kill the Lizard failed. The Lizard sends his hit woman Dakota after Elmo to retrieve POS51. Elmo hooks up with Felix DeSouza after arriving in London to make the sale. When the drug deal goes wrong, the two spend the rest of the story trying to stay alive. Commentary It starts with a younger Elmo, who has just graduated from pharmacy school, being pulled over while under the influence of pot. The drug bust costs him his license to practice, so he goes underground. Thirty years later, Elmo has created Formula 51. While the story is filled with plot holes, it does entertain. Don’t take the movie too seriously and you will be ok. There are some pretty good action sequences and Jackson is always great at delivering his lines, well, with the exception of the dialog in Star Wars. The film feels a bit like a music video. This is easy to recommend as a rental on a Friday or Saturday night, but not Tuesday. My expectations were fairly low, based on other reviews I had read, but I was pleasantly surprised, once I got past that really lame opening that is. Technical This is one good looking disc. With the exception of some recent titles, Columbia is fairly consistent in delivering quality transfers. The exterior shots are clean and detailed, as are the interior shots. The colors are clean and free of any chroma noise. The disc contains both a widescreen and Pan & Scan version of the film. Each film is contained within a single layer. Because of this, they have applied a horizontal filter on the film prior to encoding, which results in a slight softening of the image. The soundtrack is pretty active. There is an MTV style score to go a long with the fast edits. The dialog always remains intelligible, and there was no audible distortion. There is a long drop to video at chapter 20. Every chapter break also has as drop to video.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - Stacey Spears -
Synopsis Plot Overview Trevor survives a horrible car crash in which his wife dies. However, for some reason he is suspected of murdering her. As he begins to have blackouts and disturbing hallucinations, reality becomes more difficult for Trevor to discern. Is he responsible for her death? Who are the disfigured characters in his dreams? Commentary Not my standard fare, these franchise supernatural horror films are generally not on my my list to watch, especially on Valentine's day. This film is the 6th in the Hellraiser series. The plot description on the box has nothing to do with the actual movie. The story would have been better served on the small screen as an extended "Outer Limits" or "Tales From the Crypt". However, the dead end tales from the crypt know enough to stop breathing and swallowing when they are supposed to be dead. I would certainly not suggest this film for anyone but a fan of the franchise or genre. Extras My real question is why did the producers bother with a lot of extras for this DVD, while the "Aliens Special Edition" had virtually none (sob)? They include a story commentary with the director, alternate scenes with directory commentary, and a visual effects walkthrough. Technical The cinematography was well executed and certainly a high point of the file. The transfer was reasonably well done, with only minor edge enhancement. The sound was adequate. While there are a bunch of drops to video, none of them are caused by a chapter break. The drops to video are relatively short.
To have a better understanding of what the flags above mean, please refer to our "A Beautiful Mind" review. - J. Irving -
Synopsis Plot Overview Each Sunday a small group of grad students get together to discuss social issues. They each take turns bringing a guest to dinner. It seems this Sunday, Pete (Ron Eldard) invites Zachary (Bill Paxton), a backwoods trucker who gives him a lift after having car trouble. When Zachary threatens Marc, Pete comes to his rescue, and this changes their lives forever. No | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
