Blu-ray Review: The Wrestler
As perfect as Mickey Rourke was as Marv in Sin City, his portrayal of Robin "Randy 'The Ram' Robinson" Ramzinski was just as ideal, yet this time placed in a world so real you can feel every blow that lands on Randy's steroid-addled achingly too-old-for-this-$#!% body.
Manga Review: Naoki Urasawa’s: Monster, Volume 1
In Monster: Dr. Kenzo Tenma is a Japanese transfers neurosurgeon in a big German hospital. He is young and really good at what he does. The whole staff of the hospital believes he will one day take over the hospital. One day, a famous opera singer came in with a sever head injury and needed immediate surgery. Dr. Tenma was switched from a patient who was a foreigner, that was in an accident, also needing head surgery. Dr. Tenma’s patient survived, but his original patient died. The press was all over the success of the opera singer’s recovery, while the family was upset that the better doctor cared more about the life of a celebrity (which isn’t true, it was the orders of the director).
DVD Review: Darker Than Black
Darker Than Black Volume 4 Ten years ago, a new landscape descended on Tokyo, named "Hells Gate", the stars in the heavens changed and were replaced by stars that are connected to humans. These Humans are known as contractors, and have supernatural abilities, such as directing electricity, freezing water or stopping time altogether. They tend to use these new abilities in doing their job as an assassin. When they use these powers they are required to make penance or complete a remuneration. If they do not make this payment they will suffer greatly. Some must only do things like, smoke a cigarette (which he hates), others grow younger (she likes being older). It is different for each one.
Anime DVD Review: Baccano! Volume 3
Explosions, pretty ladies, speakeasies, and the fresh smell of blood, what an immortal gangster dreams of! Oh, did I forget the knife in your back? There’s a couple of those, too. That’s what you’ll find in the world of Baccano!
DVD Review: Ron White: Behavioral Problems
“Tater Salad" rides again. Away from his Blue-Collar Comedy buddies and making waves on his own. Now available on DVD!
Everyone's favorite scotch-swilling, unapologetically crass Texan is back on the stage, solo, with enough quips, anecdotes and observations to appease the closet curmudgeon in us all.
Highlights:
– Ron's anecdotes cover a wide range of topics, from national defense, to paper manufacturing plants, to marijuana. The are delivered with Ron's signature aplomb and each is quite funny in turn.
Blu-ray Review: Sin City Recut – Extended – Unrated
"She smells like angels ought to smell." -Marv
2005 was a crazy year for me. I mean, I didn't wake up next to any dead strippers like Marv from Sin City, but life got in the way of me seeing Sin City in the cinema. While I had some of the original Dark Horse Presents issues chronicling Sin City's initial appearances, and had bought a couple of the trade paperbacks, it wasn't until Christmas of 2005 that I was able to see the film translation on DVD. Needless to say I was blown away at this most true comic book movie of all time. It's stark black and whites broken only occasionally by accent colors or the full color seen in Kadie's bar showed what a comic noir film could be.
DVD Review: The Reader
"It doesn't matter what I feel. It doesn't matter what I think. The dead are still dead." – Hanna Schmitz
When The Reader hit the box offices in 2008 I asked a friend what it was about, to which she responded, "Well, it's a love story." While the film does start out with an affair, passionate, forbidden, erotic, and tragically doomed, all the makings of an epic love story, anyone who can sum this film up as being just a love story wasn't really paying attention.
Chronologically, the story begins in a very well-created post WWII Era Germany, when 15 year old Michael Berg (David Ross) meets 35 year old Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet). Their affair lasts three months during which time Michael discovers that Hanna greatly enjoys being read to. Then as suddenly as it began, it ends, when Hanna disappears with no warning on Michael's 16th birthday.
DVD Review: The Count of Monte Cristo: Gankutsuou, the Complete Series
Albert de Morcerf is the son of a high-ranking aristocrat who doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life. His childhood friend, Franz d’Epinay, takes him to Luna, a planet of festivals, to give him a break from the expectations of aristocratic Paris. While on Luna, the paths of Albert and the Count of Monte Cristo intersect. Franz tries to warn Albert that the Count is too shady for his own good. Albert does not listen and invites the Count to his home in Paris. The Count agrees, saying he was planning on buying a place in Paris, and sets a date for three months from that day.
Blu-ray Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still 3-Disc Special Edition
"Klatuu Barada Nikto"
More of a "re-imagining" than a remake of the original 1951 film of the same name, The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008) stars Keanu Reeves (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, The Matrix 1-3, Constantine) as the enigmatic space alien in a cloned human body Klatuu. While in the '51 film, Klatuu comes first to educate, then ultimately threaten the humans of earth against the dangers of nuclear weapons, in the 2008 version, Al Gore Klatuu instead warns against the effects of global pollution, warning that the humans of earth will be exterminated before the council of alien races that he represents allows the humans of Earth to push Earth's global climate past the tipping point toward certain doom for the planet.