DVD's and Blu-ray's are Our Passion

Archive for August, 2008

DVD Review: Deal

Back in the day, Burt Reynolds was The Man. Deliverance, The Longest Yard, Smokey and the Bandit and even Cannonball Run are some great movies. However, since the early to mid-eighties with the exception of his Academy Award nominated performance in 1997′s Boogie Nights, Reynolds film career has been mostly forgettable. Unfortunately for Burt, 2008′s [...]

DVD Review: The Nightmare Before Christmas Collector’s Edition

The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of those films that seems to get better with each viewing. You begin to see the subtle nuances in the story and really appreciate writer Tim Burton’s ability to create such a captivating tale and director Henry Selick’s ability to bring it to the screen. Intense emotion oozes from [...]

DVD Review: One Tree Hill – The Complete Fifth Season

For popular series based on a group of high school kids, things usually go downhill once graduation day approaches. The example I’ll use is the popular ’90′s sitcom Beverly Hills, 90210. Producers dealt with that group’s graduation by having them all attend the fictional California University. While that plot device did work, fans were forced [...]

Blu-ray Review: Married Life

The snappy animated credits over Doris Day’s recording of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love,” suggests that Married Life might be a sophisticated comedy about love in the 1950′s. The opening scene tells us that yes, Married Life is about love, but the situation is anything but snappy. It’s Nov. 5, 1949, and in [...]

Blu-ray Review: Terminator – The Sarah Connor Chronicles [Season One]

Remakes of beloved classic films are often disasters. Undoubtedly the creative forces behind these endeavors start out with the best of intentions. The problem is that when you try to reformat something that so many fans already consider a masterpiece, you’re behind the eight ball before you even shoot the first frame. When I first [...]

DVD Review: Transformers Animated – Season One

Transformers Animated – Season One is the latest in a long line of animated Transformers cartoon, following the disappointment that was Transformers Cybertron. Taking its cues from the Michael Bay movie (The AllSpark, Megatron crash-landed on Earth, big explosions, lots of noise) Transformers Animated has changed pretty much everything about the mythology of the series [...]

DVD Review: The Wire – The Complete Fifth Season

David Simon, an author and former police reporter, created one of the finest television series I’ve had the pleasure to watch in The Wire. Simon has said that he originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of his writing partner Ed Burns, a former homicide detective. Writing against the [...]

DVD Review: South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season [Uncensored]

It’s truly amazing that South Park is currently in its twelfth season on Comedy Central. As a person who has watched countless hours of television and reviewed many of them here, I have written about long-running shows like Cheers and Frasier. However, South Park is in a class all its own. Brash, crass a patently [...]

DVD Review: Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami

“Cassius Clay was born in Louisville,” says Ferdie Pacheco, “Muhammad Ali was born in Miami.” Produced by Gaspar Gonzalez and Alan Tomlinson, Muhammad Ali: Made in Miami examines the critical role the city of Miami played in the legendary boxer’s life and career. This one hour PBS documentary allows viewers to get to know the [...]

Blu-ray Review: Justice League – Season One

I’m not going to beat around the bush; Justice League – Season One is a must have for any true superhero fan. Producer Bruce Timm followed Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, and Batman Beyond with Justice League. Previously, DC characters had made appearances on different series– Batman met The Creeper, Superman joined [...]

Never-Before-Seen Images from The Nightmare Before Christmas!

As the loyal readers of ElasticPop have undoubtedly figured out, I’m crazy about films and television. As a child, I enjoyed going to showings of classic films put on by a film society near where I lived every Saturday morning. In the days before Turner Classic Movies and American Movie Classics, I saw High Noon, [...]

DVD Review: Son of Rambow

When you watch as many DVDs as I do, the bad ones are forgotten quickly and the good one tend to linger in your mind for awhile. I remember being in a movie theater sometime around May of this year (oddly, I can’t recall the feature I saw that day), where I saw a preview [...]

Blu-ray Review: Nixon – The Election Year Edition

Oliver Stone has pretty much cornered the market on films covering the time during the Vietnam War. His resume is rather impressive: Platoon (1986), Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven and Earth (1993) are all part of Stone’s Vietnam War trilogy while films including The Doors (1991), J.F.K. (1992) and Nixon (1995), [...]

DVD Review: Get Smart – Season 1

Created by legendary funnyman Mel Brooks and fellow comedic actor Buck Henry, Get Smart debuted on September 18, 1965 on NBC. During the series five year run, the show won seven Emmy awards and was nominated for an additional fourteen, as well as two Golden Globe Awards. Oddly enough, Get Smart was never a huge [...]

DVD Review: Chicago 10

Few would deny that 1968 was one of the most turbulent years in American history. Martin Luther King had been assassinated in April, Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy was shot and killed in June, an unpopular war in Vietnam had be a catalyst in President Lyndon B. Johnson’s decision not to seek another [...]

DVD Review: Dexter – The Complete Second Season

Dexter is a Drama series based on the 2004 Jeff Lindsay novel, Dexter Darkly Dreaming. The novel was adapted for television by Emmy Award-winning screenwriter James Manos, Jr., who wrote the pilot episode. Set in Miami, the series centers the series centers on Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), a serial killer who works for the [...]

DVD Review: Gossip Girl – The Complete First Season

Gossip Girl is based on the popular novels of the same name by Cecily von Ziegesar. The series revolves around a group of wealthy young adults growing up on New York City’s Upper East Side who attend elite high schools while dealing with sex, drugs, jealousy, and other teenage issues. Creator, executive producer and writer [...]

Blu-ray Review: The Sum of All Fears

Although Clear and Present Danger made $207,500,000 worldwide upon its release in 1994, Paramount apparently made the decision to shut down the franchise for awhile. In 2002, the studio attempted to revive the franchise with a much younger Ben Affleck, stepping into the role of Jack Ryan. I’m sure the powers-that-be at the studio felt [...]

Blu-ray Review Clear and Present Danger

Harrison Ford, James Earl Jones, Anne Archer, and director Phillip Noyce must have enjoyed making Patriot Games so much that they all decided to return for this third film in the Jack Ryan series. Author Tom Clancy, whose novel was adapted for the screen by Donald Stewart, Steven Zaillian, and John Milius, has shifted the [...]

Blu-ray Review: Beowulf – Director’s Cut

Beowulf is the oldest surviving poem in the English language. The epic work was written sometime between the 8th and 11th centuries. In the poem, Beowulf battles three rivals: Grendel who is attacking the Danish mead hall known as Heorot and its citizenry; Grendel’s mother; and later in life after returning to Geatland and being [...]