CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
DVD & Blu-Ray Review
DVD Review: ‘Blindness’ With Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo Should Not Be Widely Seen
Submitted by BrianTT on February 12, 2009 - 12:51pmDVD Rating: 2.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – “Blindness” is one of the bleakest cinematic experiences of the last few years, shocking, violent, dirty, headache-inducing proof that what works on the page doesn’t always on the big or small screen and that even the most talented actors and director can sometimes stumble.
Blu-Ray Review: Cult of ‘Donnie Darko’ Extends to Two-Disc Director’s Cut
Submitted by BrianTT on February 11, 2009 - 6:53pmBlu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Most movies come and go. Even some of the most critically and commercially acclaimed films of the last few years have essentially been forgotten already. I knew Richard Kelly’s “Donnie Darko” was a film that was not going to go away quickly the first time I saw it and the Blu-Ray “Director’s Cut” simply extends the shelf life of this riveting cult classic.
DVD Review: ‘60 Minutes Presents Obama: All Access - Barack Obama’s Road to the White House’
Submitted by BrianTT on February 11, 2009 - 4:04pmDVD Rating: 5.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The first “60 Minutes”-branded DVD from CBS Home Entertainment and Paramount Home Entertainment is the surprisingly comprehensive account of the last two years of President Barack Obama’s life, “Obama: All Access - Barack Obama’s Road to the White House,” a great DVD for political junkies, historians, news fans, and everyone in between.
Blu-Ray Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Miracle at St. Anna’ Disappoints in Every Way
Submitted by BrianTT on February 11, 2009 - 3:23pmBlu-Ray Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – There is a great film to be made about the African-American experience during World War II. Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna” is not that film and the below average Blu-Ray of it should make this once highly-anticipated epic one of the more easily forgettable releases of the month.
Blu-Ray Round Up, Feb. 10, 2009: ‘Pretty Woman,’ ‘Street Fighter,’ ‘Tales From the Darkside’
Submitted by BrianTT on February 10, 2009 - 5:50pmCHICAGO – The Round-Up is in flashback mode this week. Enter our time machine and travel back to an era when an anthology series created by the legendary George A. Romero could actually get a network time slot, Jean-Claude Van Damme was still a star, and Julia Roberts wasn’t quite one yet.
Blu-Ray Review: ‘Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa’ Continues DreamWorks Blu-Ray Dominance
Submitted by BrianTT on February 10, 2009 - 11:26amBlu-Ray Rating: 4.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The DreamWorks Blu-Ray releases for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” “Kung Fu Panda,” and “Transformers” are some of the most technically remarkable titles on the next-gen format and you can now add “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” to the list of Blu-Ray discs that you can use to show off your HD TV and surround sound system.
Blu-Ray Review: Oscar-Nominated ‘Frozen River’ Has Gripping Dramatic Power
Submitted by BrianTT on February 9, 2009 - 2:50pmBlu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Courtney Hunt’s “Frozen River” is easily the most unlikely double Oscar nominee of 2008, scoring nods for Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay and now available on Blu-Ray from Sony Home Entertainment.
Blu-Ray Review: High Definition Makes ‘The Rock Collection’ More Appealing
Submitted by BrianTT on February 9, 2009 - 12:55pmBlu-Ray Rating: 3.0/5.0 |
CHICAGO – Dwayne Johnson, the artist formerly known as ‘The Rock,’ has a new movie hitting theaters next month, “Race to Witch Mountain,” so the time seems right to revisit the action extravaganzas that almost made this former wrestler a massive star with the release of three of his early films on Blu-Ray in “The Rock Collection”.
Blu-Ray Round Up, Feb. 8, 2009: ‘Little Miss Sunshine,’ ‘Office Space,’ ‘Sideways,’ ‘Napoleon Dynamite’
Submitted by BrianTT on February 8, 2009 - 5:19pmCHICAGO – Welcome back to the world of the Blu-Ray Round Up, a safety net for all the Blu-Ray titles hitting store shelves that might otherwise slip through the cracks. Every week seems to see more and more catalog releases and new titles hitting the next-gen format and it’s shockingly easy to miss a title that you’d like to add to your collection. That’s why we’re here.
Blu-Ray Review: Kevin Smith Makes a Good Blu-Ray With ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’
Submitted by BrianTT on February 5, 2009 - 3:28pmBlu-Ray Rating: 3.5/5.0 |
CHICAGO – The inevitable merging of the Judd Apatow-verse and the View Askew-verse headed by Kevin Smith happened in the underrated and under-seen “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” new on Blu-Ray this week and joined by a Special Edition release of “Clerks II”.