BlurayUS Reviews

Like Judy Garland, The Village People and Kylie Minogue, the institution of the musical is a well-known gay icon today. The challenge then for Adam Shankman, the man behind the 2007 hit ”Hairspray”, was to bring in a wider audience. Even the demographic who’ve adopted the musical as their own and the armies of women [...]

An adventure/comedy straight from the G/PG rated Spielberg/Dante/Kennedy/Marshall stable of the late 80s and early 90s through and through – from the plot and effects to the cast itself of Jeff Daniels and John Goodman. Only mildly successful as a movie but with some standout effects, it tells the story of a young family led [...]

A two-pack featuring Disney’s remarkably timeless animated treats. While “The Rescuers Down Under”, the sequel of the twosome, is still fun, it doesn’t encompass the magic of the original. One of the cutest Disney films ever, and – perhaps owing to my age at the time – it’s the one that made the most impact [...]

Since 1732, when Benjamin Franklin first published Poor Richard’s Almanac, America has gradually become obsessed with self-help literature as a way to find the next quick fix to achieving that elusive “American dream”. So it was only a matter of time before this multi-billion dollar industry teamed up with the big business of Hollywood to [...]

When a film opens with a dedication to the late Korean leader Kim Jong Il you know you’re going to be taking a politically incorrect ride. And when the film comes from the mind of the brilliant Sacha Baron Cohen, you know it’s going to be hilarious. Unlike his previous faux documentaries featuring his characters [...]

Definitely a show for the chicks, but one you’ll quietly find yourself engaged in should you be sitting in the room at the time. Needless to say, since it’s all there in the title, it’s pure trash, but it’s well written trash and features a pretty capable cast, including ’90s screen siren Madeline Stowe (”Stakeout”, [...]

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark As the two most successful directors in Hollywood in the late 1970s, Lucas and Spielberg could do whatever they wanted. And what they wanted was to express the shared love of movie serials they both loved as kids and teenagers, the same aesthetic with which Lucas [...]

It doesn’t go quite as deep as Christopher Nolan’s live-action film trilogy, but the latest animated ‘Batman’ film definitely skates on a more profound, more complex ramp than say.. those abominations Joel Schumacher directed back in the late ’90s (the only thing deep in “Batman Forever” and “Batman & Robin”, respectively, were the shades of [...]

Over the course of my illness earlier this year, being laid up and all, I’ve rediscovered my love of reading – no mate, not porn. I’ve been diving into educational books, business books, and namely, the New York Times bestseller list. In fact, I did so much reading over the course of March and April [...]

“H-7. Hit. B-7. Miss. H-8. Hit. You sunk my Battleship!” If you grew up in the 1970s you remember the television commercial about the two old men playing “Battleship” while attending the opera. I certainly played it enough in my time (though I will admit here that I often cheated, stating “Miss” when in reality [...]

Interesting in that out of all the ”Friends” cast members’ first cinematic efforts, this Lisa Kudrow starrer was one of the only successes, along with Courtney Cox in ”Scream” (the duds were David Schwimmer’s ”The Pallbearer”, Jennifer Aniston’s ”Picture Perfect”, Matt LeBlanc’s ”Lost in Space” and Matthew Perry’s ”Fools Rush In”). And whether it was [...]

I wonder what Nick Hornby thought of an American studio buying up one of his very British urban man novels and relocating it to the US? He might not have minded too much when he saw Frears’ rendition of the end result, which retains most of the indie cred you hope it has. Hapless slacker [...]

If you had any inkling the found footage craze was spluttering out, ”Project X” comes hot on the heels of ”Chronicle” to prove the big trick the movement had yet to pull was to cross genre boundaries. It did so in ”Chronicle” into superhero sci-fi, and the result was a surprisingly fresh well-executed and cool [...]

One of the first films to herald the arrival of Ron Howard into the really big leagues. After ”Backdraft” and ”Apollo 13” he could attract A list stars, wield a great script and call on considerable moviemaking resources, making a dramatic thriller like ”Ransom” seem much bigger than it was. Airline baron Tom (Mel Gibson) [...]

If Whoopi Goldberg had the high point of her own franchise, this was it. “Sister Act” is the better of the two films, but not by a huge margin. A one-joke fish out of water pitch carried the whole movie as Deloris (Goldberg), a lounge singer, witnesses a mob hit by her fearsome boyfriend (Keitel) [...]