Certified Copy - Juliette Binoche is a French woman living with her son in a small town in Tuscany. When she attends a lecture by a visiting English art historian whose expertise is copies of great works of art, she strikes up a relationship with him; they go for a drive but it quickly becomes apparent there is more here than a casual acquaintance. But is what we are seeing real, or just an artful representation?
This is a chatty art film that is almost claustrophobic in its focus on the two protagonists and their relationship; frankly if you're telling a story in Tuscany, show me Tuscany!
Binoche is wonderful to watch, as always.
PQ is excellent. AQ is also pretty good for a dialogue-driven film, with plenty of bird chirps occupying the surrounds.

Drive - Driver leads a fairly uncomplicated life: He's an ace stunt-driver by day and an expert get-away driver for hire by night. But his life suddenly becomes very complicated when his latest job - a heist to help his lovely neighbour's ex-con husband finally settle a crushing prison "protection" debt - goes horribly wrong. Now he's driving for his life, trying to stay one step ahead of the mobsters who want their stolen money back, and who want to see Driver dead.

Comments: Despite a somewhat thin story and some poor dialogue and mediocre acting, I enjoyed this movie. Everything about it seems reluctant: The decisions the characters are forced to make, the relationships they build and break, and even the way the tension builds. But the tension does build and break, the characters make their decisions and the movie rolls on to a satisfying, and appropriately understated, conclusion.

Anyone expecting this movie to be another "The Transporter" will be as disappointed by it as were people who expected "Contagion" to be another "28 Days Later". But if you're in the mood for a solid but low-key action flick, "Drive" is the ticket.

BD: PQ and AQ were excellent.

The Perfect Weapon: I will admit this was on my wish list I would have even bought the DVD(which i'd sworn off buying years ago for movies) had there been no BD release. This film made its BD/DVD debut on feb 14 for the first time ever. The film follows Jeff, a young delinquent, is enrolled by his father in a kenpo school, in the hopes of teaching the boy some self-discipline. Years later, Jeff's mentor, Kim, is being threatened by one of the Korean mafia families. Jeff tries to help his old friend, but is too late to prevent Kim's death at the hands of an unknown hitman. Vowing revenge, Jeff takes on all of the families, using his martial arts skills to find the man who killed his friend.

P/Q: I was highly impressed with the Picture quality, There was of course a few grainy spots but overall 7/10

A/Q: Good but not great 6/10

Puss In Boots - Puss joins Humpty Dumpty and Kitty Softpaws on an adventure to steal the magic beans from Jack and Jill and golden eggs from the giant's castle.

Comments: I sat through 20 boring minutes of it before leaving. My wife managed to sit through the whole thing, her hope that it might turn out to be enjoyable dashed by the end credits.

Blu-ray: The PQ and AQ of the 20 minutes I watched were excellent, although the level of the audio was surprisingly low: I normally watch movies at -18dB to -16dB, but for this movie I had the volume at around -14dB to -12dB.

Set in 1930s Paris, an orphan who lives in the walls of a train station is wrapped up in a mystery involving his late father and an automaton.

Amazing PQ. Jus breathtaking visuals of paris and the train station.

The movie is slower and definitly not for everyone but i enjoyed it. My wife did not enjoy it as much as she found it slow. her exact words were "Is an artsy movie supposed to be one where you have no idea whats going on 90% of the time?"

lol - I have to agree that if you dont read the synopsis you realy have no clue what the movie is about till the very end..

that said the PQ is worth the price of admission on this film

Midnight In Paris - While on vacation in Paris with his overbearing fiancée, Inez, and her family, insecure American writer Gil Pender - nervous about his forthcoming first novel and marriage - loses himself in the city's late-night streets...and finds himself suddenly transported to Paris of the 1920s, an era of romantically literary significance to him. His experiences there that night and over the course of the next several nights lead Gil to understand that he will not find true happiness by escaping to the past, but only by realizing his dreams in the present. Given his commitment to Inez, realizing his dreams may be more easily said than done!

Overall, this leisurely-paced, dialogue-driven - and dialogue-heavy - film was charming and enjoyable. The cinematography was wonderful, and the soundtrack suited the mood of the movie. Owen Wilson did a fine job playing the hapless Gil, and most of the supporting cast did well with their characters. (Adrian Brody's rhinoceros-obsessed Salvador Dalí was, in my opinion, the only discordant note.)

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were very good.

Piranha - Just as Spring Break is about to kick off at Lake Victoria, Arizona, a seismic event opens a passage to an ancient, underwater lake, releasing prehistoric piranha into the water above and onto the unsuspecting party-goers. Cue the blood...

Comments: Silly, mindless, breast-filled, cliché-laden entertainment.

Blu-ray: PQ was very good. AQ was excellent (who knew so much LFE existed underwater?).

The Muppets - They're back! Gary, his improbably muppet brother Walter, and his girlfriend travel to Los Angeles to visit the Muppet Studio; but when they discover a greedy oil baron wants to buy the iconic Muppet Theater and tear it down, they rally Kermit to bring together his old Muppet troupe for a telethon to save the theater.
For anyone who grew up watching The Muppet Show, this is a warm and Fozzy (!) trip down memory lane; all the beloved characters are here, Kermit, Miss Piggy, Beaker, the Swedish Chef, Animal, etc as well as many of their familiar set pieces. The human acting, especially by bad guy Chris Cooper, is appropriately hammy, and there's no shortage of fun cameos.
The Muppets and Blu-ray were made for each other; the color and detail are outstanding! AQ is excellent as well.

FarScape: The Complete Series - the best the show will ever look. These are sourced from PAL copies - unfortunately the original masters were destroyed - so it's not as good as it can be but the show still looks darned impressive. The audio is excellent.

This is a great, and overlooked, SF series in my opinion. The set is chock full of extras and well worth tracking down.

Note: the series finale - a 4 hour miniseries - The PeaceKeeper Wars is not included as the rights belong to another company.

Game of Thrones: Season One - HBO hits it out of the park with the first season of its adaptation of George R.R. Martin's first novel in his Song of Fire and Ice series. As seven noble families fight for control of the Iron Throne in the mythical land of Westeros, alliances are formed and then betrayed, armies are dispatched, heads roll and have dragons really disappeared?
Epic, violent and with plot shockers at every turn, this is some of the best work HBO has done.
PQ is outstanding. After watching the first few episodes on a high def stream, the blu-ray is a head-and-shoulders improvement.
AQ is equally impressive.

I have the following to watch, I'll try to remember to come back.

Natural Born Killers, Thor & Moneyball.

Attack The Block

Think alien invasion done Shaun of the Dead style. Low budget UK film is a lot of fun.

Source Code

An entertaining whodunit flick wrapped in a cloak of pseudo science which then invokes pure fantasy for the closing segment.

Jake Gyllenhaal, especially, and Michelle Monaghan really sell the movie with their engaging performances and chemistry.

Definitely worth a viewing.

The Incredible Hulk - An accidental overdose of gamma radiation causes scientist Bruce Banner to change into a powerful creature whenever he is angered. As he tries desperately to find a way to reverse the effects of the overdose, Bruce finds himself running from the military - which wants to use his blood as a serum to create super-soldiers - and battling a mad, ruthless commando who has turned himself into a lethally twisted version of Bruce's radiation-altered persona.

Comments: I didn't enjoy this movie very much when I rented it shortly after it was released on DVD. I thought that, decent special effects aside, it was an unnecessary and disappointing "re-start" of the franchise. I had enjoyed 2003's The Hulk and would have liked to see both Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly reprise their roles. I recently watched the movie on BD and I must say that I enjoyed it a lot more this time around. It had a reasonably-good story, good pacing, terrific special effects and great audio.

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were perfect. And as far as LFE goes, this movie is a MONSTER!! :o

Additional reading of the film from Wiki, here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Tailor_Soldier_Spy_(film))


Am a fan of Gary Oldman. This has to be his greatest work ... incredible acting performance. This film is, and surely will become in years to follow, a great classic to have in ones collection. Outstanding film, I think.

This is a film that rewards attention, and pay attention you must as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy respects its audience with intelligence. A classic spy thriller that gets even better with repeat viewing.

If you haven't seen this film and think that you would like to, don't click on the Wiki link as it reveals the mole.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011) - At the request of patriarch Henrik Vanger, and with the help of psychologically-troubled computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, disgraced reporter Mikael Blomkvist digs into the dark and disturbing past of the Vanger family to solve the forty-year-old mystery of young Harriet Vanger's disappearance.

Comments: A decent but thoroughly unnecessary re-make.

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were very good.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - Retired British secret agent George Smiley is tasked by his government to root out a suspected Soviet mole within the upper levels of British Intelligence.

Comments: A somewhat interesting story and some fine acting simply can't make up for this movie's overly-scattered timeline, glacial pacing and underwhelming finale. Pity.

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were very good.

The Descendants - Honolulu lawyer Matt King's life has become very complicated. His seriously-injured and comatose wife is dying; he wants to keep his immediate family together, but he's not sure how to reconnect with his somewhat estranged daughters; his extended family is counting on him - as sole trustee of a massive real-estate trust - to make the very lucrative decision to sell their land to respected developer Don Holitzer; he has discovered that his wife cheated on him with real estate agent Brian Speer; and, to top it all off, he finds out that Speer - Holitzer's business associate and brother-in-law - stands to earn massive commissions from development of the family's land, should King decide to sell it to Holitzer. What's a simple guy to do when life is so very complicated?

Comments: This was a quirky movie, ranging from semi-serious drama to goofy comedy. The pace was leisurely, the performances were decent and the story was interesting and, overall, the movie was enjoyable.

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were very good.

Hugo - Hugo, a mechanically-inclined orphan, spends his days tending to the clocks at the Montparnasse train station in Paris, and his spare time trying to complete the restoration, begun by his father, of an enigmatic automaton. Shortly after he is caught stealing spare parts by Georges Méliès, the owner of the station's toy shop, Hugo befriends the owner's god-daughter, Isabelle, and, with her help, completes the restoration of the automaton. A message generated by the machine leads them to discover that Isabelle's "Papa Georges" was once a famous director who, having fallen on hard times, saw most of his catalogue of films destroyed before he disappeared from public view and was eventually presumed dead. With the help of René Tabard - a film historian well-versed in Méliès' work - Hugo and Isabelle seek to restore "Papa Georges" to his former glory, and to revive his remaining films for the benefit of all cinema-lovers.

Comments: Although it had a gentle story and was chock full of wonderful imagery and cinematography, this movie also contained far too much filler (such as the scenes with Borat and those with the "dog people") and had a run-time that was far too long (at the one-hour mark, the movie felt as though it was almost over). It could have been so much more, but it was mostly just a disappointment.

Blu-ray: PQ and AQ were perfect.