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What are you watching on DVD these days?

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#2,221 · (Edited)
Black Sea - A recently laid-off undersea salvage expert assembles a team of similarly-skilled and down-on-their-luck men - plus a couple of off-beats - to locate a sunken Nazi sub, recover the hoard of gold aboard it and solve their money problems forever.

Comments: Although it was decent in parts, whatever potential it had to be a better movie - and it did have some - was squandered on weak plot and character development and on bad dialogue.
 
#2,222 ·
Bridge of Spies - Having done his duty defending accused Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, Brooklyn lawyer James Donovan is once again called upon to help his country, this time to broker an exchange in Berlin of Abel for Francis Gary Powers, an American spy-plane pilot shot down by the Soviets.

Comments: This movie was Well-done for the most part, with a rich story and some fine acting by Tom Hanks (as usual) and Mark Rylance. The overall effort was marred by:
- the thinning out and compression of the story to fit a single-movie run-time; and
- weak, cliché and even silly writing for parts of the Berlin segment of the film.
 
#2,223 ·
Spy - After a botched operation results in the identities of all of its field agents being outed, the CIA desperately needs a covert operative to locate and secure a stolen nuclear weapon before it ends up and is detonated in New York City. Enter Susan Cooper, an unassuming desk agent who - with the help of a few friends and some good luck - rises to the challenge.

Comments: It's a shame that this movie was so unevenly written. At its best it was slick, entertaining and (absurdly) funny. The rest of the time - the better part of the run time - it was hobbled by bad writing, weak gags, a surprising amount of violence and excessive profanity trying to pass itself off as humour.
 
#2,224 ·
Shaun the Sheep Movie - Shaun's bright idea to trick Farmer into giving the flock a day off turns into a nightmare when Farmer accidentially winds up in the Big City with amnesia. Shaun, Bitzer and the rest of the flock have to find Farmer, get him back to Mossy Bottom Farm and help him recover his memory before Trumper - the increasingly-obsessed Animal Containment officer - tracks them down and puts a final end to their (mis)adventures.

Comments: This was a highly-imaginative, light-hearted and entertaining movie. Great for younger kids; fun for adults, too.
 
#2,225 ·
10 Cloverfield Lane - Rendered unconscious during a car accident, Michelle wakes up in the bunker of survivalist Howard Stambler, who tells her that the world outside has become uninhabitable and that he, she and another man - Emmett - must remain locked underground for the foreseeable future. A series of events shift Howard's story from disturbingly implausible to distressingly believeable...but as time passes additional events lead Michelle to conclude that before long her life will be in as much danger below ground as above.

Comments: Aside from the somewhat weak and silly final act (with its visual and auditory nods to "Cloverfield"), this was a reasonably well-paced and enjoyable suspense flick.
 
#2,226 · (Edited)
I did a bit of back-to-back with "Live After Death" (LAD) and "Maiden England '88" (ME88) and while both are good shows I'll give the nod to LAD. :cool:

(I had previously reviewed ME88 and dissed the m-ch audio, but I've revised my opinion. :))
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Iron Maiden: Live After Death - Iron Maiden play the Long Beach Arena in Long Beach, CA, in 1985 during their "Powerslave" tour.

The Good:
- The band is in fine form.
- The set-list is excellent and the songs are well-performed.
- Some great camera angles that put you RIGHT UP THERE next to the band.
- The audio - especially the DD multi-channel mix - is very good and offers strong, clear vocals. (The stereo mix is no slouch.) And the louder you play it, the better it sounds.

The Bad:
PQ is a bit on the soft side and has an odd, linen- or papyrus-like texture to it. It's more strange than bad, and it's still better and more consistent overall than the PQ of ME88. (After a while I just figured it was part of the whole "Powerslave" theme and it didn't bother me.)

PQ quirks aside, this is a "classic" and very enjoyable Iron Maiden concert.
_________________________
Iron Maiden: Maiden England '88 - Iron Maiden play the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham in 1988 during their "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" tour.

The Good:
- The band is in fine form.
- Lots of good songs, well-performed.
- Some great camera angles that put you RIGHT UP THERE next to the band.
- Notwithstanding some quirks with vocals near the start of the show, the audio is pretty good with either of the DD or DTS multi-channel mixes or with the PCM Stereo mix (straight up or matrixed with PLII/NEO:6 Cinema). And the louder you play it, the better it seems to sound.

The Bad:
- Some decent scenes notwithstanding, the overall PQ is pretty poor. Any scenes with red lighting, in particular, are thoroughly washed out. The PQ is better than VHS, I'm sure, but that's probably the extent of it.
- The set-list could have been better: I wouldn't have minded a couple less cuts from SSoaSS (6 of the album's 8 tracks are performed); the inclusion of a couple of cuts from "Powerslave"; and, from "Piece of Mind", something other than "Still Life" (which is one of that album's weaker songs).

Overall, though, it's a decent show.
 
#2,227 ·
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Batman is hell-bent on killing Superman, but just as he's about to strike the fatal blow he finds out that their mothers share the same name and then, well, he feels like a bit of a dick. So instead he helps Superman battle the Kryptonian super-creature Lex Luthor has created and unleashed on the world. Wonder Woman breaks her hundred-year-long crime-fighting hiatus and helps out, too.

Comments: There seems to be an unwritten rule about superhero movies which says that if you're making a sequel or a "team" movie, it must be bigger, busier and less interesting than what came before. BvS adheres to the rule. It's 2-1/2 hours worth of stuff, including a LOT of large-scale devastation. Meh.
 
#2,229 ·
Ted 2 - Ted's marriage and life are thrown into turmoil when the Massachussets legal system deems him to be property and strips him of his rights as a person.

Comments: Unlike its predecessor, this movie was more crass and less amusing and entertaining overall. Like its predecessor, this movie was highly politically incorrect , lampooned celebrities past and present and met my (low) expectations.
 
#2,231 · (Edited)
Triple 9 - After committing one highly-risky heist for the Israeli Jewish mafia, a small group of ex-military men and dirty cops is railroaded into committing a second, riskier one. The payoff will be substantial, but will anyone survive to enjoy it?

Comments: The movie's potential and its strong cast were overwhelmed by weak writing and a number of weak characters. Good performances by Ejiofor, Affleck, Mackie and Winslet; Harrelson and Paul, not so much.
 
#2,232 ·
Upside Down - Two lovers on a pair of close-proximity planets with inverse gravity struggle to overcome all odds in order to be together.

Comments: Despite the interesting premise, we struggled through the first 20 minutes of this movie and then chapter-skipped a few times until - unable to overcome the boredom - we turned the movie off.
 
#2,233 ·
The Nice Guys - A disillusioned enforcer, an alcoholic private investigator and his precocious teenage daughter form an unlikely alliance and brave danger to find a missing social activist-turned-porn star and solve a mystery.

Comments: This effort by director and co-writer Shane Black ("Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") tries too hard, takes itself too seriously and ends up being more tedious than entertaining. Good performance by Angourie Rice.
 
#2,238 ·
Sully - A "based on a true story" look at the people and events surrounding the emergency water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in 2009.

Comments: Thanks to a mediocre and well-padded script, this 95-minute film felt more like an overly-long, 60-minute, made-for-TV special. It was interesting enough, though, thanks in no small part to a typically solid performance by Tom Hanks.
 
#2,239 ·
I just got Die Hard series last night. I'm planning on watching them all within the first week of this new year. Believe me or not. I haven't seen any Die Hard movie so far. I can vaguely remember watching Hard Rain, it's been years. I can't even remember whether Bruce Wills was in Hard Rain or not.
 
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