A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Publicity photo of Buena Vista Home Entertainment's region-free Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga 18-disc box set. © 2020 Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On Monday, April 20, Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) and Lucasfilm Ltd. released the 18-disc variant Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, a counterpart to the larger 27-disc box set of the same name released less than a month earlier as a Best Buy exclusive. I bought my from Walmart.com – I haven’t seen it as an official release on Amazon, although I have noticed that the 27-disc version of The Skywalker Saga is sold at the site by third-party sellers at inflated prices – this smaller, less elaborate box set was intended primarily as the region-free European release, as it sports the rating seals from the British and Irish counterparts to the Motion Picture Association of America as part of its indicia.  From a young Anakin Skywalker’s descent into the dark side to the rise of the Resis...

© 2020 Summit Entertainment. Movie © 2019 Midway Island Productions This review is about the Blu-ray release of Roland Emmerich's 2019 war film,  Midway , and its features. It is not a review of the film itself. Readers who want to find out more about the film can read my review from November 2019 here: Midway film review On Tuesday, February 18, Lionsgate Films released the home media edition of Midway,  a 2019 World War II historical drama written by Wes Tooke and directed by Roland Emmerich, the German filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer best known for Stargate, Independence Day, The Patriot, and The Day After Tomorrow. As is common in the home entertainment industry, Lionsgate, in association with Midway Island Productions, bundled the 138-minutes-long film in a Blu-ray/DVD/Digital combo pack. Midway centers on the Battle of Midway, a clash between the American fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy which marked a pivotal turning point in the Pacific Theater du...

Can you play DVDs on a Blu-ray player? Yes, you can. In fact, millions of consumers play DVDs on Blu-ray players every day. I do it at least once a week, maybe more, when I'm watching content that is available on DVD but not on Blu-ray, especially old TV shows or documentaries that were made decades ago and might be too expensive to convert to high definition home media. Blu-ray discs (BDs) are essentially the “next logical step” in the digital optical disc data storage format known as the Digital Video Disc, which itself was a descendant of the audio compact disc of the early 1980s. It’s no coincidence that CDs, DVDs, and BDs share the same dimensions - 120 millimeters (4.7 in) in diameter and 1.2 millimeters (0.047 in) thick. The main difference between a DVD and a BD is that the latter can store more information (50 gigabytes worth in a double-layer BD) than a DVD. This is because the disc is read by a blue (actually violet) laser that can read more data than the av...

This is a review of Warner Bros. Entertainment's Dunkirk three-disc Blu-ray/DVD/UltraViolet set. To read my July 2017 review of Christopher Nolan's film, check out this post: Movie Review: 'Dunkirk' On December 19, 2017, Warner Bros. Entertainment released the home media editions of  Dunkirk, director Christopher Nolan's World War II dramatic take on Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of nearly 400,000 British, French, and Belgian soldiers from the beaches at Dunkerque, a French port city on the English Channel coast, under unceasing Luftwaffe attacks and the threat of annihilation or capture by advancing German armies.     Nominated for eight Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound Design, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Production Design) and winner of other accolades, including three Golden Globe awards (Best Picture - Drama, Best Director, and Best Original Score), Dunkirk is now available...

As the premiere of Walt Disney Pictures' live action remake of the beloved 1991 animated classic approaches, I thought it would be a good time to share my Examiner review of the Gary Trousdale/Kirk Wise original version.  Directed by Gary Trousdale (“Shrek the Halls,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) and Kirk Wise (“Atlantis: The Lost Empire”) and written by Linda Woolverton (“The Lion King”) and 11 other co-writers, “Beauty and the Beast” is an enchanting and awe-inspiring love story centered on the beautiful Belle and the monstrous-looking Beast. The film's story is simple and straightforward, even being introduced with a traditional-sounding prologue (narrated by M*A*S*H alum David Ogden Stiers, who also plays Cogsworth) which sets up the characters and situations. “Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter's nig...

(C) 2015 Paramount Home Entertainment When Australian director Peter Weir (“Gallipoli”) began filming “Witness” in 1984, Harrison Ford was a major action-adventure star known for his roles as Han Solo in the “Star Wars” trilogy and Indiana Jones in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” At the time, though, few moviegoers considered Ford as an actor capable of playing a romantic lead on the silver screen. (Ford starred in Peter Hyams’ 1979 World War II melodrama “Hanover Street,” but it failed to earn popular and critical acclaim.) Happily for Ford and movie audiences everywhere, Weir’s film about John Book, a Philadelphia police captain who falls in love with a beautiful Amish widow (Kelly McGillis) while hiding out in the Pennsylvania countryside from a posse of corrupt cops changed that perception forever. “Witness” proved that Ford could play complex and down to Earth characters beyond the iconic heroes he is still best known for. Writt...