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I first saw Dirty Dancing when I was in grade school via VHS with my mother and believe it or not I enjoyed the film as a 10 year-old kid. Since that time I have seen the film countless other times, whether it be on television or DVD. It is one of those films which has matured as I have matured.

Dirty Dancing is the story of headstrong 17-year-old Baby Houseman. Baby hardly expects her family’s usual summer vacation in the Catskills to be momentous. But then Baby spies Johnny Castle, the reso…

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Bridge To Terabithia was brought to us from the same people who brought us Chronicles Of Narnia.

Jess Aarons had to be the fastest runner at Lark Creek Elementary School, the best, but when he was challenged by Leslie Burke, a girl, that was just the beginning of a new season in Jess’s life. Leslie and her parents were new comers to the rural community where Jess Lived, and were thought to be a bit odd, for they didn’t even own a TV, though their house was filled with books. Somewhat to Jess’s …

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Smokey, aka Sheriff Buford T. Justice (Jackie Gleason), is the prospective father-in-law of unwilling bride Carrie (Sally Field). The Bandit (Burt Reynolds), a maverick racecar driver, makes an 80,000-dollar bet that he can transport a shipment of Coors beer from Texarkana, TX, to Atlanta within 28 hours. It’s important to note that in 1977, it was illegal to sell the Coors brand east of the Mississippi River without a permit; if we don’t note that, then the plot won’t make sense at times.

Already in dange…

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Director George Miller’s follow-up to his own 1979 hit Mad Max is proof that not all sequels are inferior to their originals. If anything, this brutal sci-fi action film is even more intense and exciting than its predecessor, although the state of its post-apocalyptic world has only become worse. Several years after the deaths of his wife and child, Max (Mel Gibson) has become a nomad, wandering an Australian outback that has fallen into tribal warfare conducted from scattered armed camps. After a road battle …

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I had missed Apocalypto while it was in the theaters, so I was excited to find it sitting on my front porch Monday morning.

The film centers in the 16th century in Mesoamerica. A Mayan villager named Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) goes hunting for a tapir (a wild boar) with his dad, Flint Sky (Morris Birdyellowhead) and other villagers. One of the hunters who is included in this hunting party is Blunted (Jonathan Brewer), a big guy who has had a hard time impregnating his wife Sky Flower (Iazua Larios),…

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Arriving home from work last Friday, boy was I surprised. What was that sitting on my front porch waiting for me from the great people at Buena Vista? It was nothing more than both Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

We all know the synopsis, but here is the cliff note version again:

Aboard the Black Pearl, infamous pirate Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) attacks the city of Port Royal and kidnaps a governor’s daughter, Elizabeth (Keira Knightley). Barbossa then sets sail wi…

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I was very pleased to see Blu-ray editions of both The Curse of the Black Pearl & Dead Man’s Chest sitting on my doorstep this past Friday. Without hesitation, I watched both discs back to back and was blown away. Since both discs contained very similar A/V transfers, many elements of this review will be the same as those found in my review of The Curse of the Black Pearl.

Once again we are faced with a film in …

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Being a fan of werewolf movies, I was quite looking forward to this release of Blood & Chocolate on Blu-ray.

The film centers on Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), who works at a chocolate shop, but she also has a craving for something else. She’s part of a pack of werewolves, living in Bucharest, who gather once a month when the moon is full to find humans and tear them to shreds after they all transform into wolves. Any human who makes it to the river at the edge of the woods will be spared, but so far, no o…

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Stomp the Yard is a movie I had never even heard of prior to arriving on my doorstep. I have never really been a fan of “Dancing” movies and this film did not change that opinion of mine.

Who knew about the traditions of “stepping?” Stomp the Yard lets moviegoers in on this age-old style of dance customarily done in the black fraternities and sororities, where teams demonstrate complex moves and create rhythmic sounds by using their bodies. It’s exciting to watch, to say the least. But in betwee…

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I first watched Cruel Intentions back in 1999 while in college on a date. So watching it again in glorious HD brought back a lot of fond memories.

This film centers around Kathryn (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Sebastian (Ryan Phillippe), two wealthy, manipulative teenage stepsiblings from Manhattan‘s upper crust, who conspire in Cruel Intentions, an immensely entertaining tale of seduction and betrayal. The stakes are high when the duo agrees upon a deliciously diabolical wager of sexual conquest without…

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Donnie Brasco is one of my favorite Mob movies ever. It was released in 1997 (WOW 10 Years ago) and has some very special performances by both Johnny Depp and Al Pacino.

This films centers around Depp, an FBI agent, gangster, husband and father. In the 1970s, FBI undercover agent Joe Pistone (Depp) infiltrates the mob, leaving his family behind and assuming the false persona of the “jewel man” Donnie Brasco. His assignment: to become a trusted insider with the infamous Bonanno family by gaining the c…

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The Jerk, released in 1979, is a rags-to-riches-to-rags comedy film of belated self-discovery. This was Steve Martin’s first starring role in a feature film and was also written by him.

Carl Reiner directs Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script with Carl Gottlieb) in this gag-laden comedy about an idiotic white man, raised by a poor family of black sharecroppers, who doesn’t realize he’s not black. Navin R. Johnson (Steve Martin) is told the horrible truth when he finds himself instinctively tapping his f…

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Night at the Museum is based on the 1993 children’s book by Milan Trenc. This film follows Larry (Ben Stiller), a divorced New Yorker who is frantically trying to find a job that will allow him to keep his current apartment and create some stability so his son Nick - a place for his son Nick (Jake Cherry) can visit and not be subjected to anymore failures by his father. Larry lands a job as the night watchman at the local Natural History museum. Larry reluctantly accepts the job after Cecil (Dick Van Dyke) exp…

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Lady in the Water is the latest film offered from M. Night Shyamalan. In its opening weekend (21-23 July 2006), the film grossed a total of $18.2 million, placing third in the United States box office results for that weekend. It was M. Night’s lowest opening for any of his five major films. Due to negative reviews and poor word-of-mouth, its second week fell sharply to $7.1 million, pushing its total to only $32.2 million. Its third weekend was no better, falling another 62.1% to $2.7 million. As of September…

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Two guys who were used to drinking beer for fun suddenly become fierce competitors in the “Beer Drinking Olympics” in Germany. Todd Wolfhouse (Erik Stolhanske) and his brother Jan (Paul Soter) are from a German-American family but have never visited the Old Country until their grandfather dies and they fly to Germany to scatter his ashes. Todd and Jan arrive during the annual Oktoberfest celebration and accidentally discover a secret competition, “Beerfest,” in which the world’s leading beer guzzlers determine who ca…

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The Departed pick-ups nicely after two other great Martin Scorsese organized crime classics, Goodfellas and Casino. This time we travel to my hometown of Boston, where we find Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) as an undercover cop for the Boston PD, sent by Dignam (Mark Walberg) to obtain evidence on high-ranking crime boss, Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). Costello has a few tricks up his own sleeve as he has a plant in the Boston PD by the name of Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon). This intense game…

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Reservoir Dogs for the most part got it all started for Quentin Tarantino. This film came to us in 1992 on a tight budget of 1.4 Million dollars and completely changed Hollywood from there on. In many ways it was the Prequel to Pulp Fiction. Reservoir Dogs gave us a breath of fresh air from what Hollywood had been delivering at that time.

This film centers around a jewlery store robbery gone bad. The thiefs, a goup of guys all named after various colors are lying low in a local warehouse afte…

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Entrapment is a thief movie different then most. It has a little bit of Oceans 12 in it and at the same time a little bit of The Rock. How appropriate that this film stars both Catherine Zeta-Jones and Sean Connery.

This film centers around Virginia Baker (Zeta-Jones) who works for a powerful insurance company and Robert MacDougal (Connery), a legendary art thief. The goal of Baker is to befriend MacDougal and con him in to thinking that she is herself a thief and thus indicting him t…

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The Usual Suspects is a most unusual movie and in this case, that is a good thing. The Usual Suspects keeps you interested throughout its entirety by making you think and trying to figure out what will happen next. If only today’s movies did the same thing!! As this has been one of my favorite movies of all time, the excitement I felt when I received this in the mail today could only be compared to a young child on Christmas morning.

A boat, thought to have $91 million in cocaine on board, is…

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Rambo: First Blood was a movie that went to a place where movies had not gone to before. It is the first time in cinematic history where a Vietnam Veteran took to his own country, albeit it was deserved.

This film centers on John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone), a former Special Forces soldier from the Vietnam War. The film starts with Rambo visiting Oregon in search of an old war buddy. When he reaches the family of the old friend he finds out that his war buddy had died the previous year due to cancer i…

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