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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on May 22nd, 2006
Have you ever given any thought to the influence that dirty power has on the output quality of your home theater system? How does it negatively affect the picture and sound quality of all that gear that you bought to be able to better enjoy your movies? We spend money on new TV’s, higher end DVD players and lets not forget cables, sometimes the cables are worth more then the new piece of gear we just bought. Well the guys (and girls) at Monster Cable have spent some time thinking about it and maybe it’s time we all d…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on January 21st, 2006
Hustle & Flow works because of one reason and one reason only. That reason is Terrence Howard.
Howard injects himself into the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp who stumbles across a church choir and then strives to put his daily experiences into rap music, hoping to break out of the lifestyle he has grown to hate.
If you couldn’t tell by now, supporting actor turned leading man Howard has been a very busy man in 2005, appearing in half a dozen films – and Hustle & Flow will most likely…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on December 10th, 2005
Ben Cross (D.L. Hughley) is a former teacher with a dark past and some anger issues. He still sleeps with his ex-wife, but she’d rather be elsewhere. When Ben gets a call from an old colleague who asks him to teach at a juvenile prison facility, Ben figures it’s a good stepping stone to get back into teaching.
After meeting his unruly class, Ben realizes that a good way to get the kids focused is for them to express themselves through rap and poetry. One student named Gabriel (Jose Pablo Cantillo), with who…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on November 14th, 2005
In this, the third Bionicle film, the Toa return to Metru Nui to find their land overrun by the evil dictator Sidorak, his soon to be queen, Roodaka and the Visorak, a spider-like army. Roodaka, who plans to take over Metru Nui for herself, tries to lure Toa leader Vakama over to the dark side to lead the Visorak army when Vakama feels disrespected as the leader of the Toa.
While Vakama is seduced by the forces of evil, the remaining Toa meet up with the friendly Rahaga to find Ketongu, a powerful Buddha li…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on November 14th, 2005
Virgin geek Virgil (Jay Michael Ferguson) sticks up for hot girl Kellie (Allison Lange) when a teacher rips into her for cheating on her history exam. Thankful for his bravery, Kellie invites Virgil over to her house to thank him.
If you haven’t guessed it by now, Sex and the Teenage Mind is a complete rehash of just about every teenage sex comedy ever made in the last 25 years. Even the red bikini featured on the DVD cover will have you screaming Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Ther…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on January 11th, 2005
The story of Troy and the warrior Achilles is the stuff of legends now brought to life by Wolfgang Peterson. With an ensemble cast including Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Peter O’Toole, Brian Cox, Brendan Gleeson and Sean Bean there are only two things that can happen, magic or mediocrity. In this case I think we end up somewhere in between. Some scenes like the battle between Achilles and Hector is incredible while the storming of the beach at Troy is almost downright laughable. Overall though the film works I just wish it …
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on June 20th, 2004
Well if you don’t know what is going on in this film then I am not quite sure why you are reading this review. This is the third and final installment of the Lord of the Ring’s trilogy, we finally after three long years get to discover the fate of Frodo, the ring, Sam, Gollum and all of Middle Earth. This film like The Two Towers just keeps getting better and managing to exceed our ever increasing expectations.
The multiple story lines all come together and finally conclude themselves, maybe not quite exac…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on May 24th, 2004
Following what may be one of the best season finales ever (i.e. Buffy sacrifices herself for her sister Dawn) Buffy is raised from the dead by the ever increasing powers of Willow. She returns disoriented just in time to battle a horde of motorcycle riding demons hell-bent on turning Sunnyvale into their own personal property. It is during the opening two episodes that it becomes clear that secrets are going to play a major role in the sixth season.
Buffy’s friends believe that as a result of the events of…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on May 19th, 2004
What do you when you are in your mid 20’s and are diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and only given a short amount of time to live. Do you move home and surround yourself with those who you love or do you enlist your friends to help you rob a bank and see if you can go out in a blaze of glory. This is an interesting film with a somewhat original storyline, there is a nice little twist at the end that you can see coming but overall it was an entertaining watch.
Video
The 1.33:1 full …
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on May 19th, 2004
A doctor looking to escape his past gets stuck in Purgatory Flats and drawn into a circle of deceit with the wild Sunny. Sunny is looking for a ticket out of the one horse town and will do anything to get out including killing her husband. The plot is as thin as one of Sunny’s little skirts and grates on you like the desert sand in a windstorm.
Video
The 1.33:1 full screen transfer looks pretty bad; I have seen worse but this one ranks up there. Colors are over really saturated… I assume …
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on May 19th, 2004
The time of being a teenager and self discovery can be a difficult one. We watch the life of Simon mainly through flashbacks as he is dealing with his drug addiction. We see a young man who doesn’t seem to fit in with his rich family friends. He finds friendship and comfort with a group who follows bands like Phish and The Dead around the country, getting high and having fun. Simon’s descends into drug addiction driven by the memory of his father betraying his mother just before she dies. The plot has the potential t…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on April 22nd, 2004
Universal got it right a few years ago when they adapted The Grinch who Stole Christmas. Jim Carrey was perfectly cast as the heartless Grinch, the costumes and set design were excellent and the mild deviations from Dr. Seuss’ classic were appropriate and added more heart to the story. The most important aspect that was captured was the moral of the story – that being angry and miserable leads to a unsatisfying life of loneliness and that an act of kindness can fill the world with joy.
Now take all…
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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on April 11th, 2004
Introduction
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Harman/Kardon name they are one of the preeminent audio manufacturers. The company is owned by Harman International who also owns well known brand such as JBL and Infinity as well as ultra high-end brands Mark Levinson, Lexicon and Revel (never mind the professional audio companies that they own as well). As a matter of fact any time you watch a movie or listen to a CD at one point in time a Harman company product was used in the production of i…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on April 5th, 2004
Master and Commander is an epic tale that is adapted from 2 novels of a 20 novel collection by writer Patrick O’Brian. This Napoleonic-era story follows the escapades of Captain “Lucky” Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) and his intrepid crew aboard the British war frigate HMS Surprise, as they try to hunt down and capture or destroy the French warship Acheron. The Film gets off to a fast start as Capt. Aubrey and crew are ambushed by the Acheron and decimated in short order. This initial attack is well done and well acted …
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on March 11th, 2004
Jack Black has mainly played smaller bit parts in movies and the problem has always been that whenever he is on screen he steals the show. He has had a starring role in one film (Shallow Hal) but as you will quickly learn from this film they kept him on a pretty short leash. This guy is on overdrive whenever there is a camera anywhere within a hundred feet.
Jack Black is Dewey Finn the down on his luck wannabe rock god. His roommate’s new girlfriend threatens to kick Dewey out if he doesn’t come up with som…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on March 3rd, 2004
Synopsis
Stephen Burrows plays Milwaukee Steve plays a northern from Milwaukee who heads off to LA to seek fame and fortune under the bright lights. He lands his first job in a jock itch commercial and quickly becomes famous for this. Unable to land anymore work he decides what he needs to do is fake his own death and then make a miraculous return.
First he decides to go on “Wheel of Fortune” and becomes notorious when he is sued by the Merv Griffin Corp. Suddenly everyone wants him and se…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on March 3rd, 2004
Synopsis
Denis Leary plays Doug Munford a wheeling dealing ego maniac skirt chaser who must get the women he has betrayed to forgive him so that he can inherit a million dollars. Elizabeth Hurley plays the lawyer who must accompany him done the road to redemption and cash to ensure that he doesn’t cheat. Along the way Doug finds out that he had a daughter with one of the women who is now dead and decides that maybe he needs to change his life. Ho hum can we throw a couple of more clichés in this one,…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on March 3rd, 2004
For those of you who are into bands like Phish, Dave Matthews and The Grateful Dead you probably already know who this band is. For the rest of us The String Cheese Incident is made up of a group of fairly accomplished musicians from all different genres that are prone to playing very long songs. The songs tend to journey through all different styles from country to rock to jazz to blues and more. This disc features two different performances at the famous Fillmore in Denver.
Video
The vi…
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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on March 3rd, 2004
Introduction
River Cables is another one of the new breed of online only, high quality lower cost cable manufacturers that have started popping up over the last few years. A huge difference between River Cables and the other guys is that they are the only company to individually certify all of their cables before they ship them out and they even include nifty “birth certificates”, pretty cool. Lets not also forget that they offer a 30 day Home Trial, if you are not happy with the product then send it…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on February 26th, 2004
For years different TV shows and movies have speculated not as too whether there is life on other planets but, what are they doing on earth. Some shows like the X-files play out that the powers that be have sold us down the river to ensure their survival with a hostile alien race, or like in ID-4 and the Alien series are here to kill everyone and use the planet for their own will.
Director Steven Spielberg has looked at aliens and their involvement with the human race in a number of his films and with the…
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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on February 11th, 2004
Introduction
Harman/kardon is one of the preeminent audio brands in the world and with the brands that the parent company Harman Int. it is an absolutely juggernaut in the audio world. Having said that they have never really been known for making video gear (Lexicon, one of the Harman group companies make some ridiculously good gear with a huge emphasis on video performance). This DVD player can be purchased separately or comes in the Harman/kardon DPR System One with the DPR1001 receiver.
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on December 11th, 2003
Based on a ride at Disneyland, you probably would not have expected much except for the fact that you have Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush cast as the leads. The Black Pearl is a mysterious pirate ship half old-wives-tale half ghost story. Geoffery Rush plays Captain Barbossa the captain of the Black Pearl he sails the seas in search of every last piece of cursed Aztec gold to try and free himself and his mates. Johnny Depp plays the roguish Captain Jack Sparrow (the acting for this part was based on Keith Richards) on…
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Disc Reviews by Kevin Hartle on November 10th, 2003
X2:X Men United is the follow-up film to the original X-men film from 2000. The original film did a good job of setting up the universe of the X-men and introducing us to the core characters that the comic books have always centered around. This film expands on this universe and brings along some of the coolest characters from the comics, this being Pyro, a brief glimpse of Juggernaut and lets not forget Nightcrawler. In this film we see the good and band mutants joining forces to defeat a common enemy. This is a little disappointing as we get to see cool new good characters but not really any super new baddies, but it also keeps the storyline fresh instead of it just being the good mutants versus the bad mutants.
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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on November 7th, 2003
Introduction
Jamo is the second largest speaker manufacturer in the world, and is certainly number one in Europe. In North America they remain a somewhat unknown brand but have been gaining in recognition over the last few years. If you have a look at their website their product offering is very broad with stylish Lifestyle speaker designs all the way up to the mega-buck audiophile grade (a couple of friends of mine own the D8 towers and I can say with confidence that they are stunning).
…
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Hardware Reviews by Kevin Hartle on November 4th, 2003
Introduction
Jamo’s product offerings are very broad with stylish Lifestyle speaker designs all the way up to the mega-buck audiophile grade (a couple of friends of mine own the D8 towers and I can say with confidence that they are stunning). This speaker system is the entry level product in their lifestyle range so these products are designed to look as good as they sound.
Features and Build
The first thing you will notice about these speakers are that they don’t really …
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