Top 3 Blu-ray movies for every high-def fan must own

Summary: We've covered our favorite Blu-ray discs and our favorite special features, so I think it’s time to take a look at some of the latest Blu-rays on the market.  

  
Top 1. Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season

HBO | 2014 | Season 4 | 560 min | Rated TV-MA | Feb 17, 2015 (1 Week) 
TV show rating: ***** 9.3 


 
"They can never be tamed. Not even by their mother." 

Game of Thrones loves nothing more than to remind its fans they're watching Game of Thrones. Blood. Betrayal. Death. Murder most foul. No matter how many times the series shocks me, no matter how deeply a twist resonates, no matter how often I'm left stunned, heartbroken or profoundly unsettled, showrunners David Benioff & D.B. Weiss and author/co-executive producer George R.R. Martin manage to lull me into a false sense of security. Every. Single. Time. After the infamous Red Wedding, I swore I'd never again forget I was watching Game of Thrones. That I'd never forget how cruel and unpredictable the Seven Kingdoms can be. Wouldn't you know it, though, two episodes into Season Four, there I was again: wide-eyed, my jaw unhinged, my mind scrambling to convene order. Alright, a clear, weary thought stammered. Next time will be different. Next time I'll be ready. Besides, I have an entire season to brace for the worst.  

Top 2. Downton Abbey: Season 5 Blu-ray

Masterpiece Classic: Downton Abbey | Original UK Edition 
PBS | 2014 | Season 5 | 533 min | Not rated | Jan 27, 2015
TV show rating: **** 8.5



"Downton Abbey: Season 4" was met with enormous hostility by fans and critics. Spending three seasons tracking the emotionally chilled antics of the Crawley Family, emphasizing decorum, hushed rumor, and the occasional dramatic flare-up, the show suddenly downshifted into more manipulative scripting from creator Julian Fellowes, with a subplot featuring sexual assault identified as particularly irksome to those already deep into the English fantasy. "Season 5" sets out to rebuild what was lost, largely eschewing dire events and horrifying violence to restore a bit of the old energy that's been lost to practice and time. In fact, "Season 5" is determined to poke sunshine through the clouds, even opening the first episode with a joke. 

  
Top 3. Fury Blu-ray 
  
Blu-ray + UltraVioletSony Pictures | 2014 | 135 min | Rated R | Jan 27, 2015
Movie rating: **** 7.8



The War film has undergone quite the evolution over the years. While the classic anti-war film has been a hallmark throughout the cinema experience -- films like 1930's All Quiet on the Western Front are regarded as classics and speak decidedly against the ugliness of war -- there's been a clearly defined arc in the general flow of cinema history that has seen the War movie evolve in spirit and tone. The post-war era brought with it a collection of movies that showed a spirited patriotism that didn't exactly cheer on war but that gave it something of a more glorious, gung-ho, rah-rah, sort of mass appeal, not to mention a "clean" and "watered down" depiction of war, understandable in the wake of the bloodiest war the world had ever seen. Following the Vietnam conflict, filmmakers like Oliver Stone and Stanley Kubrick positioned their cameras to depict war as a negative to both the individual and to the greater human condition, an unsurprising turn of events considering the cultural shift of the 1960s and the broad popular opposition to the conflict by its end in the 1970s. 

The latest Blu-ray movie review: Evilspeak

Shout Factory | 1981 | 97 min | Unrated | May 13, 2014 (New Release)
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)

Subtitles: English

Some wise man once informed humanity that the meek shall inherit the earth, but certain mild, unaggressive types aren't content to merely wait for their legacy to be handed them and instead decide to opt for a little help. Lots of people through the years have compared the 1981 horror opus Evilspeak to Carrie, pointing out the similarities in a bullied loner who finally strikes back with a little supernatural aid. Carrie had the benefit of some roiling family dysfunction underpinning its tale, and its setting in a high school rife with cliques and boorish behavior made it instantly accessible to many people, even if they had never been drenched in pig's blood. Pigs actually show up inEvilspeak, too, but here the formulation of the mild mannered little sad sack rising up to take his revenge has little of Carrie's impact since it's divorced from a commonplace setting and perhaps even more importantly from any sort of larger background with regard to its main character, one Stanley Coopersmith (Clint Howard), a picked on young man at a military academy. When Stanley stumbles on an old cache of Satanic materials in a kind of cavern like cellar at the institution, suddenly there seems to be a potential route forward for the afflicted kid. Evilspeak is in fact a fairly basic revenge saga?...

The new film review is about Sophie's Choice

   
Collector's Edition / Blu-ray + DVDShout Factory | 1982 | 150 min | Rated R | Apr 29, 2014 (2 Weeks)
    
Video
Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0

Movie Information:

The year is 1947. Aspiring southern author Stingo (Peter MacNichol) heads to New York to seek his fortune. Moving into a dingy Brooklyn boarding house, Stingo strikes up a friendship with research chemist Nathan Landau (Kevin Kline) and Nathan's girlfriend, Polish refugee Sophie Zawistowska (Oscar-winner Meryl Streep). There is something unsettling about the relationship; Nathan is subject to violent mood swings, while Sophie seems to be harboring a horrible secret. Stingo soons learns that both Nathan and Sophie are strangers to truth; the audience is likewise led down several garden paths by a series of sepia-toned flashbacks, depicting Sophie's ordeal in a wartime concentration camp. The scene in which we discover the facts behind Sophie's "choice" is a gut-wrenching one; it might have been even more powerful had not the film taken so long to get there. It is betraying nothing to reveal that the character of Stingo is the alter ego of William Styron, upon whose best-selling novel the film was based. The film is rated R, due in great part to a disposable scene wherein Stingo tries to put the make on a "liberated" female intellectual.

A good comedy: "The War Wagon" - Blu-ray movie

Blu-ray + UltraVioletUniversal Studios | 1967 | 101 min | Not rated | Apr 01, 2014
Unrated, 1 hr. 41 min.
Western, Action & Adventure,Classics
Directed By: Burt Kennedy
Written By: Clair Huffaker
In Theaters: May 27, 1967 Wide
On DVD: Aug 18, 1998
MCA Universal Home Video

Movie Information:

John Wayne and Kirk Douglas spend half of The War Wagon trying to knock one another off and the other half working shoulder to shoulder. Settling an old score with avaricious mine owner Bruce Cabot, Wayne plans to steal a $500,000 gold shipment from his enemy. Douglas, at first hired by Cabot to kill Wayne, goes along with the robbery scheme. Also in on the plan is Howard Keel, superbly cast as a world-weary, wisecracking Native American (it's the sort of part that nowadays would go to GrahamGreene). The titular war wagon is the armor-plated, Gatling-gun fortified stagecoach wherein Cabot's gold is transported. Thus the stage is set for a slam-bang finale, and director Burt Kennedy isn't about to disappoint the viewers. Best bit: after Kirk and The Duke gun down Cabot's henchmen Bruce Dern and Chuck Roberson, Douglas quips "Mine hit the ground first"--whereupon Wayne replies "Mine was taller."

Great Blu-ray movie review: Seven Warriors

Well Go USA | 1989 | 92 min | Not rated | Apr 22, 2014 (2 Weeks)
 

 
Is it possible to roll over in your grave before you're even dead? Akira Kurosawa may have at least looked askance when his classic 1954 film Seven Samurai became John Sturges' Americanized The Magnificent Seven (along with several sequels starting in 1960 and continuing on for over a decade). Sturges' film at least had the benefit of a smartly rethought setting and some great performances, along with the director's trademark handling of action sequences. But the iconic Japanese director may well be spectrally furious with what has happened with some of his most legendary films since he shuffled off this mortal coil. One of the touchstones of 20th century cinema, Kurosawa's immortal Rash on, became the basis for a pretty dunderheaded follow-up called Tajomaru: Avenging Blade in 2009. But some twenty years earlier, Seven Samurai itself (themselves?) was adapted yet again in a fitfully amusing but ultimately pointless reboot called Seven Warriors. This 1989 outing is noisy, frenetic and even occasionally fun at times, but it's a pale (one might go so far as to say bloodless) reinvention of Kurosawa's original. Rather sloppily directed by Terry Tong (with the somewhat better fight choreography handled by Sammo Hung), and scored with what must certainly be one of the most inept sets of cues ever slathered onto a soundtrack, Seven Warriors lumbers about, attempting to revisit a lot of the tropes in Kurosawa's masterpiece without ever offering much of anything new and finally kind of sullying the memory of the famous film. 

 

'Men in War' Proves Sherman Was Right The Cast

Olive Films | 1957 | 102 min | Not rated | Apr 15, 2014 (6 Days) 

 
IT appears that the underlying purpose of Sidney Harmon's new film, "Men in War," is to show that the famous observation of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman was justified. War, in this low-budget picture, which came to the Capitol yesterday, is brutal and agonizing. It is unequivocal hell.
From the very beginning, when the camera brings us in touch with a platoon of hard-pressed American infantrymen cut off from their battalion during the Korean war, it is one long display of horror and misery as the soldiers, under the command of a tired and tormented lieutenant, try to slog their way back to their lines.
Half of the bruised and bearded soldiers appear to be suffering from battle fatigue, which causes them, at embarrassing moments, to do weird and incautious things. These unaccountable fellows are constantly having to be dragged down to the ground. The other half appear to be so frightened that they have to fee prodded to move. The courage and ingenuity of the lieutenant are unrelentingly taxed.
And, to add to his troubles, there early comes into his group a sergeant of nasty disposition, tending a colonel who is out of his mind. The colonel just sits there and gazes into space, but the sergeant gripes and growls, questioning the lieutenant's decisions. Yes sir, brother, war is hell.
So, we might add, is the experience of sitting through this film, which runs for an hour and three-quarters and never gets out of that ugly terrain. It is not just the war, it is the monotony of seeing the same things happen over and over again—feet dragging through dust, faces sweating, guys jumping up and going mad. The screen play by Philip Yordan and the direction of Anthony Mann are made up largely of previous war-film indications of human behavior that mean little when repeated so many times.
It is a relief when the lieutenant and the nasty sergeant, survivors of the band, wipe out an enemy bunker and permit the picture to come to an end.
The lieutenant is played by Robert Ryan and the sergeant by Aldo Ray. Both are rugged, ruthless soldiers, by the rules of realism here laid down, and James Edwards as a careless Negro and Philip Pine as a scared noncom are among the dozen or so actors who stumble and sweat commendably.
It is hard to figure what audience, if any, should be recommended to this film. By now, there are not many people who are unacquainted with the facts of Hollywood war.

Today's Films: “young at heart” Blu-ray movie review

117 min | Not rated | Apr 08, 2014 (New Release)
   

The rare pairing of Hollywood and recording icons Doris Day and Frank Sinatra is available for the first time on Blu-ray via a new edition of the 1954 movie musical YOUNG AT HEART.

Storyline:

Young at Heart centers on a family headed by a music-loving patriarch (Robert Keith, Men in War) and his musically inclined daughters looking for romance. Doris Day (That Touch of Mink) plays the youngest daughter, Laurie, and Gig Young (City That Never Sleeps) plays Alex Burke, a likable composer who comes for an extended visit and eventually wins the hearts of all three sisters. Frank Sinatra (Come Blow Your Horn) plays Barney Sloan, a cynical songwriter hired by Alex to do arrangements for an upcoming Broadway show. The praiseworthy cast also includes Dorothy Malone (The Tarnished Angels) and Elisabeth Fraser (So Big) as the older sisters, Ethel Barrymore (Portrait of Jennie) as the family's matriarch and Alan Hale, Jr. (TV's Gilligan's Island) as Robert Neary, a successful businessman engaged to the oldest daughter (Malone). The first screen pairing of "Old Blue Eyes" and "America's Sweetheart" will have your heart smiling and your toes tapping with timeless tunes by the Gershwin brothers, Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer. Young at Heart was directed by Gordon Douglas (Only the Valiant) and beautifully shot in color by the great Ted D. McCord (The Sound of Music, East of Eden).

Doris Day and Frank Sinatra star in this remake of the 1938 hit "Four Daughters."
In this version, Gregory Tuttle has just three daughters, one of whom falls for a melancholy musician named Barney Sloan. But she's already betrothed to Alex Burke, the man who hired Barney to arrange the music for a musical comedy. That doesn't prevent Laurie and Barney from eloping. But his insecurity is so deep and so destructive it nearly costs them their happiness... and his life.
Features a classic song score, performed by Day and Sinatra.

Doris Day is a small-town girl who helps a jaded and struggling musician (Frank Sinatra) find happiness through her love and support. Ethel Barrymore gives a fine supporting performance. A remake of 1938's "Four Daughters."

40th Anniversary Edition is digitally mastered from the original film negative and includes the original theatrical trailer.

Additional song composers: Don Pippin and Al Rinker. 

Several new songs were written for the film.

Filmed in three-strip Technicolor.

Remake of the 1938 film "Four Daughters," actor John Garfield's film debut, directed by Michael Curtiz.

Young at Heart Reviews:

"...[The music] is tops..."
-- Mike Clark, USA Today

“47 Ronin”: The Inside Story of Universal’s Samurai Disaster

 
Director: Carl Rinsch
  
Writers:Chris Morgan (screenplay), Hossein Amini(screenplay), 2 more credits 
  
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Hiroyuki Sanada, Ko Shibasaki |See full cast and crew

Summary:
  
If ever a film was in need of an honourable death and a respectful burial it would be 47 Ronin, a cursed samurai epic that features a somnambulistic performance from a shell-shocked Keanu Reeves. Carl Rinsch's $175m drama was shot back in 2011 then found itself sat on the shelf for over a year, beset by bad omens and the stench of decay. It limps into cinemas and falls on its sword with a sigh.
Reeves is Kai, a disreputable mixed-race killing machine who rides to the aid of a band of exiled ronin in a mystical feudal Japan. Before long, our hero is slicing ogres, wrestling witches and romancing his lordship's daughter with the selfsame air of irritated bemusement. Meanwhile, ranked alongside him, the ronin (represented by a group of estimable Japanese actors) have their work cut out tackling reams of expository English-language dialogue. This dialogue appears to have leapt, fully formed, off the nearest idiot board.
47 Ronin is murky, muddled and leaden, although it's not quite the unmitigated disaster it's been cracked up to be. Rinsch's lethargic fantasy plotline at least comes leavened by some vibrant visual flourishes. I enjoyed the drifting ground fog that takes on human shapes, while the sorceress's green dress is made to twist and writhe like the bedclothes in an MR James ghost story. In the thick of the battle, Kai eventually proves his mettle and impresses his betters. They used to revile him and now they realise they love him. Kai accepts their grovelling apologies with a pained little frown. His thoughts, as ever, appear to be directed elsewhere.

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Description: Any suggestions on the best setting to maintain the Blu ray while possibly cutting down on the time it takes to rip? Actually, I would show you an easy way to ripping your DVD and Blu-Ray collections into .mp4 format and you can view them using Plex, hope can enjoy it and use it with high quality of the output files. 

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And you may want to read: 

Easily convert DVD to PS3 with Dolby Digital 5.1 channels audio
Lossless put the hottest “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” Blu-ray onto Plex Media Sever
How do I make MKV files playing on my PS3?
Create a playable DVD for PS3 from HD DivX/Xvid/H.264/MPEG/WMV/AVI videos

The latest Blu-ray discs on Mar 2014 review:Part two

(6)Here Comes the Devil (Mar 18, 2014)

The film plays out almost like one of Grimm’s darker fairy tales. A family pulls off at a rest stop to take a break from traveling, the children want to explore the nearby mountain, and the parents let them so they can take a nap and fool around a bit. When the parents wake up sometime later, the children are nowhere to be found and the couple begins to panic.

(7)Saving Mr. Banks (Mar 18, 2014)



Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson bring to life the untold true story about the origins of one of the most treasured Disney classics of all time. John Lee Hancock (The Blind Side) directs this acclaimed film, which reveals the surprising backstory behind the making of Mary Poppins. Determined to fulfill a promise to his daughters, Walt Disney (Hanks) tries for twenty years to obtain the rights to author P.L. Travers’ (Thompson) beloved book. Armed with his iconic creative vision, Walt pulls out all the stops, but the uncompromising Travers won’t budge. Only when he reaches into his own complicated childhood does Walt discover the truth about the ghosts that haunt Travers, and together, the set Mary Poppins free.

(8)A Brief History of Time (Mar 18, 2014)



Errol Morris (The Fog of War) turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, afflicted by a debilitating motor neuron disease that has left him without a voice or the use of his limbs. An adroitly crafted tale of personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry, Morris's documentary examines the way the collapse of Hawking's body has been accompanied by the untrammeled broadening of his imagination. Telling the man's incredible story through the voices of his colleagues and loved ones, while making dynamically accessible some of the theories in Hawking's best-selling book of the same name, A Brief History of Time is at once as small as a single life and as big as the ever-expanding universe.

(9)In Fear (Mar 11, 2014)



First love can be innocent or intense, intoxicating...or insatiable. Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon and Alyssa Milano star in Fear, the riveting suspense-thriller about a passionate romance that soon becomes a deadly obsession. Nicole Walker (Witherspoon) always dreamed of being swept away by someone special - someone strong, sexy and sensitive who would care for her more than anything else in the world. David (Wahlberg) is all that and more: a modern-day knight who charms and seduces her, body and soul. However, Nicole soon finds out that her perfect boyfriend is not all he seems to be. His sweet façade masks a savage, dark side that will soon transform her dream into a nightmare. This provocative thriller will lure you past the brink of terror and keep you on the edge of your seat!
  
(10)The Wrath of Vajra (Mar 18, 2014)



Well Go USA presents the Blu-ray & DVD for The Wrath of Vajra, directed by Law Ching Cheong (who is currently wrapping up Donnie Yen’s The Iceman Cometh). In The Wrath of Vajra, a top Chinese martial artist (Yu Xing) sets his sights on a Japanese death cult after they abduct innocent Chinese children and train them to be assassins. Judging by the trailer, the filmmakers have been influenced by the Ong-Bak sequels in terms of the slow-motion action photography and a willingness to feature comic book-like villains. 

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The latest Blu-ray discs on Mar 2014 review:Part one

(1)Bending the Rules (Mar 18, 2014)

Theo Gold, the New Orleans Assistant District Attorney, is about to have the worst day of His life. Not only does his wife decide to leave him on the eve of his birthday, but he manages to lose a high-profile case against Harry Blades (WWE Superstar Edge), an eccentric yet hardnosed Detective on trial for corruption. Now, the only thing Theo has left is the car his father entrusted to him - a 1956 Studebaker Goldenhawk. But when he discovers his father's `pride and joy' has been stolen, Theo is ironically discovers that the only ally he has within the police department is the same person he tried to put away. As the two set-off to find the car, action and comedy quickly develop when they come to realize that the stolen `Hawk' was merely a small piece of a much larger puzzle.

(2)Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom (Mar 18, 2014)

  

This is the life story of President Nelson Mandela, the revolutionary leader who was the first black South African to hold the office of president and whose government ended apartheid in his country. Based on his autobiography, the film focuses on his early life, coming of age, education and the 27 years he spent in prison before becoming President and working to rebuild the country's society.
Rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for some intense sequences of violence and disturbing images, sexual content and brief strong language.

(3)The King of Comedy (Mar 25, 2014)

Martin Scorsese's The King Of Comedy is a funny depiction of the dangers of celebrity fandom. Robert De Niro plays the ridiculously inept Rupert Rupkin, an aspiring comic who idolizes talk show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis). Still living at home with his mother, Rupert spends his days trying to arrange a meeting with his hero. When he isn't doing that, he's at home talking to carboard cutouts in his makeshift television studio. After Rupert convinces Rita (Diahnne Abbot), a pretty bartender, that Langford has invited them to his house outside the city, the reality of the situation makes itself painfully apparent upon arriving at the star's front door. Trouble is, Rupert's too delusional to take the hint. He eventually hatches a plan with an equally obsessed fan, Masha (Sandra Berhard), to kidnap Langford in exchange for a chance to let him deliver his routine on the air.

  
(4)Kill Your Darlings (Mar 18, 2014)



Set in 1944, the biography movie tells the story of Ginsberg at Columbia, where he finds stuffy tradition clashing with modern ideas and attitudes embodied by Lucien Carr (Dane DeHaan,Chronicle). Shy, unsophisticated Ginsberg is fascinated by Carr and drawn into his hard-drinking, jazz-clubbing friends, including William Burroughs (Ben Foster, Contraband), the dissolute scion of a wealthy family, and David Kammerer (Michael C. Hall, TV’s Dexter), an older hanger-on who resents Ginsberg’s position as Carr’s new sidekick. Everything gets shaken up when there’s a murder.

(5)Reasonable Doubt (Mar 18, 2014)

Up-and-coming District Attorney, Mitch Brockton is involved in a fatal hit-and-run, but Clinton Davis, is found with the body and charged with murder. Believing that Davis is innocent, Brockton is compelled to throw the trial. Soon after, Brocton's perfect life begins to unravel as he realizes that the man he set free is hiding a secret that will destroy him. Written by Grindstone Entertainment Group.

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