Philip K. Dick: The Penultimate Truth (DVD / MPAA Rating: NR / Running Time: 1 hr., 29 min.) is a biography of the late, great science-fiction author. It is not a particularly good biography. I found the device of two guys in a room opening boxes marked as classified and then putting pictures and notes on a cork board to be rather annoying. However ( Read more... )

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (Blu-Ray / MPAA Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 1 hr., 44 min. / Release Date: 25 July 2008) was a nice visit with an old friend†. It felt like an extended episode from the series. It did not really deal with any of the copious mythology. The movie focused on Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson). Mulder ( Read more... )

WALL•E (Blu-Ray DVD / MPAA Rating:  G / Running Time: 1 hr., 38 min. / Release Date: 27 June 2008) is a very enjoyable animated movie by Disney/Pixar. There is very little dialog from WALL•E but the robot is surprisingly expressive. The animation was great - as usual - it is Pixar after all. The story, while relatively straightforward, was fun. The ( Read more... )

Vantage Point (Blu-Ray DVD / MPAA Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 1 hr., 30 min. / Release Date: 22 February 2008) is a gimmick movie. The story is told from multiple perspectives. You see one perspective up to a point and then it rewinds - literally. You see another perspective up to the same point and then it rewinds. This happens eight times! It ( Read more... )

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Hardcover / 320 pages) was an enjoyable and quick read. I believe it is classified as juvenile literature - whatever you call it, it was fun. Gaiman's prose is, as usual, a pleasure to read. His characters are, again, as usual, magical and inventive.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy ( Read more... )

The Incredible Hulk (Blu-Ray / Release Date: 13 June 2008 / MPAA Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 1 hr., 52 min.) is an enjoyable movie - a reboot of The Hulk (2003). I saw it in the theatre and bought the Blu-Ray. When I went to the theatre I was concerned because of the stories of Edward Norton's dissatisfaction with the final cut. Based upon the ( Read more... )

Mongol (Blu-Ray / Release Date: 2007 / MPAA Rating: R / Running Time: 2 hrs., 6 min. ) was a very interesting movie about the early life of Temudjin - up to the point where he was declared Genghis Khan. It is a Kazakhstan movie in Mongolian. I obviously watched it with English subtitles. It has been a long time since I read The Devil's Horsemen by ( Read more... )

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Release Date: 22 May 2008 / MPAA Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 2 hrs., 2 min.) was enjoyable. I liked visiting with Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones once again. It felt like an ending - at least I hope it was an ending and not a passing of the baton to Shia LaBeouf. LaBeouf did a good job but he is ( Read more... )

Across the Universe ( Blu-Ray / Musical / Premiere Date: 12 October 2007 / MPAA Rating: PG-13 / Running Time: 2 hrs., 11 min. ) was an interesting story of the upheaval of the '60s told to the music of the Beatles. I am a huge Beatles fan. I am not, however, a big fan of musicals. I thought the songs added to the story but, at times, extended the ( Read more... )

Beowulf: The Director's Cut ( Standard DVD / CG Animation / Release Date: 16 November 2007 / MPAA Rating: Unrated; originally, PG-13 / Running Time: 1 hr., 54 min.; originally, 1 hr., 53 min. ) was interesting technically from an animation stand point but uninteresting otherwise. As a matter of fact, I watched a lot of the movie in 1.5x speed - a ( Read more... )