{"id":1654,"date":"2009-02-19T11:50:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T18:50:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2011-11-18T09:12:54","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T16:12:54","slug":"pauls-dvd-reviews-at-home-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=1654","title":{"rendered":"Paul’s DVD Reviews: Escape from Reality TV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nCleaner (2007)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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I didn’t know this was a straight-to-DVD release until after I’d watched it. Might that have influenced my decision to rent it? Probably, so I’m glad I didn’t know, because I really enjoyed the movie. Great cast, interesting story. Okay, maybe not the most brilliant movie, but if TV was this good I’d be home every night!<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nOutsourced (2006)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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What a sweet movie! It may not make you think very hard, but it will make you smile. After some of the gloomy movies Donna and I have watched recently, this was just what we needed to cheer us up.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nWALL-E (2008)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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I ordered this on Blue-Ray to watch while my grandchildren were here last Thanksgiving. I was surprised, when the movie was first released, to hear that conservative & religious groups were up in arms over the film’s trashing of the planet\/decline of humanity message. What, a Disney movie with a social message? So I had to watch it. A great film for kids; a good film to show a friend you’re trying to introduce to sci-fi. But it’s no 2001<\/a>, or even a Contact<\/a>.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nTranssiberian (2008)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Good but not great. You can’t go too far wrong with Woody Harrelson and Ben Kingsley, but the script is predictable: you see the plot twists coming a long way ahead. And it starts slow, real slow.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nJesse Stone: Death in Paradise (2006)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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The Jesse Stone series (four movies to date with a fifth coming in March ’09) is rock solid, as is Tom Selleck in the lead role. He really does fit the part; you’d think the original books were written with him in mind. After four, though, the formula begins to intrude on one’s enjoyment: there’s always a gangster to be killed, some sort of domestic violence case for him to get involved in; his ever-present struggles with women and scotch, and, as my wife observed, isn’t it kind of creepy that he always gets involved in the life of a teen-aged girl, never a boy? Yeah, all that, but these are still great movies, and I can’t wait for installment # 5.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nLone Star (1996)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Was 1996 that long ago? Lone Star seems old-fashioned, but in a good old-fashioned way: it tells a fascinating story clearly. The set-ups to the 1950s flashbacks seemed mechanical, but that was my only gripe. I loved it. I loved seeing Frances McDormand in what I thought was a very early role, but in fact Fargo<\/a> was filmed that same year. Question:<\/em> why was this movie rated R? Yes, there was some violence, some non-graphic sex, some swearing . . . but nothing I haven’t seen in hundreds of PG-13 rated movies. Was it race-mixing? Have our values changed that much in 13 years? <\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/td>\nMonster (2003)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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If you’ve been reading my reviews, you know I normally avoid movies with dark and depressing subjects, but this one was fascinating and in an odd way a pleasure to watch. Charlize Theron does an incredible turn as an uneducated alcoholic prostitute; Christina Ricci is equally good as her young lover. The story’s true (well, mostly true); the sex and violence not overly graphic; the acting memorable . . . now I want to read the book.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

– See all my reviews<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cleaner (2007) I didn’t know this was a straight-to-DVD release until after I’d watched it. Might that have influenced my decision to rent it? Probably, so I’m glad I didn’t know, because I really enjoyed the movie. Great cast, interesting story. Okay, maybe not the most brilliant movie, but if TV was this good I’d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[413,30],"tags":[56],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies-reviews","category-reviews","tag-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8228,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/8228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}