Welcome

Welcome to my ever-evolving blog. It started out as a blog on Beachbody workouts and products, mainly when I was a Beachbody coach. I no longer coach, not because I don't believe in Beachbody's programs (I subscribe to Beachbody on Demand and use their workouts every day), I am just not a salesperson and hated that aspect of it. I am more than willing to answer questions about my experiences with their products and the various workouts, and I feel freer to do so without the appearance of giving a biased review of something.

I have also started adding reviews for various things I have purchased like movies, books, CDs, and other products. This was brought about by a fight with Amazon in which all of my reviews were removed over a completely bullshit allegation that I posted a review that violated their terms of service. After going back and forth with the morons in the community-reviews department (even after they admitted that my posts did not violate their guidelines) they restored my account (which took them six months to do), but I have been posting my reviews on my blog to have them preserved in case something like that happens again. And here, I will post uncensored reviews so I will swear from time to time and post reviews that may be longer than Amazon's character limit. Everything I post here on any topic or product is my personal opinion, and I take no compensation for any product reviews I post. I am a member of Amazon's vine program and because I get those products for free, I keep those reviews on Amazon only, but everything I have purchased with my own money, whether from Amazon or some other store/website/outlet, I will post here.  

I also plan to do some longer blog posts on various topics, such as how to learn physics, how to get through calculus, and longer reviews of workout programs as I do them. Basically, whatever strikes me as interesting at the time.  As you can see if you navigate around the blog, I had many years in between postings. During that time I was going back to school to get an engineering degree, and learning material that I avoided my first time through college was a different experience and one that gave me a lot of insight into how to do well in those classes, which I will try to impart here for those who are looking to get a science or engineering degree. 

Thursday, April 25, 2024

Blu-Ray/Movie Collection Review: Lethal Weapon Collection

 


This is a five-disc set with the four original Lethal Weapon series of buddy-cop movies (1987's Lethal Weapon, 1989's Lethal Weapon 2, 1992's Lethal Weapon 3, and 1998's Lethal Weapon 4). All of the movies starred Mel Gibson as Martin Riggs and Danny Glover as Roger Murtaugh. Throughout the series, Gary Busey, Mitchell Ryan,  Joe Peschi (who would be a co-star in parts 2-4), Patsy Kensit, Renee Ruso (who would co-star in parts 3 and 4), Chris Rock, and Jet Li (among others) would co-star.  It should be noted that this set only contains the theatrical versions of the movies. If you strongly prefer the extended editions of the movies, which to this point are only available on DVD, then you will probably want to steer clear of the Blu-ray set. It does, however, include the extended scenes (for films 1-3) included as bonus material on the disc for that movie. 

As I said above, there are 5 discs in all in this set. There is one disc for each movie, and then a 5th disc that contains 4 separate featurettes (one for each movie) which is essentially a 25th-anniversary commemorative documentary, with the highlight being a sit-down interview with Donner, Gibson, and Glover, interspersed with interviews from some of the other actors (mainly Renee Russo and Chris Rock) and filmmakers from the series. They also weave in some footage from the filming of each movie. In all the bonus disc has about 2hrs worth of additional material. The bonus material on Lethal Weapon 4's disc is a 30 min compilation of alternate and deleted scenes and gag reel material from each movie. So between the 4 movies, all the deleted scenes and bonus material there is about 10.5 hrs worth of content for those who go through all the extra features.

As far as the quality of the movies goes. Obviously, the A/V quality is better in the 4th movie than any of the others. You can tell there was no heavy film restoration done, so the movies pretty much look exactly the same as they always have. So, you are not getting the great jump in picture quality that you would get from movies that have a ton of CGI or released more recently. That is why sticking with the DVDs for those who prefer the extended editions of the movies is fine. I am not sure that the material included on the bonus disc is out there on the DVD releases though so you may want to take that into consideration. Hopefully, at some point, especially if a fifth movie gets made, there will be 4k restorations of all the movies, but that remains to be seen.

Overall, I am very happy with the set and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the series, especially those of us who are old enough to have seen all (or, in my case, the last three) of the movies in the theater when they were originally released. The movies mostly hold up well, but some of the dialogue (especially from the first two movies), is cheesy and/or would be considered non-PC these days. Even so, they still hold up as movies with great action blended with comedy and drama.

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