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, January 2, 2025

4k-UHD/Movie Collection Review: The Bourne Complete Collection

 


This is a collection of the four Bourne movies starring Matt Damon (2002's The Bourne Identity, 2004's The Bourne Supremacy, 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum, and 2016's Jason Bourne) and the 2012 spin-off film starring Jeremy Renner, The Bourne Legacy. Most of the movies center around the character of Jason Bourne (Damon), who, in the first movie, is fished out of the ocean with no memory of who he is. He discovers that he has superior fighting and espionage skills and is subsequently chased by government agents. He begins to regain fragments of his memory, discovering he is an assassin for a CIA black ops group code-named Treadstone. In The Bourne Legacy (set during The Bourne Ultimatum's events), we learn that Treadstone was one of many black-ops programs, including one called Outcome, which was creating a group of super-soldiers. The movies had strong supporting casts, including Julia Stiles, Rachel Weisz, Joan Allen, Brian Cox, Chris Cooper, Karl Urban, Tommy Lee Jones, Edward Norton, Alicia Vikander, Paddy Considine, Clive Owen, and Vincent Cassel. The crux of each movie involves the heroes being chased down by the CIA or some branch of the CIA. They are mostly action thrillers with some drama (and humorous moments) mixed in. 

The 4K set is a six-disc set consisting of five UHD discs (one for each movie) and one regular Blu-Ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD discs varies. They are packaged in a slim keep case, with all five movies held on their own base, which is held in an outer box. The audio quality of all the movies in UHD is outstanding. However, the video quality of the first three movies (Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum) is not much better than the 1080p regular Blu-Ray transfer. The video quality of Legacy and Jason Bourne is much better. Identity, Supremacy, Ultimatum, and Legacy can be played with a director's commentary track. There is no commentary track on Jason Bourne. The sixth disc has the remaining bonus materials, categorized by movie. They vary by movie but generally include deleted scenes, gag reels, and behind-the-scenes material. Each movie has an hour or more of bonus content. The bonus features are carried over from the original physical media releases of the movie. No new bonus material has been created for this set. Ultimately, this is a good set, but I would not call it a must-own if you already have the movies on Blu-Ray. You do not get anything new from those releases, and the A/V quality of the films in UHD is not a massive upgrade from the regular Blu-Ray (at least for three of the five movies). The movies themselves, however, hold up well and are worth watching if you are a fan of action-thrillers.

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