Product Review: RIOLAND Stair Treads Carpet Non-Slip Indoor Stair Runners

 

I had the stairs from my front entry to the main floor of my townhouse covered with vinyl plank flooring. When that happened, the dog thought that the stuff was hot lava and would almost jump down the stairs, hurting himself a couple of times. So, I got these to provide some better tread on the stairs. He can now go down the stairs to the front door much easier. 

They are very easy to install, but the sticky backing (which I describe more as tacky than sticky) does not secure them to vinyl plank flooring. After reading some reviews, I decided to cover my bases and get a roll of carpet tape when I purchased these in case I needed it. I used that to secure these at the ends and in the middle (because, as another reviewer noted, the middle pops up because they are folded in the box), which keeps them very secure on the stairs. They are not extremely thick, but they do the job well, making the stairs safer, especially if you walk up them with wet shoes. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Knives Out

 

Knives Out is a murder mystery from 2019. It was written and directed by Rian Johnson (his first movie post-Star Wars) and stars Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson, Katherine Langford, Jaeden Martelland, Toni Collette. It is what you would get if you cross an Agatha Christie novel with the game Clue and a little bit of Sherlock Holmes mixed in. The main plot is that the patriarch of a wealthy New England family, named Harlan Thormby (played by Christopher Plummer), who is a famous mystery writer, dies on the night of his birthday party, in what, all appearances, looks to be an open and shut suicide. The local police, as well as a renowned private investigator named Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig), who is hired under mysterious circumstances, are investigating the death, looking into everyone who was in contact with Harlan, including his eccentric (to put it mildly) family. All the characters seem to have a reason/motive for killing Harlan. 

The 4k set is a two-disc set containing a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is wonderful. The cinematographic shots of New England look great in UHD. The UHD disc also includes bonus features, including an eight-part making-of-documentary, a question-and-answer session with cast members and Rian Johnson, fake promotional ads, and trailers. The film is a unique "whodunit" in that the audience knows most of what happened throughout most of the movie, but there are twists that make it clear not all is what it seems, all building up to a classic third-act reveal. While the entire cast does a great job, Craig and De Armas really shine in their roles and definitely deserved their Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress. Overall, it is a wonderful, well-written, and well-acted movie. It is really not something that you can easily just have on in the background, give your partial attention to, and still follow what is going on. But if you are looking for a way to kill a couple of hours with a great, fairly unique story, this is definitely worth checking out.

DVD/Movie Review: Paradise

 

Paradise is a 1982 movie starring Phoebe Cates and Willie Ames. The film itself is bad. It is basically a rip-off of Blue Lagoon, which was probably much more popular than it (Blue Lagoon) should have been. This is actually Phoebe Cates' film debut. She is probably best known for her roles in the Gremlins movies and the 1980s coming-of-age movies, including the iconic scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Willie Ames was a child actor and later co-starred in Charles in Charge. They end up running through the desert (seemingly finding every oasis along the way), to get away from an Arab prince (of course named "The Jackyl") who wants Sarah (Cate's character) as a bride. So, yeah it is a bit racist.

The plot of the movie is basically an excuse to have Cates nude about every 15-20 minutes throughout. It was actually filmed before she did Fast Times, and honestly, I am not sure how the nudity got cleared given that Cates was 17 for at least part of the time the movie was being filmed. The movie pretty much bombed, and Cates never had anything to do with it after it was released. Needless to say, it was never something that would have been able to be shown on TV because it would be less than an hour long with the nudity edited out. The movie itself is horribly written, and, as a result, the acting is not all that great either. Cates and Ames have little to no chemistry with each other, so when it gets to the point where they supposedly fall in love, they have less passion than the two Chimps (yes, there are Chimps, too) that tag along with them throughout the movie. If you grew up in the 1980s and had a huge crush on Phoebe Cates because of Fast Times, Private School, and Gremlins, she is the only reason to see this movie. Otherwise, you are not missing anything if you skip it.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Doom Patrol Season 1

 

Doom Patrol is a comic book adaptation that aired for a total of four seasons from 2019 to 2023. The 15-episode first season aired in the Spring of 2019. It starred Diane Guerrero, April Bowlby, Alan Tudyk, Matt Bomer, Brendan Fraser, Timothy Dalton, Phil Morris, and Jovian Wade. It is what you get if you crank the weirdness of Legends of Tomorrow up about 10 notches, add in a bit of shows like Dark Angel and Supernatural, and add a lot of swearing. The Doom Patrol is basically a collection of tortured losers who have all experienced some kind of tragedy in their lives only to be "saved" by a Professor-X-like patriarchal figure they call Cheif (played by Timothy Dalton). Some of the characters from the group were introduced in live-action on the first season of Titans, which in turn was tangentially brought into the Arrowverse through cameos on Crisis on Infinite Earths. They include Elasti-Girl/Rita Farr (played by April Bowlby) who is an actress from the 1950s who was exposed to something during an on-set accident that causes her to turn into a blob-like creature when she gets too emotional, Crazy Jane (played wonderfully by Diane Guerrero from Orange Is the New Black), a character with 64 different personalities whom all have their own powers, Robotman (voiced by Brendan Fraizer from the Mummy trilogy of movies) who is a racecar driver who is injured in a non-racing accident whose brain gets implanted into a robot, and Negative Man (voiced by Matt Bomer from Chuck and White Collar), a test pilot during the 1960s who is exposed to radiation in low-earth orbit and horribly burned when he crashes back to earth, yet lives, and Cyborg, played by Jovian Wade, who in this version is trying to get into the Justice League. The cast is rounded out by Alan Tudyk, who plays Mr. Nobody, the villain of season 1, and also hilariously narrates some episodes, constantly breaking the fourth wall, and Phil Morris (who played Martian Manhunter on Smallville) as Silas Stone. There are also many strong supporting actors, some recognizable, some not.

The first season is all about character development and telling the backstories of the various characters, all while playing out the arc that Mr. Nobody has captured the Chief, and the team is trying to get him back. The show jumps time periods often, with Bomer and Fraiser appearing out of costume in the flashback sequences. It also jumps dimensions and even has characters jump inside other minds and bodies (human and otherwise). It is definitely a very adult show, with a lot of swearing (f-bombs are constantly dropped) and some nudity basically involving Fraiser's human character and his kid's nanny. There is a butt shot from Fraiser, who has not aged very well, and bare breasts by the actress playing the nanny.

The Blu-Ray set is a three-disc set with the 15 episodes equally spread over three discs. The extras include deleted scenes for most episodes, a gag reel, and a short feature on filming the series in Georgia. Kind of hilariously, the swearing is bleeped out in the bonus material, which, given that anyone watching them probably just watched the episodes, has heard anything as bad as what would get bleeped out in the bonus stuff. Overall, the show is well-written and very well-acted. Within all the craziness, it does touch on themes like child abuse, being gay, and closeted, among other real-world themes. It is definitely not a show that is going to be everyone's proverbial "cup of tea", but if you are a fan of comic book shows and movies, it is definitely worth checking out, with the caveats that it is in no way family-friendly and can go out of its way to be offensive.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Alita: Battle Angel

 

Alita is a 2019 Sci-Fi/Action film starring Rosa Salazar, Keean Johnson, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connely, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, and Jackie Earle Haley. The story is set in the 2500s in a dystopian future that develops after what is called "The Fall" which is (as you learn if you watch the bonus material) a war between Earth and Mars (after humans colonize Mars). Almost all the humans left on Earth live either in Iron City or a city that floats above it called Zalem. It is partly an origin story for Alita, who wakes up with no memory of who she is, and partly the story of a class system post-apocalypse, with some cyborg bounty hunters thrown in.

The movie is based on a series of Japanese graphic novels that began in the mid-1990s. It mixes action with some drama and even a few comedic moments. James Cameron wrote a very long script from the graphic novels, then passed it off to Robert Rodriguez to make it a movie-length script and direct the movie when Cameron decided to focus on Avatar and the sequels. I have never seen the graphic novels or the anime series, so I don't know how well this stacks up versus those. However, Cameron (at least from what is revealed in the bonus material) kept pretty close to the source material.

The 4k set is a three-disc set that includes a UHD disc, a 3D Blu-Ray disc, and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The UHD disc and the 3D Blu-Ray just contain the movie, and the regular Blu-Ray has the movie and the bonus material. The film looks great in 4K, and you get a ton of bonus features (somewhere around two hours worth) made up of making-of and behind-the-scenes material, as well as animated featurettes that give a bit of backstory that was not put in the movie to keep it at a reasonable (2hr) running time. The movie is CGI-heavy, using much of the same motion-capture effects used on Avatar, so everything looks pretty seamless.

I cannot say the movie will appeal to everyone. But, if you like post-apocalyptic action movies, this one has good acting and writing and tells a more nuanced story. The creators definitely left the door open for a sequel (and there is more than enough source material), but given that it was not exactly a box-office smash, there is no guarantee that others will be made. They did an excellent job with the film if it does end up just being a stand-alone movie. Given, however, that James Cameron can get any film he wants to be made, there is a good possibility that at least one more movie will result from this one. This is not a film you can have on in the background while doing other things and follow easily. You must pay attention to the movie to understand what is going on. But if you have a couple of hours to kill and are looking for a good action movie, it is definitely worth checking out.

Book Review: Reluctant Hero

 

Reluctant Hero is a book from 2011 written by Mike Benfonte about his experience during and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Benfonte worked for a telecommunications company on the 81st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center (just 12 floors below the lowest point impacted by Flight 11 when it hit the building). Benfonte managed to get all his employees to the stairwell (which was luckily not blocked or inaccessible) and heading down. On the 68th floor, he and another employee discovered a woman in a motorized wheelchair who needed help. They put her in an evacuation chair and carried her down the rest of the way. Once outside, they got her to an ambulance but did not get in and ride with her when offered the chance. They were in awe, trying to take everything in and find out what happened (the South Tower had already collapsed), and people were still jumping from the North Tower). As they were walking north, the tower collapsed, resulting in a chilling piece of video footage of Benfonte running past a cameraman as the cloud of debris roared behind him. Benfonte survived, but his life took many unexpected turns post-9/11, which he details in the book.

The hardcover version of the book is just over 230 pages long. In it, he details where his life was at before and leading up to 9/11, the events of the day, and what he dealt with in the aftermath, including struggling with survivor guilt, post-traumatic stress, and the neverending requests for interviews and media appearances.  The book can be harrowing and hard to read, yet at the same time inspirational and uplifting. Benfonte is very open about his struggles with anger and sadness in the years after 9/11, how that affected his life, and what he did to overcome them. It is absolutely worth reading.

Book Review: Star Wars The Skywalker Saga

 

The Skywalker Saga is an illustrated storybook published in 2019 before the theatrical release of The Rise of Skywalker. You need to be aware that this is not a novel. It is more of a coffee table book that summarizes the "Skywalker saga." There are pictures and illustrations of scenes from every "main storyline" movie (the prequels, original trilogy, The Force Awakens, and The Last Jedi), along with a narrative summary of the key moments from each film written by Delilah S. Dawson. 

The hardcover version of the book is about 400 pages long. It is not a retelling of the Skywalker storyline from any character's point of view or anything like that. It does not have anything from the ancillary movies like Solo or Rogue One, nor does it give hints or details about The Rise of Skywalker. Because it is an illustrated book, it is very easy to read. It can easily be finished in a day or two. It is not one of the must-read books, but it is worth checking out as long as you do not expect it to be a novel that fleshes out the storylines or provides details that are not known from the movies. 

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Chernobyl

 

Chernobyl is a five-part mini-series that aired on HBO in 2019. It is a docudrama telling the story of the Chornobyl nuclear disaster in the Soviet Union (now Ukraine) in 1986. It is told mainly through the stories of two real-life people, Valery Legasov, a chemist tasked to lead a commission investigating the disaster (played by Jared Harris), Boris Shcherbina, a Soviet deputy minister (played by Stellan Skarsgård), and the fictional character Ulana Khomyuk (played by Emily Watson) who was a composite of all the scientists who worked with Legasov Shcherbina.

Each episode told a portion of the overall story, from the response to the disaster in episode one, focusing mainly on the firefighters and the scientists and engineers working at the plant who were the first to respond to the disaster and tried to contain it. Episodes 2-4 were all about trying to contain and mitigate the results of the disaster. The series does a great job of showing not only how bad it was but how bad it could have been had steps not been taken to prevent a second explosion, which would have killed millions and contaminated most of Europe with radiation fallout. The final episode focused on the trial of those who ran the plant and laid out in great layman's terms exactly why the reactor core exploded.

The acting and writing of the series were top-notch. It accurately told the story yet kept the details understandable. I actually researched the disaster for a class in my engineering program, and I was impressed that while some aspects were embellished and dramatized for TV, they got all the important stuff correct, including how the plant was not maintained correctly and how the cheap materials played a pivotal role in what happened.

The Blu-Ray set is a two-disc set. The A/V quality is excellent, as the show looks and sounds great in the format. The extras include short inside-the-episode segments for each episode, then a handful of behind-the-scenes and making-of clips that run anywhere from a minute and a half to about 10 minutes. It's not a ton, but it's good for what is there. It is a pricey set for a two-disc, five-episode series, but it is worth it for those who want to support the physical media and keep it around as long as possible.

Book Review: Fire & Blood: The Targaryen Dynasty: The House of the Dragon

 

Fire and Blood is a prequel to the Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series. It was written by George R.R. Martin and published in 2018. It serves not only as the backstory to the "main" Game of Thrones novels but also as the source material for the series House of the Dragon. Specifically, the book details (sometimes in painstaking detail) the rule of the Targaryen line over the seven kingdoms. It begins with the rule of Ageon I and ends at the beginning of the rule of Ageon III, or about 100 years before the rule of Aerys II, "The Mad King" (and Dani's father). Of course, Aerys II's rule was ended by Robert Baratheon, who was king at the beginning of the Song of Ice and Fire novels and the Game of Thrones TV Series.

The hardcover version of the book is just over 700 pages. It is not the easiest or quickest read. Not only is it long, but it goes into great detail about the reigns of the various Targaryen kings, queens, princesses, etc., as told from the notes of the maesters of the time. There are many characters in the book, and Martin reuses the first names of the various members of the Targaryen family, so it is sometimes hard to tell exactly who he is talking about. Plus, the fact that the story is not told linearly can make it hard to follow when Martin keeps jumping around and referring to past events and characters. While I am not one who is pissed that Martin worked on this (and other) novels before finishing the next book in the "main" series, I think it would have been better to focus on one or two characters and break this into two or three books. That said, it provides a very informative history and provides details that will probably be omitted from the TV series. So, it is worth the time to read.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: The Post

 

The Post is a 2017 drama directed by Stephen Spielberg. It features an ensemble cast, including Tom Hanks, Meryl Streep, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon., Jesse Plemmons, and Matthey Rhys.  At its core, The Post is a movie about the publication of The Pentagon Papers, which was a multi-volume retrospective on the Vietnam War that was put together during the Johnson and Nixon administrations. The papers were leaked by Daniel Ellsberg (played by Matthew Rhys, best known for his role in The Americans), who helped work on the documents and ultimately leaked them to the press after trying to get Congress to act on the information within them. The papers outlined the fact that all the past administrations, Democrat and Republican alike (From Eisenhower to Nixon), knew that the Vietnam War was not something the United States could ever win, and the government only stayed in it not to help South Vietnam or halt the spread of Communism, but to keep America from looking weak in losing a war. The release of the papers ultimately led to the public at large turning against the war, which eventually led to the war's end. It also told a larger story of how the Washington Post rose to prominence from a small, privately-owned local newspaper to a national newspaper that would ultimately do a lot to bring down what is now the second most corrupt Presidential administration in history.

The movie is directed by Steven Spielberg and is centered around the characters of Ben Bradlee (played by Tom Hanks), who was the paper's managing editor, and Kay Graham (played by Meryl Streep), who was the paper's publisher. Overall, it focuses on the events of how the Washington Post came into possession of the papers and the decision about whether to publish them after the Nixon administration sued the New York Times (which was the first paper to get ahold of some of the material in the papers) to stop publication of the documents. It was a tricky situation for the Washington Post, which was transitioning from being privately owned to being taken public, and the publication of the papers could spook potential investors and tank the public offering.

The story is an excellent historical drama, with some fictionalized elements blended in. It benefited from having many of the people involved in the events (including Ellsburg) who were still alive or the children and grandchildren of the actual people acting as consultants. So, it was able to stay historically accurate. It also blended in the audio from the Nixon tapes, which were released as a part of the Watergate investigation years later, of Nixon discussing the release of the papers with his cronies and displaying his hatred of the press. Specifically, the Washington Post. It is not an action movie, so if you are like some of the one-star reviewers complaining that it is boring, know what you are getting.

The 4k set is a two-disc set with a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The UHD disc has just the movie itself. On the regular Blu-ray disc, there are well over an hour's worth of making-of and behind-the-scenes featurettes that range from 25 minutes in length to less than ten minutes. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding. Given that it is not a CGI-heavy action or sci-fi movie, you may not find it necessary to get it on 4k, but if you do, the film looks excellent, especially the location shots.

Overall, the movie was very well-written and acted. Despite idiots reviewing the film on Amazon saying it is just liberal propaganda, it is actually (aside from a couple of lines from the characters discussing political corruption, which were clear shots at the current political climate) a primarily accurate retelling of the historical events. While not everything in the movie was 100% historically accurate, which, given that it is not a documentary, is to be expected, much of what is in the film, including the text of the Supreme Court's decision about the role of the press in our democracy, is accurate. Of course, those events occurred before the modern-day hyper-partisanship in which fealty to a dear leader, regardless of who that leader is, trumps all, including corruption. And they happened at a time when freedom of the press and holding the government accountable was important not only to more than just some members of the government but all members of the media, the courts, and the populace as a whole. It was not a time when salivating, bootlicking toadies stood by the leaders of their party, no matter what. My guess is that many people complaining about the movie being "overly political", even though it made both Democrat and Republican administrations look bad (but yes, moreso Nixon's administration), are doing so because it puts a spotlight on what was happening in the orange genital wart's administration. But, given that the movie's events are absolutely true, it falls more into the category of "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" than it does a "political hit job" and is worth watching and learning something from.

Book Review: Paul of Dune (Dune #15)

 

Paul of Dune, published in 2008, is a novel by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. It is the 15th book in the Dune saga if you read the novels chronologically. It is set mainly during the time jump between the first two books of Frank Herbert's original Dune trilogy, Dune, and Dune Messiah. In it, we see how Paul's forces take control of the planets in the Imperium and how Paul ultimately becomes the Emperor. We also learn more about his relationship with Irulan and how she becomes Paul's biographer. The book also details the attempts made to stop his rise to power. 

The hardcover version of the book is just over 500 pages long. Part of the book is told in the present (meaning after the events of the original Dune novel), and part is told in the past, detailing events that occurred when Paul was young. The story flows pretty smoothly since the time period switching occurs in sections, so there will be a section with 5-10 chapters set in the past, and the next section will have 5-10 chapters set in the present. The only thing that makes the storyline set in the present a bit hard to follow is that you have to remember where that story left off after you get through one of the flashback sections. The book is well-written and has a good blend of action, intrigue, and drama. We see that Paul is conflicted about what is being done in his name, and a huge theme of the book is the danger of cult-like devotion to a leader, which is absolutely applicable to the times we currently live in (as of 2024 when this was written). It is an excellent addition to the saga and is worth reading. 

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Heartbreakers

 

Heartbreakers is a 2001 romantic comedy starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sigourney Weaver, Gene Hackman, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, and Anne Bancroft. Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis also appear in supporting roles. It is about a mother-daughter pair of con women (played by Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt) who con wealthy men in a marriage/cheating scam that leaves them with half his money. Ray Liotta plays the mark at the beginning of the movie, a wannabe mobster who runs a chop shop in New Jersey, and Gene Hackman plays the mark for the majority of the movie, the owner of a tobacco company in FL, who is the mark for "one last score" for Weaver and Love Hewitt's characters. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Jason Lee, who plays a love interest for JLH's character, along with minor roles for Carrie Fisher, Anne Bancroft, Sarah Silverman, and Zach Galifianakis.

The movie is meant to be a silly comedy with a bit of romantic comedy mixed. The story is very absurd, especially because Jason Lee's character would want to live happily ever after with Jennifer Love Hewitt's character just because she is hot, given how awful she is for most of the movie. But, it is not exactly meant to be anything but an unbelievable story. All the main actors involved were very good sports, as their characters were very over the top in a bad way. Gene Hackman as the chain-smoking, smoke-spewing, lung-hacking-up cigarette company executive was awesome, and they never missed an opportunity to put Jennifer Love Hewitt into a skin-tight, cleavage-baring outfit.

For those who get the Blu-Ray, it is a decent, but not great, video transfer. You will not get a big difference in quality from a DVD version, but you do the Blu-Ray anti-scratch coating, which is the only reason to upgrade. There are no subtitles, and the audio seems to dip in volume level, so I had to keep turning the volume on my TV up and down to hear some of the dialogue and then keep it from blasting during other scenes. There is about an hour's worth of extras, including a making-of documentary, a gag reel that also incorporates some making-of interviews, deleted scenes, and the trailer.

Overall, the movie is fun if you do not expect an award-winning movie. It is a silly comedy that does not try to be anything more than that. The Blu-Ray quality could be better, but it is not all that surprising that the movie, which came out well before the Blu-Rays were created, and was not popular enough to get a high-quality transfer. If you are looking for a comedy to kill a couple of hours watching, this is a good option.

DVD/TV Movie Review: Baywatch: Hawaiian Wedding

 

Hawaiian Wedding is the 2003 TV movie that (finally) put a nail in the coffin of the Baywatch franchise.  It mostly brought back cast members from the parent series, including David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson, Yasmine Bleeth, Angelica Bridges, Nicole Eggert, Carmen Electra, Jeremy Jackson, John Allen Nelson, Gena Lee Nolan, and Billy Warlock however, Jason Mamoa, Brandie Roderick, and Stacy Kamano from Baywatch Hawaii did appear, as did Michael Bergin, who starred in the final couple of seasons of the parent series and the two seasons of Baywatch Hawaii. They also found a clever way to bring back Alexandra Paul, whose character was killed off toward the end of the run of the original series. Notable absences included Donna D'Errico, Erika Elaniak, Angie Harmon, Greg Allen Williams, Brooke Burns, David Charvet, David Chokachi, Parker Stevens, Jason Brooks, and Kelly Slater. 

The movie is just over an hour and a half long. It did not get a major restoration like the Blu-Ray releases of the original series and Baywatch Hawaii, so the A/V quality is nowhere near as good as those. The DVD does not have any extras specific to the show or movie but does have promo reels for two series, The Sheild and the Baywatch spoof, Son of the Beach. Like most of the episodes of the various shows (Baywatch, Baywatch Nights, and Baywatch Hawaii), the storyline is terrible, and the acting is not much better. Still, it does provide a proper series finale for the original series and Baywatch Hawaii (it ignores that Baywatch Nights ever existed), which neither series received. It has horrible plot holes, including handwaving away how Mitch survived the blast that ended season 1 of Baywatch Hawaii and a lame explanation for why Court can still see. It brings back a bad guy from season two, Mason Soto (played by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), who is bent on revenge against Mitch and everyone Mitch cares about because Mitch helped put him in jail. There is also a stupid plotline involving the characters of Jason, Kekoa, Leigh, and J.D. that makes no sense and essentially invents something that never happened in the show to develop a love rectangle. But, then again, Baywatch was never big on sticking with storylines or providing continuity. There are a couple of musical interludes/montages that show clips of the various characters from their time on the show (and one showing Anderson rolling around in a bikini), and there are some callbacks to things that occurred over the run of the franchise. I would not call it a must-watch, but it provides some nostalgia for people stuck with the show from the beginning.

Book Review: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition

 

+++ Warning: This will contain spoilers from the movie and some of the clarifying points from the book. If you have not yet seen the film, then read it at your own risk +++

This is a relatively straightforward novelization of the final film in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker. It was written by Rae Carson and published in 2020. Like most of the novelizations that have been put out since the prequel trilogy novels to date, there are additional elements that flesh out the plot points and make the overall story better. The big one is an explanation of how exactly Palpatine returned (he did not survive being thrown down the reactor shaft in Return of the Jedi) and the message he sent out announcing his return to the galaxy. It also gives additional insight into what Finn tried to tell Rey throughout the movie but never did. It also gives more context to "The Kiss" and makes it seem much less forced and creepy than it came off in the movie.

The hardcover version of the book is around 370 pages. How much you enjoy the book will be closely tied to how you feel about the movie. I liked but did not love the film, mostly because I think they had to spend too much time retconning elements from The Last Jedi and resurrecting plot points that were set up in TFA and tossed aside in TLJ. That made it even more evident that there should have been one writer for the entire trilogy. If you hated the movie, then there is nothing in the book that is likely to change your mind. If, however, you liked the film, then the novelization will make you like the story even more.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Pride and Prejudice

 

Pride & Prejudice is an adaptation of the novel by Jane Austen (who also wrote Little Women), made in 2005. It stars Keira Knightley, Matthew Macfadyen, Carey Mulligan, Rosamund Pike, Jena Malone, Rupert Friend, Tom Hollander, Judi Dench, Brenda Blethyn, and Donald Sutherland. Knightley stars as Elizabeth Bennet, the second to eldest daughter in a lower-class English household consisting of all daughters trying to be married off by their mother (Blethyn). Elizabeth has a love-hate relationship with Mr. Darcy (Macfadyen), a wealthy bachelor whose Aunt (Dench) disapproves of Elizabeth and her family.

The Blu-Ray's A/V quality is excellent, and the movie looks and sounds great in HD. The disc includes several behind-the-scenes and making-of features and a commentary track. I will not go into much detail about the plot, as it is a well-known book, and the movie has been out for almost 20 years (as of this writing).  Ultimately, it is a well-written adaptation of the book and very well-acted. It does a good job showing (without going into too much detail) the class system that existed in England at the time and how marriages were arranged within that system, which definitely had (at times) little to do with love, attraction, or the like. It is definitely worth the time to watch, and it is worth picking up the physical disc if you like going through bonus material.

Blu-Ray/TV Series Review: Baywatch Hawaii: Season 2

 

The 22-episode second season of Baywatch Hawaii aired during the 2000-2001 TV season. As was the case for the entire run of the Baywatch franchise, there was a lot of turnover in the cast, the biggest being David Hasselhoff leaving the show (he was still listed as an executive producer). The other cast members who left after season one were Simmone Jade Mckinnon, Dawn Masterson, Michael Newman, and Brooke Burns. Burns would, however, make a couple of appearances in season two as a guest star. This season, the additions to the cast were Brandie Roderick (who was at the height of her Playboy modeling fame), Charlie Brumbly, and Alicia Rickter. Krista Allen was promoted to series regular, and Jason Mamoa, Stacy Kamano, Michael Bergin, and Jason Brooks all returned as series regulars. The series did get a couple of recognizable guest stars this season. Daisy Fuentes, still popular from her MTV days, guest starred in one episode, and Pat Morita (from the Karate Kid movies) played a major recurring role. 

The Blu-Ray set is a four-disc German import set. So, if you get this, you will need a Blu-Ray player capable of playing European (Region 2) discs. The menus and episode titles are in German, and the audio track defaults to German, but you can switch to the English language track in the disc menu. There are no captions, but there are some extras on the discs. Those include standard definition versions of each episode, and on the final disc, promotional trailers for many episodes, a promotion reel for the series, and a photo gallery. You can play the remastered episodes in a play-all mode or one at a time. If you stop in the play-all mode and turn off your player, it will not resume where you left off. While the show's first season could conceivably be considered the 10th season of Baywatch, this season was its own thing and was mostly bad. The writers totally ignored the cliffhanger that ended season 10, the storylines were all over the place, the character of Zack was irritating, and some episodes were aired in an order that made no sense. For example, an engagement party occurred two episodes before the proposal. On top of all that, it was given a finale that felt like part 1 of a two-part series finale, but instead of another episode, it just stopped without wrapping up any character arcs. The writers would have been better off resolving the cliffhanger in the Hawaiian Wedding TV movie and skipping this mess of a season. If you want to see how it played out just to finish the show, it is a trainwreck, but you are not missing anything notable if you just skip it. 

Book Review: Star Wars: Secrets of the Jedi

 

Secrets of the Jedi, published in 2019, is another Star Wars coffee table book. Much like the Han Solo coffee table book released earlier (without behind-the-scenes shots from the movies), it is devoted to the Jedi. It is essentially a journal written by Luke Skywalker laying out the history of the Jedi and the Sith and giving character profiles of the "main" individuals of each group. 

The hardcover version of the book is very short, at just over 30 pages. It includes lots of pictures, so it is a very quick read. It can easily be read in less than an hour, even if you are a fairly slow reader. It ends during the events of The Last Jedi, likely just before Luke "force teleports" to Crait during the battle. The most important thing the book does is detail his change of heart about the need for the Jedi order to die. I would not say this is one of the must-read books in the canon, but it is worth the time to check out.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: Halloween (2018)

 

This version of Halloween, released in 2018, starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, and Nick Castle. It was written by David Gordon Green, Jeff Fradley, and Danny McBride, mostly known for the comedy genre, directed by David Gordon Green. It also brought John Carpenter back into the fold as executive producer and co-composer. This sequel is a complete reboot of the series, acknowledging that only the original movie existed, and is almost a "what if" scenario, presenting the scenario of what if Michael had been caught at the end of the first movie and held in Smith's Grove for 40 years. Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode and is also an executive producer. Of course, her character was killed off in Halloween 8, hence the need for a total reboot. In this version, Laurie is a basket-case who is estranged from her daughter ( played by Judy Greer) and granddaughter (played by Andi Matichak). She has been readying herself for 40 years for Michael to return. She lives alone in the woods in what can only be described as a compound with lots of surveillance and guns. Curtis does a great job with this version of the character and does a believable portrayal of what she would be like if she never moved on from the events of that night. 

Any fan of the Halloween franchise knows that the various sequels have ranged from good to decent to absolute garbage. And, of course, there was the sequel that wasn't Halloween 3. I think everyone has slightly different ideas about which sequels fall into what categories, but for me, Halloween 6 and 8 fall into the absolute garbage category (although I think 6 had some potential as a story, it was just executed horribly and suffered massive rewrites and the death of Donald Pleasance), and Halloween 4 and H20 fall within the excellent category. Die-hard Halloween nerds will know that while Carpenter's name was included on many of the other sequels, he never had anything to do with them and was just getting royalty rights. He famously never wanted the movie to go any farther than the first one, and if there was going to be a franchise, he wanted it to be like Season of the Witch, without the Michael Myers character.
  
The 4k set is a two-disc set that includes a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The UHD has both the movie and the extras, so the regular Blu-Ray disc is extraneous. The extras include about 12 minutes of deleted scenes and several short behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes. The bonus content amounts to around a half hour to 45 minutes worth of material. One thing that was not included as an extra, which would have been nice, is a commentary track on the movie. I would have liked to hear the writers, director, Curtis, and Carpenter provide commentary on the movie. But what was included was very good.  While the movie does pretend that the other sequels and remakes never existed, it does have many easter eggs that pay homage to the original film and some things that were clearly inspired by the other sequels, including the movie's last shot. It could have worked as an end to the franchise, but as most are likely aware, it ended up spawning two additional movies. While I cannot say that everyone, including fans of the franchise, will like or love this version, it is better than most of the other sequels and is worth the time to watch.

DVD/TV Series Review: The Good Place: Season 2

 

+++Warning, this has spoilers from season 1, but no major season 2 giveaways+++

The 13-episode second season of The Good Place aired from fall 2017 into winter 2018. It picks up immediately after the reset that ended season 1 when the group finds out they are really in The Bad Place and have been torturing each other. It does not really follow the format of season 1. I will not spoil all the details of season 2; however, the bulk of the season is focused on the group trying to get into the real Good Place.

The show continues to be well-written and acted. All the "core" group returns, and some of the more ancillary season one characters have a more significant role this year. That said, not everyone who made guest appearances last year returns this season. It sticks to the format of primarily being a comedy, which does not take itself very seriously but also ties in some emotional moments. The cast gets along well or can fake great chemistry, which is essential given the show's format. Unlike season one, it does not end on a cliffhanger this year and does leave a lot of leeway going into season three for what direction the show will go in.

The DVD set is a two-disc set that is very bare-bones. The extras include a commentary track on one episode, a seven-minute gag reel, and a special effects reel that lasts less than a minute. What was included was good, but not nearly as much as what season one had, and there are no closed captions. And, of course, it is one of the shows for which no blu-ray set is available.

This is a great option if you are looking for a great comedy that is still under the radar. Despite being about the afterlife, it has no religious overtones. It deals more with philosophy and what it means to be good and bad. That is the serious part of the show. It is mostly really absurd humor and, like I said, does not take itself all that seriously. You definitely want to watch season one because it is not a show that you can easily just jump into and have it make sense. All the episodes are chapters in a long story, and everything connects together. The mediocre DVD release aside, it is worth checking out even if you just stream it.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: The Shawshank Redemption

 

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 thriller/crime drama starring Tim Robbins, Morgan Freeman, Clancy Brown, Bob Gunton, and William Sadler. It was adapted from a story by Stephen King and directed by Frank Darabont. The film did not get much acclaim during its initial run in the theater but took off on home video after being nominated for several Academy Awards. It is a fairly basic story. A man named Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) is convicted of murders he did not commit and sent to prison for life. He ends up at Shawshank prison, run by a corrupt warden and thuggish guards, befriending a fellow inmate named Red (played by Morgan Freeman), who also narrates the movie. Andy hatches an elaborate escape plan that no one, including the viewers, is aware of until the end of the movie.

The Blu-Ray's A/V transfer is good, but the movie did not get an extensive HD restoration. The Blu-Ray features several extras, including a director's commentary track on the movie, a few different behind-the-scenes and making-of features, a roundtable discussion with Robbins, Freeman, and the director of the movie on The Charlie Rose Show, and more. There is a ton of great material for those who like going through the bonus features.

Overall, the movie is well-written and acted. It was cast perfectly, from the leads to many character actors filling out the supporting roles. It is a combination of a prison movie, a period piece, and a buddy movie. There is not a ton of action, but some moments of action are mixed within the drama. It is a movie where the "good" guys are bad and the "bad" guys are good, at least partly. It is definitely worth the 2+ hours of time to watch it.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: A Quiet Place

 

A Quiet Place is a 2018 film with a twist on movies with themes of unseen monsters, alien invasions, etc. The twist is that the monsters in this movie are blind but have super hearing and kill anything that makes noise. The movie stars John Krasinski (who wrote the screenplay and directed the film), his real-life wife Emily Blunt, Noah Jupe, and Millicent Simmonds, playing members of a family in what is essentially a post-apocalyptic world in which many humans and animals have been killed. Those who have survived have to be perfectly quiet, communicate via sign language, and can only talk if they are near something that is making more noise than them.

It is a very different movie, especially as a horror movie, because there is minimal sound. Of course, sound is critical to the thrills in most horror movies, and in this one, it is the absence of sound, including background sounds. Even the soundtrack is very understated. The movie pulls off what most TV shows cannot, namely, having little to no dialog between the actors yet still managing to tell a compelling story.

The 4k set is a two-disc set with a UHD  disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The movie looks great in the UHD format. What the film lacks in sound, it makes up for in visuals and special effects. The UHD disc has just the movie, and then there are about 35 minutes (give or take) of behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes on the regular Blu-Ray. Overall, the film is well written, very well acted, and tells a unique story on an old theme of a creature-based horror movie. It is definitely worth checking out.

4k-UHD/Movie Review: The Invisible Man

 

The Invisible Man is a 2020 horror/thriller. It is an updated version of the Invisible Man story, which has undergone several different on-screen iterations. It stars Elisabeth Moss (from Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale), Aldis Hodge, Storm Reid, Harriet Dyer, Michael Dorman, and Oliver Jackson Cohen. It was directed by Leigh Whannell, a writer on some of the movies in the Saw franchise. The story involves a woman leaving her abusive boyfriend while he stalks and terrorizes her. The invisibility part comes in with him being an optics expert who builds a suit that allows him to appear invisible. From there, it is a decent thriller. While it does have some twists and turns, the ending is predictable if you pay attention all the way through. It is violent and bloody in a couple of parts, but it is not anywhere near as gory as the Saw movies, which often went overboard on the gore.

The 4k set is a two-disc set with a UHD disc and a regular Blu-Ray disc. The movie looks and sounds great in the UHD format. There are some beautiful views of Australia (where the film was shot), which doubled for San Francisco (where it was set). The extras are all included on the UHD disc, including deleted scenes, a few behind-the-scenes features, and a director's commentary. Outside the commentary track, the bonus features amount to about a half hour's worth of material. What was included was good, but it was not extensive. Overall, the movie is good but not great. It is well-acted, and the writing is good, even if a bit predictable. It is not an award-winner by any means (not that it tries to be), but it is worth checking out if you are looking for a suspense movie to watch to kill a couple of hours.

Star Wars: Shadow Fall An Alphabet Squadron Novel

 

Shadow Fall, published in 2020, is the middle book of the Alphabet Squadron trilogy of novels written by Alexander Freed that follows a "B-team" group of characters in the aftermath of the Rebel's victory at the Battle of Endor. Much like the Rebels TV series, it mentions some of the "main" Star Wars characters but is set around a group of outcasts who form a fighter squadron tasked with trying to mop up the remaining Imperial threat. Specifically, an elite squad of Imperials called Shadow Wing. The story is set in a new system whose central star has collapsed into a black hole. It focuses on a few of the main characters established in the first novel, expands some on their backstory, and mixes in a decent amount of action, both set on the ground and in fighter battles.

Like the first one, this book suffers a bit from not including any of the main characters from the original trilogy. Even an appearance by Leia, Han, or Luke would have made the story a bit better. I know the author was telling a story about how the war affected those other than the Skywalkers and other main characters, but I think that could still be accomplished by including them in limited roles. Given that there really has not been (as of the original writing of this review) a novel that really details what Leia and Luke were doing in the immediate aftermath of their victory at Endor, using the ancillary novels as a setup for those stories (kind of like what the Aftermath Trilogy did), would have been good.

The hardcover version of the book is just under 400 pages. It is a similar length and has a similar tone to the first novel. If you enjoyed the first novel, you will probably enjoy this one as well. Along the same lines, if you did not like the first novel or were lukewarm to it, you will probably feel the same way about this one. I would probably not ever re-read this one unless I just wanted to read all the canon material over again. Nor would I say it is a must-read for those who pick and choose which novels they read. That said, it is a good ancillary story set in the Star Wars universe and is enjoyable if you accept that you will not get anything about what Han, Leia, Luke, Lando, etc., were doing during the events in the book.

DVD/Movie Collection Review: The Star Wars Trilogy

 

This one is one of the original DVD sets of the original Star Wars trilogy. It was a good set and had a lot of good bonus material, including the great Empire of Dreams documentary, that outlines the making of the entire original trilogy, with a ton of archived material. The only real drawback, and the reason that I got rid of the set when the blu-ray set came out, was that it does NOT include the original releases of the movies as they were shown in the theaters. You just get the special edition releases with all the edits and additions that Lucas did to the movies for the 20th anniversary of the original movie and leading up to the release of the prequel trilogy. Of course, Lucas famously hated the movies as they were originally released because they did not have the look he was going for because of the limitations of special effects when they were made. And, once the movies were released with all the digital effects that were available for him to use in 1997, he vowed that the original movies would not be released again. Now that was not quite true because there was a very horrible DVD release of the original movies that you can find online for an exorbitant price, but long ago went out of print. But, it was basically a transfer from the laserdisc release of the movies, that looked horrible, and a lot of people never bothered getting them. So, the only "easy" way to see the original versions of the original trilogy movies remains to this day on VHS for those old enough to have purchased the old VHS tapes and kept them all these years (and who still have a working VHS player). And, it does not seem that Disney is ever going to release the original versions of the movies as well, even though it easily could given that it owns the rights to everything Star Wars. So, assuming you have upgraded to blu-ray, 4k blu-ray, or switched to streaming, there is no reason to get this set anymore.

Blu-Ray/Movie Review: Short Circuit

 

Short Circuit is a comedy from 1986 starring Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, Fisher Stevens, Tim Blaney, Austin Pendleton, and G.W. Bailey. Chances are, if you were a kid in the 1980s, you loved this movie. For those who have not seen it, yet somehow stumbled on the page for the DVD or Blu-Ray, it is about a robot called Number 5 that was designed to be a military weapon, programmed with artificial intelligence which, after being hit by lightning, becomes "alive". As I mentioned above, it stars 1980s staples Steve Guttenburg and G.W. Bailey from the Police Academy movies and Brat Pack member Ally Sheedy. Fisher Stevens played the comic relief sidekick as an assistant to Guttenburg's engineer/programmer character, who built and programmed the robots.

The movie definitely toes the line between adult and kid movies. The robot definitely appeals to kids, but there is a lot of swearing and off-color humor, mostly sexual jokes made by Stevens' character. So, it is probably not something you would want a really young kid to watch, but I think it is acceptable for kids who are 10, 11, or 12 years old and up. While rated PG, it could have easily been hit with a PG-13 rating. There is no nudity or sex in the movie; however, the closest is Sheedy in a bubble bath with everything covered.

The Blu-Ray release was very bare-bones. There are no bonus materials or extras. The AV transfer is of minimal quality, with the original aspect ratio of the movie presented, so if you have a large screen, it will play basically in a box in the middle of your screen. Not exactly widescreen, but not fullscreen either. Overall, it is a good comedy, that also blends some drama along with a bit of ethics and morality thrown in there. The writing and acting are okay for what it is, but neither are award-winning by any means. It flows around an hour and a half in length. For those who grew up in the 80s and probably watched it at least once on VHS, it is a good nostalgia trip down memory lane.