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360

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  • Title: 360
  • IMDB: link

360-dvdWith 360 director Fernando Meirelles and screenwriter Peter Morgan offer an ensemble piece featuring several tangentially related stories about love, sex, and money. The idea to weave separate elements such as these together is hardly a new one, but (as is often the case with this type of film) not all the stories measure up, and despite the film’s insistence that it has some great wisdom to impart by throwing all these characters together, in the end 360 is still something of a mess.

The stories involve a man (Anthony Hopkins) searching for his lost daughter who meets a young woman (Maria Flor) who has recently broken up with her boyfriend (Juliano Cazarré) on a flight to the United States, an aspiring prostitute (Lucia Siposová) and her sister (Gabriela Marcinkova), a recently released sex offender (Ben Foster) stuck in a Colorado airport, a couple (Jude Law, Rachel Weisz) each having secret affairs, and a dentist (Jamel Debbouze) struggling with his feelings for his assistant (Dinara Drukarova) who is married to the driver (Vladimir Vdovichenkov) of a Russian gangster (Johannes Krisch).

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Doctor Who – Series 7 (Part One)

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  • Title: Doctor Who – Series Seven (Part One)
  • tv.com: link

doctor-who-series-7-part-one-blu-rayThe first half of Doctor Who Series Seven is collected here including The Doctor‘s (Matt Smith) final farewell to Amy (Karen Gillan) and Rory (Arthur Darvill), dinosaurs on spaceships, a cyborg assassin in the Old West, an invasion of mysterious black cubes, the introduction of Mark Williams as Rory’s father, and an entire planet of insane Daleks which teases the future introduction of Jenna-Louise Coleman as The Doctor’s new companion in this year’s Christmas episode.

Centered around single one-off episodes rather than an ongoing story arc, these episodes get the season off to a good start (even if the western episode is a little flat), before returning the Weeping Angels to their original glory and saying a tearful farewell to the Ponds. “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship” is the real stand-out among the set which feels very much like a throwback to Doctor Who‘s old Douglas Adams days complete with an absurd premise and pair of quarreling robots.

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Transformers Prime – Season Two

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  • Title: Transformers Prime – The Complete Second Season
  • tv.com: link

transformers-prime-blu-ray-season-2The Second Season of Transformers Prime continues the animated battles of the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth as well as the robots in disguise home planet of Cybertron. The series adopts the look and style of Michael Bay’s (truly awful) Transformers franchise and recent video game releases that as a fan of the original toys, comics, and cartoon series, I will freely admit, doesn’t always please me.

This means we’re stuck with several problematic elements from the movies including a Bumblebee that still can’t speak (and is a Camaro instead of a VW Bug), the moronic monster-like design of several of the Decepticons, a lack of understanding basic differences between robots and humans, a scarcity of only a handful of Autobots heroes, and a near endless supply of nameless (not to mention useless) Deception cannon fodder warriors that rank somewhere between Stormtroopers and Cobra soldiers in the grand scheme of things.

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The Ambassador

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  • Title: The Ambassador
  • IMDb: link

the-ambassador-dvd

A funny film about blood diamonds? As odd as that sounds, it’s exactly what The Ambassador delivers. For his latest work Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger undertook the challenge to expose the corruption of diplomatic titles sold on the black market and the African conflict diamond trade in the Central African Republic by purchasing a diplomatic title and becoming the newest ambassador for Liberia.

Through the use of hidden cameras Brügger is able to document the alarming amount of corruption, bribes, and backroom dealing for those with enough money the grease the wheels of the corrupt government of the CAR.

Despite good intentions, Brügger is no white knight. The filmmaker never takes a moral stand on the situation, and his involvement only increases the wealth of the corrupt officials he exposes while giving false hope to citizens who believed the man’s cover story of opening a match factory in the region which would have employed hundreds, if not thousands, of workers.

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The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Disney Style

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  • Title: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad
  • IMDB: link

“With a hip hip and a clippity clop, He’s out looking for a head to swap, But don’t try to figure out a plan, You can’t reason with a headless man.“

adventures-of-ichabod-and-mr-toadThere are numerous holiday specials, mostly Christmas inspired, but a small collection of really good Halloween cartoons. Many fondly remember It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown from their childhood, which I’ll admit also has a fond place in my heart, but my favorite Halloween cartoon was a Disney short that was inspired by Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

As our story opens the nerdy new school teacher, Ichabod Crane, arrives in the small New England town. Although Ichabod is soon popular with the ladies for his manners, training, and knowledge of books, even catching the eye of town beauty Katrina Van Tassel, he’s far less liked by the town’s rough-and-tumble man’s man Brom Bones. 

Not willing lose a girl like Katrina to a man like Ichabod Crane, Bones decides to prove Crane’s cowardice and scare him by telling the story of the Headless Horseman who haunts the local woods looking for a new head. Ichabod is thoroughly frightened and his night horse ride home has him seeing ghosts and specters at every bend and turn.

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