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Ed Wood

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  • Title: Ed Wood
  • IMDB: link

“This story’s gonna grab people. It’s about this guy, he’s crazy about this girl, but he likes to wear dresses. Should he tell her? Should he not tell her? He’s torn, Georgie. This is drama.”

ed-wood-blu-rayDirector Tim Burton‘s love letter to arguably the worst director Hollywood ever saw has made its way to Blu-ray. Johnny Depp stars as Ed Wood in this comedic biopic surrounding the earnest, but undeniably bad, filmmaker’s relationship with Bela Lugosi (Martin Landau), his crossdressing fetish, and the filming of Wood’s most famous films including Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The Blu-ray includes the featurettes from the 2004 Special Edition including the trailer, deleted scenes, and featurettes on the look of the film and recreating the look of Ed Wood’s movies, composer Howard Shore‘s use of the Thermin in the film’s score, a basic behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film, Landau’s performance of Bela Legosi, and audio commentary with Burton, Landau, co-writers Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander, director of photography Stefan Czapsky, and costume designer Colleen Atwood.

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Castle – The Complete Fourth Season

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  • Title: Castle: The Complete Fourth Season
  • tv.com: link

castle-season-five-dvd

The Fourth Season of Castle finds mystery writer Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) working alongside New York Police Detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic) for another season of crime solving while refusing to admit their mutual attraction to each other. The season is highlighted by the two-parter that introduces Castle’s first muse – CIA Agent Sophia Turner (Jennifer Beals), a Firefly reunion with Fillion and Adam Baldwin, a 40’s film noir episode, Castle and Beckett cuffed together while trying to outwit smugglers and a tiger, Castle and Martha (Susan Sullivan) stuck in the middle of an unusual bank robbery, and the season finale which finally links Beckett and Castle romantically.

Aside from the “will-they”/”won’t-they” arc, other ongoing stories include Detective Ryan’s (Seamus Dever) nuptials, Esposito (Jon Huertas) and Lanie’s (Tamala Jones) failed romance, Alexis’ (Molly C. Quinn) pre-college trauma, and the ongoing investigation into the death of Beckett’s mother and search for the sniper (Tahmoh Penikett) who shot Kate in the Third Season finale.

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Person of Interest – The Complete First Season

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  • Title: Person of Interest
  • tv.com: link

person-of-interest-dvdWhat if you had foreknowledge of a crime before it happened? Person of Interest, much like Philip K. Dick’s short story Minority Report takes a look into the not-too-distant future where technology can be used to stop crimes before they happen. Far more grounded in reality that Dick’s story (and don’t get me started on Steven Spielberg’s awful film), Person of Interest gives us a mysterious machine with the ability to see patterns and threats hours or even days before they occur.

I’ll admit some of the First Season episodes are better than others (the baby episode is almost too cute for its own good), and the show certainly takes liberties where it needs to in order to broaden the suspense and appeal of the show at times. However, every episode is solid and show, at least so far, has stayed within the bounds of the rules it set forth in the show’s Pilot episode. The Machine may not exist in our world, but the concept is far less sci-fi than it would have seemed even a decade ago.

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Scandal – The Complete First Season

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  • Title: Scandal
  • tv.com: link

scandal-season-one-dvdCreated by Shonda Rhimes, Scandal stars Kerry Washington as Olivia Pope, a former White House communications director turned professional fixer. Over the course of the season Oliva and her associates (Henry Ian Cusick, Darby Stanchfield, Columbus Short, Katie Lowes, Guillermo Díaz) will save the President’s Supreme Court nominee from a sex scandal (John Getz), defend a millionaire’s son (Michael Cassidy) accused of rape, try to save the wife of a South American dictator (José Zúñiga), and deal with a White House aide’s (Liza Weil) affair with the President of the United States (Tony Goldwyn).

The First Season also fills in Olivia’s past relationship with the President and the drama involving the mysterious disappearance of Amanda Tanner (Weil). Washington is terrific as the strong, decisive woman out for justice, and the show has several great supporting performances, my favorite being Joshua Malina as Olivia’s contentious frenemy US Attorney David Rosen.

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Assassin’s Bullet

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  • Title: Assassin’s Bullet
  • IMDB: link

assassins-bullet-blu-rayAssassin’s Bullet is a dumb B-movie action flick starring Christian Slater as former FBI Agent Robert Diggs now assigned to the American Embassy in Bulgaria four years after the death of his wife. When a dormant assassin returns and starts killing several high-priority terrorists from America’s Most Wanted list Diggs is chosen to head up the investigation by the US Ambassador (Donald Sutherland).

Filled with far too many coincidences and awful ideas (like a multiple personality storyline that has Elika Portnoy playing three roles that, despite looking nearly identical, no one can tell apart) the script by Nancy L. Babine, Hans Feuersinger, and Elika Portnoy is a ridiculous mash-up of bad soap opera and forgettable action movie cliches.

Slater, Sutherland and Timothy Spall are all slumming it here. Available on both DVD and Blu-ray, extras include a short behind-the-scenes featurette (that does nothing to make the story more bearable or believable) and the film’s trailer.

[Xlrator, Blu-ray $26.99 / DVD $20.99]

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