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Community – The Complete Third Season

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  • Title: Community – Season Three
  • tv.com: link

community-season-three-dvdThe Third Season of Community, and final season with show creator Dan Harmon as show runner, is highlighted by a video game episode that features 8-bit versions of the cast working to save Pierce’s (Chevy Chase) inheritance from the evil Gilbert (Giancarlo Esposito), the introduction of Inspector Spacetime, the Air Conditioning Repair School, the Dreamatorium and Evil Abed, the study group being told Greendale isn’t a community college but an insane asylum, an all-campus war between pillow forts and blanket forts, and a near-perfect Law & Order parody.

The season starts out a little slow with a handful of good, but certainly not great, episodes. However, things pick up “Remedial Chaos Theory” which shows us how a single roll of the die could alter the future of each character in both big and small ways. We also get another Glee-ful Christmas episode, Annie (Alison Brie) moving in with Troy (Donald Glover) and Abed (Danny Pudi), and a disastrous attempt to make a new commercial for the school spearheaded by Dean Pelton (Jim Rash).

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Margaret

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  • Title: Margaret
  • IMDB: link

Completed and originally scheduled for theaterical release in 2007 Margaret, writer/director Kenneth Lonergan‘s film about a self-absorbed teenage girl (Anna Paquin) whose life is affected by a bus crash she witnessed (and inadvertently helped cause) was finally released in theaters last year to mixed results. Maybe it should have stayed on the shelf a little longer.

The Blu-ray of the film includes the theatrical cut of the film as well as a DVD with the director’s extended 186-minute version. Although the movie provides several strong performances, the extended cut features extended cutaways, random shots of New York set to an operatic score, often buries the conversation of the main characters among the bustle of New York City, and gives us several subplots that never really fit together, creating a pretentious mess that is often more maddening than entertaining.

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Leverage – The 4th Season

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  • Title: Leverage – The Fourth Season
  • tv.com: link

Leverage - The Complete 4th SeasonThe Fourth Season of Leverage saw one of the crew being buried alive, murder, complicated cons, and the return of several characters including Sterling (Mark Sheppard), Jimmy Ford (Tom Skerritt), Hurley (Drew Powell), Tara (Jeri Ryan), and in the season finale Parker’s mentor (Richard Chamberlain), Wil Wheaton, Kari Matchett, Clayne Crawford, and Saul Rubinek as the man who put the team together – Victor Dubenich.

Highlights from a very strong season include breaking into United States Patent Office, Hardison (Aldis Hodge) taking the lead in a complicated con involving buried treasure in tunnels underneath Portland, a gang of female grifters led by Emma Caulfield hunting wealthy men, a trip to Dubai to help out Sterling (who, of course, double-crosses them), the takedown of a renown con man (David Rees Snell), the crew getting used to Nate (Timothy Hutton) and Sophie (Gina Bellman) as a couple, the cast playing other characters in a flashback episode to the 1940’s, and Parker and Hardison finally sorta admitting their feelings to each other.

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Total Recall

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  • Title: Total Recall
  • IMDB: link

total-recall-blu-ray

It begins with a dream of Mars and a construction worker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) with aspirations for another life waking up in bed in a cold sweat next to his beautiful wife (Sharon Stone). Director Paul Verhoeven‘s 1990 adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” might feel a little corny in spots (especially after more than 20 years) but it remains one of Schwarzenegger’s best films.

Despite warnings from a friend (Robert Costanzo) about rumors of lobotomized patients, Doug Quaid’s (Schwarzenegger) obsession with Mars leads him the Rekall, a company that uses memory implants to give its clients experiences of fabulous vacations including the chance to improve the fantasy by living out his vacation as a secret agent who will save the entire planet and fall in love with the woman of his dreams. Of course it doesn’t make too much arm-twisting to get Doug to buy the whole package. And that’s where the adventure really begins.

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Cat Run

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  • Title: Cat Run
  • IMDB: link

cat-run-dvdWith Cat Run director John Stockwell and screenwriters Nick Ball and John Niven deliver a derivative action flick that wants so hard to be cool it’s almost embarrassing. Mixing a healthy dose of nudity with brutal stylized violence (including torture scenes with a cigar cutter and dental drill), a plot that doesn’t make all that much sense, and intentionally bizarre characters (such as D.L. Hughley as a one-armed, no legged, office worker) Cat Run is one mess of a film.

Our story takes place in Eastern Europe where genius introvert (Scott Mechlowicz) turned failed chef and his childhood best friend (Alphonso McAuley) decide (for no apparent reason) to start a low rent detective agency above a porno theater in Montenegro. Their first client is a prostitute named Cat (Paz Vega) who stole their car and phone and is the sole remaining witness to a series of brutal murders. Well, client is a rather strong word as no one actually hired these likable but ridiculous pair to find anyone.

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