Historical inaccuracies aside, Saving Mr. Banks is still a fine drama featuring two wonderful performances from Emma Thompson, who should have received an Oscar nod, and Tom Hanks. Yes, it is emotionally manipulative but it’s for one’s heartstrings not to be pulled at certain scenes.
This is yet another double-dip, the second on Blu-ray, offering the same content, including audio and video, as the 2009 release. Don’t get me wrong, this is a wonderful movie, a favorite of mine.
Sleepless in Seattle isn’t the perfect romantic-comedies but it’s an effective one and respectable given the two leads share very little time on-screen with one another. Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are great in their respective parts separated and even though I’ve seen the film dozens of times over the years, it’s still entertaining.
Killing Lincoln is far from a perfect movie but offers some interesting information not many people might know about. The performances by Billy Campbell and Jesse Johnson are both respectable especially Johnson who probably deserves an Emmy nomination for his great portrayal of James Wilkes Booth.
This 4K mastered release of Angels & Demons is certainly an upgrade over its Blu-ray counterpart, HOWEVER, it’s not a huge one nor something worth the $15 price point for a release that didn’t bother porting over the features (even if they were placed on a second disc). Still, if you have the proper equipment you’ll see a good difference.
Catch Me If You Can is a cool and energetic crime-drama featuring great performances, a fascinating main character, an amazing score and excellent direction that holds up quite well today.
Contagion has some things going for it, but mainly from an acting and technical level rather than the story. The cast is mostly good despite having a limited amount of screen time and Soderbergh’s visual style, while nothing new from what he’s done in the past, still looks stunning and gives the film a certain gravitas yet at the same time I felt like I was more or less a spectator versus becoming involved or entrenched with what was going on.
The Bonfire of the Vanities was a critical and financial flop when it was released back in 1990 and considering its cast with Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis, it should have been better. For me, I don’t think it was that bad though I’ve never read the novel it was based upon so taking at face value, it’s at least an average, and biting, satirical drama-comedy.
There’s no reason why I should love You’ve Got Mail as much as I do because there’s so much going against it. But I think it has to do with the old fashioned Hollywood chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan it could also be that so many other romantic comedies pair up some of the most obnoxious actors working today or actors with no chemistry.