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- Review count127
- Helpfulness votes25
- First reviewJune 27, 2014
- Last reviewJuly 11, 2018
- Featured reviews0
- Average rating3.9
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![The Revenant [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4840/4840300_sa.jpg)
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
The idea for The Revenant is more satisfying than its realization. It's a fact many of us who have been looking forward to the film likely realized before even watching it, but nonetheless the reaction to this realization is still one that feels it witnessed something unique, or special at the very least. Throughout the course of the film I couldn't help but to keep coming back to the thought that the huge amount of effort that was so clearly put into the making of this film deserved to be seen multiple times, countless times even, but in trying to come up with a time in which I might actually want to sit down and experience this again I came up with little desire. That this was also director Alejandro González Iñárritu's follow-up to his Oscar-winning Birdman factors into the mystique of the idea of how great this film might be, never mind the fact he was collaborating with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy. And so, the "what if" thought came to mind in the form of, “what if this were made by a no-name director?" Would it be met with the same expectation? Would reactions be as critical to the leanness of the story or would the beauty of the cinematography allow that to be forgiven? Obviously, this is not the case and thus the film will be viewed and criticized for how it stacks up against Iñárritu's past works as well as the fellow awards fodder that is being released this year, but despite all of these factors that inform the here and now, the initial reactions to the film, The Revenant feels like a movie that will be around for a long time. It is a movie that will be discussed not for its large themes or the depth with which it conveys this rather simple and straight-forward story, but more for what it was able to accomplish in bringing beauty out through such brutality. That, in its own way, it was able to deliver as visceral an experience as one could have with a motion picture. This is a movie not meant to elicit a lot of intellectual pondering, but more an experience of the emotions that you drink in, let settle, and then decide if it's for you or not. My palate seems to have come to the decision it appreciates the taste more than it necessarily enjoys it.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Old School [Blu-ray] [2003]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7271/7271133_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
The Beginnings of the Frat Pack
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Todd Phillip's 2003 comedy serves as something of the defining Frat Pack comedy. It brought about the movie star that would be Will Ferrell and showed us why this guy was a comedic treasure while allowing the likes of Vince Vaughn to stretch his muscles in ways no one had previously while Luke Wilson was the perfect foil for these two more outlandish funnymen. Also, this is the film that introduced us to The Dan Band-so that's not a bad thing. Beyond quotable. Incredibly Funny. Even better after multiple viewings.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![School of Rock [Blu-ray] [2003]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/7272/7272071_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Jack Black Rules, this Movie Rocks
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
More than thirteen years since this films original release and it remains insanely watchable to this day. The jokes still land, the music still pleases, and Black's performance reminds us what the comic is truly capable of even if his career has taken a slight downturn in quality over the years.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Room [Blu-ray] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4927/4927300_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
One of the Best of 2015
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Alice in Wonderland has been used as inspiration for what are surely an innumerable number of stories. The idea of getting lost down a rabbit hole or your life not going the way you'd imagined it when you were a child is universal. The metaphors and analogies to be made are no doubt endless with any aspect of any single persons life, but Room is a certain kind of Alice story as you can feel the loss of our protagonist both physically and psychologically. Loss is a key word, a key theme if you will, given the circumstances of the situation presented in the film, but if you don't know that situation going in you're all the better for it. All that is necessary to know is that Brie Larson plays Joy Newsome, a woman who has seemingly been trapped in a single room shack for an ungodly amount of time while having raised her five year old son, Jack (Jacob Tremblay), in this confinement for the entirety of his life. There is only a single door in their room and it is protected by a locking system that only a mysterious visitor (Sean Bridgers) knows the code to. This stranger, referred to as "Old Nick", brings Joy and Jack food once a week, but like the majority of the supporting characters in any Alice story, he is cruel towards our heroine. Knowing little more than this myself before walking in, Room operates as a tense and unnerving thriller for it's first half before becoming an intense psychological trip in it's second. Both are equally engaging as is the film as a whole.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Legend [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4758/4758712_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
Double the Hardy, Double the Insanity
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Legend is a movie that aspires to be a great gangster epic and in some regards, it is. This is not the gangster epic in the same vein as something like Goodfellas, though. It is more a representation than an adaptation, which is fine because it works for the characters at play and never fails to be thoroughly entertaining. Director Brian Helgeland delivered a straightforward, but rousing biopic of Jackie Robinson two years ago in 42, but has written films such as L.A. Confidential and Mystic River in his twenty-seven years in Hollywood. With Legend, Helgeland tests his directorial prowess by taking on a much bigger scope and a more complex story that features a diverse set of personalities. Each of these things having to be managed and pieced together in a way that feels coherent. There are times you can almost feel the structure creaking under it's own weight. Near the end of the second act the film almost gives way to a full on tsunami of varied tones and plot strands falling in on themselves and flooding out to leave behind nothing more than puddles of once strong and vibrant storytelling methods as well as the exceptional double performance of Tom Hardy. Lucky for Helgeland, he hired an actor with as much gravitas and ability as Hardy allowing him to pull off this stunt and leave the audience ruptured in his showing to the point we don't so much care about what else is going on around him. We acknowledge the given circumstances the real-life people fell into, but we're all just watching to see what Hardy does with the situation.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2 [Blu-ray/DVD] [SteelBook] [Only @ Best Buy] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4827/4827603_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
A Fitting Finale to The Hunger Games
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Ultimately, The Hunger Games films as well as the books are about sacrifice and that this final installment of the film franchise encapsulates this theme to its fullest while still maintaining a clear narrative drive that is moved along by several exhilarating action sequences allows it to be nothing short of wholly fulfilling. In all honesty, as a reader of the books, I don't know that one could have asked for a better interpretation of the novels. Even in retrospect, the splitting of Mockingjay into two parts now seems a genuine decision rather than a financial one as it allowed more time to fully grasp the multiple changes and conflicts our protagonist, Katniss Everdeen (the ever-steady Jennifer Lawrence), would experience while also allowing plenty of space to develop the idea that both sides of a war use the same kind of propaganda to strike fear into their followers hearts. This development as well as the fact both parts of the Mockingjay films were not shackled by the narrative constraints of the actual games make for a much more involving and complex set of moral decisions and real world repercussions that don't typically apply to young adult literary stories. Whether it be through the casting of the terrific Donald Sutherland as President Snow who makes the overriding threat seem all the more vile as he eloquently executes his intentions of power over the classes of Panem through his politics or the unexpectedly layered Alma Coin (Julianne Moore) that brings about not only an epiphany in Katniss concerning the vicious circle that human beings naturally put themselves in when systems inevitably become corrupted, but also in realizing the necessary differences in the two men in her life that will finally bring about a peaceful decision. As much as The Hunger Games series is about sacrifice it is also about holding true to ideals no matter the sacrifice it takes to keep such principles relevant. Some may counter Katniss with the argument that there is no need to fight for ideals if there will be no one left to carry them on and if that is to be the result it seems Katniss thinks we might not deserve to exist at all. It's a bold statement, one that the films could have easily smoothed over with a toothless and sentimental final act, but instead they embraced the complexities and let them play out in an honest sense only making it all the more interesting to watch come to an end.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![The Peanuts Movie [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray/DVD] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4617/4617002_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
3
Nostalgia-fueled Bliss
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
The thing about Peanuts is that it's meant to be a comforting, nurturing type of experience while at the same time providing something of a profound simplicity to the themes it desires to tackle. It's kind of like the Pixar movies, but flat instead of three dimensional. With The Peanuts Movie though, director Steve Martino (the last Ice Age movie) looks to bring Charlie Brown and his gang into the twenty-first century as they are presented in computer animated 3D. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to have changed the sweet and simple mentality the comic strip by Charles Schulz always took on. The characters and their world have been updated in no apparent way-they all still play outside by trying to fly kites or ice skating, there is no modern technology and even many of the same story beats we've seen before in the holiday specials that air every year are present. I largely only have those specials to refer to as I'm of the odd generation that was too young to get hip to the comic strip when it was in its newspaper prime (despite still running in syndication today) and am too old to have any genuine interest in this new movie. Still, it seems a childhood in America wouldn't be complete without having seen It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving or the original A Charlie Brown Christmas at least once. Given this was my only frame of reference walking into the 2015 version though, it seemed like little more than a cash grab given it was being presented in 3D and released just as the Holiday season was upon us. Of course, capitalizing on nostalgia has become big business since the social media age took hold and everything is suddenly worth a second look, but given the age and importance that the Peanuts brand carries with it this somehow felt more risky, more greedy, more capable of destroying real childhoods. Given it's mostly more of the same I doubt this will offend anyone, but in fact it will likely do the exact opposite and resurrect all the feels these characters originally inspired regardless of generation-heck, it may even inspire a few children of our newest ones.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![The Big Short [Includes Digital Copy] [Blu-ray/DVD] [2 Discs] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4919/4919100_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Adam McKay Delivers the Goods
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
In the context of the film it makes perfect sense, but squeezed in among last seasons holiday releases The Big Short unfortunately seemed to be one of the more forgettable titles. It helped marginally that the faces on the poster are four of Hollywood's heaviest hitters with Brad Pitt bringing in the biggest pull (and ironically putting in the least amount of screen time), but even this didn't feel like enough to distract moviegoers from what is always a saturated market only made worse here by a complicated story that has been relayed in sardonic terms by the director of Anchorman. Of course, if you've payed attention to any of Adam McKay's work you'd know the director of Anchorman and other such Will Ferrell comedies including Talladega Nights and The Other Guys is actually the perfect choice for a film that desires to tell of the housing market crash that occurred in America in 2008. It is a story in need of sharp social commentary, of a mind that might give the boring numbers game an insightful twist and McKay is able to deliver on all fronts by crafting a final product that is as funny and stinging as it is heartbreaking and tragic-a detriment, almost, to the American spirit. And yet, throughout the over two hour runtime the film never ceases to be breathlessly entertaining. There is so much going on, so many words being spoken, so many deals being made, and so many new characters being introduced at such rapid rates that we never have time to settle in, but rather stay perched on the edge of our seats. With its hands in so many different pots it would be easy for the The Big Short to go off the rails, but somewhat unexpectedly the film finds a certain groove in its latter half that, while not matching the frenetic speed of the first two acts, brings in the necessary levity that strikes the perfect balance between both the ridiculousness of the situation and the dire real world consequences. McKay, working from his and Charles Randolph's screenplay that is based on the book by Michael Lewis (The Blind Side, Moneyball), is able to remain so laser focused on what makes these characters so interesting in their own right that the fact they exist in this compelling real world situation is only icing on the cake.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Brooklyn [Blu-ray] [2015]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/4894/4894800_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
5
Indisputably Great Film
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Brooklyn is gorgeous and moving and all things warm and fuzzy without ever devolving into a Hallmark channel original. From the moment the film opens on a doe-eyed and innocent Saoirse Ronan working feverishly in a convenience shop in the early 1950's I was hooked by the effortless quality of the inviting atmosphere director John Crowley (Boy A, Closed Circuit) establishes. Even when a character as horrible as Ronan's prickly boss is present she can't dampen the mood of the eternally vibrant tone that radiates off this thing like a campfire in early fall. This immediate sense of safe familiarity allows for the rather objective-less story adapted from Colm Toibin's novel by Nick Hornby (About A Boy) to feel all the more profound and affecting as it unravels. While nothing that happens in Brooklyn will make you think too critically or give you a sense of accomplishment it is more a relaxing and comforting experience of a movie. It exists simply to make you feel something. Whether that something is overly sentimental or not will depend on your own mentality, but for the sake of my gullible and rather naive mind it was a perfectly cooked and plated dessert that made me feel cozy to the point of almost feeling gluttonous. Brooklyn gives and gives and never fails to keep you in line with it's simple narrative and somewhat complex emotional roller coaster that is complimented by its ability to paint its scenarios as simply as it can. Cheers to simplicity, to pleasantries and to being sappy; sometimes, it's all you need.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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![Wilder Mind [CD]](https://pisces.bbystatic.com/image2/BestBuy_US/images/products/5188/5188154_sa.jpg)
Customer Rating
4
Switching it up to Solid Effect
on May 12, 2016
Posted by: VandyPrice
from Arkansas
Verified Purchase:Yes
Mumford and Sons plug in for their third full length studio album and the results are more or less as effective as they are fulfilling. While the folk tones of their previous efforts are certainly missed in some instances this is still largely a quality record from beginning to end. The first four tracks are worthy of single status whereas other tracks such as, "Monster," "Snake Eyes," and "Ditmas" are each stand outs.
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
My Best Buy number: 2220462910
I would recommend this to a friend!
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