Angelina Jolie movies on Bluray
The range of movies being released on Blu-ray is increasing steadily. Here are the movies starring Angelina Jolie that are available on Blu-ray format:
Starring: Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie
Director: Doug Liman
Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie smoulder in one of the most anticipated, sizzling action films ever made. After five (or six) years of vanilla-wedded bliss, ordinary suburbanites John and Jane Smith (Pitt and Jolie) are stuck in a rut the size of the Grand Canyon until the truth comes out! Unbeknownst to each other, they are both coolly lethal, highly paid assassins working for rival organizations. And when they discover they’re each other’s next target, their secret lives collide in a spicy, explosive mix of wicked comedy, pent-up passion, non-stop action and high-tech weaponry that gives an all-new meaning to “Till death do us part!”
Alexander, Revisited - The Final Cut [Blu-ray]
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Anthony Hopkins, David Bedella
Director: Oliver Stone
Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
Now available is an all new and completely unrated version of Oliver Stone’s incredible epic film, loaded with nearly 40 minutes of additional never-before-seen footage that takes the film to a new level of realism and intensity. Restructured and expanded into two acts with one intermission, Oliver Stone’s vision is delivered the way he originally conceived and intended. With the new, unrated and graphic battle scenes and unadulterated sensuality, it’s the movie you couldn’t see in theatres, now available on DVD for the very first time!
Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow [Blu-ray]
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law
Director: Kerry Conran
Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
In this science fiction adventure set in the 1930s, New York City reporter Polly Perkins starts to investigate why so many famous scientists are being reported missing. Soon, she gets clues, as strange flying machines and giant robots threaten the city. Luckily, her old flame, aviator Captain Joseph Sullivan aka. Sky Captain, is there to battle the bad guys with the Flying Legion, in his Warhawk P-40. Now Polly must fly away with Sky Captain to Nepal to find a crazy scientist, Dr. Totenkopf, who apparently wants to destroy the world!
Lara Croft - Tomb Raider [Blu-ray]
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight
Director: Simon West
Synopsis (from Amazon.com):
A member of arich British aristocratic family, Lara Croft is a”tomb raider” who enjoys collecting ancient artifacts from ruins of temples, cities, etc. worldwide, and doesn’t mind going through death-defying dangers to get them. She is skilled in hand-to-hand combat, weapons training, and foreign languages - and does them all in tight outfits. Well, the planets of the solar system are going into planetary alignment (Which occurs every 5,000 years), and a secret society called the Illuminati is seeking an ancient talisman that gives its possessor the ability to control time. However, they need a certain clock/key to help them in their search, and they have to find the talisman in one week or wait until the next planetary alignment to find it again. Lara happens to find that key hidden in a wall of hermansion. The Illuminati steal it, and Lara gets an old letter from her deceased father telling her about the society’s agenda (Her father was also the one who hid the key). Now, she must retrieve thekey and find and destroy the talisman before the Illuminati can get their hands on it.
BluRay Movies and Will Ferrell
Do you have a Blu-ray player and are a Will Ferrell fan? To all those Will Ferrell fans, here is a list of movies starring Will Ferrell available on Blu-ray:
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (Unrated and Uncut) [Blu-ray]
Starring: Will Ferrell, Jack Blessing, Gary Cole, Greg Germann, and Pat Hingle
Synopsis: The fastest man on four wheels, Ricky Bobby (Will Ferrell) is one of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. A big, hairy American winning machine, Ricky has everything a dimwitted daredevil could want, a luxurious mansion, a smokin’ hot wife (Leslie Bibb) and all the fast food he can eat. But Ricky’s turbo-charged lifestyle hits an unexpected speed bump when he’s bested by flamboyant Euro-idiot Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen, TV’s “Da AliG Show”) and reduced to a fear-ridden wreck. Losing his wife and job to best bud and fellow fool, Cal Naughton, Jr. (John C. Reilly), Ricky must kicksome serious asphalt if he’s to get his career back on the track, beat Girard and reclaim his fame and fortune. ‘Cause as Ricky Bobby always says, IfYou Ain’t First, You’re Last!’
Semi-Pro (Two-Disc Unrated “Let’s Get Sweaty” Edition) [Blu-ray]
Starring: Will Ferrell, Jackie Earle Haley, Woody Harrelson, Patti LaBelle, and Maura Tierney
Synopsis: Will Ferrell stars in Semi-Pro, an outrageous comedy set in 1976 against the backdrop of the maverick ABA - a fast-paced, wild and crazy basketball league that rivaled the NBA and made a name for itself with innovations like the three-point shot and slam dunk contest. Ferrell plays Jackie Moon, a one-hit wonder who used the profits from the success of his chart-topping song “Love Me Sexy” to achieve his dream of owning a basketball team. But Moon’s franchise, the Flint Michigan Tropics, is the worst team in the league and in danger of folding when the ABA announces its plans to merge with the NBA. If they want to survive, Jackie and the Tropics must now do the seemingly impossible - win.
Stranger Than Fiction [Blu-ray]
Starring: Will Ferrell, Queen Latifah, Dustin Hofman and Emma Thompson
Synopsis: Will Ferrell stars as Harold Crick, a lonely IRS agent whose mundane existence is transformed when he hears a mysterious voice narrating his life. With the help of Professor Jules Hilbert (Dustin Hoffman), Harold discovers he’s the main character in a novel-in-progress and that the voice belongs to Karen Eiffel (Emma Thompson), an eccentric author famous known for killing her main characters in creative ways. Harold must quickly track down Eiffel and stop her before she conjures up a way to finish him off.
Blades of Glory [Blu-ray]
Synopsis (from Amazon.com): When rival figure skaters Chazz Michael Michaels (Will Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Jon Heder) go ballistic in an embarrassing, no-holds-barred fight at the World Championships, they are stripped of their gold medals and banned from the sport for life. Now, three-and-a-half years on, they’ve found a loophole that will allow them to compete: if they can put aside their differences, they can skate together – in pairs’ figure skating
Hitachi DZ-BD7HAF BluRay Camcorder Review
I mentioned in Camcorders and the Mini Blu-Ray Disc (Mini-BD) that I was tempted by the Hitachi DZ-BD7HAF BluRay Camcorder
The Hitachi BluRay / HDD Camcorder is compact and relatively light. The quick start feature is very handy and the dual 30GB inbuilt hard-drive (HDD) and Mini-BD (Mini Blu-Ray Disc) compatibility very conveniently extends recording time (Hitachi claims four hours of 1920 x 1080 high definition video (HX mode) or up to eight hours of 1440 x 1080 high definition video (HS mode) recording on the HDD alone and between one and two hours recording time on a Mini-BD). Formats compatible with the Blu-ray drive include; BD-RE/-R, DVD-RAM/-RW/-R (yes, this BluRay camcorder even accepts DVD-RAM).
The widescreen 2.7-inch LCD View Finder is pleasant although viewing of the screen deteriorated in bright sunlight (this is certainly not a problem particular to Hitachi). This minor irritant may be overcome by using the eye-sized viewfinder at the back of the camcorder. Low light recording was good compared to many other camcorders and still photo’s may be extracted from video or captured directly onto an SD card.
For my purposes this is a great camcorder, with particular benefit being derived from the use of Mini-BD and HDD combination. Although relatively expensive compared to the non Blu-ray competitors, I would not buy a non Blu-ray camcorder as it is logical that Blu-ray camcorders will soon become the industry standard. So, would I buy the Hitachi BluRay Camcorder
The Cheapest and Best Value Blu-ray Player
The big Blu-ray news over the past few days has been that Walmart is selling a Funai manufactured Magnavox and Sylvania Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player for $298. In Buying your First New Blu-ray Player I advised that it would be ‘a few years’ before it would be viable to purchase a ‘non-branded’ player. It seems that I was, in part, incorrect; Funai is certainly no small manufacturer and Magnavox has been around for awhile so it would be unfair to call them ‘non-branded’ player although perhaps they should be referred to as non-premium brands.
I haven’t had the opportunity to test the Sylvania NB500SL9 nor the Walmart Magnavox but look forward to doing so. It does seem like a good value Blu-ray player for the budget conscious.
P.S. If you prefer to order online, Amazon is offering the Sylvania NB500SL9 1080p Blu-ray Player for $349.99 (with free delivery)
Blu-ray, Blueray, Blue-ray, Bluray….what’s in a name
My beautiful young daughters have a challenge on their hands! Not only do they have to be concerned with the plenitude of spelling ‘abbreviations’ that text messaging / SMS dictate but now the Home Entertainment offers weird spelling as well as hi-def 1080p. Yes, ‘Blue’ is now spelt ‘BLU’!!!
It’s simple enough to understand that the reason for the color reference in the name ‘Blu-ray’ is due to the blue-like color of the laser used to read and write but why the spelling change? BluRayFreak cites trademark requirements for the ‘Blu’ instead of ‘Blue’ (I have been unable to verify the authenticity of this claim). According to Google it appears that Blu-ray, Blueray, Blue-ray, Bluray are used as often as each other when searching the Web.
Does anyone out there know the true reason for the spelling?
Have a great day everyone!
GoBluRay Goes Technorati
As a quick update to all those of you out there who have been so supportive and want to follow my Blu-ray posts in Technorati, you may go to my Technorati Profile
Thanks
Gary
Camcorders and the Mini Blu-Ray Disc (Mini-BD)
The format that I’m sure many of us are excited about is the introduction of Mini-BD (also known as Mini Blu-Ray Disc). Those of us who use camcorders with tapes in particular (yes, some of us still use this antiquated technology!) stand to benefit from an upgrade.
The Mini-BD stores approximately 7.5 GB of data which will result in approximately one hour of recording in high-definition and two hours with lower definition. This compares favourably with Mini DVD where the recording times are about half that of Mini-BD.
MiniDV and Digital8 are certainly still high quality formats for general use but suffer from slow transfer rates (when transferring to your PC / Mac) and the fact remains that the tapes do sometimes still stretch or snap.
Although Mini-BD camcorders are not yet widely available, I may just be tempted to buy the Hitachi DZ-BD7HAF BluRay Camcorder
Buying Your First New Blu-ray Player
Welcome to the exciting world of buying your first Blu-ray player. No matter if you are a technophobe or a gadget freak, there is a Blu-ray player out there for you. The first issue anyone relatively new to Blu-ray will encounter is that there is an abundance of new terminology and functionality to get your head around. Fear not as below we offer advise around three areas to enjoying the new wave in visual and audio excellence (your choices will obviously influence price):
1 To Brand or not to Brand
As happens with most new technologies, the Brands (e.g. Panasonic Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony, etc.) are generally the first to offer products around the new technologies. This is no different with Blu-ray players; just take a look at Amazon.com
2 The Basics (must have)
Fortunately, for the average user, even a ‘bottom of the range’ Blu-ray player is likely to provide more functionality than you’ll need. There are however two very important items to be aware of:
• Ensure the Player is either ‘region-free’ or encoded with the region code for where you live (i.e. you want to ensure that you are able to play Blu-ray discs sold in your home country). It is however very unlikely that you won’t be buying a compatible Player if you buy from a reputable retailer in the country in which you live (i.e. if you live in the U.S.A. and buy a player online from England, you may well have problems playing many Blu-Ray Discs).
• Buy at least a ‘Profile 1.1’ Blu-ray Player. As time goes on more Blu-ray Disc content will be incompatible with ‘Profile 1.0’. The good news is that if you are buying a relatively recently released model of Blu-ray Player then you’ll be buying at least ‘Profile 1.1’.
3 The Niceties (like to have)
As noted previously, there are many features which will come with any Blu-ray Player you are unlikely to ever use. There are however some features which are definitely worth considering and that will influence your purchasing decision;
• Blu-ray Disc Recordable (BD-R or BD-RE). Instead of your Player being merely a, well, Player, Blu-ray Recordable is becoming more available meaning you may record onto Blu-ray Discs (HDD recordable Blu-ray Players are an alternate option to BD-R or BD-RE).
• BD-Live (also known as ‘Profile 2’). This adds interactivity and additional content possibilities to your Player through being connected to the Internet.
Summary
The average home enthusiast has no reason to be concerned about buying the wrong Blu-ray Player. Just follow the few recommendations in his article and you’ll soon be loving every minute of your new Hi-def home theatre.