This is the original blu ray edition of Predator and takes up around 21GB of disc space, there are no extra features other than a trailer, it is enabled for D-Box motion control should you own it.

The plotline for Predator should be well known by now, an elite commando team mount a rescue mission in the central American jungle.

The team led by Dutch ( Arnold Schwarzenneger ) are highly skilled and soon find the guerrilla base, when one of the hostages is shot they storm the camp and make short work of the guerrilla forces.

Dutch finds his old friend Dillon was economical with the truth behind the mission and they pick up a prisoner, a young woman named Anna, the team make their way to the extraction point but find something is hunting them, they are being killed one by one, their foe is no ordinary human being but an extra terrestrial alien that loves to hunt it's prey, they must make a stand or die.

Predator is an exciting film, well paced with a fantastic music score that is memorable, the cast assembled for the film are just perfect and everyone gets a few lines that enhances their individual characters, the scene where they storm the guerrilla camp is well put together and is a textbook example of how to stage a large scale action sequence, it's a scene which had to be trimmed in order to get an R rating on it's original release but despite this it still works very well.

John McTiernan went on to direct Die Hard straight after this film and he deserves a lot of credit for how well this film turned out, i felt it brought something fresh to the genre by mixing horror, sci fi and action. Its a very enjoyable film which i never tire of watching.

This release originally had poor reviews with some complaining about the film grain being too heavy, the problem is that the people complaining had their television or projectors sharpness control set wrongly and too high, this would have made the grain look more prominent and unnatural, those who bothered to lower their sharpness would have seen a pretty decent image.

Note that film grain in blu ray screencaps as featured below will show grain that when viewed as a screencap looks different to when viewed in motion, you will find it more pleasing to the eye when in motion, high definition detail needs this grain, if you remove it you will remove the fine detail, grain in screencaps is captured in a frozen form, in motion it moves with the image and is very natural, high definition detail relies on it and film grain should never be removed.

Image quality on this release could be considered inconsistent at times, this is due to how the film was shot, some scenes have been zoomed in due to lack of coverage shots, these scenes have more grain and are slightly softer in detail, they make up a small percentage of the films running time, there are some compression artifacts due to the use of low bitrate MPEG2 on a 25GB disc but generally speaking you get what was filmed and the disc presents it warts and all.

This is a considerable step up from any DVD edition of the film, it could have been better if they had used the AVC codec and a 50GB disc but it's not nearly as bad as some of the reviews would have you believe. Indeed more reviewers need to understand how film is captured, maybe then the reviewers will understand what film grain is and why it should be preserved.

The sound mix is better than expected, it could be they have used the 70mm six track mix for this release, i don't know if thats the case but the music score benefits from the lossless dts master audio 5.1 track provided for the disc, i felt speech was clear and when the action starts and the bullets fly you get some directionality and the subwoofer kicks in appropriately and goes reasonably deep, it isn't anywhere near as dynamic as movies today but it gets the job done.

People should buy this disc and avoid the Predator Ultimate Hunter Edition which is a trainwreck of a transfer and has removed the film texture, see screencaps and read more about that here.

This is a classic film, it's one of Schwarzennegers best and features a cast of well known faces, you will recognize Carl Weathers who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky films.

View blu ray screencaps of Predator below. Click twice for the full HD image.

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Shoot Em' Up is a stylish film, well paced and exciting with some fab camerawork, it reminded me a little of a Bond movie and it made me think that perhaps this is what an R rated Bond film would look like.

The film's plot is basic, Clive Owen plays Mr Smith, he witnesses a pregnant woman being chased by a gunman so reluctantly decides to help, other gunmen arrive on the scene and during a frantic shootout he delivers the baby but the woman is killed, Smith decides to rescue the newborn baby and he then goes on the run, along the way he gets aided by Donna. ( Monica Bellucci ) Smith must try and find out why the hitmen are after the baby and who Hertz is. ( Paul Giamatti )

Featuring enough action to satisfy even the most demanding of fans this film moves at such a pace that you are never bored, it has blood and violence that some may consider over the top but it's done with such style that you can forgive any script defiencies, truly an enjoyable film and the cast all seem to be enjoying themselves. As the baddie, Paul Giamatti gets to chew up the scenery and revels in it.

The love scene between Mr Owen and Miss Bellucci takes place during a shootout and is funny and exciting at the same time, it's not often you see characters having sex take part in a shootout, i recall Desperado having a scene like that but the characters were not having sex during the shootout.

The image quality on the disc is superb, i spotted no issues which took me out of the movie, a nice layer of film grain was present and the picture was sharp, detailed and film like.

The sound mix was also excellent, when the bullets start flying you are transported into the thick of the action and there is nice directionality as sounds pan from the front to centre to rear and at all times i found speech through the centre channel to be clear and easy to understand, the subwoofer also kicked in loud and deep and the bass could be felt in the room, i was thoroughly engaged by this soundtrack and feel it's a strong and exciting mix.

This movie might be a bit much for some tastes as it is not subtle but i enjoyed every second of it and if action films are your cup of tea then i would recommend this film.

View some blu ray screencaps of Shoot Em' Up below. Click twice for the full HD image.

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This is the French edition and as a bonus features the directors cut of the film, there is also lots of additional extra content on the disc but it is in 576 PAL so may not work in some territories.

Angelina Jolie was asked if she wanted to be a Bond girl, her reply was that she wanted to be James Bond, in this movie you can see why as Miss Jolie is well suited to action scenes and holding her own against male competition.

Nicole Kidman was originally cast as Mrs Smith but dropped out, Johnny Depp was at one point to have been Mr Smith but his committment to other film projects meant he had to drop out.

Mr & Mrs Smith are both assassins, they work for rival agencies and live a normal life, neither are aware of each other's real job.

One day Mr & Mrs Smith are assigned to kill the same man and only then do they discover the truth about each other, their agencies are not too happy and assign them the task of killing each other, do they choose to carry out their contract or continue in marriage guidance!

This movie is a lot of fun, it has chemistry between the lead actors and assured direction by Doug Liman, i also liked the music score, for this directors cut edition you get six extra minutes of footage, this includes an extension to the love scene between Jolie and Pitt and changes to some of the interactions between Mr and Mrs Smith, changes to the soundtrack are also present with The Dust Brother's soundtrack for Fight Club being added to some scenes, indeed near the end of the film you can see a character wearing a fight club t-shirt.

I wasn't aware of any changes made to the violent scenes in the film, even the love scene is not very graphic but apparently was too sensual for the American PG-13 certificate.

The 35mm prints of this film come from a digitally grain reduced digital intermediate, it had many grain reduction artifacts, this helps explain why the film looks the way it does on blu ray where i saw a number of artifacts when i increased my brightness levels, watch it on a calibrated display and you will likely only spot a few such as in the scene near the beginning of the film which has strobing lights during the dance sequence between Jolie and Pitt, check screencap 15 below for this example and remember it does not look that bad on a calibrated display, it seems this is a direct result of the noise reduction applied to the film's digital intermediate. Therefore what we get on blu ray is a representation of the way the film looked in cinemas.

At the one hour and 7 minute mark i thought the scene in the restaurant looked like it had some background noise issues, again thats likely due to what they did to the digital intermediate.

Its a shame they felt the need to grain reduce the digital intermediate and that all 35mm prints come from this, this is something reviewers will need to take into account on this film and many others, not always easy to assess and i would hope that the film makers just use low grain film stock and the right type of film lenses and filters in future, perhaps they should even consider shooting the film digitally if they want lower film grain present in the image.

The sound on this release features an active mix, lots of fabulous front, centre and rear sound activity, the music score is good and stays in your head long after the film is finished and the subwoofer gets a very good workout with deep controlled bass, the disc features DTS HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtracks in both English and French.

I enjoyed Mr & Mrs Smith and would love a sequel, i'm glad i imported this edition as its not available as a directors cut in the UK or North America, i think the image quality is representative of the release prints but bear in mind any image artifacts present are because of the grain reduction applied to the digital intermediate and not because it was applied to the blu ray.

Check out some blu ray screencaps of Mr & Mrs Smith below. Click twice for the full HD image.

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Tom Hanks is Captain John H. Miller, in Saving Private Ryan he survives the D-Day landings and together with his company he is ordered to go on a mission to locate a young soldier by the name of James Francis Ryan, Ryan's three brothers have all died during the conflict and military chiefs decide it would be good for morale if they can locate Private Ryan and send him home safely to his mother.

The plotline is taken from events that happened during the American Civil War, during that war a Mrs Bixby had lost her sons and Abraham Lincoln had written a letter to her, it turns out Mrs Bixby lied about the sons she had lost, only two out of five died and she was also a Confederate sympathiser, it's believed Lincoln didn't write the letter but that one of his advisers did.

Steven Spielberg directs Saving Private Ryan.

Many of the cast were not huge names when this film was made but you will recognize the likes of Vin Diesel, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Giovanni Ribisi and Paul Giamatti.

I noticed Nathan Fillion in the movie and many will know him from the tv shows Firefly and Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Jeremy Davies is also in the cast, he played Daniel Faraday in Lost, he is instantly recognizable if you watch that show, he has also appeared in many movies.

It was interesting to see Ted Danson in this film, his cameo is memorable and Ted is a good actor and he shows it in this film, indeed before the tv show Cheers, Ted gave good acting performances in movies such as The Onion Field and Body Heat.

Hanks gives one of his finest acting performances in this film, he really was at the top of his game when this film was made and when you look at his eighties movies and then watch the films he made in the nineties you can see his maturity and development as an actor.

Spielberg does not shy away from showing the cruelty of war and the opening D-Day landing scenes are explicit and gory, bodies are ripped in half, limbs are lost and the blood flows, the audience is as shellshocked as the characters during these opening scenes.

The final act of the film is tense and has a great build up, it's a testament to how skillful Spielberg is as a director that he can put you right into the middle of a war where the action flows thick and fast but still find time for quieter reflective moments that make you care about the characters, other film makers should take note because too many forget about quality dialogue and well rounded characters and instead they concentrate on action, action, action, so much so that they forget to give us people we can root and care for. The best film makers give us it all and Spielberg was brought up in an era where well written characters were the norm unlike todays MTV generation directors that think fast cutting will hide the deficiencies in their script.

Image quality on this disc is superb, Spielberg has deliberately went for a certain look to the production and this means film grain is prominent and intentional, there is also some dirt and specks that show up and once again this is intentional and appropriate to the production, the colour was drained by about 60% from the film print to create a less saturated look, black levels are perfect for this release and fleshtones look accurate. During World War II there was film cameramen shooting the war and they would mainly use 35mm camera's, i believe Spielberg is trying to recreate that look during the opening intensely realistic frenzied battle scenes.

If you check out frames 7,8 and 9 below you can see deliberate photographic choices made for the movie, thats all intentional and not an issue with the disc.

The sound mix is extremely impressive, watch the beach attack and listen to how good the soundstage is, rear speakers get a massive workout with lots of split surround activity, the bass is very deep and there is a lot of channel panning, speech is clear unless deliberately drowned out for some of the battle sequences. This is one hell of sound mix and one of the best i have heard.

Great movie although its not in my top three of Spielberg movies, that would belong to Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Jaws and Jurassic Park, i'd probably put Saving Private Ryan at number four.

Check out blu ray screencaps of Saving Private Ryan below. Double click for the full HD image.

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Seraphim Falls is set sometime after the American Civil War and features two fine performances from Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson, Brosnan plays Gideon, a man being hunted by Carver. ( Neeson ) The reasons are at first unclear but flashbacks show a tragedy that happened during the war set events in motion and Carver now wants to exact revenge on Gideon and will hunt him down no matter what.

Carver is unrelentless in his pursuit of Gideon and a final showdown is inevitable, in a way you could say Carver is as obsessed with revenge as Captain Ahab was when hunting the whale, Moby Dick.

The final act of the film features much symbolism and i thought the character of Charon represented all that is good and fair and just while Madame Louise is a representation of evil and deception and possibly even Satan himself, it's also very possible those two characters are hallucinations and not real since by this point of the film both men are exhausted.

Seraphim is a type of angel in theology and the way the film is structured one can conclude that two fallen angels are battling each other from the mountaintops of heaven to the fiery deserts of hell, of course one can simply watch it as a western with Seraphim being the waterfalls, its also interesting that the characters start out fresh and by the end of the film the hunt has completely worn them down to the point that they are absolutely tired in both mind and body.

The image quality of Seraphim Falls disappointed me, i think they have applied processing to the movie and filtered the finer detail away, i felt there was grain reduction and i noticed some ringing and compression artifacts, closer inspection of the disc reveals hard to see lines on three sides of the image, ( top, bottom and right side ) i have seen these lines on other films which have ringing and which i believe have had filtering applied to the image, i think it's done to make the film easier to encode when using less space. The film itself takes up just 15.9 GB of space on the disc.

The sound mix was average on this film, speech was clear, surrounds were used for ambience, bass was not deep but present in some scenes, i felt the music score was also average.

This is a decent movie which i did enjoy, i just felt the image quality did not represent the cinema look and i feel they have tried to fit the film onto the disc in as small a space as possible when they could have used more space and a higher bitrate and not filtered the finer detail and film grain away, higher bitrates and more careful encoding would have helped with the handful of compresison artifacts i noticed, good movie but missed opportunity and i hope they redo the transfer at a later stage, usually Icon do much better with their transfers on blu ray.

Below are some movie screencaps of Seraphim Falls. Click twice for the full HD image.

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