Things go awry for Tom when Hannah leaves on an overseas trip and he realizes what his true feelings are for her and figures that when she comes back he will ask for her hand in marriage. Upon her return he learns about her plans to marry a wealthy Scotsman. Things head more south for Tom when she asks of him to be her Maid of Honor, but he soon decides that this situation might be his best weapon to woo her back into his arms before the wedding takes place. With the support of his male buddies, Tom is off to Scotland to rescue his future with Hannah.

The storyline behind Made of Honor is nothing new or groundbreaking and has been told over and over in many another romantic comedy. Take in consideration that the movie is not meant to have any serious undertones and you will be pleased with a slightly warm hearted comedy that would tickle at your funny bone every here and there. Please take in a word of caution; some people might find the movie somewhat offensive with its near constant references to one Stereotype after another.

From a Technical aspect:

This 2008 Blu-ray release delivers fully on the Blu-ray format, rendering a gorgeous 1080p resolution recorded in MPEG 4 AVC. Colors are reproduced effortlessly and the film maintains a very real feel to the picture. Looking over the green fields in Scotland, you will feel the need to travel. I rate the picture quality right alongside other Major releases like Spiderman 3 or Casino Royale!

Audio is presented in lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with vocals never muffled and the tone qualities always clear. There are no real Sub woofer pounding scenes to shake up your sound system, but maintaining the mood of the film, the audio is spot on.

Special features are more or less what you would expect of a release of this nature with the standard supplements like added commentary, deleted scenes and the making of. BD-Live is also present giving you online access to additional movie previews.

Ladies if you have a soft side for attractive men, Patrick Dempsey should be enough reason for you to own this Blu-ray release.

by: Darren Strydom

Together, these two guys with nothing in common except a fondness for a certain leafy, smokeable substance, must work together to avoid taking the wrong kind of hit from a drug dealer bent on killing them. What follows is an uproarious updating of the buddy action comedy from the outrageous minds behind the smash hit Superbad.

The movie is directed by David Gorden Green and stars new sensation Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, Superbad, 40 Year Old Virgin) and James Franco (Spider-man franchise) and it co-stars Rosie Perez (Do The Right Thing) and Gary Cole (The Brady Bunch Movie).  The BD version is crammed with special features and extra’s including:

Filmmaker and Cast Commentary
Deleted & Extended Scenes
Gag Reel
Direct-O-Rama- Featurette
Line-O-Rama - Featurette
Red and Stormy’s Guide to Marriage- Featurette
Injury Report -Featurette
Stuntmaster Ken Jeong - Featurette
Jonah Hill on Set
Ride The Express Game
Rehearsal Footage
The Making of Pineapple Express
Comic Con Panel Clip and Easter Eggs

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment recently got the ’scoop’ with interviews with main character and co-writer Seth Rogen (the lazy stoner) and writer Evan Goldberg as well as James Franco (dazed dealer) and Danny McBride (dope supplier).

Interview with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg

How seriously did you take the research process for Pineapple Express?
SR: Pretty seriously! A lot like Daniel Day Lewis. We smoked a lot of weed and we made a whole movie about it! (Laughs)
EG: We did a lot of research on the action side.
SR: Yeah we’d literally walk around going ‘I’m the good guy car, you’re the bad guy car. We’d literally have toy cars that we would play with, and we read a lot of action movie scripts - that was the departure for us.
EG: But you can write whatever you want.
SR: It’s true - you think of whatever you like but it seems everyone just writes ‘action sequence’ in the script.

Did you find it hard to marry up the brutal action with the broad comedy?
SR: We didn’t think so, no. it was more difficult to convince people we were able to get it right. In my head brutal violence and comedy go hand in hand.
EG: To see as much blood as is in this movie is fine, I think, but to rip someone’s chest open, that’s different.
SR: We did learn it’s not funny to see people in immense pain but as far as the blood is concerned, it’s cool.
EG: We kept thinking of True Lies. In True Lies Schwarzenegger like runs around, shoots 17 people but you don’t see anyone sitting there going ‘I’m dying.’
SR: And in Pulp Fiction there’s that scene in the car where the guy’s head is blown off - it’s as gruesome as anything but it always gets a big laugh. Its how they deal with it, the whole attitude towards it is its just funny and it doesn’t deal with the real emotional side of it.
EG: And Sean Of The Dead - at the end of that they do something that I would normally be terrified to see.
SR: And with Craig Robinson where we shoot the guy’s foot off - it gets a huge laugh and we’re like ‘this is what we wanna hear!’

How much of the finished film was improvised and how much was tied down before you started?
SR: Tons of it was improvised. A lot of the hit man stuff was improvised. But watching the movie its really hard to tell what’s improvised and what wasn’t. The scene in the diner was 100 per cent improvised. It really ranges from scene to scene but we tell people to say whatever they want.

What are you like when you write together? Who’s tougher on who?
EG: There are subtle differences. I type faster. He’s slowly getting as fast as me.
SR: We write the exact same way we did when we were 13. But the way we write a screenplay has evolved quite a lot, we outline now, we talk about it more. We have our system down.
EG: We bought Final Draft!
SR: But that being said it still happens that we write the most commercial script we can think of and look at it and go ‘what the hell is this?’ We haven’t gone mainstream yet! We’re in our late 20s and doing the exact same thing we were doing when we were 13, we’re just in my house now instead of in Evan’s bedroom.

Interview with James Franco and Danny McBride

James, you suffered injuries making Pineapple Express?
JF: I did. And I didn’t even have to think about it, I just ran straight into the tree and it went ‘whack’. I had a huge gash on my head. The scene is where Seth and I are running through the woods like morons and I run into the tree. They set it up for me and it was really simple - run up and stop just short of the tree. It seemed very simple and easy to do as the stunt man was stationary when he explained it to me. I was running at a full sprint and, Judd likes to say I was very tired at that time because it was a night shoot. But there was a pad on the tree, but it was the size of a stamp and attached with washers.
DM: So they made it more dangerous.
JF: Yeah, I hit one of the washers and the actual take of me in the movie is me hitting the tree. I made a really stranger sound I’ve never made before, like I can’t quite laugh it off. As soon as I got off camera nobody was saying anything, they just had really wide eyes, but then I felt the blood running into my eyes.

Do you think the shot will make the DVD?
JF: I’m not sure. I guess so, so I tried to remain as cool as possible.

What research did you do for the role?
JF: Well, I went and killed some people.
DM: You did a lot of crack.
JF: I did.
DM: But it didn’t have anything to do with the film.
JF: no, I just said it was research.
DM: Exactly.
JF: So crack and killing. No, I used to smoke when I was in high school but I haven’t in a long time. The trick I used to look high was to pretend I was looking into the wind. You wanna try? You like high!
DM: He is!

Danny, how would you describe your character, Red?
DM: I’d like to think Red transcends sexuality. He’s kind of above it. There’s definitely some mystery to him. I mean he has this wife who’s in jail but then he wants to be with James’ character.
JF: It was improvised, I thought.
DM: But there was a realness to it, James. Nah, he’s like a gay hairdresser. He wears kimonos but he’s married. But people have found a way around that before so.

An NHL hopeful, Jonathan Cross (Klein), while waiting for his shot at the big leagues, is approached by an old school friend, Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J), who lures Cross to follow him to Kazakhstan with promises of Stardom and Fortune. Cross is introduced to Rollerball, a high paced futuristic style blood sport where participants combine other sports like motocross, roller blading & La cross to race around a figure eight track, passing a metal ball until close enough to throw at a round target to score. It is not long before Cross is the star attraction of the Rollerball sport and has reached fame, owning all sorts of exotic cars. Things go wrong however, when a team-mate is injured in an apparent staging and the sports creator, Petrovich (Reno), realizes that his ratings skyrocket with each act of violence. Cross picks up on Petrovich’s intentions and tries to warn his longtime friend Marcus, but the money and fame is too attractive and Marcus is oblivious to the warnings. Soon Cross and his love interest, Aurora (Romijn-Stamos), are on the run from the tyrannous Rollerball boss and what ensues is a battle to overthrow the malicious sport.

Klein delivers a mediocre performance, while LL Cool J is by far the film’s strongest presence. Jean Reno plays a very decent villain too. This film is by no means a masterpiece, but offers a good 90 minutes of popcorn time on the couch. I would not recommend this film to younger audiences due to the use of strong language, violence and nudity.

From a technical aspect:
Rollerball is presented in remastered Full HD 1080p resolution. This presentation is probably one of the better remastered films with very little grain present. Lighting is well maintained throughout and color representation is very good especially in the arenas.
Audio is brought to life in Dolby True HD with crisp clear sound. If you have a good Sub Woofer on your home theatre system, you will feel every thump, bump and bruise in the action-packed sports arena.

Rollerball is more enjoyable on Blu-ray than when I originally watched the theatrical release back in 2003. For men, this is a decent action fest and for the ladies, LL Cool J with his deep voice and trained physique, should keep you glued to your HD TV.

By Darren Strydom, Sony Electronics SA.

Welcome back Mike Myers’ 1993 hit comedy, ‘So I Married an Axe Murderer’ in full remastered High Definition (HD). This is the third major box office hit for Mike Myers, following Wayne’s World in 1992 and the sequel, Wayne’s World 2, which proved to be a major success and cemented his wacky comedy style amongst movie goers.

Mike Myers stars as Charlie Mackenzie, a man somewhat scorned by previous love interests, that hangs around in Coffee Shops reciting lyrical poems about his past failed relationships. One day his eye catches the lovely Harriett (Nancy Travis) in a butcher shop while shopping for haggis, a traditional Scottish delicacy. Meanwhile, enter Charlie’s wacky Scottish family. You are introduced to his father (also acted out by Mike Myers), who is probably the funniest character in the movie. The ability for Myers to act out multiple personalities in movies is astounding as can be seen in this presentation and the recent Austin Powers movies. This shows immense depth in his talent as a comedic actor. Being somewhat paranoid, Charlie’s mom shows him an article in her “sworn by” local Tabloid paper about Mrs. X, a serial killer that kills off all her husbands on their Honeymoon and as Charlie and Harriet become more involved, he picks up clues that allude to her being Mrs. X! With Charlie’s best friend, a police officer named Tony (Anthony LaPaglia) that wishes his job entailed the excitement he has always seen on TV, they set out trying to uncover the truth. What follows is some good comedic fun! Charlie has to choose whether to take the plunge or sleep with the fishes - a “surprise” ending no one would expect.

From a Technical aspect:

This feature is remastered in MPEG-4 AVC code and presented in full 1080p resolution. For its age, the remastering is very well done, colors are ‘true’ and reds are well represented as can be seen in Harriet’s honeymoon dress. Black is also ‘true’ in the night scenes and there is very little ‘grain effect’ (a side effect of remastering old releases onto HD Blu-ray) -  all in all a good presentation.

The audio is presented in its true uncompressed state in the form of Dolby TrueHD. Vocal range is carried over well and clear through the surround sound system centre speaker and the thunder from the storm in the movie makes for some good rumble from the sub-woofer.

One place where this Blu-ray release lacks some points is in the Special Features department. There are only a few trailers of other Blu-ray releases, but the one outstanding enhancement is that it is BD-LIVE enabled for those who have an Internet connection hooked to their Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3. BD-LIVE is a new feature that enables you to access additional content via the Internet through your BD player. This opens up endless additional possibilities for your Blu-ray Disc (BD) movies and players.

I would definitely recommend this Blu-ray release to any Mike Myers fan and those who enjoy a good chuckle. Worth having in anyone’s collection.