Category: DVD Review

This tells the story of Cheryl Stayed who decides to walk the Pacific Crest Trail to find herself after recovering from her mothers death and heroin addiction.

6/10

This is based on the true story of Miss Shepherd who decides to live in a camper vans on playwright Akan Bennet’s driveway for 15 years and how they and their neighbours cope with this.

Quite a few extras with behind the scenes, interviews and commentary.

8/10

This is based on the fight for women to get the vote in England.  it largely takes place in London and the surrounding area and covers many of the struggles they faced including prison and opposition at home.   It also is the first film to film inside the Houses of Parliament.

The DVD has a number of interesting extras anout the history and making of the film

8/10

This is the 24th Bond films and the 4th for Daniel Craig.

Bond gets a posthumous message from the previous M and goes on a secret mission to uncover the sinister SPECTRE organisation.

Back at home the new M has troubles of his own with C the new head of the merged MI5 & MI6 trying to stop Bond from getting to the truth.

Lots of stunts and locations used in this film and even Q gets to travel this time.

7/10

The Avengers Tony Stark/IronMan, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Thor, Bruce Banner/Hulk, Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow and Clint Barton/Hawkeye are in Sokovia a fictional country in Eastern Europe to raid a Hyra outpost run by Baron Wolfgan von Strucker who has been conducting experiments on humans using Liki’s magoc scepter.  Romanoff is able to calm the Hulk down to speed up him transforming back to Banner.  They see 2 of this experiments – twins Poetro who has superhuman speed and Wanda Maximoff who can manipulate minds and project energy.  The Avengers manage to get the scepter.

Stark and Banner examine the scepter back at base and discover that it contains an artificial intelligence in the scepters gem and secretly use it in Starks “Ulton” global defence program.  This awakens Ultron who diabales Starks JARVIS IT system, forms himself into a robot and attacks the Avengers at their base.  Ulton escapes with the sceptre and goes to Sokovia to upgrade his body and build an army of robot drones.

Ultron kills Strucker and recruits the Maximoffs who blame Stark for their parents deaths in a war fought using his weapons. Ulton and the Maximoffs visit arms dealer Ulysses Klaue to get Wakandan vibranium.  The Avengers attack them but Wanda uses her mind powers to send them false memories/hallucinations.  This causes the Hulk to stark attacking the general public and causing mass destruction until Stark stops him with his new Anti-Hulk armoured ironman suit.

The Hulk’s attack creates a backlash against the Avengers.  Clint Barton suggest they go to a safehouse.  This turns out to be his family home where he has a wife, 2 children and another on the way.

Thor goes to find Dr Erik Selvig to investigate the meaning of his hallucination about any appocolypse.  Romanoff and Banner stark to make plans to flee together after realising they have feelings for each other and they both reveal they are unable to have children.

Nick Fury arrives at Bartons house and encourages them all to plan how to stop Ultron.

In Seoul S Korea Ulton forces a SHEILD doctor Dr Helen Cho to use her synthetic-tissue technology along with vibranium and the sceptres gem to create an indestructible body for him.  When he is uploading himself into his new body, Wanda is able to read his mind for the first time and realises his real plans to kill all humans.  The Maximofs turn against Ultron as a result.  Rogers, Romanoff and Barton find Ulton whilst he is still uploading himself into his new body during a chase through Seoul and capture his synthetic body but Ultron captures Romanoff.

The Avengers argue about everything that’s gone wrong, and Stark secretly finds that JARVIS is still operational after hiding himself on the system.  Stark uploads JARVIS into the synthetic body.  JARVIS then has a body with a gem in his forhead from Thor’s vision and takes the name “Vision”.

Vision, the Maximoffs and Avengers go to Sokovia where Ulton is using the remaining vibranium to raise park of the city into the sky, planning to drop it back to earth and cause extinction.

Banner finds Romanoff in a call and rescues her.  She kisses him and them makes him turn into the Hulk despite his concerns that he will hurt the people.

The Avengers fight Ultons drone army and Nick Fury arrives on the SHIELD Helicarrier with Maria Hill, James Rhodes/War Machine and SHEILD agents to evacuate the civilians.

Pietro dies saving Barton and a child from heavy gunfire which makes Wanda destroy Ulton’s main body.  Stark and Thor manage to shatter the land mass before it hits Earth.

Afterwards Banner leaves Romanoff because he does’t want to endanger he and takes a Quin Jet from the new Avengers HQ at Fury Hill.  The new HQ is run by Fury, Hill, Cho and Selvig.  With Rogers and Romanoff training the new members Rhodes, the Vistion, Sam Wilson/Falcon and Wanda.

There is a mid -credit scene where Thandos (a large blue person) is upset at the failings of his pawns and vows to retrieve the Infinity Stones.

8/10

Water diviner is about an Australian widower Who goes to Gallipoli to try to find out what happened to his sons who went missing there during WWI

5/10

Staring – Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper

This is a Marvel film comedy which does not feature any of the Avengers team.

On Earth in 1988, a child called Peter Quill is listening to “Awesome Mix Tape no. 1” on his Walkman. He is called in to say goodbye to his dying mum.  She give him a present and tells him that his dad was an angel and Peter is just like him.  She asks him to take her hand but he is too scared and she dies.  Peter runs outside and is immediately abducted by a group of space pirates led by Yondu Udonta.

26 years later on the planet Morag, Peter Quill (aka Starlord) is looking for an Orb and listening to his Awesome Mix Tape no. 1. He finds the Orb but is then found by Korath and his henchmen who work for the fanatical Kree Ronan. After a shootout, Peter makes it to his ship, the Milano, and escapes.

His partner/mentor Yondu  calls and tells Peter to give him the Orb. Peter decides he’s going to sell it on his own. Yondu offers a bounty for his capture and Ronan send his assassin Gamora to retrieve the orb.

Quill tries to sell the orb on the Nova Empire capital world Xandar but Gamora ambushes him and steels the orb.  Peter fights back and they are joined by a couple of bounty hunters a talking racoon called Rocket and a walking tree called Groot.

The Nova Corps arrive and arrest all 4 of them and they are imprisoned in the Kyln.  In there a powerful inmate Drax tried to kill Gamora as Ronan killed his family and she worked for him.  Quill convinces Drax that it would be better for Gamora to bring Ronan to him so he can kill him directly.  Gamora reveals that she has betrayed Ronan and knows someone who wants to buy the orb and the 5 of them work together to escape from prison and escape on Quills ship the Milano and go to Knowhere a criminal outpost in space

Ronan then meets with Gamora’s adoptive father Thandos to discuss her betrayal.  Drax gets drunk and contacts Ronan while the other meet Gamora’s contact, the collector Taneleer Tivan. Tivan opens the orb, revealing an Infinity Stone which has immeasurable power which destroys all but the most powerful beings who hold or use it. Tivan’s tormented assistant grabs the Stone, triggering an explosion that explodes Tivan’s archive.

Ronan arrives and defeats Drax, while the others flee by separate ships, pursued by Ronan’s followers and Gamora’s sister Nebula. Nebula destroys Gamora’s ship, leaving her floating in space, and Ronan’s forces capture the orb. Quill contacts Yondu and then rescues Gamora by giving her his helmet to survive.

Yondu arrives and captures the Quill and Gamora. Rocket, Drax, and Groot threaten to attack Yondu’s ship to rescue them, but Quill negotiates a truce by convincing Yondu that they can recover the orb. Quill’s group agrees that facing Ronan means certain death, but that they cannot let him use the Infinity Stone to destroy the galaxy. On Ronan’s flagship, the dark Aster, Ronan puts the Stone in his warhammer, taking its power for himself. He contacts Thanos, threatening to kill him after the destruction of Xandar; hateful of her adoptive father, Nebula allies with Ronan.

Near Xandar, the Ravagers, the Nova Corps, and Quill’s group confront and breach the Dark Aster. Ronan uses his empowered warhammer to destroy the Nova Corps fleet. On the Dark Aster, after Gamora defeats Nebula, she unlocks Ronan’s chambers, but the group find themselves outmatched by his power until Rocket crashes the Milano Milano through the Dark Aster. The damaged ship crashes on Xandar, with Groot sacrificing himself to shield the group and he ends up in many twigs. Ronan emerges from the wreck and prepares to destroy Xandar, but Quill distracts him, allowing Drax and Rocket to destroy Ronan’s warhammer. Quill grabs the freed Stone, and with Gamora, Drax, and Rocket linking hands together to share the burden of its power and they use this to destroy Ronan.

Quill then fools Yondu into taking a container supposedly containing the Stone, and gives the real Stone to the Nova Corps. As the Ravagers leave Xandar, Yondu remarks that it turned out well that they did not deliver Quill to his father per their contract. Quill’s group, now known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, have their criminal records wiped.  Quill learns that he is only half-human, his father being part of an ancient, unknown species. Quill finally opens the last present he received from his mother: a cassette tape filled with her favorite songs marked Awesome Mix Vol 2. The Guardians leave in the rebuilt Milano along with a sapling cut from Groot.

In a post credits scene, Tivan sits in his destroyed archive with two of his living exhibits: a canine cosmonaut and an anthropomorphic duck.  the Guardians of the Galaxy will return.

7/10

Staring – Michael Keaton, Zach Gailfianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts

This is a surreal film about an actor who used to play a superhero called Birdman and who now wants to reinvent himself as a more serious actor.  He regularly imagines that his former alter ego is taking to him and that he has superpowers.

5/10