Of all the sports to grace the screen, boxing has easily inspired the greatest films. Now director David O. Russell has added another to the ranks of RAGING BULL, ROCKY and MILLION DOLLAR BABY. But like all of those films, the reason this film is great is not because it’s a boxing movie. This is a story of family and how for some they can either help them raise their arms in victory or punch them below the belt.

Micky Ward (Mark Wahlberg, THE DEPARTED) has been a promising boxer for years, but always staying at the promising level. Some have started to believe he’s simply a stepping stone for other boxers to fight in order to move up the ranks. He learned everything he knows about boxing from his older brother Dicky Eklund (Christian Bale, THE MACHINIST), who at one time knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard. Now he’s an unpredictable crack addict. Micky’s career has always been a family affair. His mother Alice (Melissa Leo, FROZEN RIVER) is his manager, but Micky begins to wonder if they have his best interests in mind after they put him up against a boxer 20 pounds heavier.

This 1080p/AVC-encoded disc is a handsome effort by Warner Premiere. One problem plagues the release though and that is color banding. Sadly the issue doesn’t just appear in backgrounds and lighting. Some can be seen on characters as well. But as is the case with these DC Direct titles, the colors are spectacularly vibrant. The balance is perfect and the blacks are inky. Outside of the banding, the Blu-ray doesn’t display any other digital anomalies.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track has the solid treatment that has come to signify these DC Direct titles. In the sound effects department, the film is first rate. From the rings powering up to the booming bass during fight sequences the soundscape erupts with action. For the most part the elements are balanced nicely and the directionality is well done. Once or twice I did notice the sounds lagging behind the fast images, but it was minor. The dialogue scenes are simply just that clear front heavy speech.

SUPERMAN, LORD OF THE RINGS, STAR TREK, STAR WARS, AVATAR and dozens of other sci-fi and fantasy tales owe their origins to Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series. This new film is based on Burroughs' A PRINCESS OF MARS, a classic of pulp fiction. Now Andrew Stanton, who won Oscars for FINDING NEMO and WALL*E, has brought the world to the screen.

John Carter (Taylor Kitsch, WOLVERINE) is your Han Solo-esque reluctant hero type. A Civil War vet who refuses to get pulled back into a cause (Indian Wars) because he is only seeking gold. But fate has other plans and like Frodo, he gets thrust into a world he couldn't imagine when he gets teleported to Mars. In a reverse of Superman's tale, he, the Earthling, travels to another planet and gains superpowers because of the alien world's environment. Like the worlds of STAR TREK and STAR WARS, various alien races are warring and the good guys must stop the superior weaponry of the villains. Like in AVATAR, Carter is a human who establishes himself as a leader in an alien culture. In this world of Mars, aka Barsoom, the giant, four-armed alien race is led by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe, SPIDER-MAN).

Mostly filmed using natural light, this Oscar nominated film benefits greatly from the detail of this 1080p transfer. Andre Turpin's cinematography could have come off dim and murky in a bad transfer or heaven forbid DVD, but this first rate job has keep its visual integrity. The color palette is natural and the black levels are solid. The natural lighting does dampen the crispness of the image, but that doesn’t mean details don’t pop.

The soundtrack is presented in French: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. The film is a dialogue driven film, but there are moments where war takes over the soundspace. Gunfire whizzes across the sound field. A burning bus rages in the back speakers. Street scenes bring an immersive quality to the scenes. For the most part, the elements are balanced nicely. The Radiohead song used seems to be overpowering at times though.

Your appreciation of this AVC transfer relies heavily on knowing the source of this indie sci-fi drama. Filmed with a 720p camera on a next to nothing budget, the picture contains a great deal of grain that increases exponentially under low lighting conditions. One scene in the snow at night really highlights its digital origins. Banding and aliasing often creep up in higher contrasted scenes. Color are muted and natural, which fits the cool mood. But when compared to the DVD version, clarity is greatly increased with the grain issue minimized. All things considered this 1080p release is about as good as this material can look.

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack is as minimalist as the film's story. The front speaker heavy endeavor again underlines the indie origins. Sound effects are few and the electronic score drones on throughout on all channels. However, it never drowns out the dialogue, which is always clear. The balance between what elements there are is good.

This Blu-ray looks amazing. Sony's AVC encoded 1080p transfer is as flawless as you can get. The colors are vibrant and evocative. Toward the end of the film the picture takes on a warm glow, which is fitting in context. There isn't a single digital anomaly due to compression anywhere to be seen. Details are crisp. Even dust kicked up by trucks in the African sequences have nuance. Beautiful is the most fitting way to describe the picture quality. Cinematographer Morten Søborg should be enthralled with the way his film looks.

The DTS High Definition Master Audio soundtrack creates a great ambiance for every scene. The packed African clinic. The roar of the warlord's trucks entering the camp. A car explosion booms the LFE track. Directionality is used well across all the speakers. Dialogue is clear and the subtitles are easy to read. The soundtrack really matches the first rate picture quality.

Roland Emmerich is best known for destroying the world in films like INDEPENDENCE DAY, GODZILLA, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW and 2012. This period political thriller is the furthest from his other work as any film he has done. It’s also easily his best film. Do I believe in its central premise that Shakespeare didn’t write his plays? Not any more than I believe that Shakespeare based ROMEO AND JULIET one his own love affair with a noble woman who dreamed of acting.

During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Vanessa Redgrave, JULIA), the stage was seen ripe with sedition. The problem was that the queen loved plays, so her handlers William Cecil (David Thewlis, HARRY POTTER) and his hunchback son Robert (Edward Hogg, 2004’s ALFIE) had to tread lightly in their censorship campaign. Amid this backdrop, Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans, NOTTING HILL), the son-in-law of William Cecil, writes plays in secret. After watching the work of Ben Johnson (Sebastian Armesto, BRIGHT STAR), the nobleman, who is wasting away his inheritance, commands the playwright to stage his work under the writer’s name. Unwilling to take the risk, the opportunistic actor William Shakespeare (Rafe Spall, SHAUN OF THE DEAD) begins to claim he is the author of such works as HENRY VI, MACBETH and HAMLET.

This isn't a thriller in the American sense of the term. It certainly has more in common with meticulously paced French thrillers, which were as much character studies as they were genre pieces. Director Anton Corbijn has no intentions of making this film for the ADD crowd accustomed to lightning fast editing and adrenaline-fueled action sequences at regular intervals. He is certainly asking his audience to be patient.

Jack, or Edward, (we're really not sure which name is true) (George Clooney, SYRIANA) is a master assassin. He's as cold and remote as the wintery mountain setting the film begins in. He is being hunted by Swede assassins. His handler Pavel (Johan Leysen, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF) says he is slipping and needs to lay low. He doesn't like the safe house set up for him, so he changes the plans. One might expect this to really piss off his boss, but Jack is the best at engineering weapons to precise specifications and Pavel has a new client.

For any film fan this release needs to be on your holiday wish list. Visually, both films are presented flawlessly in 1080p. In FANTASIA, the live-action sequences have never looks so rich. The silhouetted musicians are more dynamic because the blacks are so deep. As for the animated sequences, they look marvelous. There isn’t a hint of dirt or dust to be found. And unlike some restorations of Disney animated films, the cel painted frames retain their handmade quality. The landmark visual effects particularly stood out to me. The glow of the fairies in the “Nutcracker Suite” section felt more luminous than in previous presentations. The colors are rich and the true achievement of the film’s artistry has never been so crystal clear in a home entertainment release. The only slight issue is some color bleeding in the live-action sequences, but I’d argue that was from the negative.

The same praise can be heaped on FANTASIA/2000’s picture quality as well. The film looks slick in the way that modern animation looks. The “Rhapsody in Blue” sequence, my favorite, just pops with its deep purples and clean design. I’ve read in some places of fleeting moments of banding, blocking and aliasing, but the key word is fleeting. You have to be looking for it. I only noticed some very, very, very minor banding during some transitions, particularly when the whales enter the clouds in the “Pines of Rome” sequence. But it is so minor.

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THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012) (***1/2)
Christopher Nolan's DARK KNIGHT trilogy has come to an end. In many ways it reminds me of another great trilogy's finale — RETURN OF THE JEDI. Not quite up to the grand standards of its predecessors, but a satisfying conclusion to the story of its main characters.

The action takes place eight years after the end of THE DARK KNIGHT. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale, AMERICAN PYSCHO) is now living as a recluse in his Wayne Manor, his body broken from years of abuse defending Gotham as the Dark Knight. The city has not seen the Batman since the death of DA Harvey Dent. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman, THE PROFESSIONAL) has kept the secret of Harvey Dent's descent into madness from the city. Dent's death, which Batman took the blame, has given the authority the clout to enact tough anti-crime laws that some feel overreach. Because Bruce believes that great power takes great responsibility and can easily be abused, he has decided to shelve a fusion power project, which has the potential to bring cheap power to millions.