What It’s About: If you’ve been living in a cave the past year, you might not know that Million Dollar Baby is Clint Eastwood’s masterpiece that rocked the Oscars this year scooping up Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Director. You might also not be aware that this movie is fantastic and deserved all the accolades it has received.
Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) is a poor waitress who dreams of boxing. She seeks out veteran trainer Frankie Dunn (Eastwood) who dismisses her immediately for being female. Eventually he accepts her and the rest is movie magic history. Swank is incredible in this film and has come a long way since her 90210 days. The cinematography is beautiful and Eastwood really does create a great, classic film.
How Does It Look? The movie has a monochromatic look to it with a lot of grey and black. The picture only really brightens up in the later fight scenes with vibrant, colourful images. That said, this DVD transfer is extraordinary. The blacks are rich are deep and the colours shine without any bleeding. Human faces are detailed and vivid. Warner has outdone themselves with this transfer and frankly, the movie deserved no less.
How Does It Sound? Eastwood also wrote the score to the film and made sure it sounded darn good. The disc has Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 tracks and we don’t even need to tell you to watch with the 5.1. The music swells around you, the dialogue is perfect and the fight scenes are brilliantly spaced on the speakers (crowd noise in the rear) to give you the feeling of being in the middle of the action.
Extras? There are two versions of the movie available: a two-disc and a three-disc special edition. We received the two-disc for review but if you’re a big fan of the movie you should consider the three-disc as the third disc is the CD soundtrack with Eastwood’s score. The second disc has over an hour of extras including:
James Lipton Takes on Three: 25-minute roundtable with Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, and moderator James Lipton
Producers Round 15: behind the scenes-- this contains interviews with the film’s producers
Born to Fight: examines the parallels of the movie to real-life boxer Lucia Rijker—a very interesting 19 minute look at women boxers
Final Verdict: It’s brilliant and you need to buy it.

What It’s About: You’ve all probably seen the original film starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn as competing gym owners who end up battling it out in a dodgeball competition. The film was released last year on DVD for the first time and did very well. So well, in fact, that Fox has decided to milk it and release this new “unrated” version. Is it drastically different? Not so much. It’s the same film with slightly cruder dialogue and some moments drawn out a bit. Considering the film was pretty raunchy to begin with, there wasn’t really that much further you could go. Still, it’s a hilarious movie with some of Ben Stiller’ best work ever.
How Does It Look? Great. Just like the previous release the film is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with crisp colour, clean picture and great detail.
How Does It Sound? Good. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a little front channel heavy and Fox didn’t make the best choice here as there is plenty of action for a six-channel mix but the dialogue comes through cleanly and evenly.
Extras? Tons and tons. Is there anything particularly new and exciting? If scantily clad girls gyrating is your thing you’ll be very pleased. If you were hoping for some new, quality extras, you’re kind of out of luck:
o All-new commentary by Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughan, and director-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber
o Nine deleted/extended scenes and an alternate ending with optional commentary by Rawson Marshall Thurber
o Uncensored footage of the Dodgeball Dancers
o Featurettes: "Dodgeball Boot Camp: Training for Dodgeball," "The Anatomy of a Hit," "Justin Long: A Study in Ham & Cheese," "Dodgeball: Go for the Gold"
o Bloopers/gag reel
o Theatrical trailers
o DVD-ROM: Screenplay
Final Verdict: If you already own the previous DVD version there isn’t much here to make you buy this one. But if you don’t own it, it’s a great movie worth having. While we were a little disappointed with the lack of unrated quality, we were still happy with the DVD presentation and laughed our faces off watching it.

What It’s About: A creepy little girl with a possibly murderous imaginary friend. When Emily’s (Dakota Fanning) mother kills herself, she starts acting quite weird, and her father (Robert DeNiro) decides to move them into the country for a little change of scenery and fresh air. So far, so good. The movie has a great pace and lovely eerie cinematography. Emily turns into Wednesday Addams and things start to get deadly. Here is where the movie goes wrong. The ending (attempting to be a real twist) falters and the entire end of the film is focused on it, becoming quite boring. We can’t tell you much more without giving it away but what tries to be The Sixth Sense, turns more in The Village.
How Does It Look? Good, but not spectacular. Most of the movie takes place at night and the widescreen 2:40.1 transfer does look a little shadowy at times with some grain. Still, the majority of the film looks great with rich gloomy colours.
How Does It Sound? You can choose from Dolby Digital 5.1 or DTS and we chose DTS (naturally) which was great, but you have to wait until near the end for it to really kick in. The first half of the film, not much is going on.
Extras? They’re there but they’re useless. The four alternate endings don’t add anything to the film whatsoever and the commentaries are pretty boring.
Commentary by director John Polson, screenwriter Ari Schlossberg, and editor Jeffrey Ford
14 deleted/extended scenes with optional director-screenwriter-editor commentary, including four alternate endings
Rough conceptual sequences (live action intercut with storyboards)
Making-of featurette
Final Verdict: A pretty average horror flick with an unsatisfying ending and an odd choice for DeNiro.

What It’s About: Super smart detective Monk (Tony Shalhoub) is back in the third season of a very underrated and unappreciated show. Monk is one of the smartest and funniest shows on television today, starring the brilliant Shalhoub as an obsessive-compulsive detective who can solve difficult crimes but is paralysed at the thought of germs. This season is known for the sudden departure of Monk’s sidekick Sharona (Bitty Schram) and the arrival of Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard) which made some fans very very angry. But Howard proves herself in the second half of the season and is enjoyable for her slightly more serious and rougher treatment of Monk (Sharona always walked on eggshells around him). New characters aside, this season of Monk was still full of great moments and remains extremely enjoyable.
How Does It Look? Quite good. The show is presented in widescreen (we wish all tv on dvd was) anamorphic 1.78:1. The colours are crisp and vivid and while there is a little grain at times, it’s barely noticeable.
How Does It Sound? Great. Universal gives us Dolby Digital 2.0 which works very well for this dialogue driven show.
Extras? A few, and some are quite entertaining like “Quirks” where you learn more about Monk’s phobias and compulsions:
Favourites: Cast and crew reveal their favourite scenes
Monk Profile: An in-depth conversation with Tony Shalhoub
Life Before Monk: The official back story of Adrian Monk, Capt. Stottlemeyer and Lt. Disher
Natalie Teeger Profile: In-depth conversation with Traylor Howard
Quirks: Learn more about Adrian Monk’s phobias and compulsions.
Final Verdict: A solid season of a fabulous show with an impressive DVD presentation.