Any moviegoer who didn't know about the untimely death of Paul Walker would never guess it had occurred during production of Furious 7, a film that (whatever massive efforts were required to work around his absence) is as stupendously stupid and stupidly diverting as it could have hoped to be had everything gone as planned.
The Bottom Line: A nuance-free franchise crafts an honorable exit for its departed star Venue: South By Southwest Film Festival, Special Events Opens: April 3 (Universal) Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Lucas Black, Jason Statham Director: James Wan
Walker, Diesel and their cohorts blow the doors off on one last adventure together.
The knowledge of his death in a November 2013 car accident colors our experience of this unintentional swan song in many ways, of course, but viewers trying to spot the scenes in which stand-ins and CGI played Walker's part for him will find it hard enough that they may do the right thing: Stop trying, and instead go along with a reworked screenplay that ushers him off the stage with as much grace as any other development in this muscle-car melodrama.
Technical miracles aside, the nature of the story makes watching Furious 7 something of a morbid game: Over and over, the action puts Walker's Brian O'Conner in such jeopardy that we think, "Ah, this will be the scene where they give him a heroic death." But saying "over and over" acknowledges that Brian survives, at least, the bomb blast that nearly kills his family in one fell swoop, that he manages to get out of that big bus hanging precariously over a cliff, and that he, and for that matter all his pals, drive their cars out of a plane in midair and parachute to the ground without so much as denting a fender. But producer Neal H. Moritz, who introduced the super-last-minute screening at South by Southwest, begged the audience to keep mum about Brian's fate, so we won't provide an exhaustive list of the many certain-death situations he faces and survives.
We needn't say much about the plot, either. Bare bones: Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), brother of the crew's defeated enemy Owen Shaw, has vowed to kill them all in revenge; an all-seeing surveillance program called God's Eye has been stolen by terrorists; the creator of said program (Nathalie Emmanuel's Ramsey) needs to be rescued; and a mysterious lawman with his own private army (Kurt Russell, who any oddsmaker would say is bound to be hiding something) promises to help Vin Diesel's Dom get Deckard if Dom's crew will save Ramsey and recover the God's Eye.
Tired yet? You will be after two hours of F7, which is as overinflated, if not as well formed, as the physique ofDwayne Johnson, who gave this ensemble a much-needed charisma boost when he signed on in episode five. Alas, Johnson is sidelined for much of this installment, laid up in a bodycast after saving a co-worker from an exploding building. Don't worry, kids, the Rock will be back for the climax, reentering the action with the words "Daddy's gotta go to work."
That is Wildean wit compared to most of Chris Morgan's unrepentantly dumb pulp dialogue. But Fast & Furious fans don't come out to critique lines like "Let's do this," they come to see a red sports car (one so expensive only seven were made) be stolen from a billionaire's Abu Dhabi penthouse; to watch it bust through his windows, fly through the air, and crash into the skyscraper next door (landing safely, of course) only to learn that the brakes have gone out, and it will have to take to the skies again into a third building.
Anyone who can buy that bit of computer-generated idiocy should have no trouble believing Paul Walker is in this film from start to finish.
Production companies: Universal Pictures Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Lucas Black, Jason Statham Director: James Wan Screenwriter: Chris Morgan Producers: Vin Diesel, Michael Fottrell, Neal H. Moritz Executive producers: Samantha Vincent Directors of photography: Marc Spicer, Stephen F. Windon Production designer: Bill Brzeski Costume designer: Sanja Milkovic Hays Editors: Leigh Folsom Boyd, Dylan Highsmith, Kirk M. Morri, Christian Wagner Music: Brian Tyler Casting directors: Anne McCarthy, Kellie Roy
Summary: Did you know you can also play DVD on Roku? Here is a simple guide on ripping DVDs for streaming over Plex to Roku 3 with supported formats.
Roku is another popular streaming player, besides Apple TV and Chromecast. It supports 1800+ streaming channels including YouTube, Netflix, HBO GO, Hulu plus, PBS, Pandora, etc. and 200,000+ movies and TV episodes. Mostly you may use the Roku as a top-up box for your Plex media center. But you may want to know how to play DVD-like sources? Because Roku only support MKV (H.264), MP4 (H.264), MOV (H.264), WMV (VC-1, firmware 3.1 only). Is there any way to workaround to fix the issue? Sure, we have a great tutorial for you, guaranteed to play DVD movies on Roku thru Plex.
You may opt for some free DVD rippers like HandBrake to rip DVD to Roku compatible formats. But such kind of DVD rippers isn't suit for copy protected DVD movies orlatest DVD released, like Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, The Red Ten, Transformers 4. If you want to effortlessly rip any regular and badly encrypted DVDs to Roku,Pavtube DVDAidis a good option. After downloading and installing, you can rip and stream DVD to Roku in several simple steps. (For Mac users,Pavtube DVDAid for Macis the way to go. Followthe guide for Mac).
Pavtube DVDAid More Features:
Edit the videos before conversion, such as trim, crop, add subtitles, video effect, etc. Convert DVD to many other mobile devices and editing software like iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, ATV 3, iPhone 6/6 Plus, Nexus 10, Galaxy Tab 3, S5, Note 3, Sony Vegas and more. Add srt, ass, ssa subtitles to your movies. Backup DVD main movie to VOB format with original quality.
How to Rip DVD movies to Roku for Playing via Plex
STEP 1: Load DVD files to the converter
Click the disc button to load DVD movies to the program. The detailed information of your DVD movie will be displayed. You can then preview them and choose the chapters you want to rip.
STEP 2: Select output format
Click Format > Common Video and set output video format as H.264 Video (*.mp4). The reason mp4 is the target format is that by packing the videos in mp4, the file size will be reasonable small and the video quality remains.
STEP 3: Edit the DVD files(optional)
The DVD to Roku Converter comes with the editing functions enables you to customize your own videos in the following ways: A. Crop - Crop the video frame size for better visual effects on the player. B. Trim - Split the video clips to choose your favorite part of the DVD movies. C. Effects - You can change the video parameters like brightness, saturation, contrast and more...
STEP 4: Start to convert DVD to Roku supported format
After all preparations, click the Convert button to rip your DVD movie to Roku. When the conversion completes, click Open to get the converted MP4 files and play them with Roku via Plex for freely.
Summary: There are lots of great Blu-ray movies on this week of March 8th, 2015, just like: Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, The Sound of Music, The Breakfast Club,Wolfcop, White Haired Witch, The Soft Skin and so on. Here is listed a haul of newly released Blu-ray Discs. Enjoy it~ New Blu-ray Discs Releases:
‘The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1‘– Katniss and her crossbow are back in the latest installment of the YA dystopian-future franchise. Because it’s the popular thing to do these days, the producers have split the final book in the series into two movies. Despite that, reviews were pretty strong. The Blu-ray includes a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, making this one of the few decent movies available in that format. (Be warned that copies sold through Walmart reportedly only have lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.) Also, Best Buy has an exclusive SteelBook version.
Unlike the last installment, ‘Catching Fire’, director Francis Lawrence has forsaken the annoying alternating-aspect-ratio gimmick in favor of a traditional 2.40:1 ratio throughout. When I asked him about this, he explained: “Yeah, I totally dumped that crap just to show Freakyguy666 what’s what. LOL. PWNED!!” True story.*
‘Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb‘ – Notable only for the fact that it marks Robin Williams’ final film appearance, this third and allegedly last entry in the middling family franchise petered out without making much of an impression during the holiday season. It will probably still sell well on video, as these things usually do. I sat through the first two of these for the benefit of a friend’s children, but they have fortunately moved onto other things now.
‘Life of Riley‘ – Legendary French auteur Alain Resnais (‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’, ‘Last Year at Marienbad‘) passed away at the age of 91 last year, barely a month after the Berlin Film Festival premiere of his final feature. The movie mixes live action and animation, as well as film and theater, in telling the story of a group of friends dealing with the news that their (unseen) friend is dying of cancer.
‘Russell Madness‘ – I gather that this is one of those ‘Air Bud’ things, or at least a knockoff. From what I can ascertain, the title is supposed to be a pun on “Wrestle Madness,” which I guess is supposed to somehow be a play on Wrestlemania. Or something. Yeah, it’s really strained, even by the standard of kids’ crap. I’m grateful that my own kids are still about a year away from becoming obsessed with garbage like this.
Summary: It seems to be a great idea to play Blu ray on Xbox 360 in your leisure time. This article will just show you how to convert Blu-ray to Xbox 360 video with high speed.
Xbox One generates a DVD/Blu-ray drive, which is a great improvement, making users playing Blu-ray/DVD more conveniently. But, the Blu-ray Disc will be scratched or damaged due to repeat use. So what is the best way to get Blu-ray file into something Xbox one can stream, without losing either the quality? In this page, I will share a simplest way to play Blu-ray on Xbox one with ease.
As we know, Blu-ray provides HD video sources for playback. But if you want to have a try to watch Blu-ray movies on Xbox One, you need to rip Blu-ray toXbox One compatible formatfirst.To save you from the awkward situation, PavtubeBDMagic for Windows comes to give you a hand. For Mac users, you can try to PavtubeBDMagic for Mac- which allows you to copy Blu-ray movies to Xbox game console on Mac Yosemite 10.10 (including Mavericks and Mountain Lion). ThisBlu-ray to Xbox One ripperoffers specified video formats for Xbox One, Xbox 360 and many other game hardware like PSP, PS4, Wii and more. With it, you will be able to watch any Blu-ray/DVD movies via Xbox. Its build-in editor lets you touch up the Blu-ray/DVD video as you like, which include trimming, cropping, rotate, merge and apply special visual effects, etc. It also able to fetch and embed the metadata informatyion to the video.
Rip Blu-ray to MP4/MKV to use in Xbox One with best quality
Step 1: Load Blu-ray Movies
Kick off Blu-ray to Xbox One Converter and then load source Blu-ray movies by clicking "Load BD" button.
Note: Subtitles and audio tracks could be selected after loading Blu-ray movies.
Step 2: Output settings
Here we select mp4 with H.264 codec for Xbox One. Click the Format drop-down list, and select “Xbox 360 HD Video(*.wmv)” from "Zune/Xbox 360 Device" category. You can select other Xbox360 format for watching.
Optional settings: This Blu-ray to Xbox One Converter allows you to adjust video/audio settings. Video and audio parameters of selected profile could be adjusted, including: video codec, audio codec, bit rate, frame rate, channel, etc. You could click settings button to enter the Settings panel.
Step 3: Convert Blu-ray to Xbox One with MP4/MKV
Hit the convert button on the main interface to let this Blu-ray to Xbox ripper start converting. Once the conversion is finished, you couldtransferthe converted Blu-ray movies to MP4/MKV to use in your Xbox One for unlimited playback. Enjoy.
