Great Expectations
Director: Mike Newell
Starring: Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Holliday Grainger
Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Release Date: April 15, 2014
Retail: $29.99
ASIN: B00IEXX2RI
Running Time: 128 minutes
Rating: PG-13

Review:

Arriving on Blu-ray for the first time in the United States is the 2012 film adaption of Charles Dickens' classic tale Great Expectations. The film was directed by Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and stars Jeremy Irvine, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Holliday Grainger. Special Features include the Great Expectations Premiere and trailers.

Great Expectations first appeared in the periodical All the Year Round in 1860, as a weekly serial until August 1961. Chapman and Hall published the novel in three volumes in October 1861. At the time the novel received mixed reviews from critics, but it is now considered a classic and is a recommend read for most high school and college literature classes.

There has many film adaptions, mini-series and spin-offs based on Great Expectations over the years, the only one I had ever seen before reviewing this Blu-ray was the 1998 contemporary version starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Ethan Hawke, which in my opinion wasn't a very good film.

Many of you probably have never heard of the 2012 version of the classic tale and there is a good , reason, as it only appeared at the BFI London Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, followed by a limited release in the UK. The film has finally made its way to the United States, but only on DVD and Blu-ray.

I Dream of Jeannie: Seasons 1 & 2
Starring: Barbara Eden, Larry Hagman
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
Release Date: April 1, 2014
Retail: $14.98
ASIN: B00I099K4K
Running Time: 25 hours and 48 minutes
Rating: Not Rated

Review:

Arriving on DVD last month from Mill Creek Entertainment is Seasons One and Two of the classic sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, which the seasons can be purchased individually or as a Two Season Combo Pack.

 I Dream of Jeannie aired from 1965 to 1970; producing 139 episodes during its five season run. The series centered on Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson (played by the late Larry Hagman), an astronaut, who stumbles upon a unique bottle when his one-man capsule lands in the South Pacific. He gets a big shock when he opens the bottle and a 2,000-year-old genie, Jeannie (played by Barbara Eden), pops out of it.

In the fairy tales, genies typically gives you three wishes, but that is not the case for Major Nelson, whom is permanently stuck with Jeannie, even though he had wished for her to be free. He returns home in Florida, where he is looking forward to seeing his fiance, a general's daughter. Jeannie is already in love with Major Nelson and is determined to interfere with his relationship. Note: the fiance character was dropped after the pilot.

After the pilot, the series focused on Major Nelson, along with his pal Major Healey, covering up what antics or whatever trouble Jeannie has gotten herself into, in fear that NASA would learn that she is a genie.

The 61 episodes on the six disc set are:

Transformers: Energon: The Complete Series
Studio: Shout! Factory
Release Date: May 6, 2014
Retail: $44.99
ASIN: B00HRUQAKU
Running Time: 1167 minutes
Rating: Not Rated

Review:

The Transformers franchise is expanding this year with the fourth Michael Bay feature film, Transformers: Age of Extinction, and the untitled, brand-new animated series. Until then fans will have to settle on the Shout! Factory's seven-disc DVD set of Transformers: Energon: The Complete Series, featuring all 51 episodes.

Transformers: Energon is a Japanese computer-generated animated that aired during the 2004-2005 season and is set ten years after Transformers: Armada. There has been peace between the Autobots and Decepticons ever since the deaths of Megatron and Unicron, but a new evil is about to the unleashed upon Cybertron.

The mysterious Alpha Q releases the Terrorcons on the Autobots' Cybertron cities, which the little terror bots are collecting Energons. Alpha Q creates a new robot called Scorponok, who will gather all the remaining Decepticons on Earth and lead a new army against the Autobots. Of course Megatron is resurrected (again) and has his own agenda against the Autobots.

To battle this new threat, Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots must once again use the help from the humans to defeat this new threat.

The episodes on the seven-disc set are:

NewsRadio: Seasons 1 & 2
Starring: Dave Foley, Phil Hartman, Khandi Alexander, Maura Tierney, Andy Dick, Joe Rogan, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
Release Date: April 1, 2014
Retail: $14.98
ASIN: B00I099JUK
Running Time: 10 hours 12 minutes
Rating: Not Rated

Review:

Arriving on DVD earlier this month from Mill Creek entertainment is the first and second seasons of the  90s comedy series NewsRadio, starring Dave Foley, Khandi Alexander, Maura Tierney, Andy Dick, Joe Rogan, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis and the late comedian great, Phil Hartman.

The series aired on NBC from 1995 to 1999 with 97 episodes produced over five seasons. It went into syndication for a few years before officially disappearing from the airwaves. However, the complete series made its way on DVD between 2005 to 2008, but all the season sets are now out-of-print. Mill Creek Entertainment acquired the rights of several Sony Pictures titles, including NewsRadio, in 2013.

NewsRadio is centered on the antics of the office staff of New York City's WNYX radio station, which is owned by Jimmy James (played by Stephen Root). The pilot introduces the new news director, Dave Nelson (played by Dave Foley), who has to fire the current news director on his first day at work. There is an instant chemistry between Dave and the reporter/producer Lisa Miller (played by Maura Tierney), but there is a slight problem - she wanted to be the new news director. Despite the tension between the two, they enter a relationship which they try to hide from the other employees, Bill McNeal (played by Phil Hartman), Beth (played by Vicki Lewis), Matthew Brock (played by Andy Dick), Catherine Duke (played by Khandi Alexander) and Joe Garrelli (played by Joe Rogan).

The episodes on the three disc-set are:

Though they were small, my local libraries were my best-friends when I was a kid. My love of reading has continued into my 30s, and of course when I saw a book titled The Ninja Librarians: The Accidental Keyhand, I eagerly signed up to review it on NetGalley.

This fantasy adventure centers on a young girl named Dorrie, who happens to love sword-fighting. Lets just say life is never boring for young Dorrie, who, along with her brother, Marcus, stumble into the Passaic Public Library. This isn't a regular library, as there is another library hidden within it. There is a magical portal that is the entryway to the Petrarch's Library.

The Girl Who Played with Fire: A Graphic Novel
by Denise Mina
Illustrators: Leonardo Manco and Andrea Mutti
Publisher: Vertigo Comics
Pub. Date: June 3, 2014
Retail: $29.99
ISBN: 9781401237578
Pages: 272

Review

The Girl Who Played with Fire is the graphic novel adaption based on the late Stieg Larsson's second installment in the Millennium series. All three books have been adapted into feature films in Sweden; while the first book, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, was adapted into a feature film in the United States in 2011, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara.

After the events of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander, mysteriously disappeared from Sweden. Her state legal guardian, Nils Bjurman, (who had raped her and in turn she sexually assaults him and then tattoos the words "rapist" on his chest and stomach) is searching for her, mainly because she is in possession of the videotape she had recorded of him abusing her.

Lisabeth is actually taking a long vacation on the Caribbean shores of Grenada, where she meets an American tourist, Dr Forbes, and his wife, whom he has been abusing. Lisabeth quickly gets involve with the situation.

Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell
by Paul Dini
Illustrator: Joe Quinones 
Publisher: DC Comics
Pub. Date: May 27, 2014
Retail: $22.99
ISBN: 9781401210540
Pages: 144

Review:

The DC Comics Universe is full of a variety of male superheroes, but there are also many female superhero characters as well, including Superwoman, Batgirl, Supergirl, etc.. And of course, many of you have probably heard of the character Black Canary that has been appearing on the CW's Arrow this season. In the series, Black Canary's real identity is Sara Lance, while in the comic book it was her sister, Dinah Laurel Lance; though I do have a feeling that Dinah will become Black Canary 2.0 in near future.

The character was first introduced in 1947 and she is normally paired up with the Green Arrow; as you can imagine the character has had many different makeovers over the years, with the most recent occurring in the New 52 reboot. Another character that got a makeover was Zatanna, who first appeared in the DC Comic Universe in 1964. Both of these ionic characters are teaming up for the upcoming graphic novel, titled Black Canary and Zatanna: Boodspell.

Besides from watching Black Canary on Arrow, I'm not to familiar with the character; and I've never even heard of Zatanna before reading the digital graphic novel this morning, which I received from NetGalley. Unlike a few recent DC Comics graphic releases, this isn't a combination of past issues, but instead it is a one-shot, 144 pages issue; giving the readers a glance into the origin of how these two female characters first met.