Movie Review: Pawn Sacrifice (2015)

by Tony Dayoub


The intrigue of a monarch marshaling his forces against an insurgent has been fodder for exciting movies stretching back for decades. When the soldiers are only an inch high and the battlefield is a chessboard the chances of eliciting the same thrills are much, much lower. Fascinating as it is, Edward Zwick's Pawn Sacrifice misses the mark often enough to keep it from being a full-on masterpiece. On occasion though, this spare biography of tormented chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) and the performances of its dynamic ensemble cast are riveting.

Fox in the First Person

by Tony Dayoub

When it comes to recent theatrical releases, it's becoming harder to critique their corresponding Blu-rays on a technical level. So much high definition digital work is done, either at the production or post production stages (or both), that by the time a home release rolls around a company has to almost deliberately botch a digital transfer in order to produce an inferior Blu-ray. Consequently, for this reason (among many others) I am most thrilled when exploring a Blu-ray for an older, pre-digital, theatrical release, one in which there is a lot more potential for failure or success based on the application of the various digital cleanup processes. Which is a long, roundabout way of saying that when I receive three Blu-rays from Fox Home Entertainment over the past month, 127 Hours, Black Swan and Love & Other Drugs, I can generally rest assured there's not much to complain about in terms of how they look or sound.