Warner's Miss Congeniality Double Feature boasts a pair of competent and capable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround tracks, both of which are hindered only by some.

Issuu is a digital publishing platform that makes it simple to publish magazines, catalogs, newspapers, books, and more online. Easily share your publications and get. Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s SIR ROGER MOORE SAYS: "Cinema Retro Magazine is a 'Must' For Fans of Movies From the 1960s & 1970s – And They Didn't Have to. Sister Act / Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit Blu-ray (20th Anniversary Edition 2-Movie Collection) (1992-1993): See individual titles for their synopses.

Sister Act / Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit Blu- ray: 2. Anniversary Edition. A surprisingly charming headliner and a wholly mediocre follow- up act.. Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, June 2.

I wasn't in any hurry to sit through Sister Act again after twenty years. When last I encountered the early '9. Watch Shiver Online Free HD. Whoopi Goldberg vehicle and runaway box office success, I was being dragged to the theater by my mother. Not exactly the kind of Friday Night Out an eighth grader hopes to find himself a part of. I remember very little about the movie itself - - just the glances over my shoulder on the way in and out of the lobby - - but, for obvious reasons, I walked away knowing I didn't like what Goldberg and company had to offer and, above all, knowing I wasn't going to mention that particular trip to the theater to anyone.

Fast forward to 2. When Disney announced the Blu- ray release of Sister Act and its 1. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, I was.. So imagine my surprise when I not only sat through the entirety of Sister Whoopi's original 1. Thoroughly. I can't say the same for Back in the Habit, a hurried cash- in if there ever was one, but let's be honest: only a handful of fans will be picking up this 2- movie collection for Sister Act's hip- hop- hapless sequel.

When Reno lounge singer Deloris van Cartier (Whoopi Goldberg) walks in on a cold- blooded murder ordered by her mobster boyfriend Vince La. Rocca (Harvey Keitel), she realizes how precarious her position suddenly is and runs straight to the police.

The State is building a larger case against La. Rocca, though, and aren't ready to arrest him, dead chauffeur or no. While she waits, Deloris is reluctantly placed into temporary witness protection and stashed in the last place on God's green Earth anyone would look for her: an ailing inner city Roman Catholic Church in San Francisco. Posing as a nun, the newly dubbed Sister Mary Clarence does her best to keep a low profile but, after befriending several of the nuns in her convent, takes over as choir leader, cranks up the volume, and brings a new brand of soul to the neighborhood. Marrying gospel with R& B, early rock, and many a Motown classic, she creates quite a stir, filling the pews at St. Katherine's church for the first time in years, increasing the nuns' presence in the community, and inevitably drawing so much public attention that La.

Rocca learns of her whereabouts. But with Pope John Paul II set to visit St.

Katherine's, Deloris has to decide whether to run and hide or stay and sing alongside her new Sisters. And it's those Sisters - - Maggie Smith's cantankerous Mother Superior, Wendy Makkena's wilted wallflower Mary Robert, Kathy Najimy's boisterous Mary Patrick, and the rest - - that make the first Sister Act more than a one woman show. The plot is all a bit contrived, I'll admit.

What semi- high- concept, feel- good flick in the '9. But there's something to be said for the humor, chemistry and rivalries between Goldberg and her co- stars, be it her square- offs with Keitel's mafioso to her run- ins with his bumbling henchmen (Richard Portnow and Robert Miranda) to her battles with her superiors at St. Katherine's and shared moments with her newfound friends in the nunnery.

The music certainly doesn't hurt and, unlike the sequel, falls neatly into place. Sister Act is more guilty pleasure than tried and true classic, but it's hard to resist the songs and their clever Sunday School rewrites.

I Will Follow Him," "Hail Holy Queen," "Shout" and a slew of essentials make St. Katherine's transformation that much more convincing (insofar as a 1. My Guy" and a few others fall flat, but that might have just been the ol' flushed faced, junior high embarrassment flaring up. Is it a perfect movie? Not by any stretch of the imagination.

But it excels in all the right places, and doesn't leave much room for confusion as to how it made such a dent in the box office when it was first released. I'll even go so far as to say Sister Act still holds up, provided you're willing to.. Whoopie. But dear Sister Whoopie should have left well enough alone. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit is a mess from top to bottom, start to finish, beginning to end. The original clipped along, contrivances and all, and did so without a hitch in its step.

The sequel, though, loses its way from the outset, flinging Deloris all the way back to Nevada and just so her BFF- nuns can track her down, beg her to help them save a struggling school, and place her in charge of a fresh gang of misfits - - this time a harmlessly rough- n- tumble group of inner city school kids, including a young Lauryn Hill - - to inspire. The result is a sloppy blend of Dangerous Minds, The Bad News Bears and the first Sister Act that, despite the new digs, angelic voices and resistant- turned- eager students, is too much of a rehash to amount to much of anything. Comedy is shoehorned in with diminishing returns, don't- close- the- school drama is crammed in to fill the void left by Keitel and the mob, ludicrously neat and tidy subplots descend on the sequel like insatiable locusts, cartoonish priests and toothy would- be corporate villains lurk in every confession booth, and the biggest threat to Deloris' time at the school is being outed as a Las Vegas headliner.. Sister Act universe's Catholic Church. Back in the Habit's saving grace is, of course, its songs and musical performances, however slapped together and disjointed the sequel's soundtrack may be. Isolated from the rest of the film, each one shines (some more than others). Sadly, the songs don't help that much, especially when director Bill Duke stumbles where Sister Act director Emile Ardolino made things look rather effortless and the sequel's trio of screenwriters fail where Joseph Howard succeeded.

Even Goldberg and company look as if they know full well that Back in the Habit is slipping through their fingers and falling short of the original. While their performances in the first film were breezy and, one- note quirks aside, endearing, their return to the convent is decidedly desperate. Goldberg keeps her cool, grinning and belting out lip- synced tunes like a pro, but the sequel reeks of look at me, I'm a star! The outward confidence doesn't match the inward qualities of the production, though, and it's clear that Back in the Habit was more a response to the unexpected success of the first film than a legitimate desire (or need) to tell a second story about Sister Mary Clarence's misadventures in Catholicism.

The only good to come out of the critically drubbed sequel is that Touchstone (or rather Disney) didn't race to green- light a third Sister Act, which was no doubt in the works. Back in the Habit is really just a reminder as to what Sister Act could have been had the stars aligned differently. So embrace the original for what it gets right and put the sequel to pasture for what it gets so terribly, terribly wrong. First things first. Even with twenty years under its robe, Sister Act looks heavenly, which should assuage any fear that placing both films on a single BD- 5.

Aside from some at- times suspect shadow delineation and inherent veil- of- night noise, the film that started it all doesn't really have any sins to atone for. Colors are warm and pleasing, skintones are natural, Reno's nightlife and San Francisco's inner city graffiti is full of primary punch and vivid life, contrast is consistent throughout, and black levels, though a wee bit muted on occasion, are satisfying and resolute on the whole. Detail caught me pleasantly off guard as well. Fine textures are remarkably refined, edges are crisp and clean (without any ringing to speak of), and a faint, almost imperceptible veneer of grain is present at all times.

Factor in the absence of artifacting, banding, aliasing or any other meddlesome anomaly or print blemish and you have a 1. AVC- encoded video transfer worthy of whatever praise fans are willing to lay at Disney's high definition altar. Watch Broken English HDQ here. Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit and its 1. Watch Descent 4Shared.