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DVDs
February 28, 2011
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/1/11
PICK OF THE WEEK
“127 Hours” (Fox): Just one of the seven nominees that deserved a Best Picture Oscar more than “The King’s Speech,” this truly thrilling tale of survival is sometimes harrowing but only as gory as it absolutely has to be.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Out of Sight” (Universal): Steven Soderbergh’s 1998 Elmore Leonard adaptation, just out on Blu-ray, can be celebrated for two things in addition to its high entertainment value: making it clear that George Clooney, fresh from duelling duds “The Peacemaker” and “Batman& Robin,” deserved a big-screen career; and giving film history the single worthwhile movie performance in Jennifer Lopez’s career.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Burlesque,” “Faster” (Sony); “Love& Other Drugs” (Fox)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Bambi” (Walt Disney); “The Cable Guy” (Sony); “Michael Jordan to the Max” (Lions Gate)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Just Before Nightfall,” “Mado” (Pathfinder)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Brenda Starr, Reporter,” “Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde” (VCI); “Cannes Man” (Cinema Libre)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould” (Kino); IMAX: “Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia,” “The Ultimate Wave: Tahiti” (Image); “Walking on Water” (Sony)
TV-ON-DVD
“Dickens In America” (BFS); “Leave It to Beaver” Season 6 (Shout! Factory); “Napoleon& Love,” “The Norman Conquests” (Acorn Media); “Pioneers of Television” Season 2, NOVA: “Can We Live Forever?,” “Can We Make it to Mars?,” “Emergency Mine Rescue” (PBS); “Robert Kennedy and His Times” (Sony)
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February 21, 2011
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/22/11
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Sweet Smell of Success” (Criterion): Count on seeing clips from this bitterly brilliant look at the underbelly of show biz when the Oscars pay tribute to co-star Tony Curtis, who died in September.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Get Low” (Sony): Winning performances from Robert Duvall and others, along with a strong sense of its Depression-era setting, help this debut overcome some storytelling hurdles.
“Memento” (Lions Gate): In the ten years since his breakthrough, re-released now on Blu-ray, director Christopher Nolan has helmed a highbrow superhero franchise, crafted a blockbuster worthy of the arthouse (“Inception”), and more. Guess this backward-told mystery wasn’t a fluke.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Due Date” (Warner Bros.); “Megamind” (Paramount, Feb. 25)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“48 Hours” (Paramount); “Daughters of Darkness” (Blue Underground); “How The Earth Was Made” Season 2 (A&E);
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Carmo, Hit the Road” (First Run Pictures); “Change of Plans,” “Leaving,” “Room in Rome” (MPI); “Federico Fellini’s The Clowns,” “The Fernando Di Leo Crime Collection” (RaroVideo); “Fish Tank,” “Senso” (Criterion); “Mesrine: Killer Instinct: Part 1” (Music Box); “Road, Movie” (New Video); “The Temptation of St. Tony” (Olive Films)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Brutal Beauty” (MVD); “Climate of Change,” “See What I’m Saying: The Deaf Entertainer Documentary,” “Waiting for Hockney” (New Video); “Jeff Beck: Rock ‘N’ Roll Party Honoring Les Paul” (Eagle Rock); “Kartemquin: The Early Years, Vol. 2” (Facets); “Kings of Pastry” (First Run Pictures); “Last Train Home” (Zeitgeist); “Les Misérables: 25th Anniversary Concert” (Universal); “Merce Cunningham Dance Company,” “Rocaterrania” (Microcinema); “Two in the Wave” (Kino); “Waiting For “Superman” (Paramount)
TV-ON-DVD
“After The Wall: A World United,” “Chautauqua: An American Narrative” (PBS); “The Darling Buds of May” (BFS); “Eddie Griffin: You Can Tell ‘Em I Said It,” “Have Gun Will Travel” Season 5, Vol. 2 (Paramount); “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum,” “The Nude In Art” (Microcinema); “Fresh Fields” Set 1, “Midsomer Murders” Set 17 (Acorn Media); “Ice Road Truckers” Season 4 (A&E); “Nurse Jackie” Season 2, “Weeds” Season 6 (Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Sword of War” (Lions Gate)
KIDS’ STUFF
“All-Star Superman” (Warner Bros.); “The Last Unicorn” (Lions Gate)
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February 7, 2011
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/8/11
TOP PICKS
“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” (Universal): This oddball romance from the filmmakers of “Half Nelson” fared poorly at the box office, but its funny-but-sensitive take on dangerous subject matter (it’s set in a mental ward) deserves to find a following on video.
Brad on Blu: What is it, Brad Pitt’s birthday or something? (Answer: No.) Movies featuring three of the actor’s most famous early roles — “Legends of the Fall” and “A River Runs Through It” from Sony, “Thelma & Louise” at MGM — arrive on Blu-ray this week, welcome news for fans who suffered through 2010 without seeing him once on the big screen.
“Five Corners” (Image): “Doubt” and “Mooonstruck” author John Patrick Shanley penned this Bronx period piece starring Jodie Foster, Tim Robbins, and John Turturro.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“For Colored Girls” (Lions Gate); “Middle Men,” “Paranormal Activity 2,” “The Romantics” (Paramount); “My Soul to Take” (Universal); “Ong Bak 3” (Magnolia); “Tamara Drewe” (Sony); “You Again” (Walt Disney)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Barb Wire,” “Flipper,” “The River Wild,” “Uncle Buck,” “Waist Deep” (Universal); “Beverly Hills Chihuahua,” “Chicken Little,” “Dinosaur,” “Enchanted,” “National Treasure,” “National Treasure 2,” “The Princess & The Frog,” “The Wild” (Walt Disney)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Bad Day To Go Fishing” (Film Movement); “The Girl” (2009) (Olive Films); “Hideaway” (Strand); “Still Walking” (Criterion)
FROM THE VAULTS
“A Private Function” (Image); “Riot,” “WUSA” (Olive Films); “Shopping” (Severin)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Last Play at Shea” (Lions Gate)
TV-ON-DVD
“The Calling,” “Facing Death,” “When I Rise” (PBS); “Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Columbo” Movie Collection 1991-1993 (Universal); Doctor Who: “The Movie” and “The Mutants” (BBC); “The Guardian” Complete Series (Paramount); “Project Runway” Season 8 (Vivendi)
CULT CORNER
“The Celluloid Salesman: Classic Educational Shorts Volume 4,” “Safe…Not Sorry: Classic Educational Shorts Volume 3” (Kino); “Group Marriage” (Code Red); “I Spit On Your Grave” 1978 and 2010 versions (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Marisa Tomei in “Erich Segal’s Only Love” (Vivendi); Bill Nighy in “Wild Target” (Fox); “Year of the Fish” (Gigantic)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Curious George: A Bike Ride Adventure” (Universal); “Minnie’s Masquerade” (Walt Disney); “Sisters and Brothers” (Nickelodeon); “The Super Hero Squad Show” Vol. 3 (Shout! Factory); “Tom and Jerry: Fur Flying Adventures” (Warner Bros.)
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January 24, 2011
Noteworthy DVDs released 1/25/11
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” (Universal): Underrated during its original release, Michel Gondry’s team-up with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is one fo the best films of the last decade. Check it out on Blu-ray instead of seeing Gondry’s disappointing “Green Hornet.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Broadcast News” (Criterion): Remember when James L. Brooks (“How Do You Know”) made great movies? If not, rent this.
“Client 9: The Rise & Fall of Eliot Spitzer” (Magnolia): Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney looks at the disgraced crusader who, shockingly, may have another act or two left in his career.
“Basil Dearden’s London Underground” (Criterion): Criterion’s “Eclipse” label turns its attention to a little-known Brit who left famed Ealing studios to make, grittier, noir-ish films.
“Santa Sangre” (Severin): Alejandro Jodorowsky’s acid-trippy cult film comes to Blu-ray this week, just in case its imagery wasn’t vivid enough already.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Nowhere Boy” (Sony); “Red” (2010) (Summit); “Saw: The Final Chapter” (Lions Gate); “Secretariat” (Walt Disney)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“A Beautiful Mind” (Universal); “The Color Purple” (Warner Bros.); “Santa Sangre” (Severin)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Dogtooth” (Kino); “Enter The Void,” “Inhale,” “Inspector Bellamy” (MPI); “The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet’s Nest” (Music Box); “You Won’t Miss Me” (Factory 25)
DOCUMENTARIES
“At the Edge of the World,” “What’s the Matter With Kansas” (Passion River); “Derailroaded” (MVD); “Freakonomics” (Magnolia); “sex & drugs & rock & roll,” “Still Bill,” “Tupac Uncensored and Uncut,” “Which Way Home” (New Video); “Land of Confusion” (Virgil Films)
TV-ON-DVD
“The Agatha Christie Hour” Set 2, “Pie in the Sky” Series 4, “Wish Me Luck” Series 2 (Acorn Media); “Glee” Season 2, Vol. 1 (Fox); “Matlock” Season 6 (Paramount); “MI-5” Volume 8, “The Shadow of the Tower” (BBC); “Shaun the Sheep: Spring Shenanigans (Lions Gate); “Zorro” (1990s) Complete Series (A&E)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Adventures of Power” (Phase 4); “Like Dandelion Dust” (Fox); “Of Boys and Men” (Warner Bros.); “The Traveler” (Paramount)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Ronald Reagan Centennial Collection” (Warner Bros.)
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January 10, 2011
Noteworthy DVDs released 1/11/11
PICK OF THE WEEK
High-def De Niro: New Blu-rays for two highlights from the years (long ago, it seems) when Robert De Niro’s presence almost guaranteed a movie was worth seeing: “Once Upon a Time in America” (Warner Bros.) and “Raging Bull” (MGM)
OTHER TOP PICKS
“The Social Network” (Sony): David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook movie takes liberties and doesn’t merit all the comparisons to “Citizen Kane,” but it’s still one of last year’s most fascinating dramas.
“Army of Shadows” (Criterion): Jean-Pierre Melville, known for ultra-cool ’60s films about the underworld, draws on his own experience for this tale of the French Resistance in WWII.
“Funny or Die Presents…” Season 1 (HBO): The talents behind some of the web’s most hilarious short films take a spin at an HBO sketch show.
“How To Get Ahead In Advertising” (Image): Hugh Grant’s ad-man undergoes an ordeal that would make Don Draper whimper in this ’80s British indie.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Dances with Wolves,” “Rob Roy” (MGM); “El Mariachi” / “Desperado,” “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” (Sony); “The Endless Summer” (Monterey); “The Great Debaters” (Vivendi); “The Long Kiss Goodnight” (New Line); “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (Criterion)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“The Freebie” (Phase 4); “Piranha 3-D” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Alamar” (Film Movement); “Heartbreaker” (MPI); “Shake Hands with the Devil” (E1 Entertainment); “A Summer In La Goulette” (Kino)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Green Hornet” 1940 Movie Edition and Original Serials Collector’s Set (VCI); “Powwow Highway” (Image)
TV-ON-DVD
“All in the Family” Season 8, “Greek” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); Doctor Who: “Meglos” and “The Dominators” (BBC); “ER” Season 14 (Warner Bros.); “Framed,” “Macbeth,” “A Murder of Crows” (PBS); “Rules of Engagement” Season 4 (Sony); “The Universe” Season 5 (A&E)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Ben 10: Ultimate Alien” Volume 1 (Warner Bros.); “Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends” Complete Series (Classic Media); “Yo Gabba Gabba: Let’s Visit the Doctor!” (Nickelodeon)
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December 21, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/21/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Films of Rita Hayworth” (Sony): Fans will probably own some of
these films (the beloved “Gilda,” for instance) already, but Sony’s
new set, where movies are guest-introduced by Martin Scorsese, Baz
Luhrman, and Patricia Clarkson, also contains three new-to-DVD titles,
including the Bible adaptation “Salome.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Easy A” (Sony): “The Scarlet Letter” goes to high school in a comedy carried with panache by Emma Stone.
“Orlando” (Sony): Sally Potter’s adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel, whose protagonist lives at least four centuries and morphs from man to woman, was a breakthrough for star Tilda Swinton.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Devil” (Universal); “Salt” (Sony); “Step Up
3” (Walt Disney); “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (Fox)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Once An Eagle” (Timeless)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Let It Rain,” “Map of the Sounds of Tokyo,”
“Soul Kitchen” (MPI); “Skirt Day” (Cinema Epoch)
TV-ON-DVD
“Ages of Man” (E1 Entertainment); “The Andy Griffith
Show: The Best of Mayberry” (Paramount); “Caprica” Season 1.5
(Universal); “Family Guy”: “Laugh It Up Fuzzball” and “It’s A Trap!,”
“Futurama” Vol. 5 (Fox); “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”
Vol. 5 (Walt Disney); “The Virginian” Season 2 (Timeless)
CULT CORNER
“The Horde” (MPI)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Beautiful Kate” (E1 Entertainment)
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December 6, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/7/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Inception” (Warner Bros.): Proving that he can produce a satisfying,
blockbuster-scale film without riding the Caped Crusader’s
bat-coattails, Christopher Nolan went the extra mile and wrapped his
mind-bending plot around a surprisingly moving story of lost love.
OTHER TOP PICKS
Criterion Creepouts: The boutique label turns its Blu-ray eye to two
thought-provoking ickfests that benefit from high-def:
Guillermo del Toro’s poetic breakthrough “Cronos” and David
Cronenberg’s technolust nightmare “Videodrome” (Criterion).
Shrek: The franchise that didn’t know when to quit started off charming but wore out its welcome even as its box-office success inspired a Broadway spinoff. As the last outing, “Shrek Forever After,” hits shelves, Paramount also offers a “Shrek: The Whole Story” collection on DVD and Blu-ray.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Rush Hour” (New Line); “Alice In Wonderland” (2010)
3-D version (Walt Disney); a half-dozen “Battlefield” releases from
Time-Life and three IMAX nature docs from Image
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor and other Fantastic
Films by Koji Yamamura” (Zeitgeist); “Jaffa” (Film Movement);
“Mademoiselle Chambon” (Kino); “Mutum,” “Possible Lives” (Global Film
Initiative); “Passchendaele” (Echo Bridge); “Patrik, Age 1.5” (E1
Entertainment); “Taxi Zum Klo” (Breaking Glass Pictures)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Escape From Zahrain,” “The Milk of Sorrow” (Olive
Films)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Big River Man” (Indiepix); “Hugh Hefner: Playboy,
Activist and Rebel” (Phase 4); “Only When I Dance” (Film Movement);
“ESPN Films 30 for 30 DVD Gift Set” Vol. 1 (ESPN Films); “LennoNYC”
(A&E); “Reformat the Planet” (Indie Blitz); “Restrepo” (Virgil Films)
TV-ON-DVD
“Apparitions” (BFS); “Betty White In Black and White,”
“Dennis Hopper: The Early Works,” “Trek Stars Go West” (MVD);
“Bonanza” Season 2, Vol. 1) (Paramount); “Dragnet 1969” Season 3
(Shout! Factory); “Law & Order” Season 8 (Universal); “Taxicab
Confessions: New York, New York,” Jeff Bridges in “A Dog Year” (HBO)
CULT CORNER
The Shaw Brothers’ Bastard Swordsman,” “Return of Bastard
Swordsman” (FUNimation); Roger Corman double-features “Big Bad
Mama”/”Big Bad Mama II” and “Lady In Red”/”Crazy Mama” (Shout!
Factory)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Andy Garcia and Aidan Quinn in “Across the
Line” (Maya Entertainment); Betty White in “Annie’s Point” (Vivendi);
Patrick Wilson in the SXSW alum “Barry Munday” (Magnolia); Chazz
Palminteri and Peter Bogdanovich in “The Dukes” (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
Three volumes of the “Fox 75th Anniversary Giftset”
(Fox); “The Bob Hope Collection” (Shout! Factory)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Curious George: Sweet Dreams” (Universal); “SpongeBob
SquarePants” Season 6, Vol. 2) (Nickelodeon); “Thomas & Friends:
The Lion Of Sodor” (Lions Gate); “The Dolphin: Story of a Dreamer”
(Fox)
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November 29, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/30/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Fantasia” / “Fantasia 2000” (Walt Disney)
Disney’s groundbreaking toons-plus-classics film, and its less groundbreaking but still admirable sequel, come to Blu-ray this week to coincide with the recent spin-off starring Nic Cage.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Cairo Time” (MPI): Fine performances from Patricia Clarkson and
Alexander Siddig compensate for a less-than-deep screenplay in this
tale of a near-romance in the shadow of the Pyramids.
“The Special Relationship” (HBO): Michael Sheen and Dennis Quaid as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in the made-for-HBO historidrama scripted by Peter Morgan (“The Queen”).
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX:
“Going The Distance” (Warner Bros.); “Knight
and Day,” “Vampires Suck” (Fox); “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (2010)
(Walt Disney); “The Twilight Saga:
Eclipse” (Summit; available 12/4)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Highlander: The Series” Season 3
(LegendaryHeroes.com); “Make-Out With Violence” (Factory 25); “Meet
the Fockers,” “The Wiz” (Universal)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Hair High,” “Selected Films By Mark Street” Vol.
2, “William Wegman’s Twelve Days of Christmas” (Microcinema);
“Liverpool” (Kino); “The Sicilian Girl” (Music Box); “Valhalla Rising”
(MPI)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Best of British Classics Double Feature” Vols. 1 &
2, “Renown Pictures Crime Thrillers Collection” (VCI)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Boys: The Sherman Brothers Story,” “Waking
Sleeping Beauty,” “Walt & El Grupo” (Walt Disney); “Paul Mellon: In
His Own Words” (Microcinema); “The Price of Pleasure” (Cinema Libre)
TV-ON-DVD
“The Biggest Loser,” Jane Fonda, and “Dancing with the
Stars” exercise DVDs (Lions Gate); “Have Gun Will Travel” Season 5,
Vol. 1, “The Lucy Show” Season 3 (Paramount); Looney Tunes:
“Barnyard Bigmouth” and “Feline Fwenzy” (Warner Bros.); “Iron Man:
Extremis” (Shout! Factory); “Parks and Recreation” Season 2
(Universal); “Sid & Marty Krofft’s Greatest Saturday Morning Hits!”
(Vivendi); “A Touch of Frost” Season 15 (MPI)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Patrick Wilson and Amy Smart in “Life in
Flight” (MPI)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Michael Douglas Film Collection” (Fox)
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November 22, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/23/10
Fresh from the multiplex
‘The Disappearance of Alice Creed’ (Anchor Bay); ‘Eat Pray Love’ (Sony); ‘The Expendables’ (Lions Gate); ‘Flipped’ (Warner Bros.); ‘I’m Still Here’ (Magnolia); ‘Love Shack’ (Strand)
New on Blu-ray
‘Deadwood’ Complete Series (HBO); ‘Metropolis’ (Kino); 6 Tyler Perry releases (Lions Gate)
Arthouse/foreign
‘Heartbreaker’ (Revolver Entertainment); ‘The Heimat Trilogy,’ ‘Johan van der Keuken Vol. 5’ (Facets); ‘NY Export: Opus Jazz’ (Factory 25); ‘The Zookeeper’ (BrinkDVD)
From the vaults
‘Roger Corman’s Best of the B’s Collection 3: Escape from Prison!’ (Infinity); ‘Sir Henry at Rawlinson End’ (Factory 25); ‘The Winning Season’ (Lions Gate)
Documentaries
‘African Leaders’ (Facets); ‘Countdown to Zero’ (Magnolia); ‘Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Süss’ (Zeitgeist); ‘Mock Up On Mu’ (Facets); ‘The Nature of Existence’ (Walking Shadows); ‘The Nine Lives of Marion Barry’ (Indiepix); ‘Brian Wilson, Songwriter: 1962-1969,’ ‘David Bowie: Rare and Unseen,’ ‘The Sacred Triangle: Bowie, Iggy & Lou 1971-1973’ (MVD); ‘Steel Gaze: An Unauthorized Story on Clint Eastwood’ (Infinity); ‘Tom Petty: Damn the Torpedoes’ (Universal Music Enterprises); “LennonNYC” (A&E)
TV-on-DVD
‘7th Heaven’ Final Season, ‘The Tudors’ Complete Series (Paramount); ‘Batman Beyond’ Complete Series (Warner Bros.); ‘Kukla, Fran and Ollie: The First Episodes’ (Amazon.com); ‘The Hound of The Baskervilles’ (BFS); ‘Lennon Naked,’ ‘Luther’ (BBC); ‘Murder, She Wrote’ Season 12 (Universal); ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ (Sony); ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ Complete Series (Time-Life); ‘Wagon Train’ Season 2 (Timeless); ‘Fire & Ice: The Dragon Chronicles’ (E1 Entertainment)
Straight(ish) to video
Kristin Chenoweth in ‘12 Men of Christmas’ (Fox); ‘Off Jackson Avenue’ (Cinema Epoch)
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November 8, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/9/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Scott Pilgrim vs. The World” (Universal): Much maligned by folks who
have grown tired of Michael Cera and those who seemed bent on hating
its video game-inspired effects, “Scott Pilgrim” is the rare movie
that can wring real cinematic thrills from the gaming world.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“The Elia Kazan Film Collection” (Fox): The controversial auteur gets
the box-set treatment, with 15 of his films joined by a Martin
Scorsese documentary.
“The Sound of Music” 45th Anniversary Edition (Fox): The hills are alive… and in Blu-ray.
“Antichrist” (Criterion): How does Lars Von Trier make films that are simultaneously laughable and terrifying? It helps to have gifted actresses like Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose graphic acts of genital mutilation in this arthouse shocker had even jaded viewers hiding their eyes.
“Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session” (Stax): Austin’s favorite guitar hero jams with the blues legend in this 1983 performance, just reissued in a DVD/CD combo package.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Charlie St. Cloud” (Universal); “Grown Ups”
(Sony); “Love Ranch” (NEM); “Ramona and Beezus” (Fox)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Scooby-Doo 1 & 2 Collection” (Warner Bros.);
“Tremors” (Universal)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Jaffa” (Film Movement); “Shaolin Rescuers,”
“Soul of the Sword” (FUNimation); “Shinsengumi Chronicles: I Want To
Die A Samurai” (AnimEigo); “Three and Out” (E1 Entertainment)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Cannes Man” (Cinema Libre); “Rivals” (Code Red)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Big River Man” (Indiepix); Bill Moyers’s “On Faith and
Reason” and “Genesis: A Living Conversation” (Acorn Media);
“Deconstructing Dad: The Music, Machines, and Mystery of Raymond
Scott” (scottdoc.com); “I Knew It Was You: Rediscovering John Cazale”
(Oscilloscope); “Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child” (New Video);
“Love the Beast” (Virgil Films); “Secret
Origin: The Story of DC Comics” (Warner Bros.); “The Two Escobars”
(ESPN Films)
TV-ON-DVD
“Bing Crosby: The Television Specials Volume 2” (Infinity);
“The Boondocks” Season 3 (Sony); “Californication”
Season 3 (Paramount); “The Chronicles of Narnia Collection” (1988),
“Doctor Who” Series 5 (BBC); “Circus,” “Cuba: The Accidental Eden”
(PBS); “The Golden Girls: 25th Anniversary Complete
Collection: (Walt Disney); “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 4 (First Look);
“Lie to Me” Season 2 (Fox); “Men of a Certain Age” Season 1 (Warner
Bros.); “Mystery Science Theater 3000 - XIX” (Shout! Factory);
“Sherlock” Season 1 (BBC); “The Super Hero Squad Show” Vol. 2,
“Thirtysomething” Season 4 (Shout! Factory)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn in “Lovely,
Still” (Monterey); “The Dry Land” (Maya Entertainment); “The Four-
Faced Liar” (Wolfe); Steve Austin in “Hunt To Kill” (Anchor Bay);
Vinnie Jones in “Locked Down” (Lions Gate); Matthew Modine in “The
Trial” (Fox)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Elmo and Friends: The Letter Quest,” “Scooby-Doo, Where
Are You?,” “Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam” (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“A Streeetcar Named Desire: The Original Director’s
Version” (Warner Bros.)
FILM BOOKS
Jonathan Rosenbaum, “Goodbye Cinema, Hello Cinephilia”;
Roger Ebert, “The Great Movies 3” (University of Chicago Press)
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November 1, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/2/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Larry Sanders Show” Complete Series (Shout! Factory): Fans of
Garry Shandling — not to mention of brilliant, self-aware television
— get an unexpected treat, with a comprehensive package that seemed
unlikely ever to be released.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Toy Story 3” (Walt Disney): One of the incredibly rare instances
(let’s not pick on “The Godfather,” okay?) in which a series’s third
installment lives up to the original.
“The Pacific” (HBO): The big-production sequel to “Band of Brothers”
“Let’s Spend The Night Together” (Lions Gate): Far from the greatest Rolling Stones doc, this curiosity paired them with 70s great Hal Ashby.
“The Goonies” (Warner Bros.): Beloved by a generation of thirtysomethings, the Spielberg-hatched pirate adventure arrives in a “25th Anniversary Collector’s Edition.”
“The Unbelievable Truth”: Hal Hartley, whose brilliant debut is now out-of-print, has reissued it himself via possiblefilms.com — where fans can also find serious obscurities like the book and soundtrack for his play “Soon.”
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Centurion” (Magnolia)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Bridge on the River Kwai” DVD/Blu-ray Combo
(Sony); Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” DVD/Blu-ray combo (MGM);
“Highlander,” “Highlander 2: The Quickening” (Lions Gate); “White
Christmas” (Paramount)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Bing Crosby Collection” (Universal); Jonathan
Pryce in “Regeneration” (Echo Bridge); “The Rita Hayworth Film
Collection” (Sony); “The Visitor” (1980) (Code Red)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Lady Gaga: One Sequin at a Time” (Echo Bridge);
“Greenlit,” “”The Way We Get By” (Virgil Films); “Van Gogh: Brush With
Genius IMAX” (Image); “Winnebago Man” (Kino)
TV-ON-DVD
“Marple: The Geraldine McEwan Collection,” “Cadfael”
Complete Collection, “Midsomer Murders: Village Case Files” (Acorn
Media); “Beverly Hills 90210” Complete Series, “The Fugitive”
Season 4, Vol. 1 (Paramount); Doctor Who: “Revenge of the Cybermen”
and “Silver Nemesis” (BBC); “The Facts Of Life” Season 5, Frank
Sinatra (Concert Collection, Mad About You (The Complete Fifth
Season) (Shout! Factory); “Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List”
Season 2 (First Look); “Metalocalypse” Season 3, “Nip/Tuck”
Complete Series, “V” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Persons Unknown”
Season 1 (Fox)
CULT CORNER
“Not Of This Earth” (1988), “The Terror Within” / “Dead
Space” (Shout! Factory)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Amy Adams, Robert Downey Jr., and James Franco
in “Love & Distrust” (Phase 4); Mr. T in “The Toughest Man in the
World” (Echo Bridge); Heather Graham and Jennifer Coolidge in
“Exterminators” (Image); Ed Harris and Amy Madigan in “Once Fallen”
(First Look); Sam Rockwell and Emma Roberts in “The Winning Season”
(Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Cher: The Film Collection” (Fox); TCM Greatest
Classic Films Collections: “Busby Berkeley Musicals” and “Astaire and
Rogers” (Warner Bros.)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Hannah Montana” Vol. 7 (Walt Disney); kaBOOM!: “Let’s
Solve” and “Let’s Learn!” (Phase 4); “LeapFrog Learning” Vol. 2 (Lions
Gate)
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October 26, 2010
New immigration documentary
Roy Germano, who was reared in Louisville, Ky., describes himself as of Irish and German ancestry. And he says he knew little about Mexico or why so many Mexicans came to the United States while he was growing up.
That all changed, he says, when he moved to Chicago and worked at a restaurant with lots of Mexican immigrants. Later, he would attend the University of Texas in 2004 to study Mexican immigration.
In 2008, on a trip to Mexico that was related to his university studies, he took along a video camera and started to document changes in the countryside, where families were leaving for the United States. And he found that residents of Mexico have very good economic reasons for crossing the border, especially when they’re trying to improve the lives of their children.
The result of Germano’s investigations is the new documentary ‘The Other Side of Immigration,’ which was released this week.
It includes more than 700 interviews conducted by Germano, who holds his doctorate in political science from UT.
‘The Other Side of Immigration’ will be an eye-opener for anyone who’s willing to watch. And it might make people think twice before they reach conclusions about how to approach the immigration problem.
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October 25, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 10/26/10
PICK OF THE WEEK“Alien Anthology” (Fox): Boasting two bona fide classics (the first two installments, of course) and two flawed-but-worthy oddball auteur films (by David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the icky- space-monster saga hits Blu-ray for the first time with a reported 60 hours (!) of bonus features. OTHER TOP PICKS
“Back to the Future” (Universal): Another famous franchise — this one a bit less consistent than “Alien,” but more nostalgia-tickling — arrives on Blu-ray after years of pleas from fans. “Paths of Glory” (Criterion): Kubrick goes to WWI in this tale of an impossible mission and the court-martial that follows it. “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO): Al Pacino offers an uncharacteristically (these days, anyway) subtle performance in this involving Jack Kervorkian biopic. “House” (1977) (Criterion): The recently cult-rediscovered Japanese horror flick gets the Criterion treatment. FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Sex and the City 2” (Warner Bros.); “Winter’s Bone” (Lions Gate) NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Grand Canyon Adventure” (Image); “How the Earth Was Made” Season 1 (A&E); “Poirot: Murder on the Orient Express,” “Slings and Arrows” Complete Collection (Acorn Media); “Santa Claus: The Movie” (Lions Gate) ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Girl Who Played With Fire” (Music Box); “He Who Hits First, Hits Twice,” “We Are Going To America” (Facets); “The Infidel” (New Video); “Kisses” (Oscilloscope); “Make-Out With Violence” (Factory 25); “Passenger Side” (Strand); “Searchers 2.0” (Microcinema); “Sleepwalking Land,” “What a Wonderful World” (The Global Initiative); “Wah Do Dem” (Factory 25); “Wild Grass” (Sony) FROM THE VAULTS
“Hush” (MPI); “Summer and Smoke,” “Tropic of Cancer” (Olive Films) DOCUMENTARIES
“21 Below” (Indiepix); “The Art of Ballet,” “Dancing Across Borders,” “A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism” (First Run Pictures); “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie” (Icarus); “Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae” (Lightyear); “Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo” (Carnivalesque); “Tatsumi Hijikata: Summer Storm” (Microcinema); “Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?” (Kino); “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” (New Video) TV-ON-DVD
“4 Decades of the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” (Respond 2 Entertainment); “C.S.I.: NY” Season 6 (Paramount); “Freaknik: The Musical,” “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Season 2(Warner Bros.); “Funky Phantom,” “Goober and the Ghost- Chasers” (Exclusively at WBshop.com); “Have a Laugh” Vols. 1 & 2 (Walt Disney); “Law & Order: UK” Season 1 (Universal); “Scholastic Sign Language,” “Scholastic Treasury of 100 Storybook Classics #2” (Scholastic); “The Search for Sherlock Holmes” (BFS) CULT CORNER
“Radley Metzger’s Score” (CAV); “All My Friends Are Funeral Singers” (Indiepix); “Cannibal Girls” (Shout! Factory); “Maniac” (Blue Underground) STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Martin Landau in “Harrison Montgomery” (Indiepix); Rutger Hauer in “Mentor” (Vanguard); “Mutants,” Ed Burns’s “Nice Guy Johnny” (MPI); Tilda Swinton in “Teknolust” (Microcinema) REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Dark Star” (VCI); “Elf” (New Line); “Sex and the City” Complete Collection (HBO)
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October 12, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 10/12/10
THIS WEEK’S TOP PICKS
“The Darjeeling Limited” (Criterion): Wes Anderson’s twee travelogue
still has its cultural-sensitivity blind spots, but it’s a melancholy
adventure whose textures and colors are made for Blu-ray.
“How to Train Your Dragon” (Paramount, Available Oct. 15): A viking kid and his dragon save the world in this well-liked CGI animated adventure.
“I Am Love” (Magnolia): Tilda Swinton shatters her luxurious home life when passion drags her toward a younger lover.
“The Magician” (Criterion): Never before available here on disc, the little-seen Bergman film comes to DVD and Blu-ray on the same day.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Jonah Hex” (Warner Bros.); “Leaves of
Grass” (First Look)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The BBC High Definition Natural History Collection 2”
(BBC); “Callas Forever” (Image); “Gamera Double Feature” (Mill Creek);
“Magic” (1978) (Blu-ray) (Dark Sky); “Red Dragon” (Universal); “Sex
and Lucia” (Palm Pictures); “Three Kings” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Breaking Upwards” (MPI); “Daniel & Ana” (Strand);
“Samurai Vendetta” (AnimEigo); “Shaolin Rescuers,”
“Soul of the Sword” (FUNimation)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Gates,” “Kimjongilia” (Kino); “I Am Comic”
(Monterey); “Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae” (Lightyear); “S&Man”
(Magnolia)
TV-ON-DVD
“C.S.I.: Miami” Season 8, “The Ghost Whisperer” Season 5,
“The Lucy Show” Season 3, “The Tudors” Final Season (Paramount); “The
Commish” Complete Series, “The Greatest American Hero” Season
2 (Mill Creek); “Dollhouse” Season 2 (Fox); “In Treatment” Season 2
(HBO); “Johnny Staccato” (Timeless); “Lassie” (Classic Media); “Marcus
Welby, M.D.” Season 2, “Warren Miller: Dynasty” (Shout!
Factory); “Sesame Street: Shalom Sesame, “Wolverine & the X-Men”
Complete Series (Lions Gate)
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE…
“It’s a Very Merry Muppet
Christmas Movie” (Universal); “The He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special”
(Classic Media); “Super Why!: Twas The Night Before Christmas”
(Paramount); Thomas & Friends: “Merry Winter Wish” & “Holiday Express”
(Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Spencer Parsons’s Austin-set, TFPF-funded
“I’ll Come Running” (MPI); “Lost Boys: The Thirst” (Warner Bros.);
“Manson, My Name is Evil” (Lions Gate); Álex de la Iglesia’s “The
Oxford Murders” (Magnolia); “White on Rice” (Indie Blitz)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Hangover: Extreme Edition” (Warner Bros.);
“Angel” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” Complete Series sets (Fox);
“Benny HIll: The Thames Years 1969-1989, “Rumpole of the Bailey”
Complete Series (A&E); “The Essential Bugs Bunny” (Warner Bros.);
“Smokey and the Bandit: 7-Movie Outlaw Collection” (Universal)
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October 4, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 10/5/10
PICK OF THE WEEKBogie: Warner goes Humphrey Bogart-crazy this week, bringing two of his best — “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” both for director John Huston — to Blu-ray while bundling a whopping two-dozen titles (including classics like “The Big Sleep” and such obscurities as “Brother Orchid”) into an “Essential Collection” priced below $100. OTHER TOP PICKS
“Beauty and the Beast” (Walt Disney): Yes, it’s saddled with Disney’s obnoxious “limited edition” marketing tactics, but that won’t stop parents from snapping up a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack of this beloved 1991 ‘toon. “The Last of the Mohicans” (Fox): Michael Mann’s “definitive cut” of the James Fenimore Cooper adventure yarn arrives on Blu-ray. FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Holy Rollers” (First Independent); “The Karate Kid” (2010) (Sony); “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Splice” (Warner Bros.) NEW ON BLU-RAY
“2001 Maniacs,” “Bad Lieutenant,” “The Blair Witch Project,” “Hard Candy,” “High Tension,” “Secretary” (Lions Gate); a batch of two-fers like “Dracula”/”Wolf” and “La Femme Nikita”/”Run Lola Run” (Sony); “Delgo” (Fox); “The Mission” (Amazon.com Exclusive), “Ocean’s 11” (Warner Bros.); “Grindhouse” (Vivendi) ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“1981,” “Alamar,” “Bomber” (Film Movement); “Mid- August Lunch” (Zeitgeist); “The Secret of Kells” (New Video) DOCUMENTARIES
“Ken Burns’ Baseball” Complete Series and “The Tenth Inning” (Paramount); “Exploring Our Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” (PBS); “Great Expectations: A Journey through the History of Visionary Architecture” (Icarus); “The Wu-Tang Saga” (CVD); “Let Your Feet Do the Talkin’” (Dust-to-Digital) TV-ON-DVD
“All in the Family” Season 7 (Shout! Factory); “Ally McBeal” Seasons 3, 4, 5, “Bones” Season 5, “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” Season 7 (Fox); “Caprica” Season 1, “Monk” Complete Series (Universal); “Doctor Who: Dreamland” (BBC); “Gunsmoke” Season 4, Vol. 1, “Medium” Season 6, “Ugly Americans” (Paramount); “Lost Kingdoms of Africa,” “The Queen” (2010) (Acorn Media); “Stargate Universe” Season 1 (MGM) CULT CORNER
“The Evil”/”Twice Dead,” “The Slumber Party Massacre Collection” (Shout! Factory); “The Human Centipede” (MPI); “They Call Her Cleopatra” (Dark Sky); “Troll 2” (MGM) STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“30 Days of Night: Dark Days” (Sony); “Elvis & Anabelle” (Vivendi); Diego Luna and Christopher Walken in “Fade to Black” (Image); The Ray Wylie Hubbard co-scripted “Last Rites Of Ransom Pride” (Screen Media Films) REISSUE/REPACKAGE
Blu-rays of “Mad Max” and the “RoboCop Trilogy” (MGM); “The Exorcist: Extended Director’s Cut” (Warner Bros.) KIDS’ STUFF
“Penguins of Madagascar: I Was a Penguin Zombie” (Paramount); “Ben 10: Alien Force” Vol. 9 (Warner Bros.); “Charlie & Lola” Season 3 (BBC); “Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure” (Nickelodeon); VeggieTales: “Christmas Sing-A-Longs” and “It’s a Meaningful Life” (Vivendi); 3 “Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss” titles (Lions Gate)
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September 27, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/28/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Thin Red Line” (Criterion): Just 14 minutes of deleted scenes?
What’s wrong, Criterion — couldn’t convince Terrence Malick to let
you do a box set pairing the theatrical version alongside the fabled
five-hour edit? Oh well. We’ll take what we can get.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“King Kong” (1933) (Warner Bros.): The original and still the
greatest, now on Blu-ray.
“Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky” (Sony): Intellectual biopic meets lusty scandal in a movie worth seeing for its brief “Rite of Spring” reenactment alone.
“Iron Man 2” (Paramount): With all the humor of the original, twice the sex appeal, and an action climax that trumped the first, this year’s sequel was a bright spot among dim blockbusters.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Frozen” (Anchor Bay); “Get Him to the
Greek” (Universal); “The Killer Inside Me” (MPI); “Legendary”
(Vivendi)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Conceiving Ada” (Microcinema); “Good” (E1
Entertainment); “I’m Gonna Explode,” “Perrier’s Bounty” (MPI); “The
Law” (Oscilloscope); “Still Life,” “Willi Tobler and the Decline of
the 6th Fleet” (Facets)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence” (Criterion); “Douglas
Sirk Filmmaker Collection” (Exclusively On TCM.com); “Harlow,”
“Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough,” “Knock On Wood,” “My
Favorite Spy,” “Where Love Has Gone” (Olive Films); “Jane Eyre” (1970)
(VCI); “The Private Eyes” (Hen’s Tooth)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Arcimboldo 1526-1593,” “Todd P. Goes to Austin”
(Microcinema); “Babies” (Universal); “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of
Rivals” (HBO); “Nightmares in Red, White and Blue” (Kino); “The Oath”
(Zeitgeist); “Schenec-Tady (I- III)” (Facets); “Soundtrack For A
Revolution” (Docurama); “Until the Light Takes Us” (Factory 25)
TV-ON-DVD
“C.S.I. ” Season 10, “South Park: A Little Box of Butters”
(Paramount); “The Cleveland Show” Season 1, “Family Guy:
Partial Terms of Endearment” (Fox); “Designing Women” Vol. 1, “Rhoda”
Vol. 1 (Shout! Factory); “Legend of the Seeker” Season 2, “Scrubs”
Season 9 (Walt Disney); “The Legendary Bing Crosby” (Infinity); “The
Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries” Set 2, “Midsomer Murders” Set 16 (Acorn
Media); “Party Down” Season 2 (Anchor Bay); “Prehistoric Park” (BBC);
“Red Vs Blue” Season 8 (New Video); “Rich Man, Poor Man” Complete
Collection (A&E)
CULT CORNER
“Cat City” (MTI); “Dark Night Of The Scarecrow” (VCI)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Ashley Judd in “Helen” (2008) (Vanguard);
Scott Caan in “Mercy” (2010) (MPI); “Superman/Batman:
Apocalypse” (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Super Size Me” 6 1/2 Year Anniversary Special
Edition (Virgil Films)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars” (Vivendi)
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September 20, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/21/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Power of Myth” (Acorn Media): Joseph Campbell’s “Power of Myth”
is an eye-opening way of looking at ancient stories that is probably
most famous for helping George Lucas shape the quest of Luke
Skywalker. In this TV documentary series, Bill Moyers helps Campbell
(already a gifted communicator) explain how and why myths work.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Fantômas” Collection (Kino): Probably the release of the season for
fans of silent film, this package collects the adventures of a pulp
villain who captivated France in almost 50 novels and this series of
five feature films.
“Ondine” (Magnolia): A fable from Neil Jordan in which heartsick
fisherman Colin Farrell catches a lovely, but haunted, mermaid in his
net.
“The Secret in Their Eyes” (Sony): Argentina’s Oscar-winning
detective-story romance.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Robin Hood” (2010) (Universal); “Untitled”
(Screen Media Films)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“American Beauty,” “The Peacemaker” (Paramount);
“Charade” (Criterion); “Vigilante” (Blue Underground); 6 scenic titles
from Questar
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Eccentricities of a Blonde-Haired Girl” (Cinema
Guild); “The Films of Nikita Mikhalkov, Vol. 1” (Kino); “Stingray Sam”
(Indie Blitz); “Trash Humpers” (Drag City)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Directors: Life Behind the Camera,” “Howard Zinn:
You Can’t Be Neutral On a Moving Train,” “Leon Blum: For All Mankind”
(First Run Pictures); “Eclipse Series 24: The Actuality Dramas of
Allan King” (Criterion); “Glamourpuss: The Lady Gaga Story,” “Madonna:
Out on the Floor,” “The Rolling Stones: Born Under a Bad Sign” (United
States of Distribution); “Make Me Young:
Youth Knows No Pain” (Cinema Libre); “Racing Dreams” (Hannover House)
TV-ON-DVD
“30 Rock” Season 4, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”
Year 11 (Universal); “Being Human” Season 2 (BBC); “Castle” Season 2,
“Desperate Housewives” Season 6 (Walt Disney); “Community”
Season 1 (Sony); “Designing Women” Season 4, “Rhoda” Season 4 (Shout!
Factory); “Hell’s Kitchen” Seasons 1 and 3 (First Look); “How I Met
Your Mother” Season 5, “Modern Family” Season 1 (Fox); “Human Target”
Season 1, “The Mentalist” Season 2, “Two and a Half Men” Season 7
(Warner Bros.); “Mythbusters” Collection 6 (Discovery); “Spartacus:
Blood and Sand” Season 1 (Anchor Bay)
CULT CORNER
“Gamera Vs. Guiron,” “Gamera Vs. Viras” (Shout!
Factory); “Legend of Bruce Lee” (Lions Gate); “Rosencrantz &
Guildenstern Are Undead” (Indican)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Steve Zahn in the Austin Film Fest vet “Calvin
Marshall” (Passion River); Adrien Brody and Forest Whitaker in “The
Experiment,” “Stomp the Yard: Homecoming” (Sony); “The Secret of
Moonacre” (E1 Entertainment); “Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue”
(Walt Disney)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Stallion Collection” (MGM)
KIDS’ STUFF
“He’s Your Dog, Charlie Brown,” “Tom & Jerry’s Greatest
Chases” Vol. 5 (Warner Bros.); “Max & Ruby: Everybunny Loves Winter” (Nickelodeon)
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September 6, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/7/10
TOP PICKS
“Playing For Time” (Olive Films): Vanessa Redgrave stars as a cabaret
singer interned at Auschwitz in this highly regarded 1980 telefilm.
“Prime Suspect” The Complete Collection (Acorn Media): Helen Mirren’s classic British detective series, which ran seven seasons and sometimes co-starred folks like Ralph Fiennes and Tom Wilkinson, is reportedly being remade for American TV.
“The Player” (New Line): Robert Altman’s 1992 satire of Hollywood is still scathing on a new Blu-ray.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Killers” (Lions Gate); “MacGruber”
(Universal); “Solitary Man” (Anchor Bay)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Black Dahlia,” “The Skeleton Key” (Universal);
“Charlie Brown Holiday Collection,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Lost in
Space,” “Mars Attacks!,” “The Matrix Reloaded,” “THX-1138:
Director’s Cut” (Warner Bros.); “In Cold Blood,” “Tommy” (Sony); “Jim
Gaffigan: Beyond the Pale” (Image); “Stardust” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“A Call Girl” (Film Movement); “Caravaggio” (2007)
(E1 Entertainment); “The Exploding Girl” (Oscilloscope); “I Am From
Titov Veles,” “The Photograph” (Global Film Initiative); “John Rabe”
(Strand); “Kung Fu Master” (Phase 4); “L’origine de la tendresse and
Other Tales” (New Yorker); “That Evening Sun” (Image)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Blood Into Wine” (True Story Films); “Charles
Bukowski: The Last Straw” (Infinity); “Fixer” (Passion River); “Snow
Blind” (Lightyear); “Soundtracker,” “Wade In The Water, Children”
(Indiepix); “Videocracy” (Kino)
TV-ON-DVD
“Ed Sullivan Starring The Beatles” (Universal Music);
“Chuck” Season 3, “Smallville” Season 9, “Supernatural” Season 5
(Warner Bros.); 3 “Doctor Who” titles, “Last of the Summer Wine,”
“Wonders of the Solar System” (BBC); “Criminal Minds” Season 5,”The
Guardian” Season 2 (Paramount); “Kevin Pollak: The Littlest Suspect”
(Image); “The Norm Show” Complete Series (Shout! Factory); “The
Office” Season 6 (Universal); “Persons Unknown” Season 1 (Fox);
“Thirtysomething” Season 4 (Shout! Factory, only at Amazon.com)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Val Kilmer and others in “American Cowslip”
(E1 Entertainment); “Being Michael Madsen” (Midnight Releasing); the
neo-Spaghetti Western “Doc West” and Griffin Dunne’s “Fierce People”
(Lions Gate); Tennessee Williams’s “The Loss Of A Teardrop Diamond”
(Screen Media Films); Matthew Perry in “Numb” (Image); Wiley Wiggins
and Andrew Bujalski in “Sorry Thanks” (Cinema Epoch)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” two “TCM
Greatest Classic Films Collection” boxes, “Gangsters” and “Hammer
Horror” (Warner Bros.); “Wall Street” (Fox)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Bugs Bunny’s Howl-oween” (Warner Bros.); “Camp Rock
2: The Final Jam” (Walt Disney); Goosebumps: “Go Eat Worms!” and “The
Blob That Ate Everyone” (Fox); “Shaun The Sheep: Party Animals,”
“Thomas & Friends: Misty Island Rescue” (Lions Gate)
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August 31, 2010
This week's new DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released 8/31/10
TOP PICKS:
“Red Riding Trilogy” (MPI): Based on dark crime novels by English author David Peace, this trio of films (by three different directors) got a brief but acclaimed theatrical run early this year.
“Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire” (MVD): This recently rediscovered 1972 documentary pairs lots of concert footage with moments of a youthful Cohen discussing his work.
“Thriller” Complete Series (Image): Uncut on home video for the first time, the two seasons of this Boris Karloff-hosted 1960’s TV anthology draw material from authors including Edgar Allan Poe and Cornell Woolrich.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “Harry Brown” (Sony); “Marmaduke” (Fox); “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?” (Lions Gate)
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” (Paramount, Best Buy Exclusive); “The Evil Dead” (Anchor Bay)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN: “9th Company” (Well Go USA); “OSS 117: Lost in Rio” (Music Box); “Waiting Room” (MPI)
FROM THE VAULTS: “Apache Rifles,” “The Capone Investment,” “Dick Barton: Special Agent,” “Four in the Morning,” “Hell Is Sold Out” (VCI); “Sundown” (TCM.com)
DOCUMENTARIES: “The Jeff Koons Show” (Microcinema); “The Lottery” (Great Curve Films); “Paul McCartney Really Is Dead: The Last Testament of George Harrison” (MVD); “Rio Breaks” (Factory 25); “Water Wars” (Cinema Libre)
TV-ON-DVD: “Agatha Christie’s Marple” Series 5 (Acorn Media); “Brothers and Sisters” Season 4, “Flashforward” Complete Series (Walt Disney); “Falcon Crest” Season 2 (WBshop.com); “House” Season 6, “Parenthood” Season 1 (Universal); “The Judy Garland Show” Vol. 5 (Infinity); “The Middle” Season 1, “The Vampire Diaries” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “NCIS: Los Angeles” Season 1 (Paramount); “Sons Of Anarchy” Season 2 (Fox)
CULT CORNER: “Black Blood Brothers” Complete Series, “Full Metal Panic!” Season 1 (FUNimation)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO: “A Quiet Little Marriage” (MPI)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE: “Celebrated Women Of Color Film Collection,” Vols. 1 and 2 (MGM)
KIDS’ STUFF: “Diego’s Ultimate Rescue League,” “iSpace Out!” (Nickelodeon); Strawberry Shortcake “Berrywood Here We Come,” “The Glimmerberry Ball Movie” (Fox)
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August 23, 2010
This week's new DVDs
TOP PICKS:
HandMade goes Hi-Def: Four titles from the studio co-founded by George Harrison get the Blu-ray treatment via Image Entertainment: cult fave “Withnail and I,” Terry Gilliam’s “Time Bandits,” and two of Bob Hoskins’ finest, “Mona Lisa” and “The Long Good Friday.”
Warner Archive: The latest batch of WB’s manufacture-on-demand reissues (sold at www.WarnerArchive.com) includes oddities like 1950’s “It’s a Small World” alongside one vault title that has been given more restoration than this series usually sees — the fairly obscure Cary Grant drama “None but the Lonely Heart.”
“Machine Gun McCain” (Blue Underground): This pulpy Italian crime flick, in which John Cassavetes stars alongside pals Peter Falk and Gena Rowlands, looks ripe for rediscovery.
“Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg” (Criterion): Early outings, including “The Docks of New York,” from the man known for helping make Marlene Dietrich an icon.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “The Back-up Plan” (Sony); “City Island” (Anchor Bay); “George Romero’s Survival of the Dead” (Magnolia)
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “The Great Rift: Africa’s Greatest Story” (BBC); Nature titles “Africa,” “Bears & Wolves,” “Alaska & Hawaii,” and “Great Train Rides” (Questar); “The Pixies: Acoustic & Electric Live” (Eagle Rock); “Shogun Assassin” (AnimEigo); “The Universe: Our Solar System” (A&E)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN: “After the Revolution,” “The Big Mess,” “The Iranian New Wave,” “The Practice of Love” (Facets); “Ajami” (Kino); “Death Note” (Warner Bros.); “Seven Days” (Virgil Films); “Shirin” (Cinema Guild); “The Square” (Sony); “A Step into the Darkness” (Vanguard)
DOCUMENTARIES: “The Age of Stupid,” “Chuck Close” (New Video); “An American Journey: In Robert Frank’s Footsteps” (Kino); “Who Killed Nancy?” (Peace Arch); “Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg” (Docurama)
TV-ON-DVD: “90210” Season 2, “Dinosaur Train: Dinosaurs Under the Sea,” “NCIS” Season 7 (Paramount); “Ben 10: Alien Force” Vol. 8, “Gossip Girl” Season 3 (Warner Bros.); “The Dog Whisperer” Season 4, Vol. 2 (Screen Media Films); “Kavanagh,” “Sandbaggers,” “The Sweeney” complete collections (BFS); “Les Paul: Live in New York” (Questar); “Lost” Season 6 and Complete Collection (Walt Disney); “The Patty Duke Show” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); “The Simpsons” Season 13 (Fox)
CULT CORNER: “Ninjas vs. Zombies” (Seminal Films)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO: Christopher Walken in “$5 a Day” (Image); Val Kilmer in “2:22” (Inception Media); Brittany Murphy in “Abandoned” (Anchor Bay); Colin Firth in “Dorian Gray” (E1 Entertainment); Sarah Michelle Gellar in “Veronika Decides to Die” (First Look)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE: “Flight of the Conchords” Complete Collection (HBO)
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August 9, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/10/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Crumb”: Quickly following the sad death of alt-comix memoirist Harvey Pekar comes this deeply engrossing 1994 doc about his collaborator R. Crumb. The curmudgeon’s eccentricities (and those of his brothers) are now available on both DVD and Blu-ray thanks to Criterion, who have also put out a DVD of director Terry Zwigoff’s earlier doc, “Louie Bluie.”
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Date Night” “The Joneses” (Fox); “Death at a Funeral” (2010) (Sony); “La Mission” (Screen Media Films)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“An Empress and the Warriors,” “Invisible Target,” “The Legend,” “Tai Chi Master” (Vivendi); “In the Shadow of the Moon” (Image)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Children of Invention” (Indie Blitz); “Manuela & Manuel” (E1 Entertainment); “My Name Is Khan” (Fox); “Welcome” (Film Movement)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Pink Floyd: Between Syd and the Dark Side,” “Prince: In The 1980’s” (United States of Distribution); Michel Gondry’s “Thorn in the Heart” (Oscilloscope)
TV-ON-DVD
“Adam-12” Season 5, “Max Headroom” Complete Series (Shout! Factory); “The Black List” Vol. 2 (HBO); “Minder” Season 3 (BFS); “Numb3rs” Season 6 (Paramount); “Secrets of the Great Barrier Reef” (Infinity); “Titan Maximum” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Trauma” Season 1
(Universal); “Visions of Israel” (Acorn Media)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Brian Cox and Paul Dano in “The Good Heart” (Magnolia); “The Diplomat,” “Letters to God” (Vivendi); Ashley Judd in “Helen,” Colin Farrell in “Triage” (E1 Entertainment); Timothy Hutton
in “Multiple Sarcasms” (Image); Sam Neill in “Under the Mountain” (Lions Gate)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Casper’s Scare School” Season 1 (Classic Media); “Franklin” Triple Feature, “Pippi Goes to School” (Phase 4); “Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl,” “Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire” (Warner
Bros.)
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August 2, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 8/3/10
PICK OF THE WEEK “The First Films of Akira Kurosawa” (Eclipse): Last year’s expensive “AK 100” box set contained only four Kurosawa films that were not available elsewhere — now Criterion has bundled them together for a no-frills set aimed at collectors who already owned “Seven Samurai” and the rest.
OTHER TOP PICKS “A Prophet” (Sony): Last year’s French crime saga, thought by many to deserve the Best Foreign Language Oscar, arrives on DVD and Blu- ray.
The King: In what would have been his 75th year, Warner is putting out the umpteenth collection of Elvis Presley’s films, the 17-movie “Elvis 75th Anniversary DVD Collection,” along with “Elvis On Tour.”
“Errol Flynn Adventures” (Warner Bros.): A quintet of new-to-DVD Flynn vehicles from the ’40s, including “Desperate Journey,” in which he co-starred with Ronald Reagan.
Schlockfest: Shout! Factory is the latest company to take its turn churning Roger Corman’s filmography onto disc — and with “Humanoids From The Deep” and “Piranha,” they’re the first to do it on Blu-ray.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX “After.Life” (Anchor Bay); “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” (Fox); “The Ghost Writer” (Summit); “Kick-Ass” (Lions Gate)
NEW ON BLU-RAY “The Breakfast Club” (Universal); “Escape from New York,” “Kalifornia” (MGM); “Charlie’s Angels” (Sony); “James and the Giant Peach” (Walt Disney); “Piranha” (Shout! Factory); “Road to Perdition” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN Shaw Brothers’ “The Duel” and “Shaolin Prince” (FUNimation); “Patterns Trilogy with Other Short Films,” “Towards Zero” (Zeitgeist)
FROM THE VAULTS Ava Gardner and James Mason in “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman” (Kino); “The Kim Novak Film Collection” (Sony); Also, Universal is quietly delivering an odd assortment of oldies to disc this week, from the best-forgotten (“The All-Nighter”?) to the respectable (the theatrical adaptation “‘Night Mother”). Bizarrely, early reports say the studio will release some of these in pan-and-scan only, greatly diminishing their value for the few folks likely to pay for them.
DOCUMENTARIES “The Dungeon Masters” (FilmBuff); “Sweetgrass” (Cinema Guild); “Tapped” (Disinformation)
TV-ON-DVD “Days That Shook The World” Complete Series (BBC); “Hawaii Five-O” Season 9 (Paramount); “Henson’s Place: The Man Behind The Muppets” (Lions Gate); “Heroes,” Season 4, “Mercy” Complete Series, “Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell” Vol. 3 (Universal); “Lytton’s Diary” Complete Collection, “Monarchy with David Starkey” Complete Series (Acorn Media)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO “Blood Done Sign My Name” (Image); “Finding Bliss” (Phase 4); Jesse Eisenberg and Jim Gaffigan in “The Living Wake” (Breaking Glass Pictures)
KIDS’ STUFF “Curious George: Back to School” (Universal); “Dora’s Big Birthday Adventure” (Nickelodeon); “Back to School with Franklin,” “Mist Sheepdog Tales: Top Dog,” “Timothy Goes to School: The Great Race” (Phase 4); “The Rosemary Wells Collection” (Scholastic); “Sesame Street: P is for Princess” (Warner Bros.); “Veggie Tales: Sweetpea Beauty” (Vivendi); “Wubbzy Goes to School” (Anchor Bay)
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July 19, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/20/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes” (Criterion): Two color-coded
masterpieces from the heyday of the Powell/Pressburger team, the
latter of which is well known as one of Martin Scorsese’s favorites,
get reissued on both standard DVD and Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“The Bong Joon-Ho Collection” (Magnolia): “The Host” joins two other
features for this box set starring one of South Korea’s hottest
filmmakers.
“The Runaways” (Sony): Kristen Stewart takes a break from vampires to play Joan Jett in a much-discussed biopic.
“A Town Called Panic” (Zeitgeist): More a series of stitched- together episodes than a feature film, this bizarro Belgian animated tale (which premiered at Fantastic Fest) is a real charmer.
“Favela on Blast” (Mad Decent): A world of slum-bred Brazilian funk is unveiled in this sweaty SXSW-alum documentary directed by M.I.A. producer Diplo.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Cop Out,” “The Losers” (Warner Bros.)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Music Lover’s Europe,” “The Great Cities,” and “San
Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver” (Questar); “Cats & Dogs” (Warner
Bros.); “Tin Man” (2007) (Vivendi)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“May 18” (Virgil Films); Jean-Paul Belmondo in “The
Professional” (1981) (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“College, Inc.,” “Ground War,” “Mt. St. Helens: Back
from the Dead,” “The New Recruits” (PBS); “Howard Zinn: You Can’t Be
Neutral On a Moving Train,” “The Most Dangerous Man in America:
Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers,” “Prodigal Sons” (First Run
Pictures); “Nollywood Babylon” (Kino)
TV-ON-DVD
“Being Human” Season 1, “Desperate Romantics,” “Look Around
You” Season 1 (BBC); “Courage the Cowardly Dog” Season 1 (Warner
Bros.); “Degrassi: The Next Generation” Season 9 (Echo Bridge);
“Elaine Paige: Celebrating 40 Years on Stage” (PBS); “Jersey Shore”
Season 1, “Matlock” Season 5 (Paramount); “My Boys”
Seasons 2 & 3 (Sony); “Simon & Simon” Season 5 (Shout! Factory)
CULT CORNER
“2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams” (First Look); “Forbidden
World,” “Galaxy of Terror” (Shout! Factory); “Rin:
Daughters of Mnemosyne” Complete Series (FUNimation)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Entre Nos” (Indiepix); “Evil Aliens” (Image);
Jane Lynch in “I Do & I Don’t,” Jean Reno in “Ultimate Heist” (Phase
4)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Caillou: Caillou’s Fun Outside,” “Martha Speaks:
Martha Goes to School,” “Super Why: Attack of the Eraser” (Paramount);
“Music, Music Everywhere” (Lions Gate); “Super Friends!” Season 1,
Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.)
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July 12, 2010
This week's new DVDs
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Greenberg” (Universal): Many viewers recoiled at this new Noah Baumbach film because its title character (played by Ben Stiller), is so deeply, unendearingly messed up. Others of us were thrilled to see Stiller do so well in a role that isn’t a kid-flick or numbskull comedy. (Not that we didn’t love his “Tropic Thunder” numbskullery.)
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“Insomnia” (2002) (Blu-ray): Christopher Nolan’s remake of a psychological thriller set at latitudes where night never falls.
“Brewster McCloud” (Warner Bros.): Robert Altman’s Astrodome-centric film (starring Bud Cort of “Harold and Maude” fame) finally hits disc — but is only available at Warner’s web-retail Archive (www.wbshop.com).
“Film Noir Classic Collection: Vol. 5” (Warner Bros.): Eight titles, some from such star auteurs as Anthony Mann and Don Siegel, for a cool fifty bucks.
“Two Films by Tasujiro Ozu: ‘The Only Son’ & ‘There Was a Father’” (Criterion): Little-seen early work by the Japanese master, one of which was his first sound film.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “The Bounty Hunter,” “Chloe” (Sony); “The Greatest” (E1 Entertainment); “Our Family Wedding” (Fox)
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “Alpha Dog,” “Assault on Precinct 13,” “In Bruges” (Universal); “Aquarium Impressions,” “Fireplace Impressions” (C & B Productions)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN: “Girl By the Lake” (MPI); “Here and There” (Lightyear); “Terribly Happy” (Oscilloscope); “Vivere” (E1 Entertainment)
DOCUMENTARIES: “8: The Mormon Proposition” (Wolfe); “Saving Marriage” (E1 Entertainment); “Don’t You Forget About Me” (Phase 4)
TV-ON-DVD: A quintet of “Lifetime” originals (A&E); “The Lucy Show” Season 2 (Paramount); “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Vol. XVIII, “Street Hawk” Complete Series (Shout! Factory); “Psych” Season 4 (Universal); “Saturday Night Live” best-ofs: Tracy Morgan & Will Ferrell (Lions Gate); “Saving Grace” Final Season, “White Collar” Season 1 (Fox); “Selling Hitler,” “Venice Revealed,” “World War I in Color” (Acorn Media); “Tori Amos: Live from the Artists Den” (Artists Den Records)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO: Austin-shot SXSW alum “Artois the Goat” (Indiepix); 50 Cent in “Caught in the Crossfire” (Lions Gate); James Van Der Beek in “Formosa Betrayed” (Screen Media Films); Ron Livingston discovers Cambodian sex trafficking in “Holly” (Cinema Epoch); Susan Sarandon in John Stockwell’s “Middle of Nowhere” (Image); Steve Buscemi in “Saint John of Las Vegas” (Vivendi)
KIDS’ STUFF: “The Backyardigans: Operation Elephant Drop,” “Nick Jr. Favorites: The First Day of School,” “Spongebob Squarepants: Triton’s Revenge” (Nickelodeon); “Sesame Street: 20 Years…And Still Counting,” “Thomas & Friends: Creaky Cranky” (Lions Gate)
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July 6, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/6/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Reggie Watts: Why S—- So Crazy?” (Comedy Central): Ever wonder what
kind of stand-up comedy Brian Eno digs? Then observe the
uncategorizable brilliance of Watts — the beatboxing, ivory- tinkling
chameleon who can sound like Prince covering “Flight of the Conchords”
one minute, veer into a profane deconstruction of hip-hop clichés, and
wrap up with an analysis of women’s tent-sized handbags that never
once sounds like an average comic’s “did you ever notice…?” bit.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Film Noir Classics II” (Sony): Five more noirs from the Columbia
vaults, including titles by Fritz Lang and Jacques Tourneur, with
video appreciations from folks like Martin Scorsese, Christopher
Nolan, and Emily Mortimer.
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” (Music Box): While we await David Fincher’s English-language version of the best-selling trilogy, here’s the very popular Swedish take on it.
Buster Keaton: Kino has a treat for fans of the silent-comedy genius, offering both “Lost Keaton: Sixteen Comedy Shorts, 1934-1937” and a Blu-ray edition of the old fave “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” (also available on standard DVD).
“A Single Man” (Sony): Colin Firth is fantastic as an emotionally bottled-up gay man in what will likely be the most complex role he’ll ever get.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Brooklyn’s Finest” (Anchor Bay)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
Warner double features: “Dr. Giggles”/”Otis,”
“Funny Farm”/”Spies Like Us,” “The Getaway” (1972 and 1994 versions),
“The Last Boy Scout”/”Last Man Standing,” “Practical Magic”/”The
Witches of Eastwick” (Warner Bros.); “Jason and the Argonauts” (Sony);
“Jimmy Hollywood,” “Ladybugs” (Lions Gate); “Larry the Cable Guy:
Git-R-Done,” “Love and Other Disasters” (Image)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Gamera Vs. Barugon” (Shout! Factory)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin,”
“Sophisticated Misfit” (Passion River)
TV-ON-DVD
Doctor Who sets: “The Horns of Nimon,” “The Space Museum” /
“The Chase,” “The Time Monster,” “Underworld” (BBC); “Dragnet” (1968)
Season 2, “Rhoda” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); “ER”
Season 13, “Squidbillies” Vol. 3 (Warner Bros.); “Have Gun Will
Travel” Season 4, Vol. 2 (Paramount); “Into The Deep: America, Whaling
and the World,” “The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg,”
“Secrets to Love,” “A Sense of Wonder” (PBS); “Last Chance to See,”
“Margot” (BFS); “Life On Mars” Complete UK Collection, “Touching Evil”
Complete Collection (Acorn Media); “Project Runway” Season 7 (Vivendi)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Jason Mewes (the sleazier half of Jay & Silent
Bob) in the vampire flick “Bitten” (Vivendi); “Eyeborgs” (Image);
“Street Boss” (Maverick); “The Wind Journeys” (Film Movement)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Hot Potatoes: The Best of the Wiggles” (Warner Bros.);
LeapFrog: “Let’s Go to School,” “Math Adventure to the Moon” (Lions
Gate); “Sesame Street: ABCs with Elmo” (Warner Bros.)
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June 21, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/22/10
PICK OF THE WEEK “Red Desert” (Criterion) - Antonioni fans can stop throwing their eBay dollars away on the lousy, out-of-print edition of this 1964 classic of artsy alienation, now that Criterion has restored it to its proper dimensions on both DVD and Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS “A Star is Born” (1954) (Warner Bros.): Old-school showbiz melodrama with an iconic part for Judy Garland gets the Blu-ray treatment from Warners.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX “Green Zone” (Universal); “Remember Me” (Summit); “She’s Out Of My League” (Paramount)
NEW ON BLU-RAY “Afro Samurai: The Complete Murder Sessions” (FUNimation); “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” (3-D, Blu-ray/DVD combo from Sony); and a slew of scenery-based Blu-rays from Questar.
FROM THE VAULTS Carol Reed’s “Night Train to Munich” (Criterion)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN Catherine Breillat’s “Bluebeard” (2010) (Strand); “Close-Up” (Criterion); “Communism Was No Party,” “Invisible Adversaries,” “Krik? Krak! Tales of a Nightmare,” “Part-Time Work of a Domestic Slave,” “Reich,” “Stall On Salvador” (Facets); “Le Combat Dans L’ile” (Zeitgeist); “The Maid” (Oscilloscope); “The Last Station” (Sony)
DOCUMENTARIES “Children’s War,” “Fuel” (Cinema Libre); “Stones in Exile” (Eagle Vision)
TV-ON-DVD
“Ah My Goddess” Season 2, Complete sets of “Guyver,”
“Heroic Age,” and “Suzuka” (FUNimation); “Avatar: The Last Airbender”
(Nickelodeon); “Checkmate” Complete Series (Timeless); “Entourage”
Season 6, “Hung” Season 1 (HBO); “Riverworld” (Vivendi); “Small
Wonder” Season 2, “Swamp Thing”
Season 3 (Shout! Factory, both online exclusives); “Stephen Fry in
America” (BFS)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE “Death Race 2000” (DVD and Blu-ray), “Roger Corman Cult Double Feature: Warlords of the 21st Century / Deathsport” (Shout! Factory)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO “The Good Guy” (Lions Gate); “Hard Four” (Virgil Films)
KIDS’ STUFF Chevy Chase, Christopher Lloyd and others in “Jack And The Beanstalk” (Screen Media Films); “Tom and Jerry: Deluxe Anniversary Collection” (Warner Bros.)
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June 7, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/8/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Curb Your Enthusiasm” Season 7 (HBO): After the bizarro happily-
ever-after end of Season 6, who could have expected a follow-up —
much less one offering a quasi-reunion of the “Seinfeld” crew?
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Animation Express” (Image): A whopping 26 short films run the gamut
from hand-drawn to computer-generated animation, including Oscar
winners and nominees like the meticulously crafted “Madame
Tutli-Putli.”
“Bob Hope: Thanks for the Memories Collection” (Universal): A budget
six-film set combines already-available favorites like “The Paleface”
with such new-to-DVD titles as “The Cat and the Canary.”
“Shutter Island” (Paramount): Martin Scorsese and frequent star
Leonardo DiCaprio uncover the shocking news that sinister things are
afoot in a mental asylum sequestered on a creepy island.
“Monty Python: Not the Messiah” (Sony): Eric Idle wrings more
material, this time a “comic oratorio,” out of the Python legacy.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“From Paris with Love” (Lions Gate)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Caddyshack” (Warner Bros.); “Happy Together” (Kino); “The Illusionist” (Fox)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Cinema Pride Collection” ($50 “10-film gay-themed box set, only available at Amazon.com) (Fox/MGM); “TCM Spotlight: Charlie Chan Collection” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
Abbas Kiarostami’s “Close-Up” (Criterion); “The Patterns Trilogy And Other Short Films” (Kino)
DOCUMENTARIES
“180 South: Conquerors of the Useless” (Magnolia); “Before & After Stonewall” 25th Anniversary Edition (First Run Pictures); “Horses: The Story of Equus” (Warner Bros.); “Word Is Out” (Milliarium Zero)
TV-ON-DVD
“American Pickers” Season 1, “Ice Road Truckers” Season3 (A&E); “The A-Team” Complete Series (Universal); “Family Matters” Season 1, “Nip/Tuck” Season 6 (Warner Bros.); “Ghostwriter” Season 1, “Tales of the Gold Monkey” Complete Series (Shout! Factory); “Oceans” (2008) (BBC); “Z-Rock” Season 2 (Anchor Bay); “Starstruck”
Extended Edition (Walt Disney)
CULT CORNER
“Miami Vice“‘s Philip Michael Thomas in “Stigma” (CodeRed)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“The 41-Year-Old Virgin Who Knocked Up Sarah Marshall and Felt Superbad About It” (Fox); Hugh Dancy in “Coach” (2009) (Lions Gate); Paddy Considine and Julia Stiles in Patricia
Highsmith’s “The Cry of the Owl” (Paramount); “Power Kids” (Magnolia); Jackie Chan in “The Shinjuku Incident” (Sony)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Jim Henson’s Dog City: The Movie,” “Shaun The Sheep: One Giant Leap for Lambkind” (Lions Gate)
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April 19, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/20/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Crazy Heart” (Fox): Ava-what? A recent 3-D space yarn may get more attention this week, but music lovers of a certain stripe should rush instead to this small gem, a “Tender Mercies”-styled portrait of a songwriter played unforgettably by Jeff Bridges.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Avatar” (Fox): Folks: It’s still in theaters. Get off the couch and see it there, or skip it.
“Vivre sa Vie” (Criterion): One of the best examples of why film buffs revere Jean-Luc Godard — now available on both Blu-ray and a spiffed-up DVD.
“Minority Report” (Paramount): Spielberg’s 2002 Philip K. Dick- inspired mindbender looks even more prescient these days, and holds up well in a new Blu-ray edition.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“The Lovely Bones” (Paramount); “The Young Victoria” (Sony)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Basketball Diaries” (Palm Pictures); “Battleship Potemkin” (Kino); Five nature Blu-rays, including discs devoted to Africa, Hawaii, and Australia (Questar)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Blue Tooth Virgin” (E1 Entertainment); “Cloud 9” (Music Box); “Dialogues of the Exiled,” “How To Live In The German Federal Republic,” “Red Rowan,” “Roy Cohn / Jack Smith” (Facets); Kenji Misumi’s “The Last Samurai” (Neptune Media); “Mammoth” (MPI);
“Summer Hours” (Criterion)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Cheech & Chong’s Hey Watch This” (Vivendi); “Fish Out of Water,” “Pressure Cooker,” “Tales From The Script,” “The Tiger Next Door” (First Run Pictures); “Frank Zappa: The Freak-Out List,” “The Rolling Stones: Rare & Unseen” (MVD); “The Horse Boy” (Zeitgeist);
“Icons Among Us: Jazz in the Present Tense” (Indiepix); “Junk Dreams” (Seminal Films); “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers” (Virgil Films); “Naked Ambition” (Phase 4); “The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg” (Facets)
BEST OF TV
“The Bill Cosby Show” Season 2, “Bump In The Night” Complete Series, “The Transformers” Seasons 3 & 4 (Shout! Factory); “Black Beauty” Complete 1978 Miniseries (Timeless); “The Drawn Together Movie, “Perry Mason” Season 5, Vol. 1) (Paramount);
“Everybody Loves Raymond” Seasons 5 & 6, “Falcon Crest” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “The F Word” Series 4 (BFS); “Hercules: The Legendary Journeys” Season 1, “Xena: Warrior Princess” Season 1 (Universal); “Huckleberry Finn and His Friends” Complete Series (Virgil Films); “Jack Hanna’s Animal Adventures” (Questar); “Merlin” Season 1 (BBC);
“The Take” (BFS)
CULT CORNER
“Neowolf,” “Peacock” (Lions Gate); “Piranha II: The Spawning” (Sony)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Bebe Neuwirth and Peter Coyote in “Adopt a Sailor” (Echo Bridge); “The Amazing Truth About Queen Raquela” (E1 Entertainment); Seymour Cassel in “Big Heart City” (Vanguard); “Deadly Impact” (MGM); “Ex-Drummer” (Palisades Tartan); a star- stuffed “Jack
And The Beanstalk” (Screen Media Films); Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Uncertainty” (MPI)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Handy Manny: Manny’s Big Race” (Walt Disney); “Leapfrog: Word Caper,” “Let’s Grow: Safety First” (Lions Gate); “Scholastic Storybook Treasures” (Scholastic)
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April 12, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/13/10
PICK OF THE WEEK MGM goes on-demand: Following the lead of Warner Bros. and others, MGM just launched on-demand DVD production for titles that have never been available on disc before. Now offered at Amazon.com are watched-for films like “Garbo Talks” and the Henry Fonda politicker “The Best Man,” Polish import “Man of Iron” (not to be confused with a certain superhero series), and a couple of TV shows like “Flipper.”
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX “Pirate Radio” (Universal); “The Slammin’ Salmon” (Anchor Bay)
NEW ON BLU-RAY “Dune” (Universal); “Gone with the Wind” (previously only available in deluxe box set) (Warner Bros.)
FROM THE VAULTS “The Great Mouse Detective” (Walt Disney); Roger Corman Cult Double Feature (“Up From The Depths” / “Demon Of Paradise”) (Shout! Factory)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN “Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES “Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh” (Docurama); “A Gospel Calling: Mahalia Jackson Sings” (Infinity); “Love the Beast” (Patikalar); Turk Pipkin’s “One Peace At A Time” (Monterey); “Plunder: The Crime of Our Time” (Disinformation); “We Believe” (Virgil Films)
BEST OF TV “Alias Smith and Jones” Seasons 2 & 3, “The Oregon Trail” (Timeless); “Dallas” Season 13 (Warner Bros.); “The Donna Reed Show: 4 Family Favorites” (Virgil Films); “Emergency!” Seaso 6 (Universal); “Haunted” Complete Series (Phase 4); “The Indomitable Teddy Roosevelt” (Infinity); “The Official Inaugural Celebration DVD: (HBO)
CULT CORNER “Creature of Darkness” (MTI); “Humanoids from the Deep” (Shout! Factory); Uwe Boll’s “Stoic” (Vivendi)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE “Essential Art House,Vol. 5” (Criterion)
KIDS’ STUFF “Dora the Explorer: Explore the Earth” (Nickelodeon); “Jim Henson’s Animal Show,” “Jim Henson’s The Song of the Cloud Forest and Other Earth Stories” (Lions Gate); ‘The Madeline Movie Lost In Paris” (Shout! Factory); “Tom and Jerry Tales” Season 1 (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO Tim Allen’s directing debut “Crazy On The Outside” (Fox); Samantha Morton in “The Daisy Chain” (Image); Woody Harrelson plays a low-rent crimefighter in “Defendor” (Sony); Michael Shannon as a sad private eye in “The Missing Person” (Strand); Russell Crowe in “Tenderness” (Lions Gate)
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March 29, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/30/10
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“An Education” (Sony): One of last year’s highlights, this coming-of-age tale set in ’60s London backed a breakthrough performance by Carey Mulligan up with fantastic supporting turns by Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Alice” in Reissue Wonderland: Moviegoers who were disappointed with Tim Burton’s version have more choices this week, including a “Special Un-Anniversary Edition” of the classic Disney cartoon (not available on Blu-ray? off with their heads!) and a “Classic Film Collection” from Infinity that offers film versions of the tale going all the way back to 1915.
“Kenneth Anger’s Complete Magick Lantern Cycle” (Fantoma): Collecting two out-of-print discs into one package, this set offers some of the most influential (and taboo-tweaking) experimental films ever.
“The Baader Meinhof Complex” (MPI): Last year’s German import starts with a rush and gradually turns morose in its depiction of real-life leftist terrorists.
“Red Cliff” (Magnolia): John Woo’s successful entry into the historical epic arena is now out in two separate editions: the 148-minute U.S. version and the nearly five-hour cut released overseas. (Both are offered on DVD and Blu-ray.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” (Fox); “Sherlock Holmes” (2009) (Warner Bros.)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Collateral” (Paramount); “The Killer” (Weinstein Co.); “Tromeo & Juliet” (Troma); “Vampyres” (Blue Underground)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“High Kick Girl” (First Look); “Letters from Fontainhas: Three Films by Pedro Costa”(Criterion); “Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield,” “Voice of a Murderer” (Virgil Films)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Afghan Star” (Zeitgeist); “David Tudor Bandoneon! (A Combine)” (Microcinema); “Henri Cartier-Bresson,” “William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe” (Docurama); “IMAX: Under The Sea” (Warner Bros.)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Savage Drums” / “Jungle Hell” Double Feature, “Sea Devils,” “Spaghetti Western Collection” (VCI); “Separation” (Microcinema)
BEST OF TV
“The Abbott and Costello Show: 100th Anniversary Collection” (E1 Entertainment); “Deadliest Catch” Season 5 (Image); “The Jacksons: A Family Dynasty,” “Jesse James’ Hidden Treasure,” “Steven Seagal: Lawman” Season 1 (A&E); “Judge John Deed” Season 1 (BBC); “Legacy: The Origins Of Civilization,” “Lord Peter Wimsey” Collection 1 (Acorn Media); “Rhoda” Season 2 (Shout! Factory); “Robin Williams: Weapons of Self Destruction” (HBO); “The Best of Soul Train” (Time-Life)
CULT CORNER
“Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge” (Well Go USA)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Danny DeVito in “Housebroken” (Image)
KIDS’ STUF
“Alvin & The Chipmunks: Cinderella, Cinderella” (Paramount); “Backyardigans: Escape from the Tower” (Nickelodeon); “Ben 10 Alien Force” Volume Six (Warner Bros.)
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March 8, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/9/1
PICKS OF THE WEEK
“Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire” (Lions Gate) and “Up in the Air” (Paramount): Though neither had much chance at the big prize, “Precious” took home Oscars in two categories (Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay) in which both it and “Air” were nominated. Deserved victory or not? Visit the New Releases shelf to be the judge.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Old Dogs” (Disney); “Planet 51” (Sony); “Possession” (2009) (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Gigante” (Film Movement); “Service” (E1 Entertainment); “The Wedding Song” (Strand); “Paris” (IFC); “The Stoning of Soraya M.” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Avon Barksdale Story” (E1 Entertainment); “The Brothers Warner” (Warner Bros.); “Capitalism: A Love Story” (Anchor Bay) “The Heart is a Drum Machine” (Lightyear)
BEST OF TV
“The 39 Steps” (2008) (BBC); “Breaking Bad” Season 2 (Sony); “The Commish” Season 1, “Silk Stalkings” Season 1, “Tenspeed and Brown Shoe” Complete Series,” “Wanted: Dead Or Alive” Season 2 (Mill Creek); “Hannah Montana” Vol. 6” (Walt Disney); “In Plain Sight” Season 2, “Tremors” Complete Series (Universal); “Scarecrow and Mrs. King” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Walker, Texas Ranger” Season 7 (Paramount)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Tapeheads” (MGM); “Sonny Chiba Collection” (Mill Creek)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Richard Gere in Lasse Hallström’s “Hachi: A Dog’s Tale” (Sony); Danny Trejo in “Justin Time” (MTI)
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March 1, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/02/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The T.A.M.I. Show” (Shout! Factory): Everybody from James Brown to Gerry and the Pacemakers take the stage in one of the most famous, and most star-studded, concert films ever.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Clash of the Titans” (1981) (Warner Bros.): Cutting-edge home video meets the finest old-school tech in this timely reissue of Ray Harryhausen’s classic stop-motion-meets-live-action fantasy.
“Elvis” (1979) (Shout! Factory): If John Carpenter set sci-fi aside to make a movie about Elvis, you know Kurt Russell played the King.
“Ponyo” & “Where the Wild Things Are” (Warner Bros.): Two extremely unconventional stories about kids — one who falls in love with a fish, one who becomes the kind of the monsters before bedtime.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The NeverEnding Story” (Warner Bros.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“2012” (Sony); “Cold Souls,” “Gentlemen Broncos” (Fox)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Frances,” “Plenty,” “The Wraith” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Lodz Ghetto” (Passion River); “We Live In Public” (Indiepix)
BEST OF TV
”Alice” (2009 Miniseries) (Lions Gate); The Beiderbecke Connection,” “Poldark” Series 1, “The Road from Coorain” (Acorn Media); “Bollywood Hero” (Anchor Bay); “Dalziel and Pascoe” Season 1, “Doctor Who: Dalek War” (BBC); “Designing Women” Season 3 (Shout!
Factory); “Have Gun Will Travel” Season 4, Vol. 1, “Matlock” Season 4 (Paramount); “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 2 (First Look); “X-Men” Vol. 5 (Walt Disney); “Yozakura Quartet” Complete Collection (Section23)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Castle in the Sky,” “KiKi’s Delivery Service,” “My Neighbor Totoro” (Walt Disney)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO: “Wushu Warrior” (Phase 4)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Strawberry Shortcake: Berryfest Princess” (Fox); “Super Why! Peter Rabbit and Other Fairytale Adventures” (Nickelodeon); “Thomas & Friends: Thomas & The Runaway Kite” (Lions Gate)
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February 22, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/23/10
Other top picks
‘The Damned United’ (Sony). The playwright behind ‘The Queen’ and ‘Frost/Nixon’ finally tackles a really history-worthy topic: British football.
‘Make Way for Tomorrow’ (Criterion). An elderly couple look for a new place to live in this underexposed film by comic genius Leo McCarey (‘The Awful Truth,’ ‘Duck Soup’).
‘Eclipse Series 20: George Bernard Shaw on Film’ (Criterion). All the movies producer Gabriel Pascal made with the famed playwright, minus ‘Pygmalion,’ which is already out on disc.
‘Alexander the Last’ (IFC). The latest from one of those filmmakers who hates being called ‘mumblecore,’ Joe Swanberg.
New on Blu-ray
‘The Box’ (Warner Bros.); ‘The Crazies’ (Blue Underground); ‘Poultrygeist: Attack of the Chicken Zombies!’ (Troma)
Fresh from the multiplex
‘The Box’ (Warner Bros.); ‘Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant’ (Universal); ‘Everybody’s Fine’ (Walt Disney/Miramax); ‘Motherhood’ (E1 Entertainment)
Arthouse/foreign
‘$9.99’ (E1 Entertainment); ‘Dead Snow,’ ‘Flame & Citron’ (IFC); ‘For Fun,’ ‘Palermo or Wolfsburg,’ ‘Salto,’ ‘Segment ‘76’ (Facets); ‘Shall We Kiss?’ (Music Box)
From the vaults
‘Blank Generation’ (MVD); ‘British Film Noir: Twilight Women/The Slasher,’ ‘Forgotten Noir Vol. 13: Breakdown/Eye Witness,’ ‘No Orchids for Miss Blandish’ (VCI)
Documentaries
‘The Cool School,’ ‘The End of the Line,’ ‘Jack Smith & the Destruction of Atlantis’ (Docurama); ‘Crude’ (First Run Pictures); ‘Examined Life’ (Zeitgeist); ‘The September Issue’ (Lionsgate)
Best of TV
‘Adam-12’ Season 4 (Shout! Factory); ‘Dirty Jobs: Something Fishy’ (Docurama); ‘Flashforward’ Volume 1 (Walt Disney); ‘G.B.H.,’ ‘Midsomer Murders’ Set 14, ‘Wartime Britain’ (Acorn Media); ‘Man vs. Wild with Bear Grylls’ (Image); ‘My Three Sons’ Season 2, Vol. 1 (Paramount); ‘Night Court’ Season 3 (Warner Bros.); ‘Nurse Jackie’ Season 1 (Lionsgate); ‘Project Runway’ Season 6 (Weinstein Co.); ‘Stargate Universe’ (MGM)
Reissue/repackage
‘The Films of Amos Gitai’ (Kino); ‘Howard’s End’ (Criterion); ‘Triad Underworld’ (Palisades Tartan)
Straight(ish) to video
Val Kilmer in ‘Double Identity’ (First Look); ‘Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths’ (Warner Bros.); Eliza Dushku in ‘Open Graves’ (Lionsgate); Melissa Leo in ‘Stephanie’s Image’ (Vanguard); Lukas Haas in ‘Swedish Auto’ (IFC)
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February 15, 2010
Noteworth DVDs released 2/16/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
Warner Archives: The latest batch of Warner’s made-to-order reissues series (available only online at wbshop.com) includes never-on-disc goodies like “Fifth Avenue Girl,” “It’s a Wonderful World,” “Kismet,” “They Met in Bombay,” “The Deadly Tower,” “A Killer in the Family,” and “Split Second.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Clint Eastwood: 35 Films 35 Years at Warner Bros.” (Warner Bros.): All the “make my day” you could hope for, along with his brilliant late-career work as a director, but none of the Sergio Leone classics.
“Hunger” (Criterion): The brutal, much-heralded look at the end of an Irish hunger-striker’s life, directed by Steve McQueen (the young English artist/filmmaker, not the movie star).
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Contempt,” “The Ladykillers” (1955), “Ran” (1985) (Blu-ray) (Lions Gate)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Black Dynamite,” “Coco Before Chanel” (Sony); “Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever” (Lions Gate); “Law-Abiding Citizen” (Anchor Bay)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Disappeared” (Passion River), “Revanche” (Criterion)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Lola Montès” (Criterion); “The Secret Policeman’s Private Party” (Shout! Factory)
BEST OF TV
“Barnaby Jones” Season 1 (Paramount); “Bugs Bunny’s Easter Funnies,” “Scooby Doo: Abracadabra-Doo” (Warner Bros.); “Charlie Murphy: I Will Not Apologize,” “Zorro and Scarlet Whip Revealed” (Image); “The Dog Whisperer” Season 4 (Gaiam); “My Two Dads” Season 2 (Shout! Factory); “Quads” Season 1 (Phase 4); “Shaun the Sheep: A Woolly Good Time” (Lions Gate) “The Spectacular Spider-Man” Vol. 6 & 7 (Sony)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Goodfellas” (Blu-ray) (Warner Bros.)
CULT CORNER
“Ninja Assassins: 4 Film Set” (First Look)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“From Mexico with Love” (Lions Gate); “Simpsons” cast members lending their voices to the animated “Immigrants” (Echo Bridge); Kevin Nealon in “Remarkable Power” (MTI)
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February 1, 2010
Noteworth DVDs released 2/2/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Music Man” (Warner Bros.): Con-man Harold Hill (Robert Preston) talks a small town into starting a marching band in this winning 1962 adaptation of the hit Broadway show, now available on Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (Universal): Terry Gilliam’s hallucinatory take on Hunter Thompson’s hallucinatory journalism, in all its creeping-tentacled glory on Blu-ray.
“Zombieland” (Sony): Who’d have thought, pre “Shaun of the Dead,”
that zom-com would become a commercially viable genre?
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Godfather,” “The Godfather Part II” (standalone releases taken from earlier box set) (Paramount); “Hellboy: Sword of Storms/Blood & Iron” (Anchor Bay); “The Last King of Scotland,” “Walk the Line” (Fox); “Maid in Manhattan,” “Mona Lisa Smile” (Sony); “Mystic River” (Warner Bros.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Adam,” “Amelia” (Fox); “The House of The Devil” (IFC); “Love Happens” (Universal); “Ong Bak 2: The Beginning” (Magnolia)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“As It Is In Heaven,” “The Vanished Empire” (Kino); “Heavens Heart” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Maybe God Is Ill” (Image); “More Than a Game” (Lions Gate); “A Powerful Noise” (Passion River)
BEST OF TV
“Batman: The Brave and the Bold” Volume 3, “Elmo’s World:
Let’s Play Music,” “Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases” Vol. 4 (Warner Bros.); “Beverly Hills, 90210” Season 9, “Dynasty” Season 4, Vol. 2 (Paramount); Doctor Who: “The Complete Specials,” “The End of Time,” and “The Waters of Mars” (BBC); “The Evelyn Waugh Collection” (Acorn Media); “Liza’s At The Palace” (MPI); “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” Season 6 (Fox); “Mister Ed” Season 2 (Shout! Factory); “Murder, She Wrote” Season 11 (Universal); “Paul Rodriguez: Comedy Rehab” (Image); “Wanda Sykes: I’ma Be Me” (HBO); “Yo Gabba Gabba: Birthday Boogie” (Nickelodeon)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Air Bud: Golden Receiver,” “Gangs of New York” (Blu-ray) (Walt Disney); “The Wolf Man” (1941) (Universal); “Wall Street” (Blu-ray) (Fox)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Universal Soldier: Regeneration” (Sony); “Planet Hulk” (Lions Gate)
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January 19, 2010
New DVD releases
The best of the new DVD releases
Pick of the week:
‘Magnolia’ (New Line). Love its deus-ex-machina flourishes or loathe them, Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic does right by the interlocking-narratives format in a way later movies like “Crash” only wish they could.
Other top picks:
‘Che’ (Criterion). In more than four hours, Steven Soderbergh’s epic film about Che Guevara doesn’t even pretend to cover the icon’s whole life, much less to address all the controversies around him, but what it does do, it does eloquently.
‘The Invention of Lying’ (Warner Bros.). Ricky Gervais invents God, and people adore him for it. Too bad he doesn’t believe it himself.
Fresh from the multiplex. “Gamer” (Lionsgate); “Pandorum” (Anchor Bay); “Whiteout” (Warner Bros.)
Arthouse/foreign. “Eclipse Series 19: Chantal Akerman in the Seventies” (Criterion); “My Fuhrer,” “Red Cartoons: Animated Films from East Germany” (First Run Pictures) From the vaults. “Streamers” (Shout! Factory)
Documentaries. “No Impact Man” (Oscilloscope); “Outrage” (Magnolia); “Whisper & SHOUT!” (First Run Pictures)
Best of TV. “Ali Rap,” “Ali’s 65,” “Ali’s Dozen” (Virgil Films); “Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening,” “The Game” Season 2, “Girlfriends” Final Season (Paramount); “Dallas” Season 12 (Warner Bros.); “Damages” Season 2 (Sony); “Defying Gravity” Season 1 (Walt Disney); “Dorf - The Superfan Collection,” “Hunter” Season 1 (Mill Creek); “Fraggle Rock: The Complete Animated Series,” “Weeds” Season 5 (Lionsgate); “Ironside” Season 3, “Thirtysomething” Season 2 (Shout! Factory); “Law & Order” Season 7 (Universal); “Return To Cranford,” “Waking the Dead” Season 4 (BBC)
Cult corner. “Martial Arts Essentials Vol. 6: Drunken Masters” (First Look)
Straight(ish) to video. Hilary Duff in “According to Greta” (Anchor Bay); the late Brittany Murphy in “Across the Hall” (Image); Joel Schumacher’s “Blood Creek” (Lions Gate); Trekkers Walter Koenig and Marina Sirtis in “Inalienable” (Anchor Bay) and William Shatner in “Kingdom Of The Spiders” (Shout! Factory); Steven Seagal in “The Keeper” (Fox); “Smokin’ Aces 2: Assassins’ Ball” (Universal)
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January 11, 2010
Noteworthy DVDs released 1/12/10
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Hurt Locker” (Summit) and “In the Loop” (IFC): Two of 2009’s best movies address the Iraq war from very different angles — “Locker” as an intense trip into the psychology of men who dispose of battlefield explosives, “Loop” as a bitterly funny re-imagination of how we got into Iraq in the first place.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Moon” (Sony): Will Sam Rockwell get an Oscar nom for being the sole actor onscreen in this fascinating sci-fi head trip? Probably not, but both he and the movie deserve more credit than they’ve received so far.
“Passing Strange” (IFC): In this critically lauded performance documentary, Spike Lee adapts the Tony-winning stage musical by a writer and musician known only as Stew.
“Departures” (E1 Entertainment): This import didn’t deserve the Oscar for foreign film, but its glimpse into Japanese burial customs makes it worthwhile for Nipponophiles.
“Goliath” (IFC): Austin’s Zellner Brothers offer a deadpan, deliberately patience-testing look at a troubled man for whom the loss of a pet cat may be the last straw.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“8 1/2” (Criterion); “Cliffhanger,” “Last Action Hero” (Sony)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“The Brothers Bloom” (Summit); “The Burning Plain” (Magnolia); “Fame” (2009) (MGM); “Halloween II” (2009) (Weinstein Co.); “Post Grad” (Fox); “Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself” (Lions Gate)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“A l’Aventure” (IFC); “Amreeka” (Virgil Films); “The Drummer” (Film Movement); “Like Stars on Earth” (Walt Disney); “Onimasa: A Japanese Godfather” (AnimEigo); Thomas Mann’s “Doktor Faustus” and “The Magic Mountain” (E1 Entertainment); “You, The Living” (Palisades Tartan)
FROM THE VAULTS
Ray Charles plays himself in “Ballad in Blue,” Sammy Davis, Jr. in “A Man Called Adam” (Lions Gate); Tom Beringer in “In Praise Of Older Women” (E1 Entertainment)
DOCUMENTARIES
“By the People: The Election of Barack Obama” (Sony); “March On!… and More Stories About African American History” (Docurama); “Pezheads: The Movie” (Passion River)
BEST OF TV
“Acting Shakespeare” (E1 Entertainment); “Becker” Season 3 (Paramount); “The Detonators,” “Volcanoes of the Deep Sea” (Image); “ER” Season 12 (Warner Bros.); “ESPN Game of the Century: 1969 Texas Longhorns vs. Arkansas Razorbacks” (Virgil Films); “Fame” Seasons 1 & 2 (MGM); “Jon & Kate Plus Ei8ht” Season 5 (Gaiam); “Robin Hood” Season 3 (BBC); “The Simpsons” Season 20 (Fox, on DVD and Blu-ray); “Transformers” Season 2, Vol. 2 (Shout! Factory); “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” Vol. 5 (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Buena Vista Social Club,” “Beyond the Sea” (Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Maria Bello and Jason Patric in “Downloading Nancy” (Strand)
KIDS’ STUFF
“The Best Of Bob The Builder,” “Care Bears: Helping Hearts” (Lions Gate); “Bugs Bunny’s Cupid Capers” (Warner Bros.); “The New Adventures of Black Beauty” Season 1 (Image)
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January 8, 2010
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Underworld USA” (1961; Sam Fuller): A crackling revenge story told with pulpy brio by the uncompromising Sam Fuller. Violent, raw noir.
- “Moolaade” (2004; Ousmane Sembene): The women in a Senegalese village foment mutiny against the Muslim elders, decrying the barbarous tradition of female circumcision. Cathartic agitprop by late, great Senegalese auteur Sembene.
- “The Room” (2003; Tommy Wiseau): Some call this love-triangle melodrama the worst movie ever made. Me, too. Twelve thumbs up. (Read more.)
- “Julia” (2008; Erick Zonca): This totally implausible crime/road thriller, with a mesmerizing if overbaked performance by the awesome Tilda Swinton, still manages to fully entertain.
- “Three Monkeys” (2008; Nuri Bilge Ceylan): A driver willingly goes to prison for a crime his boss committed, unraveling his family and life. The sharp Turkish drama won Ceylan best director at Cannes. The Austin Film Society is screening the film Feb. 16 at the Alamo South. Details.
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December 21, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/22/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“(500) Days Of Summer” (Fox): Worth rewatching just for the blissed-out Hall & Oates musical sequence, the movie is a real treat until it (arguably) betrays its entire message in the final scenes.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Extract” (Walt Disney / Miramax): Mike Judge bounces back from the experience of “Idiocracy” — if not to the heights of “Office Space,” then at least high enough for fans to hope he’ll keep returning to the places where real people work in search of comedy.
“It Might Get Loud” (Sony): Jimmy Page, the Edge, and Jack White get together to trade riffs and wax philosophical about rock-and-roll’s favorite instrument. (No, Jimmy, not the dulcimer.)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“All About Steve” (Fox); “Beyond A Reasonable Doubt” (Anchor Bay)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
Stanley Tucci’s Theo Van Gogh remake “Blind Date” (E1 Entertainment); “The Katemquin Films Collection, Vol. 1,” “Still Standing: The New Films of Dariush Mehrjui,” “Wadja, Man of Cinema,” “The Valley of the Bees” “Witches’ Hammer” (Facets)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Flowers in the Attic,” “The Philadelphia Experiment” (Anchor Bay)
DOCUMENTARIES
“In Search of Mozart” (Microcinema); “Motherland” (Vanguard)
BEST OF TV
“Chuck” Season 2 (Warner Bros.); “Family Guy: Something, Something, Something Dark Side” (Fox); “Kyle XY” Season 3, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” Season 3 (Walt Disney); “Taxi” Final Season (Paramount)
CULT CORNER
“Maid-Droid” (Cinema Epoch)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“American Pie: The Book of Love” (Universal); “Ghost Machine” (Anchor Bay); “Noble Things” (Monarch); Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio in “Staten Island” (National Entertainment Media); Victor Garber in “Torso” (E1 Entertainment)
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December 8, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/8/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“AK 100: 25 Films by Akira Kurosawa” (Criterion): For all you moneybags cinephiles, this mega-box offers a number of Kurosawa films that have never been on DVD in the States. Caveat emptor: Most of these titles are already out individually, with copious bonus features that aren’t included here.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“The Cove” (Lions Gate): One of the year’s most lauded docs is a stomach-turning look at the dolphin trade operating out of a remote Japanese cove.
“Public Enemies” (Universal): Filmmaker Michael Mann rebounds from “Miami Vice” with the help of Johnny Depp’s deadly-cool John Dillinger.
“Julie & Julia” (Sony): A surprisingly enjoyable tweak of the biopic genre, in which Meryl Streep (as Julia Child) appears to be having so much fun the League of Serious Thespians might ask her to surrender her membership card.
“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Warner Bros.): Perhaps you’ve heard of him.
“Brigitte Bardot: Classic Collection” (Image): A threesome starring the French bombshell, including Roger Vadim’s “The Night Heaven Fell” and the gender-switched “Don Juan.”
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“World’s Greatest Dad” (Magnolia)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Dog Eat Dog” (MPI); “Ghosted” (First Run Pictures); “Lion’s Den” (“Leonera”) (Strand); “Somers Town” (Film Movement); “Tom and Thomas” (Phase 4)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Beautiful Losers” (Oscilloscope); “Brick City,” “A Finished Life,” “Prima Ballerina” (First Run Pictures); “Johnny Mercer: The Dream’s On Me” (Warner Bros.); “Knut and Friends” (Image); “Michael Jackson - Life & Times Of The King Of Pop 1958-2009,” “Wesley Willis’s Joy Rides” (MVD)
BEST OF TV
Catherine Zeta-Jones in “The Cinder Path” (E1 Entertainment); “Friday” Complete Series (Image); “The Fugitive” Season 3, Vol. 2, “Perry Mason” Season 4, Vol. 2 (Paramount); “The Judy Garland Show Collection” (Infinity); “Lost” Season 5 (Walt Disney); “Rescue Me” Season 5, Vol. 2 (Sony); “SpongeBob SquarePants” Season 6, Vol. 1 (Nickelodeon); “Thomas Mann’s Buddenbrooks” (E1 Entertainment)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Get Smart” Season 5 (HBO); “Gozu” (Cinema Epoch)
CULT CORNER
Adam And and Debbie Harry in “Drop Dead Rock” (MVD); “Shaolin Vs.” (First Look); Blu-ray editions of “Alphabet Killer,” “Behind The Mask,” “Cyclops,” “Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer,” “Lower Learning,” “Red Mist,” “Sands Of Oblivion,” “Walled In,” “While She Was Out”
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Carriers,” Ben Stiller and Jason Schwartzman in “The Marc Pease Experience,” directed by Todd Louiso of “High Fidelity” (Paramount); Corey Feldman and Bronson Pinchot in “Hooking Up” (MTI); Amy Adams in “Moonlight Serenade” (Magnolia); “This Beautiful City” (Cinema Epoch)
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November 23, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/24/09
“Golden Age of Television” (Criterion): Criterion makes an odd choice this month, bundling highly esteemed but little-seen old TV productions like “Marty” and “Requiem for a Heavyweight.”
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Air America,” “Angel Heart,” “Cujo,” “Frailty,” “Monster Squad,” “My Bloody Valentine,” “The Way of The Gun” (Lions Gate); “Blood: The Last Vampire” (2000), “Ghost in the Shell 2.0” (Manga); “My Brilliant Career” (Blue Underground); “Santa Buddies” (Walt Disney); “The Sopranos” Season 1 (HBO)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Angels & Demons,” “The Maiden Heist” (Sony); “Four Christmases” (New Line); “Imagine That” (Paramount); “Shorts” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Avant-Garde 3: Experimental Cinema 1922-1954” (Kino); “Gomorrah (Criterion); “New Police Story” (Lions Gate); “Cairo Station” (Arab Film Distribution)
BEST OF TV
“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” Season 4, “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” Season 4 (Universal); “Beverly Hills 90210” Season 8, “Hogan’s Heroes” Complete Series, “Melrose Place” Season 5, Vol. 2 (Paramount); “The Jerry Lewis Show,” “The Spike Jones Show” Best of (Infinity); “Life on Mars” Series 2 (Acorn Media); “Superman” Complete Animated Series (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (Walt Disney)
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November 2, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/3/09
PICK OF THE WEEK “The Claudette Colbert Collection” (Universal): Six films starring one of the greatest screwball heroines, easily found online for a cost of under $6 per film. Contains “Three-Cornered Moon,” “The Maid of Salem,” “I Met Him in Paris,” “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,” “No Time for Love,” and “The Egg and I.”
OTHER TOP PICKS “The Dead” (Lions Gate): John Huston could hardly have picked a better last film as director than this elegiac James Joyce adaptation starring daughter Anjelica.
“Columbia Pictures Film Noir Collection Volume 1” (Sony): Old noir favorite “The Big Heat” joins four titles (like Don Siegel’s “The Lineup”) that have never seen DVD before, all introduced or dissected by afficionado-practitioners like Martin Scorsese and James Ellroy.
“Food, Inc.” (Magnolia): An effective and engrossing primer on the ecological and health issues raised by modern agriculture, Robert Kenner’s documentary may convince you to change the way you shop.
“Say Anything” 20th Anniversary Edition (Fox): Standing outside your beloved’s window with a jambox: heartbreakingly romantic, or cause for a restraining order? Decide for yourself on Blu-ray.
“The Taking of Pelham 123” (2009) (Sony): The new one’s fun and all, but couldn’t Sony pair it with the original for a home video double feature?
“Wings of Desire” (Criterion): Wim Wenders’s potently romantic view of angels among us gets the Criterion treatment in both video formats.
“Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live” (Time-Life): A whopping nine discs full of live performances drawn from 25 years of the HOF’s existence.
NEW ON BLU-RAY “A Christmas Carol” (1951) (VCI); “Forrest Gump,” “It’s a Wonderful Life” (Paramount); “Godzilla” (Sony); “Howards End” (Criterion); “Love Actually” (Universal); “North By Northwest” (Warner Bros.); “Two Girls and a Guy” (Fox)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX “Aliens In The Attic,” “I Love You, Beth Cooper” (Fox); “The Answer Man” (Magnolia); “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN “Before the Fall,” “Lemon Tree” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES “Bela Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart” (Docurama); “The Ister” (First Run / Icarus); “Unmistaken Child” (Oscilloscope); “The Way We Get By” (The Way We Get By Productions)
IT’S BEGINNING TO LOOK A LOT LIKE… “Christmas Story” (2007, with John Turturro) (Anchor Bay); “Home for Christmas” (VCI); “One Christmas” (Vivendi); “Scruff: A Christmas Tale” (Image); “White Christmas” (Paramount)
BEST OF TV Doctor Who: “The Black Guardian Trilogy,” “The War Games”; “Edge of Darkness” Complete Series (BBC); “The Donna Reed Show” Season 3 (Virgil Films); “G.I. Joe: Resolute,” “Mission: Impossible” Final Season (Paramount); “G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero” Season 1.2, “Merry Sitcom!,” “Spin City” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); “Here’s Lucy” Season 2 (MPI); “The Rockford Files: The Movie Collection Vol. 1” (Universal); “The Shield” Complete Series (Sony); “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” Season 1 (Warner Bros.); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Season 7 (Lions Gate); Walt Disney Treasures: “Zorro: The Complete First Season” and “The Complete Second Season” (Walt Disney); “Will Ferrell: You’re Welcome America: A Final Night with George W. Bush” (HBO); “Wolverine & the X-Men” Volume 3 (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE Almodóvar’s “All About My Mother,” “Law of Desire,” “Matador,” and “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown” (Sony); “Rocky: The Undisputed Collection” (MGM); “Transformers” Gift Set (Paramount); “Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut” (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO Dolph Lundgren in “Direct Action” and “Command Performance” (First Look); “InAlienable,” directed by Walter Koenig, aka Chekov of “Star Trek” (Anchor Bay); Robin Givens in “A Mother’s Prayer,” Vincent D’Onofrio in “The Narrows” (Image); John Leguizamo in “Where God Left His Shoes” (IFC)
KIDS’ STUFF “Dora the Explorer: Dora’s Christmas Carol Adventure” (Nickelodeon); “Fraggle Rock: A Merry Fraggle Holiday,” “LeapFrog: Learning DVD Set,” “Thomas & Friends: Holiday Express” (Lions Gate)
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October 26, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 10/27/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Sam Fuller Collection” (Sony): Beloved B-movie auteur (“Shock Corridor”) Fuller is featured in this very welcome box collecting seven underexposed features (some familiar here from Austin Film Society screenings) like “The Crimson Kimono” and “Underworld.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Z” (Criterion): Costa-Gravas’s tense1969 drama about a political leader’s assassination in Greece struck chords for viewers who saw in its real-life subject an echo of coverups and government misdeeds all over the globe.
WARNER ARCHIVE
A fresh batch of WB’s new no-frills, manufacture-on-demand DVDs is now available at www.wbshop.com, with highlights like the “Joe McDoakes” short film series, Michael Caine hunting “Jack The Ripper,” Cary Grant in “Every Girl Should Be Married,” and Eve Arden’s “Our Miss Brooks.”
“Monty Python: Almost The Truth” (Eagle Rock/IFC): A new six-hour doc about the groundbreaking comic troupe pairs new interviews with appreciations from such fans as Eddie Izzard and Dan Aykroyd.
“Death In The Garden” (Microcinema): The first DVD release of this little-seen Luis Buñuel film starring Simone Signoret.
ON BLU-RAY
“The Prisoner” (A&E); “The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue” (Blue Underground); “Highlander: The Series” Season 1 (LegendaryHeroes); “Stargate” (Lions Gate)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (Fox); “Nothing Like The Holidays” (Anchor Bay); “Orphan” (Warner Bros.); “Whatever Works” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
John Malkovich in “Afterwards” (Weinstein Co.); “Il Divo,” “Fear(s) of the Dark” (MPI); “Don’t Die Without Telling Me Where You’re Going,” “The Saragossa Manuscript” (Facets); “Sauna” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans” (K-Man Productions); “The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins” (Indiepix); “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox” (Passion River); “Election Day,” “Lioness,” “Soldiers of Conscience” (Docurama); “You Weren’t There: A History Of Chicago Punk 1977-1984,” “High School Record Starring Members Of No-Age And Miko Mika,” “All The Way From Michigan Not Mars With Rosie Thomas And Sufjan Stevens” (www.factorytwentyfive.com)
BEST OF TV
“The Barbara Stanwyck Show” Vol. 1 (E1 Entertainment); “Battlestar Galactica: The Plan” (Universal); “The Diary of Anne Frank” (2009) (Well Go USA); “Expedition: Africa” (A&E); “The Fugitive” Season 3, Vol. 1, “The Guardian” Season 1, “Mannix” Season 3, “Tales from the Darkside” Season 2 (Paramount); “Hell’s Kitchen” Season 2 (Visual Entertainment); “Monty Python: Almost the Truth (Eagle Rock)
CULT CORNER
“I Can See You” / “The Viewer” (Kino); “Night of Death!” (Synapse); “Night of the Creeps” (Sony); “Stan Helsing” (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Morgan Freeman, Christopher Walken, and William H. Macy in “The Maiden Heist” (Sony); the “Daily Show“‘s Wyatt Cenac in “Medicine for Melancholy” (MPI); “The New Year Parade” (Carnivalesque); F. Murray Abraham in “Perestroika” (Strand)
KIDS’ STUFF
Two volumes titled “Saturday Morning Cartoons,” one for the ’60s and one for the ’70s, plus “The Secret Saturdays” Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.); “Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure” (Walt Disney)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Adult Swim In A Box,” “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (Warner Bros.); “Monty Python: The Other British Invasion” (A&E)
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September 30, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Wages of Fear” (1953; Henri-Georges Clouzot): Four desperate derelicts, including the strapping Yves Montand, willingly risk their lives to deliver truckloads of nitroglycerin across harrowing terrain in South America. Every bump and jar along the way is an opportunity for explosive obliteration, but the drivers’ need for money supplants good sense. Clouzot’s thriller, at times unbearably tense, recalls Huston’s “Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Both are about bootstrap survival and rivalries among men, with setting playing a decisive role. Holds up terrifically.
- “Ballast” (2008; Lance Hammer): Hammer’s stunningly assured, award-winning debut never made it to Austin theaters, but arrives on DVD on Nov. 10. Set in a poor town on the Mississippi Delta, it follows a single mother and her troubled son as they struggle to stay afloat while pieces of their painful past swirl to the surface. Understated and impressively muted, a sturdy entry in the unofficial neo-neo-realism movement and a vital piece of recent American indie cinema.
- “Frownland” (2007; Ronald Bronstein): A fascinating, baffling what-is-it tightly (claustrophobically) focused on a manic, unhinged fellow ((Dore Mann, in a frighteningly committed performance) in the throes of an urban crack-up. This relentless and uncompromising character study basks in its jagged, grainy aesthetic for a concentrated dose of the modern human condition. It’s often hard to watch, with the screen dominated by a spluttering one-man carnival of perspiring neuroses. But it’s equally hard to pull your eyes away.
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September 21, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/22/09
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September 14, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/15/09
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“An American Werewolf In London,” “Army of Darkness,” “Van Helsing” (Universal); “48 Hours,” “Deep Impact” (Paramount); “Child’s Play” (MGM); “The Hannibal Lecter Anthology,” “Misery” (MGM); “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” (Sony); Ultimate Force of Four Box Set, containing “Hero,” “Iron Monkey,” “The Legend of Drunken Master,” & “Zatoichi” (Walt Disney / Miramax); “Wrong Turn” 1 & 2 (Fox)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Easy Virtue” (Sony); “Next Day Air” (Summit); “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Adventures of Werner Holt,” “The Axe of Wandsbeck” (First Run Pictures); Essential Art House #4, including “Le Jour se Leve,” “Gervaise,” “Mayerling,” “The 39 Steps,” “Tales of Hoffman” & “Throne of Blood” (Criterion); “Nightwatching” (E1 Entertainment); “Rumba” (Koch); “Treeless Mountain” (Oscilloscope); “Triangle,” a three-parter from Asian auteurs Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and Johnnie To (Magnolia); “White Night Wedding” (IFC)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Big Pun: The Legacy” (Vivendi); “Directed by John Ford” (Warner Bros.); “Full Battle Rattle,” “Old Jews Telling Jokes” (First Run Pictures); “Nerdcore Rising” (Virgil Films); “Note by Note” (Docurama); “Trumbo” (Magnolia); “The Wonder of It All” (Indican)
BEST OF TV
“Astro Boy” Volumes 1-5 (Sony); “The Beiderbecke Tapes” (Acorn Media); “C.S.I.: Miami” Season 7, “One Step Beyond” Season 1 (Paramount); “Crash” Season 1 (Anchor Bay); “Doctor Who: The Next Doctor” (BBC); “Fame” Seasons 1 & 2 (MGM); “Grey’s Anatomy” Season 5, “Private Practice” Season 2, “X-Men” Volumes 3 & 4 (Walt Disney); “The IT Crowd” Season 3 (MPI); “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” Season 4, “My Name Is Earl” Season 4 (Fox); “Sanctuary” Season 1 (E1 Entertainment); “Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Clone Commandos” (Warner Bros.); “Top Chef: Season 5 (A&E); “Transformers” Season 2 (Shout! Factory)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” / “The Scarlet Claw” & “The Hound of the Baskervilles” / “Pursuit to Algiers” (MPI); “King Kong Escapes,” “King Kong vs. Godzilla” (Universal)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Friday the 13th” Parts 7 & 8, “Varsity Blues” (Paramount); “John Carpenter: Master of Fear” collection, “Wes Craven Horror Collection,” “The Wolf Man” (1941) (Special Edition) (Universal); “The John Wayne/John Ford Film Collection” (Warner Bros.); “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Collection” (New Line)
CULT CORNER
Action up-and-comer Michael Jai White in “Blood & Bone” (Sony); “Bodyguard: A New Beginning,” “Four Dragons” (Lions Gate); “Deadgirl” (Dark Sky); “Nude In Dracula’s Castle” (Secret Key); “Phantasm II” (Universal); “The Shadow Boxer” (Image)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Bionicle: The Legend Reborn” (Universal); James Franco and Sienna Miller in “Camille” (2007) (E1 Entertainment)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Barney: Jungle Friends” (Lions Gate); Go Diego Go!: “Diego’s Mega Missions!” & “Diego’s Artic Rescue” (Nickelodeon)
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September 2, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Marlene” (1984; Maximilian Schell): Marlene Dietrich, grand Deutsch diva, is marvelously frank and haughty in this miraculous documentary portrait of the late actress. Schell recorded hours of audio with Dietrich and intersperses the interviews over scenes from her life and films. She can be impatient and hilariously forthright. For example, she calls Emil Jannings, her celebrated co-star in “The Blue Angel,” an awful “ham.” Hypnotically watchable, the doc was nominated for an Oscar.
- “Men in War” (1957; Anthony Mann): A masterpiece of combat drama by the great Mann, whose films consistently prove him one of the strongest directors of male-oriented action. (Check out his westerns and noirs — tough and indelible.) As soldiers with conflicting missions, consummate macho guys Aldo Ray and Robert Ryan go head to head in this Korean War-set nail-biter, a tragically unsung knockout.
- “The Fountainhead” (1949; King Vidor): Stodgy but entertaining adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel stars Gary Cooper (always a little stodgy but entertaining) as architect Howard Roark, whose individual artistic vision butts head with society’s conformist mores. Obvious and heavy-handed, with some romantic action between Cooper and Patricia Neal telegraphed through amusingly clunky visual symbolism.
- “Sunshine Cleaning” (2008; Christine Jeffs): A smart, subtle dark comedy starring the irrepressibly glowing Amy Adams and an archly funny Emily Blunt as unlikely cleaners-up of gory crime scenes. Sprightly, and surprising, entertainment.
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September 1, 2009
Cinemax lassoes Beesley's 'Rodeo'
Austin filmmaker Brad Beesley’s documentary “Sweethearts of the Prison Rodeo” is airing at 6 p.m. Sept. 17 on Cinemax, with a repeat showing at 6:30 a.m. Sept. 25.
The film about female prisoners who throw a wild rodeo contest played SXSW this year. Read Charles Ealy’s write-up HERE.
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August 31, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 9/1/09
TOP PICK
“Braveheart” and “Gladiator”: To inaugurate a new “Sapphire Series” of prestige Blu-ray reissues, Paramount offers two of its most reliably popular catalog titles, whose massive action scenes and exotic settings are particularly well suited to the format.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Earth” (Walt Disney): For those whose interest in nature footage isn’t sufficient to sit through the BBC’s whole “Planet Earth,” series, Disney offers this condensed version of the show with new narration by James Earl Jones.
“Gaumont Treasures: 1897-1913” (Kino): Three discs of silent-era films from one of early cinema’s most important companies; each disc is devoted to a single filmmaker, the most famous of whom is Louis Feuillade (“Les Vampires”).
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“State of Play” (Universal); “Sugar” (PG-13 version) (Sony)
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “The Girl Next Door” (2004), “High Crimes,” “M*A*S*H” (Fox); “Monster” (2003) (First Look)
ARTHOUSE / FOREIGN
“Sin Nombre” (Universal); “Take Out,” “The Toe Tactic” (Kino)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Along for the Ride,” aka “Forever Lulu” (First Look); “Homeboy” (Lions Gate)
BEST OF TV
“Brothers and Sisters” Season 3, “Desperate Housewives” Season 5 (Walt Disney); “C.S.I.” Season 9 (DVD and Blu-ray) (Paramount); Doctor Who: “Delta and the Bannerman, “Image of the Fendahl, “The Deadly Assassin”; “People Like Us” Complete Series (BBC); “Heroes” Season 3 (DVD and Blu-ray) (Universal); “Impact,” “Rescue Me” Season Five, Vol. 1 (Sony); “Meteor” (Genius); “National Geographic: The Human Family Tree,” “Supernatural” Season 4 (DVD and Blu-ray), “Two and a Half Men” Season 6 (Warner Bros.); “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” Season 2, “Stephen Fry in America” (Acorn Media); “Stella: Live In Boston” (Shout! Factory)
DOCUMENTARIES
“If I Die Tonight” (Indican); “The Meerkats” (Weinstein Co.)
KIDS’ STUFF: “Ben 10 Alien Force” Season 4 (Warner Bros.); “Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie” (Walt Disney); “Shaun the Sheep: Little Sheep of Horrors” (Lions Gate); “Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?: Hello Mummy” (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Bring It On: Fight To The Finish” (Universal); “Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas” (Lions Gate); “The Family Hour” (Image)
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August 17, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 8/18/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Husbands” (Sony): Finally available on disc, John Cassavetes’s study of three not-necessarily-happy married men stars Peter Falk, Ben Gazzara, and the director himself.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Tyson” (Sony): The troubled boxer shows his vulnerable side to friend and filmmaker James Toback.
Criterion Blu-rays: The boutique label revisits two of its previous titles, Kurosawa’s color epic “Kagemusha” and Jacques Tati’s “Playtime,” for Blu-tastic reissues.
“Icons of Sci-Fi: Toho Collection” (Sony): Ishiro Honda, onetime Kurosawa collaborator, directed these three films, the most famous of which is “Mothra.”
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Go” (Sony)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Hannah Montana: The Movie” (Walt Disney); “The Last House On The Left” (2009) (Universal); Jennifer Lynch’s “Surveillance” (Magnolia)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The 5 Deadly Venoms” (Weinstein Co.); “Absurdistan,” “Fish Fall in Love” (First Run Pictures); “Julia” (2009) (Magnolia)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Spring Break” (Anchor Bay)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Achievers: The Story of the Lebowski Fans (K-Man Productions); “Albert Schweitzer: Called to Africa,” “Angry Monk” (First Run Pictures); “The Garden” (Oscilloscope)
BEST OF TV
“The Beast” Season 1 (Sony); “Dexter” Season 3, “Everybody Hates Chris” Season 4 (Paramount); “Dirty Sexy Money” Final Season, “Eli Stone” Final Season (Walt Disney); “Gossip Girl” Season 2 (Warner Bros.); “Man vs. Wild” Season 3, “One Way Out” (Image); “Simon & Simon” Season 3) (Shout! Factory); “The Simpsons” Season 12 (Fox)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Pete’s Dragon,” “Ride a Wild Pony,” “Yellowstone Cubs” (Walt Disney); “Swan Princess: Secret of the Castle” (Sony)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Final Destination Collection” (New Line)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
The late David Carradine in “The Golden Boys” (Lions Gate); Carrie Fisher’s co-scipted “grumpy old women” comedy “These Old Broads” (Sony)
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August 11, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Trouble in Paradise” (1932; Ernst Lubitsch): The Lubitsch touch, those glimmering fingerprints, are all over this velvet comedy (put out by the Criterion Collection). Silky-suave Herbert Marshall and kewpie-doll-cute Miriam Hopkins are lovers and thieves who connive to rob a rich madame (Kay Francis). Marshall gets a job as the madame’s personal secretary in order to get close to her cash, but he also gets close to her heart, to Hopkins’ dismay. Comic confusion ensues. Not my favorite Lubitsch (that goes to 1940’s “The Shop Around the Corner”), but fine froth.
- “Take Out” (2004; Sean Baker and Shih-Ching Tsou): A marvel of social realism in the vein of Ramin Bahrani’s neo-neo-realism films (“Chop Shop”). A Chinese immigrant working for a grubby take-out joint has one day to pay off a crushing debt. Raw, with striking verite textures and excellent acting by a cast of newcomers. A pearl in the indie new wave.
- “A Raisin in the Sun” (1961; Daniel Petrie): Can’t believe it took me so long to finally see this majestic theatrical melodrama, but it was worth the wait. Sidney Poitier scintillates as the luckless head of a poor, struggling household in Chicago, and he’s backed by an impeccable cast, including Claudia McNeil, who will tear your heart out.
- “Late August, Early December” (1998; Olivier Assayas): The genre-hopping Assayas, one of world cinema’s most interesting auteurs, creates a completely engaging human drama about a group of friends facing the death of one of theirs. Subtle, funny, moving and elegant.
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August 3, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 8/4/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Icons of Screwball Comedy” Volumes 1 & 2 (Sony): Film buffs who know the difference between vintage romantic comedy and dreck like “The Ugly Truth” will find hours of diversion in these two packages, each of which features four little-known films with stars like Jean Arthur, Fred MacMurray and Irene Dunne.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Flight of the Conchords” Season 2 (HBO): Sure, the novelty has dulled and the songs aren’t always brilliant, but there’s enough steam left in this New Zealand import to carry it through a probable third season.
“You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story” (Warner Bros.): Film critic Richard Schickel wrote and directed this documentary portrait of the great studio, which is narrated by Schickel hero Clint Eastwood.
“The Soloist” (Paramount): Oscar winner Jamie Foxx + should-be Oscar winner Robert Downey, Jr. + homelessness and mental illness = prestige tearjerker
“Ulysses” (1954) (Lions Gate): Think Homer, not James Joyce, for this Kirk Douglas sword-and-sandal adaptation.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Big Trouble in Little China,” “My Cousin Vinny” (Fox); “Sling Blade” (Walt Disney / Miramax); “Stargate: Atlantis: Fan’s Choice” (MGM); “The Waterboy” (Walt Disney)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Delgo” (Fox); “Obsessed” (2009) (Sony); “Race To Witch Mountain” (Walt Disney)
BEST OF TV
“Agatha Christie’s Marple” Season 4 (Acorn Media); “Days That Shook the World” Season 2 (BBC); “Elvis Presley: The Ed Sullivan Shows” (Image); “The Love Boat” Season 2, Vol. 2 (Paramount); “Project Runway” Season 5 (Genius); “Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!” Season 3 (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Last Starfighter” 25th Anniversary Edition, also on Blu-ray (Universal)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Window” (Film Movement)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Last of the Mohicans” (Serial version starring Harry Carey) (VCI)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Val Kilmer in “The Chaos Experiment” (Genius); Forest Whitaker and others in “Fragments” (Sony); “The Greatest Song” (Image); Lindsay Lohan in “Labor Pains” (First Look); the Michael Chabon adaptation “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh” (Phase 4); James Caviezel in “Nature’s Grave” (Universal); “Shadowheart” (Anchor Bay)
CULT CORNER
“Cravings” (Lions Gate); “Demon Warriors,” “Mutant Chronicles” (Magnolia)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters” (Warner Bros.); Sid the Science Kid: “Change Happens” and “The Bug Club” (NCircle Entertainment); “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” box set (New Line); “The Tigger Movie” (Walt Disney); “VeggieTales: Minnesota Cuke and the Search for Noah’s Umbrella” (Big Idea)
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July 27, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/28/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Repulsion” (Criterion): Roman Polanski made his English-language debut with this classic thriller, set in Swinging London and starring a young Catherine Deneuve. Gorgeous in black-and-white, it’s available on both DVD and Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Bad Lieutenant” (Lions Gate): Before Werner Herzog’s unlikely “Bad Lieutenant” movie gets to theaters, Lions Gate offers an overdue special edition of the original.
“Harvard Beats Yale 29-29” (Kino): Who’d guess that a tied college football game would make for one of last year’s most praised documentaries?
Offbeat animation: Led off by Bill Plympton’s new film “Dog Days” (Microcinema) is a quartet of new art-animation titles including “The Astonishing Work of Tezuka Osamu,” “Extreme Animation: Films By Phil Mulloy” (Kino), and “The Animation of Alexeieff” (Facets).
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Bad Boy Bubby” (Blue Underground); “Inglorious Bastards” (Severin); “A River Runs Through It” (Sony); “This is Spinal Tap” (MGM)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Dragonball Evolution,” “Miss March” (Fox)
BEST OF TV
“Agatha Christie: Poirot & Marple” (A&E); “Battlestar Galactica” Season 4.5 and Complete Series sets (Universal); “Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead” (BBC); “Dollhouse” Season One (Fox); Kyle Chandler in “Early Edition” Season 2, “Krod Mandoon And The Flaming Sword Of Fire” (Paramount); the original “Life On Mars” Series One (Acorn Media): “The Middleman” Complete Series (Shout! Factory); “The Red Hand Gang” Complete Series (Virgil Films); “The Spectacular Spider-Man” Season 1 (Sony); “The Terry Jones Collection,” “Great Artists 2 with Tim Marlow” (Microcinema)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The 10th Victim” (Blue Underground) ; “Just Love Me” (Facets)
FROM THE VAULTS “Becoming Charley Chase,” “The Green Hornet,” “The Green Hornet Strikes Again” (VCI)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Fast & The Furious” (Universal); “Richard Pryor: Live & Smokin’” (Weinstein Co.)
CULT CORNER
“Animalada” (Synapse); “Big Man Japan” (Magnolia); “Torso” (Blue Underground)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Claude Levi-Strauss: In His Own Words” (Facets)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“An American Affair” (Universal); “Angel of Death,” “The Fifth Commandment” (Sony); “Green Lantern: First Flight” (Warner Bros.); “The Land That Time Forgot” (2009) (Asylum); “Streets of Blood” (Anchor Bay)
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July 20, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/21/09
“The Mighty Boosh” Seasons 1 through 3 (BBC): Another quirky Britcom ripe for Stateside rediscovery, this winner involves a pair of misfits who work for a shoestring-budgeted zoo when not having surreal musical daydreams.
“Robot Chicken Star Wars: Episode II” (Warner Bros.): Like all good (and bad, and very bad) “Star Wars”-related efforts, the incredibly funny “Robot Chicken” parody now has a sequel.
“2 or 3 Things I Know About Her” and “Made in U.S.A.” (Criterion): Criterion goes ga-ga for Godard, with two newly restored mid-’60s titles.
“Watchmen: Director’s Cut” and “300: The Complete Experience” (Warner Bros.): For all those fanboys who think that director Zack Snyder’s epic-sized, computer-enhanced comic book adaptations weren’t long enough in the theaters…
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” (Universal); “Midnight Express” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“An Empress and the Warriors” (Weinstein Co.); “The Unknown Woman” (Image)
FROM THE VAULTS
“A Dog of Flanders” (E1 Entertainment)
DOCUMENTARIES
“American Outrage,” “Human Rights Watch” Box Set (First Run Pictures); “Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer” (RED); “Carmen & Geoffrey” (First Run Pictures); “A Life Among Whales” (Indiepix)
BEST OF TV
“Charlie’s Angels” Season 4 (Sony); “The Donna Reed Show” Season 2 (Virgil Films); “The Lucy Show” Season 1, “This American Life” Season 2 (Paramount); “Monk” Season 7, “Psych” Season 3 (Universal); “Prison Break: The Final Break” (Fox); “Pushing Daisies” Season 2 (Warner Bros.); “Spongebob Squarepants: To Squarepants or Not To Squarepants” (Nickelodeon); “Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods” (MGM); “Wire in the Blood” Season 6 (E1 Entertainment); “Wolverine & the X-Men” Vol. 2 (Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Echelon Conspiracy” (Paramount); “Explicit Ills” (Phase 4); “The Great Buck Howard” (Magnolia); “Messengers 2: The Scarecrow” (Sony)
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July 15, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “Near Dark” (1987; Kathryn Bigelow): Bigelow’s Texas vampire road movie holds up well, with its wily humor and sun-baked vampire lore forging a tangy twist on a hoary genre. Bill Paxton has particular joy eating up flesh — and the desert and roadhouse scenery. Bloody fun.
- “The Tin Drum” (1979; Volker Schlondorff): A visually sumptuous and thrillingly imaginative adaptation of the famous Gunter Grass novel set in Nazi Germany. To protest the cruel absurdities of humankind — including Nazism — a 3-year-old boy decides to stop growing. A political fable told in broad but colorful and damning strokes.
- “A Song is Born” (Howard Hawks; 1948): Hawks remade his superb comedy “Ball of Fire” into a so-so musical, with the bendy Danny Kaye assuming the stuffy Gary Cooper role. Perky Virginia Mayo fills the firecracker Barbara Stanwyck part, but it’s hardly the same. Still, some crack jazz, with Benny Goodman, Louis Armstrong et al, and puff-pastry enjoyments.
- “Zabriskie Point” (Michelangelo Antonioni; 1970): A woolly examination of late-’60s youth culture in America, with languorous hippie interludes, through the eye of the ever-arty Antonioni. Has aged poorly — its points are made in shrieking italics — and, for such a straight-forward message movie, it’s narratively baggy when it really shouldn’t be.
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July 14, 2009
The forgotten 'Chinatown'
This article in the Wall Street Journal has me wondering why no one, to the best of my knowledge, has ever released a DVD including a version of ‘Chinatown’ where you can hear Phillip Lambro’s original score, which has been described as ‘dissonant, weird, scratchy.’ Could it really alter the experience of seeing the movie as much as this piece suggests?
Update: Here’s an interesting discussion board about the Lambro score.
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July 13, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/14/09
OTHER TOP PICKS
“For All Mankind” (Criterion): This documentary drawing on original footage of NASA’s lunar missions gets a welcome upgrade to Blu-ray, the better to convey the inky grandeur of its astronaut interviewees’ experiences.
“Mad Men” Season 2 (Lions Gate): Adman Don Draper smokes and boozes his way through a second season of this critically beloved AMC series.
“Grey Gardens” (2009) (HBO): Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange put their spin on the ineffably strange Beale women in the recent fictionalized adaptation of 1975’s cult-beloved documentary.
“The Human Condition” (Criterion): Stacking up at nearly ten hours, Masaki Kobayashi’s 1959 Japanese epic (adapted from a six-volume novel) follows one idealistic man’s melodramatic travails through WWII.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
Martial Arts 3-fer including “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “House of Flying Daggers,” & “Curse of the Golden Flower”; “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” (Sony); “This is Spinal Tap” (MGM); “The Towering Inferno” (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“12” (Sony); Marco Ferreri’s “Bye Bye Monkey” & “Don’t Touch the White Woman,” “Menage” (Koch); “The Edge of Love” (Image); “Eldorado” (Film Movement); “Roselyne and the Lions” (Cinema Libre); “Sorry, You Can’t Get Through!” (Dolce)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“The Haunting in Connecticut” (Lions Gate)
TV ON DVD:
“Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations” Season 4, “Shark Week: Great Bites” (Image); “Bewitched” Season 8 (Sony); “ER” Season 11 (Warner Bros.); “G.I. Joe” Season “1.1” (Shout! Factory); “Leverage” Season 1 (Paramount); “Peyton Place” Part 2 (Shout! Factory); “Red Skelton: America’s Clown Prince” (Timeless); “Tracey Takes On…” Seasons 3 & 4 (Eagle Vision); “Wild Pacific” (BBC)
KIDS’ STUFF
“The Wiggles Go Bananas” (Warner); “Bob the Builder: Built For Fun,” “Thomas & Friends: Percy and the Bandstand” (Lions Gate)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Beatles Rare And Unseen” (MVD); “A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth About Factory Farms” (Cinema Libre); “The Unwinking Gaze” (Indiepix)
CULT CORNER
“[Rec]” (Sony); “Night Train” (National Entertainment Media); “Sleepy Eyes of Death” (AnimEigo)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
A recent appearance by David Carradine in “Break” (Cinema Epoch); “Mad Men“‘s Elisabeth Moss in “El Camino” (Lifesize); the Dennis Quaid thriller “Horsemen” (Lions Gate); “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: Freshman Year” (Paramount)
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July 6, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 7/7/09
TOP PICKS
“Near Dark” (Lions Gate): Slightly late for the latest vampire craze but just in time for “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow’s fantastically pulpy 1987 take on the undead gets a fresh new edition.
The California Newsreel Collection: A nearly three-decade-old project preserving African cinema for American viewers, California Newsreel is now making 70 or so African films (from 25 countries) available to consumers in addition to the educational market. See www.newsreel.org for more info.
Universal’s “Backlot Series”: As the name suggests, the exotic lands in these vintage pix may actually have been located within driving distance of the Brown Derby. Three titles are being released this week: “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” “Beau Geste,” and “Trail of the Lonesome Pine.”
“The John Barrymore Collection” (Kino): This set of four silents featuring one of cinema’s oldest stars includes the first release — on either VHS or DVD — of Barrymore’s 1922 “Sherlock Holmes.”
“Strongbad Emails Volume 6,” “Strongbad Emails: 50 Greatest Hits” (Microcinema): The internet ‘toon sensation keeps plugging away, with more episodes of cantankerous Q&A occasionally guest-starring Homestar Runner.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Knowing,” “Push” (Summit); “The Unborn” (2009) (Universal)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Deep” (Sony); “Grumpy Old Men” (Warner Bros.); “The Universe” Season 2 (A&E)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Cinemad” (Microcinema)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio with the Red Shoes” (Docurama); “The Little Red Truck” (Passion River); “Reclaiming the Blade” (Galatia); “Resolved” (Image)
BEST OF TV
“Agatha Christie’s Poirot: The Movie Collection” Set 4 (Acorn Media); Doctor Who: “Attack of the Cybermen” & “The Rescue / The Romans” (BBC); “Matlock” Season 3, “Petticoat Junction” Season 2, “Reno 911!” Season 6 (Paramount); “Coco Chanel,” “Murder, She Wrote” Season 10 (Universal); “Mr. Rock ‘n Roll: The Alan Freed Story” (Eagle Vision); “Peanuts 1960’s Collection,” “Third Watch” Season 2 (Warner Bros.); “Young and Handsome: A Night with Jeff Garlin” (Shout! Factory)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Five Fingers,” “A Day in the Life” (Lions Gate)
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June 29, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/30/09
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Lookin’ to Get Out” (Warner Bros.): Star and producer Jon Voight has championed this never-before-seen edit of the late-career comedy by Hal Ashby (“Harold & Maude,” “Being There”), swearing it restores a director’s vision badly mangled by the original distributor.
“Eastbound & Down” Season 1 & “Entourage” Season 5 (HBO): The HBO debut of love him/hate him funnyman Danny McBride’s quirky series shares a release date with the latest installment of the cable channel’s most guilty pleasure, which happily hasn’t been derailed by costar Jeremy Piven’s little sushi problem.
“Jonas Brothers: The Concert Experience” (Walt Disney): The performance film from Disney’s mega-stars is available in both video formats, but only the Blu-ray version offers the theatrical 3-D experience.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Flawless” (Magnolia)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Dark Streets” (Sony); “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li,” “12 Rounds” (Fox); “Two Lovers” (Magnolia)
BEST OF TV
“Ali On Ali: The Lost Interviews,” “Swiss Family Robinson” Complete Series (Image); “Apollo 11” (Acorn Media); “The IT Crowd” Season 2 (MPI); “Secret Diary of a Call Girl” Season 2 (Lions Gate); “Stargate: Atlantis” Season 5 (MGM)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Kamp Katrina” (Carnivalesque); “RiP! A Remix Manifesto” (Disinformation)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Los Bastardos” (Kino); “Tokyo!” (Liberation)
FROM THE VAULTS
“British Cinema: Renown Pictures Crime & Noir” (VCI); “M. Butterfly” (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“The Education of Charlie Banks,” directed by Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst (Anchor Bay); “The Human Contract,” directed by Jada Pinkett Smith (Sony)
CULT CORNER
“Door Into Silence,” “Fulci Frenzy” (Severin); “Header” (Synapse); “Kaidan” (Lions Gate); “Women In Prison” (Shock-O-Rama)
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June 15, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/16/09
TOP PICKS
“The Diary of Anne Frank” (Fox): The grade-school literary fave got a ’50s movie adaptation courtesy of director George Stevens, who was then fresh from “Shane” and “Giant.”
“The Seventh Seal,” “Bergman Island” (Criterion): Criterion reissues one of the first titles they put on DVD, with both a two-disc standard DVD and a very welcome Blu-ray; “Island,” a recent doc, is available packaged with the reissue or as a standalone disc.
“Strange One” (Sony): The feature-film debut of Ben Gazzara, set in a military school, is remembered for homosexual overtones considered quite daring in 1957.
“My Breakfast with Blassie” (MVD): Beating Criterion’s “My Dinner With André” into stores by a week, this cult favorite finds Andy Kaufman hanging out in a diner with pro wrestler Classy Freddie Blassie. No Algonquin references here, folks, but plenty of bizarro energy.
“Scott Walker: 30th Century Man” (Oscilloscope): One of pop music’s great mysterious introverts gets his documentary due.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Dr. Strangelove,” Ghostbusters” (Sony); “Generation Kill,” “John Adams” (HBO); “The Greatest Game Ever Played,” “Lost” Seasons 1 and 2, “Miracle” (Walt Disney); “Kickboxer” (Lions Gate); “Spaceballs” (MGM); Three “Visions of…” titles, focused on France, Italy and the British Isles (Acorn Media)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail” (Lions Gate); “What Goes Up” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“L’Important C’Est D’Aimer” (Mondo Vision)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Morning Light” (Walt Disney); “Nerdcore Rising” (Virgil Films)
BEST OF TV
“Burn Notice” Season 2, “Family Guy” Season 7, “Saving Grace” Season 2 (Fox); “Everwood” Season 2, “Tom and Jerry’s Greatest Chases, Vol. 2” (Warner Bros.); “House of Payne” Season 4 (Lions Gate); Four “Nature” titles: “America,” “Kilauea - Mountain of Fire,” “The Dragon Chronicles,” “The Wolf That Changed America” (Questar); “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” Season 2 (Walt Disney); “The Three Stooges Collection” (1949-1951) (Sony); “Transformers” Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Essential Art House Vol. 3” (Criterion); Four “Friday the 13th” flicks, including “A New Beginning,” “Jason Lives,” “The Final Chapter,” and this year’s remake.
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Body Armour” (Image); “The Cell 2” (New Line)
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June 8, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/9/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Woodstock” Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros.): You can’t get the whole “3 Days of Peace and Music” on home video, but a four-hour cut of the famous concert film should last you a while. This new version offers 18 new live performances, including material from the Grateful Dead, who unbelievably were not included in the original film. Also available on Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Crawford” (Virgil Films): David Modigliani’s doc about Dubya’s briefly adopted hometown gets wider distribution this week, thanks to the company that just released Richard Linklater’s “Inning By Inning.”
“Gran Torino” (Warner Bros.): Clint Eastwood directs himself in what is reportedly to be his final acting role — that of a edgy old dude quick to point guns at people. It’s a stretch.
“The Jack Lemmon Film Collection” (Sony): A handful of lesser-known Lemmons, including: “Phffft!,” “Operation Mad Ball,” “The Notorious Landlady,” “Under the Yum Yum Tree,” and “Good Neighbor Sam”
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Fatal Attraction,” “Indecent Proposal” (Paramount); “Predator 2,” “The Siege” (Fox)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Fired Up,” “The International” (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Goddess” (Image)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Home” (2009) (Fox)
BEST OF TV
“The Cleaner” Season 1, “Perry Mason” Season 4, Vol. 1 (Paramount); “Father Knows Best” Season 3 (Shout! Factory); “The Norman Lear Collection,” “The Shield” Season 7 (Sony); “Open All Hours” Complete Series (BBC); “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” Best-of (Warner Bros.); “Z Rock” (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Harrison Ford and Ashley Judd in “Crossing Over” (Weinstein Co.); Alan Rickman in “Nobel Son” (Fox); Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker in “Powder Blue” (Image); Sarah Jessica-Parker and Beau Bridges in “Spinning Into Butter” (Universal)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Bob the Builder: Truck Teamwork,” “Care Bears: Tell-Tale Tummies” (Lions Gate); “Wonder Pets!: Ollie’s Slumber Party” (Paramount); “Shaun the Sheep: Sheep on the Loose” (Lions Gate)
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June 5, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “The Strange One” (1957; Jack Garfein): Most notable for being the first film of both Ben Gazzara and George Peppard, this offbeat drama has Gazzara playing a raging jerk in a Southern military academy, who takes his malicious hazing of underclassmen too far. It’s based on Calder Willingham’s play, and feels stagy and literary. It’s fascinating and frustrating, mostly for Gazzara’s compellingly obnoxious performance. Newly out on DVD.
- “Galaxy Quest” (1999; Dean Parisot): A small cult of fans has bloomed around this novel comedy, which shows what happens when the cast of a “Star Trek”-like TV show is mistaken for real space cowboys by admiring aliens. As the head of the cast — the Cptn. Kirk role — Tim Allen is surprisingly smooth and funny. For some of us, he’s a revelation. He can act! (For more on this note, see David Mamet’s “Red Belt.” Allen is terrific.) A pleasant, inventive diversion.
- “My Dinner with Andre” (1981; Louis Malle): Two smart guys having dinner for almost two hours. Talking. The whole time. About themselves. This impossibly eccentric classic of arthouse cinema, starring Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn, is a small miracle. It tinkles with insights about art and life and being. With Louis Malle’s silky, invisible direction and Gregory’s plummy tones, it puts you under its logorrheic spell. Now out on a two-disc set from the Criterion Collection.
“Story of Women” (1988; Claude Chabrol): The fine Isabelle Huppert plays an illegal, back-room abortionist in Occupied France during WWII. As much a portrait of a woman forced to compromise herself in dire times, Chabrol’s film, based on actual events, is a condemnation of the Nazi regime specifically and benighted minds in general.
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June 1, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 6/2/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (New Video): Okay, it’s not a full-length feature, but this goofy riff on superheroes and supervillans — with some pretty great show tunes thrown in for fun — is a cult favorite more worthwhile than many of creator Joss Whedon’s more famous shows.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Nature’s Most Amazing Events” (BBC): For the surprising number of “Planet Earth” addicts out there, BBC offers this nature’s-splendors follow-up, complete with plummy narration by David Attenborough and high-def visuals.
“Revolutionary Road” (Paramount): The feel-bad movie of last year, this difficult but worthwhile tale of marital strife is enough to erase nostalgic memories of Kate and Leo in “Titanic.”
“Eddie Murphy: Delirious” (Anchor Bay): Remember when Eddie Murphy was hilarious, and anything but safe for a family film? Here’s proof you didn’t invent those memories.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Air Force One,” “Glory” (Sony); “Bruce Almighty,” “Fletch” (Universal); “Dark Blue,” “Roadhouse,” “To Live and Die In L.A.” (MGM)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Defiance” (Paramount); “He’s Just Not That Into You” (New Line); “The International” (Sony); “Spring Breakdown” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Henry Hills: Selected Films (1977-2008)” (Tzadik)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Ernesto Che Guevara: The Bolivian Diary” (Alive Mind); “Fillmore: The Last Days” (Rhino); “Inning By Inning: A Portrait of a Coach” (Virgil Films)
BEST OF TV
“The Complete Abbott and Costello Show” (Passport Video); “Highlander: The Animated Series” Complete Series (Image); “Prison Break” Final Season (Fox); “Quincy, M.E.” Season 3 (Universal); “Sesame Street: Elmo and Abby’s Birthday Fun” (Genius); “Weeds” Season 4 (Lions Gate)
CULT CORNER
“Drive-In Classics Collection” (Image); “Grindhouse Double Feature: Punk Rock / Pleasure Palace” (Secret Key); “Shaw Bros. Legendary Heroes” (Image); “Shinobi No Mono 4: Siege” (AnimEigo)
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May 21, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973; Peter Yates): A terrific, taut crime drama about informers and their pals. Robert Mitchum plays a sad-sack ex-con who doesn’t want to return to the pen, so he sets his “friends” up for the cops. But a misunderstanding messes everything up. A noirish, hardboiled pleasure, co-starring ’70s stalwarts Peter Boyle and Alex Rocco.
- “Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains” (2007; Gonzalo Arijon): Utterly engrossing. Two hours is on the long side for a documentary, but this masterly recollection of the famed 1972 plane crash in the Andes (which inspired the book and movie “Alive”) whizzes by. You watch in a trance as survivors and judicious re-enactments relate a painfully and shockingly intimate story of survival, which of course demanded cannibalism. A knockout.
- “Soylent Green” (1973; Richard Fleischer): I dodged this movie for a very long time, and now I know why. It’s not horrible, but these low-budget Charlton Heston sci-fi flicks (see: “Omega Man”) are rickety contraptions not made for longevity. Heston’s teeth-gritting detective stumbles upon a ruling corporation’s dirty little secret, and I don’t care that I’m doing a fat spoiler here: The nation is feeding its people green wafers made of its dead. “Soylent Green … is … people!” Cue chills. And chortles. (Factoid: The name Soylent is a combo of soy and lentils.)
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May 18, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 5/19/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (Criterion): Crime novelist George V.
Higgins got to see Robert Mitchum bring his title character to life in this low-key gangster picture directed by Peter Yates (“Bullitt”), a film Mitchum fans have long ached to see on DVD.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Friday Night Lights” Season 3 (Universal): Thanks to some creative deal-making involving an exclusive DirecTV window, Austin’s critically beloved series survived another year. Now anyone confused by the unconventional scheduling can watch it all from start to finish on disc.
“A Bug’s Life” (Walt Disney): The ‘toon Pixar made between the two “Toy Story” films hits stores in a new Blu-ray edition, just in time to promote “Up.”
“Valkyrie” (MGM): Not as pulse-pounding as it should have been, this Tom Cruise vehicle about a plot to kill Hitler was still far better than the early buzz suggested.
“Man Hunt” (1941) (Fox): Fritz Lang (“M”) directs a cast of English actors for a thriller set in the Nazi-era Germany he himself had escaped years earlier.
“Pigs, Pimps & Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura” (Criterion): Three early-’60s films crusing through the lower rungs of the Japanese social order.
“Fanboys” (Weinstein Co.): Good-natured road film in which “Star Wars”
fanatics try to break into Skywalker Ranch.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Batman” (1989) (Warner Bros.); “Changing Lanes,” “The Machinist,” “Three Days of the Condor” (Paramount); “Circle of Iron,” “Fast Company” (Blue Underground); “Lions for Lambs” (MGM); “Spy Game” (Universal); “Terminator 2” (Lions Gate)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Paul Blart: Mall Cop” (Sony)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Catlow” (Warner Bros.)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Black Hollywood: Blaxploitation and Advancing Independent Black Cinema,” “Llik Your Idols” (MVD); “Crips and Bloods: Made In America” (Docurama); “Kobe Doin’ Work” (New Line); “Lavender Limelight: Lesbians On Film,” “The Top Secret Trial of the Third Reich” (First Run Pictures); “We Feed the World” (Kino)
BEST OF TV
“24” Season 7 (Fox); “Russell Brand: In New York City” (Paramount); “True Blood” Season 1 (HBO)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Army of Darkness” Screwhead Edition (Universal); “Arnold Schwarzenegger DVD Collection” (Lions Gate) “Billy Jack” (Warner Bros.); “El Dorado,” “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”
Centennial Collection (Paramount)
CULT CORNER
“Muscle Madness” (Infinity); “My Bloody Valentine 3- D” (Lions Gate); “Nightmare Castle” (Severin); “Eden Log” (Magnolia); and a barrel full of Japanese genre pictures including “3 Seconds Before Explosion,” “Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards!,”
“Debauched Desires (Four Erotic Masterpieces by Masaru Konuma) (Kino), “Wandering Ginza Butterfly,” and “Wandering Ginza Butterfly 2: She-Cat Gambler” (Synapse)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Dr. Dolittle: Million Dollar Mutts,” “Driven to Kill” (Fox)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Thomas & Friends: Team Up With Thomas” (Lions Gate); “Treasury of 25 Storybook Classics: Dinosaurs, Trucks, Monsters,” “Treasury of 25 Storybook Classics: Fairytales, Magic and More” (Scholastic)
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May 8, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “In Between Days” (2006; So Yong Kim): An effortless, super lo-fi little story about a teenage South Korean immigrant in America, whose only friend is another Korean immigrant. She clearly likes him, but his protective platonic shield is up high, so sexual tension sizzles then fizzles between them in dramatic ebbs and flows. Minimalist to the max, the film is the debut of So Yong Kim, whose next feature, “Treeless Mountain,” opens June 5 at the Arbor. (Odd: This is one of those movies you’ve already seen but sort of forgot it until you pop it in the player and realize what happened. I’ve now seen it twice.)
- “Basquiat” (1996; Julian Schnabel): If you can get past David Bowie’s jarringly dissonant impersonation of Andy Warhol and its lost but ego-inflated title character (Jeffrey Wright), this is a riveting look at the ’80s New York art scene and its morbid casualties. Colorful and inspired direction are the hallmarks of this biopic and have become Schnabel’s auteurist trademark. He’s gotten even better, coming into his own as a visionary filmmaker (“Before Night Falls,” “Butterfly and the Diving Bell”). I saw this film some time ago, but my allergy to biopics put me off. It was much better this time.
- “Man Push Cart” (2005; Ramin Bahrani): I’ve also seen this before, but re-watched as part of my recent Ramin Bahrani (“Chop Shop,” “Goodbye Solo”) kick. A completely assured first feature that, as others have said, encapsulates American independent film: non-professional actors, no musical score, grainy hand-held camerawork, live locations. Modest in scope but generous in humanity, it’s another minimalist entry in the unofficial “neo-neorealism” genre. Captivating and gratifying.
- “Wise Blood” (John Huston; 1979): I don’t know how I forgot most of this wry and funny and wonderfully offbeat drama, but a second viewing brought it all back, and better. Huston’s take on the famed Flannery O’Connor material is a southern-gothic blast and scathing critique of old-time religion gone rancid and exploitative. A lot of fun with glorious performances by a cast that seethes eccentricity: Brad Dourif, Ned Beatty, Amy Wright, Harry Dean Stanton and others, including Huston himself.
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May 4, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 5/5/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (Paramount / Criterion): Some moviegoers felt David Fincher’s sweeping fantasy was too long. Here’s hoping more folks are willing to brave the running time in the comfort of home — a big dose of old-fashioned movie romance awaits those who do.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Big” (Fox): Who needs “17 Again” when (arguably) the world’s best age-bending comedy has just been upgraded for Blu-ray?
“Wendy and Lucy” (Oscilloscope): One of the year’s most celebrated indie films, made by SXSW alum Kelly Reichardt (“Old Joy”) and starring Michelle Williams as a woman suffering some tough breaks on the way to a job in Alaska.
“Enchanted April” (Walt Disney / Miramax): Well-liked period piece about Brits vacationing in Italian splendor benefits from a cast including Miranda Richardson, Joan Plowright and Jim Broadbent.
“A Grin Without a Cat” (First Run / Icarus): Another previously-unavailable work by film essayist Chris Marker, this one a left-wing globe-trot through Vietnam, Bolivia, and Prague, is finally on disc for adventurous cinephiles.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“There’s Something About Mary” (Fox); “Dexter” Season 2, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Grease,” “Saturday Night Fever” (Paramount); “Dog Soldiers” (First Look); “It Could Happen to You,” “Roxanne” (Sony); “Twilight” (Summit)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Incendiary” (Image); “Last Chance Harvey” (Anchor Bay); “Smother” (Universal)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“A Song of Innocence” (“La Ravisseuse”) (Synkronized USA); “Chandni Chowk To China” (Warner Bros.); “Momma’s Man” (Kino); “Under the Bombs” (Film Movement)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Fashion in Film” (Anchor Bay); “Jack Taylor of Beverly Hills” (Indiepix); “Tony Palmer’s Film of O Thou Transcendent: The Life of Ralph Vaughan Williams,” “Tony Palmer’s Film of O, Fortuna” (United States of Distribution)
BEST OF TV
“Bleak House” (2005), Doctor Who: “Battlefield” and “E-Space Trilogy” (BBC); “Boston Legal” Season 5 (Fox); “Crusoe,” “Lipstick Jungle” Season 2 (Universal); “Florence Nightingale” (1985), “Ivanhoe” (1982), “Living Proof” (Sony); “Gigantor,” “A Little Princess” (1987) (E1 Entertainment); “That Girl” Season 5 (Shout! Factory); “Yawara!: A Fashionable Judo Girl” (AnimEigo)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” Deluxe Edition (Paramount)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Big Splash,” “Imagination Movers: Warehouse Mouse Edition” (Walt Disney); “A Plumm Summer” (Paramount)
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thirtysomething goes to DVD
We’re finally about to be thirtysomething all over again. The TV show about young urban professionals (‘thirtysomething’ was too good to call them yuppies), which ran from 1987- 1991, is finally coming out on DVD Aug. 25.
Shout Factory, which had success with the DVDs for “My So-Called Life,” (also created by Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz) will release season one first, with the next three seasons to come out at six-month intervals.
A couple of factors have kept ‘thirtysomething’ from making it to DVD until now, chief among them a lack of transferrable masters. A few episodes had to be remastered, which is a time-swallowing process. The other hitch was getting music rights clearances, but Shout Factory, which specializes in licensing oldies for reissue, was able to get all the music played on the show.
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April 30, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
- “The Howling” (1981; Joe Dante): I was puzzled to realize I’d never seen this impoverished wannabe of John Landis’ still-brilliant “An American Werewolf in London,” which is scarier, gorier, funnier, boasts a genius soundtrack and spectacularly better special effects. This low-budget copywolf wallows in feeble camp, is rarely gory and is witty the way Roger Corman’s films are witty (with a groan). John Sayles wrote and makes a cameo — his and Dante’s follow-up to their imitation-crab “Jaws” spoof, “Piranha.”
- “The Tall T” (1957; Budd Boetticher): I love this scrappy western, even after three viewings. Boetticher regular Randolph Scott gets tangled in a group of kidnapping killers, and the moral shadings — Boetticher is a master of nuanced human nature — hold you in its vice. Tight and crunchy, with neato B acting, and, if you pay attention, lovely compositions and use of tension in space. Story by Elmore Leonard.
- “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” (1927; F.W. Murnau): German expressionist Murnau’s maiden Hollywood feature convulses with camera tricks, dolly shots, fades and just about the entire lexicon of visual grammar. This silent melodrama — some of its acting and emotions are applied with a paint roller — holds its spot as a groundbreaker. It won a special artistic Oscar at the first Academy Awards in 1928.
- “Germany Year Zero” (1948; Roberto Rossellini): Brutal, fascinating Italian neo-realism by the progenitor of the genre. Another stark post-war drama, following Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City,” about a 12-year-old German boy in bombed-out Berlin doing whatever he must, legal or not, to survive. The imagery, all crumbled shells of real buildings on location, mesmerizes. With an ending so bleak, you almost can’t believe it.
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April 28, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/28/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Hit” (Criterion): This early outing by Stephen Frears (“Dangerous Liaisons,” “The Queen”) is a prickly, tight little crime drama giving a fine central role to Terence Stamp, who deserved more of them in his career, and offering viewers a peek of Tim Roth before he made his name Stateside.
OTHER TOP PICKS
Two by Oshima: The Criterion Collection resurrects two button-pushers by Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima, “Empire of Passion” and “In the Realm of the Senses.” The latter (also being made available on Blu-ray) courted controversy in the ’70s by presenting unsimulated sexual activity in a film meant to be shown in mainstream theaters.
“JCVD” (Peace Arch): It isn’t as mind-blowing as your fanboy friends may have told you, but this odd, possibly tongue-in-cheek drama featuring has-been action star Jean-Claude Van Damme does contain one captivating monologue worth the price of admission.
“Nothing But the Truth” (Sony): Another Rod Lurie film playing off contemporary politics, this one starring Kate Beckinsale as a journalist who, like Judith Miller, exposes a C.I.A. agent and is jailed for refusing to name her source.
“What Doesn’t Kill You” (Sony): Mark Ruffalo and Ethan Hawke play low-rent gangsters in South Boston.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Da Vinci Code” (Extended Cut) (Blu-Ray); “The Reader” (Weinstein Co.); “Star Trek” Season 1 (Paramount)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Bride Wars” (Fox); “Hotel for Dogs,” “The Uninvited” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Alain Resnais: A Decade in Film” (Kino); “Big Story in a Small City” (Passion River); Tarkovsky Resurrected: “The Steamroller and the Violin” / “Voyage in Time” (Facets)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Price of Sugar” (New Yorker)
BEST OF TV
“Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun” (Shout! Factory); “Little Dorrit” (2008) (BBC); “Mission: Impossible” Season 6 (Paramount); “Pulling” Season 1 (MPI); “The Waltons” Season 9 (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Beethoven’s 5th” (Universal); “Legally Blondes” (MGM); “While She Was Out” (Anchor Bay)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Jetsons: The Movie” (Universal)
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April 20, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/21/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
‘The Wrestler’ (Fox). Mickey Rourke rediscovers his soul, playing a down-and-out pro wrestler alongside Marisa Tomei in a movie that also counts as something of a comeback for ‘Requiem for a Dream’ director Darren Aronofsky.
OTHER TOP PICKS
‘Frost/Nixon’ (Universal). A slightly different showdown from the grudge matches in ‘The Wrestler,’ Ron Howard’s latest prestige film benefits from great performances by Michael Sheen and Frank Langella.
‘Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé’ (Criterion). Yo La Tengo provides music for these delightfully strange shorts in which science footage of such subjects as sea horses is transformed into quasi-surrealist comedy.
‘The Last Picture Show’ / ‘Nickelodeon’ (Sony). No very good reason exists to sell these films as a two-pack, but Peter Bogdanovich fans will be happy to have a chance to revisit ‘Nickelodeon,’ his second pre-war feature starring Ryan and Tatum O’Neal
‘Notorious’ (2009) (Fox). Late rapper Christopher Wallace gets the biopic treatment in the new film starring newcomer Jamal Woolard.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
‘Arctic Tale’ (Paramount); ‘The Arrival’ (Lions Gate); ‘Sin City’ extended edition (Miramax); ‘The Wages of Fear’ (Criterion); ‘X-Men Trilogy’ (Fox)
DOCUMENTARIES
‘Inside the Third Reich’ Box Set, ‘A Jihad for Love,’ ‘K*ke Like Me’ (Kino)
BEST OF TV
‘Caprica’ Pilot Episode (Universal); ‘Dallas” Season 11,’ ‘Freakazoid!’ Season 2, ‘Tiny Toon Adventures’ Season 1, Vol. 2 (Warner Bros.); ‘Hawaii Five-O’ Season 6 (Paramount); ‘Rhoda’ Season 1 (Shout! Factory); ‘Wolverine & the X-Men: Heroes Return Trilogy’ (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
‘Hellraiser’ Box Set (Anchor Bay)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
‘Into the Blue 2: The Reef’ (MGM)
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April 13, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/14/09
NEW ON DVD
‘The Reader’ (Weinstein Co.): Kate Winslet gives her second-best performance of 2008 in a film that is ultimately owned by Ralph Fiennes, despite the fact that he’s barely in the movie at all for its first half.
‘The Spirit’ (Lionsgate): After the boos and hisses that greeted this solo-directing debut, will Frank Miller go back to writing hard- boiled comics, or will he just hang out with Robert Rodriguez and make a dozen ‘Sin City’ installments?
‘The Lost Collection’: A slew of Lionsgate releases gather movies most people are happy to forget, like the Keanu Reeves vehicle ‘The Night Before,’ Jon Cryer in ‘Morgan Stewart’s Coming Home,’ and a classic called ‘My Best Friend is a Vampire’
NEW ON BLU-RAY
‘8 Mile’ (Universal); ‘The Last Kiss,’ ‘Mean Girls’ (Paramount); ‘The Thirteenth Floor,’ ‘Universal Soldier: The Return’ (Sony) Documentaries. ‘Crude Impact’ (Docurama)
BEST OF TV
‘House of Saddam’ (HBO); ‘Knots Landing’ Season 2, National Geographic’s ‘North Star’ and ‘The Everglades’ (Warner Bros.); ‘The Ruth Rendell Mysteries’ Set 4 (Acorn Media); ‘Skins’
Volume 2 (BBC); ‘Wings’ Season 8 (Paramount) Reissue/repackage. ‘Rounders’ (Miramax)
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April 9, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
“Le sang des betes (Blood of the Beasts)” by Georges Franju (1949; France): Franju is best known for the spectacularly unsettling horror picture “Eyes Without a Face,” and this, his first film, is a 20-minute short included on the Criterion DVD of “Face.” The brutal documentary about the slaughterhouses of Paris never flinches; animal lovers will want to avoid it. I got glum watching it, and speeded up the DVD during some scenes. It’s stark, cold, black-and-white realism, a day in the life of horse, cow and sheep killing. Its industrial images, sooty and grime-rimmed, remain powerfully influential (see the film below).
“Eraserhead” by David Lynch (1977; USA): Lynch’s landmark avant-garde debut holds up beautifully. I hadn’t seen it in years, but the images shock and awe in an aesthetically stupendous way. You won’t shake them: the girl in the radiator with the cauliflower face; the piteous shrieking monster-baby; the hissing steam and industrial dystopia. The visuals look borrowed from the above movie and clearly spilled over into Lynch’s next masterpiece “The Elephant Man.”
“A Doll’s House” by Patrick Garland (1973; Britain): Anthony Hopkins, Claire Bloom, Denholm Elliot and Ralph Richardson star in this crisp adaptation of Ibsen’s play (by Christopher Isherwood). I like the play plenty but really rented this to watch the mesmerizing Hopkins, whom I’ve loved since I saw “The Elephant Man” (see above) as a kid. People always crow about Hopkins in “Silence of the Lambs” — he’s great in that — but I still think “Elephant Man” is one of his very best.
Next up on the DVD changer: A stack of Criterion Collection classics, including Bunuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” Stephen Frears’ “The Hit,” and Nagisa Oshima’s “In the Realm of the Senses” and “Empire of Passion.”
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April 6, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 4/7/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Doubt” (Miramax): One of last year’s finest films won’t suffer much from the transition to the small screen, as it relies heavily the performances of three actors whose faces convey a wealth of emotion and calculation in close-up.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Cecil B. DeMille’s Cleopatra” (Universal): A 75th Anniversary edition of the version starring not Elizabeth Taylor but a possibly even more unlikely actress, Claudette Colbert.
“Pre-Code Hollywood Collection” (Universal): Universal gets into the game with Warner’s “Forbidden Hollywood” series, gathering occasionally naughty early movies like “Hot Saturday” and “Merrily We Go to Hell.”
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“2010: The Year We Make Contact,” “Above the Law,”
“Point of No Return,” “Taking Lives” (Warner Bros.); “American History X,” “Final Destination,” “John Q,” “The Wedding Singer” (New Line); “Fly Away Home,” “Winged Migration” (Sony)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Bedtime Stories” (Walt Disney); “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (2008) (Fox); “Not Easily Broken” (Sony); “The Tale of Despereaux,” (Universal); “Yes Man” (Warner Bros.)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Alexandra” (New Yorker); “La Grande Bouffe” (Koch); “The Loyal 47 Ronin” (AnimEigo); “Vinyan” (Sony)
FROM THE VAULTS
“A Rather English Marriage,” “Tales of Ordinary Madness” (Koch); “TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection” (Warner Bros.); 3 musicals from MGM, “The Goldwyn Follies,” “It’s a Pleasure,” and “A Song Is Born” (MGM)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Glass: A Portrait of Philip In Twelve Parts” (Koch)
BEST OF TV
“Beverly Hills 90210” Season 7 (Paramount); “Davey &
Goliath: The Lost Episodes” (CVD); 3 volumes of the “Disney Animation Collection,” “Tigger, Pooh & A Musical Too” (Walt Disney); “Max Fleischer’s Superman: 1941-1942” (Warner Bros.); “The Paper Chase”
Season 1 (Shout! Factory)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“The Boys From Brazil” (Lions Gate); “No Country for Old Men” (Miramax)
CULT CORNER
“Donkey Punch” (Magnolia); “Tokyo Zombie” (Anchor Bay)
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April 4, 2009
What I'm watching
Wherein our movie critic periodically shares what DVDs he’s been viewing in his spare time …
“3 Seconds Before Explosion” by Motomu Ida (1967; Japan): Goofy, noirish exploitation, post-war Japanese-style. Not as snappy as you’d hope, but some brisk hand-to-hand action, shiny color visuals (including garish shades of blood) and sprinkles of wit. Ida is no Seijun Suzuki (“Branded to Kill”), but his film is serviceable pulp.
“It’s Winter” by Rafi Pitts (2006; Iran): Beautifully depressing tone poem from the Iranian new wave about a man’s struggle to get work and support his family — a quaint patriarchal notion still alive in the Middle East. It’s told with simplicity and heartbreaking purity, flaunting the hallmarks of latter Iranian cinema — unhurried quitetude, non-professional actors, arid realism — while flouting the form with a linear story and a romantic-love thread. The evocative title expresses its elegiac mood. Would fit well in today’s “neo-neo-realism” trend.
“Landscape in the Mist” by Theodoros Angelopoulos (1988; Greece): This sweet and sour picaresque following a young brother and sister as they make their way alone to Germany is deemed the Greek maestro’s masterpiece. No argument here. Rambling but emotionally acute, it’s a classic, almost Truffautian tale of innocence robbed and coming-of-age amid a backdrop of indifferent adults and harsh lessons.
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March 30, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/31/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
‘Slumdog Millionaire’ (Fox). It wasn’t the best movie of the year, no matter what the Academy says, but Danny Boyle’s often delightful, oddly old-fashioned romance has charm to burn.
OTHER TOP PICKS
‘Fallen Angels’ & ‘Happy Together’ (Kino). Two of the more accessible outings by style-obsessed Wong Kar-Wai, just out in editions with worthwhile bonus features.
‘Pride and Prejudice’ (1995) (A&E). Colin Firth as Mister Darcy, finally able to agitate Jane Austen fans on Blu-ray.
‘Tell No One’ (MPI). It drops the ball just a tiny bit at the end, when a character stands around and explains secrets that should unveil themselves more cinematically, but this French thriller about a widower who believes his wife isn’t dead gets the job done.
‘Timecrimes’ (Magnolia). The Fantastic Fest fave from Spain, in which a man hops back in time an hour, largely so the filmmakers can include many shots of the same naked woman.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
‘John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars,’ ‘The One’ (Sony); ‘National Geographic: Kingdom of the Blue Whale’ (Warner Bros.); ‘The Robe,’ ‘South Pacific’ (Fox); ‘Two Evil Eyes’ (Blue Underground)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
‘Marley and Me’ (Fox); ‘Seven Pounds’ (Sony)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
‘Danton,’ ‘Il Generale Della Rovere’ (Criterion); ‘Same Old Song’ (New Yorker); ‘Tehilim’ (Kino)
BEST OF TV
‘Dennis Miller: The HBO Comedy Specials’ (Kultur); ‘The IT Crowd’ Season 1 (MPI); ‘Ricky Gervais: Out of England’ (HBO)
KIDS’ STUFF
‘Baby Einstein: Baby World Music,’ ‘Hannah Montana: Keeping It Real,’ ‘Schoolhouse Rock: Earth’ (Walt Disney); ‘Goosebumps’: ‘Return of the Mummy’ and ‘The Scarecrow Walks At Midnight’ (Fox); ‘Thomas & Friends: High Speed Adventures’ (Lions Gate)
CULT CORNER
‘The Cremator’ (Dark Sky); ‘Erotic Horror Triple Feature’ (Seduction Cinema); ‘Exposed’ (Synapse)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
‘The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations’ (Lions Gate)
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March 23, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/24/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Last Metro” (Criterion): Okay, so it’s not François Truffaut’s most groundbreaking film. But the auteur sure pleased a lot of viewers (and voters for the French César awards, who gave it a slew of statues) with this tale of a theater company trying to survive the Nazi occupation of France. Having Catherine Deneuve and Gerard Depardieu as the leads couldn’t have hurt. (“Metro” is new to DVD; both it and Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” are being released on Blu-ray.)
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Forbidden Hollywood Collection” Vol. 3 (Warner Bros.): This time out, Warner’s series of box sets collecting daring early cinema focuses exclusively on the films of William Wellman, like the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle “The Purchase Price.”
James Bond: As usual, the home-vid release of a recent theatrical 007 adventure — the bloodthirsty outing “Quantum of Solace” — is joined by reissues from MGM. This time out, the new ones (including “Goldfinger, Moonraker,” and others) are on Blu-ray.
“Twilight” (Summit): Vampires in high school. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.
“Bolt” (Walt Disney): John Travolta and Miley Cyrus lend their voices to the CG animated tale of a dog who plays a super-mutt on TV.
Beyond the movie: Two theatrical releases have made-for-video addendums this week, with the “Kung-Fu Panda” mythology being expanded by “Secrets Of The Furious Five” (Paramount, now available as a stand- alone title) and “Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter” (Warner
Bros.) aimed at satisfying those who couldn’t get enough of the “Watchmen” film. (Do such viewers exist?)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Fast and the Furious Trilogy” (Blu-Ray) (Universal); “The Kite Runner,” “A Mighty Heart,” “Things We Lost in the Fire,” (Paramount)
BEST OF TV
“Andy Richter Controls the Universe” Complete Series (Paramount); “Doctor Who” Mega Set Vol. 2 (BBC); “The Dog Whisperer” Very Best of (Universal); “In Treatment” (HBO); “The Riches” Season 2 (Fox); “Star Wars: The Clone Wars: A Galaxy Divided” (Warner Bros.); “Stephen Hawking and the Theory of Everything” (Acorn Media); “A Woman Called Golda” (Paramount)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
Guy Maddin’s “Careful” (Zeitgeist); “Lilo & Stitch:
Big Wave Edition” (Walt Disney); “The Matrix,” 10th Anniversary Blu- Ray edition (Warner Bros.); “Centennial Collection” editions of “The Odd Couple,” “To Catch a Thief” (Paramount)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Opera Jawa” (First Run Pictures)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Rob Schneider directs and stars in “Big Stan” (Warner Bros.)
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March 17, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/17/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“Elegy” (Sony): Penélope Cruz won the Oscar this year for her movie with Woody Allen, but odds are good that voters were also thinking of her performance here, in a role (opposite the very fine Ben Kingsley) allowing her to draw herself in as much as she cut loose in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Dodes’ka-Den” (Criterion): Akira Kurosawa’s first color film, from 1971, in an improved edition including documentary features on the director, cinematographer Takao Saito, and esteemed composer Toru Takemitsu.
“Murnau” (Box Set) (Kino): Though not nearly as showy as last fall’s huge set from Fox, this collection offers some of German auteur F.W. Murnau’s best known work (restored versions of “Faust” and “Nosferatu”) alongside material that hasn’t been available on disc before.
Eclipse Series 15: Travels with Hiroshi Shimizu (Criterion): The little-known Japanese filmmaker is represented by three films from the ’30s and one from 1941 in this no-frills box.
“The Cake Eaters” (Universal): In time for “Twilight“‘s DVD release and the upcoming “Adventureland,” this well reviewed but little seen Kristen Stewart film gets a video release.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Princess Bride” (MGM); “Quo Vadis” (Warner Bros.); “The Robe” (Fox)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Azur and Asmar” (Weinstein Co.); “Lost Souls” (1980) (Image); “Yella” (New Yorker)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Punisher: War Zone” (Lions Gate)
BEST OF TV
“Barney Miller” Season 3, “Married…With Children” Season 10, “The Nanny” Season 3, “The Three Stooges” Collection #5 (1946-1948) (Sony); “Degrassi: The Next Generation” Season 7 (Echo Bridge); “J*A*G” Season 8 (Paramount)
KIDS’ STUFF
“Bob The Builder On Site: Skyscrapers” (Lions Gate); “The Velveteen Rabbit” (2007) (Anchor Bay)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Beautiful Truth,” “Cafe Chavalos” (Cinema Libre); “Portrait of Petula Clark” (Infinity)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“My Zinc Bed” (HBO); “Walled In” (Anchor Bay)
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March 9, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/10/09
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Milk” (Universal): If “Milk” sounds too much like a civics lesson, consider watching it back-to-back with “Pineapple Express” for a jaw-droppingly yin-yang James Franco experience.
“Rachel Getting Married” (Sony): Anne Hathaway stretches out as an addict trying to cope with family grief and joy in a single stress-filled weekend.
“Synecdoche, New York” (Sony): The movie of the year or the year’s biggest cinematic self-indulgence? Let the debate begin.
“Let The Right One In” (Magnolia): The vampire flick that plays like a Euro art film. Because it is.
“Cadillac Records” (Sony): Beyonc´ as Etta James and Jeffrey Wright playing Muddy Waters? Count us in.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology (1989-1997)” (Warner Bros.); “Brokeback Mountain” (Universal); “Rockers” (MVD)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Battle in Seattle,” “Role Models” (Universal); “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” (Miramax); “Transporter 3” (Lions Gate)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“L’Innocente” (Koch); “Shinobi No Mono 3: Resurrection” (AnimEigo)
FROM THE VAULTS
“20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” (1954), “Escape to Witch Mountain” (Walt Disney); “Max Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels (1939) (Koch)
DOCUMENTARIES
“The Singing Revolution” (New Video)
BEST OF TV
“Cracker” Complete Collection (Acorn Media); “Family Ties” Season 5, “South Park” Season 12 (Paramount); “Get Smart” (Season Two) (HBO); “Woody Woodpecker Favorites” (Universal)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Howard the Duck” (Universal); Pinocchio (Walt Disney, also on Blu-ray); “Primal Fear” (Paramount, also on Blu-ray)
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March 2, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 3/3/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“I’ve Loved You So Long” (Sony): A deeply wounded, quietly stunning performance by Kristin Scott Thomas anchors this French film, which holds out secrets for the end but doesn’t do it just to tease.
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Ashes of Time Redux” (Sony): Wong Kar-Wai’s breakthrough film — early masterwork, or impenetrable tone poem in which mood trumps substance?
“Treasures From American Film Archive: Vol. 4 (Avant-Garde)” (Image): The series of box sets devoted to obscure short films turns to experiments in cinema by Joseph Cornell, Shirley Clarke, Jonas Mekas and many others. New music by John Zorn.
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1982) (Sony): Who knew Anthony Hopkins once played everyone’s favorite spinally-challenged icon? Co-stars Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud and Lesley-Anne Down, that’s who.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Australia” (Fox); “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” (Walt Disney); “Lake City” (Universal)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“The Silence of the Lambs” (MGM); “Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic” (Warner Bros.); “In the Electric Mist” (Image); “Brokeback Mountain” (Universal)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Back To Normandy,” “Wonderful Town” (Kino); “Moses and Aaron” (New Yorker); “Weapons” (Lions Gate)
BEST OF TV
“7th Heaven” Season 8, “The Hills” Season 4, “Nash Bridges” Season 2, “The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” “Spongebob vs. The Big One” (Paramount); Six “Doctor Who” adventures, “Planet Earth” Vol. 3 & 4 (BBC); “East of Eden” (1981 Miniseries), “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” (Acorn Media); “ER” Season 10 (Warner Bros.); “My Two Dads” Season 1 (Shout! Factory); “The Tales of Beatrix Potter” (Lions Gate)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Ace Ventura Jr.: Pet Detective” (Warner Bros.); “Air Bud” (Walt Disney); “The Scarlett Johansson Collection” (Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Real Time” (Image); “Stiletto” (First Look); “The Village Barbershop” (Monterey)
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February 23, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/24/09
PICK OF THE WEEK:
Blu-ray Goes Crazy for Car Chases: Fox/MGM are rolling out a quartet of classics on Blu-ray that will be embraced by lead-footed film buffs everywhere. The first and second “French Connection” films are joined by cult classic “Vanishing Point” and the modern globe-trotting adventure “Ronin.” Don’t let the kids lay their hands on your keys after renting these.
TOP PICKS:
“Ironweed” (Lions Gate): Nicholson and Streep go to seed in Hector Babenco’s 1987 adaptation of the William Kennedy novel.
“What Just Happened?” (Magnolia): Robert De Niro offers one of his most enjoyable performances of recent years — admitedly, that’s not saying much — in this satire of the movie-producing biz.
“The Whole Shootin Match” (Watchmaker Films): For the first time on DVD — in fact, it was “unavailable in any format for at least two decades” — this influential Austin film is joined by a doc about Eagle Pennell and copious reprinted archival material.
Roller Derby Mania: Two derby docs, “Jam” (Virgil Films) and the Austin-centric “Hell on Wheels” (IndiePix), follow skaters who like to rough each other up in front of a crowd.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Extreme Movie” (Weinstein Co.); “The Haunting of Molly Hartley” (Fox); “Sex Drive” (Summit)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Akira” (Bandai)
“The Bird With The Crystal Plumage” (Blue Underground)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Cat Dancers,” “Wonders Are Many” (Docurama); “Chris & Don: A Love Story” (Zeitgeist); “Dear Zachary: A Letter To His Son About His Father” (Oscilloscope); “The FTA” (Docurama)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“Man Walking On Snow,” “The Pear Tree,” “Poil de Carotte” (Facets)
FROM THE VAULTS
“The Pickwick Papers,” “Svengali” (VCI)
BEST OF TV
“Breaking Bad” Season1, “Just Shoot Me” Season3 (Sony); “Dirty Jobs” Collection 4 (Image); “Enemy at the Door” Series 1, “Painted Lady,” “Trial & Retribution” Set 2 (Acorn Media); “Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder” (Fox); “Oliver Twist” (2007 Miniseries) (BBC)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Last House on the Left” (MGM)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Cyclops” (Anchor Bay); “Red Sands” (Sony)
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February 16, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/17/09
TOP PICKS
The Paul Newman Film Series (Warner Bros.) : The late, great Paul Newman is celebrated in DVD releases of a handful of not-so-famous outings, from his first screen gig (a Bible epic called “The Silver Chalice”) to the “Rashomon” adaptation “The Outrage” and one of his directing efforts, “Rachel, Rachel,” starring wife Joanne Woodward.
“Hobson’s Choice” (Criterion) : Like the undeservedly obscure “Ruggles of Red Gap,” this David Lean film shows the underexposed comic side of Charles Laughton, better known for haughty stuff like “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
“High School Musical 3: Senior Year” (Walt Disney) : Disney’s hugely popular series squeezes in one more installment before sending the kids off to college.
“Changeling” (Universal) : For your Oscar-rooting pleasure, Angelina Jolie plays a woman who loses her child only to have him replaced by someone else’s.
“Body of Lies” (Warner Bros.) : Leonardo Di Caprio flees from “Revolutionary Road” to someplace less frightening — the Middle East — in this CIA flick from Ridley Scott.
“Choke” (Fox) : Actor Clark Gregg makes his directing debut with an adaptation of Chuck (“Fight Club”) Palahniuk’s tale of depravity.
“Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Fiddle and the Drum’” (Koch Vision) : Highlights from Mitchell’s career are used as the basis for an Alberta Ballet Company work focused on war and environmental dangers.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Flash of Genius” (Universal); “How To Lose Friends and Alienate People” (MGM); “The Midnight Meat Train” Director’s Cut (Lions Gate)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Capote / In Cold Blood”(Double Feature), “Gandhi,” “Kramer vs. Kramer” (Sony); “Raging Bull,” “The Passion of the Christ” (Fox)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Blindsight” (Image); “Moving Midway” (First Run Pictures); “Religulous” (Lions Gate)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“I Served the King of England” (Sony)
BEST OF TV: “The Beverly Hillbillies” Season 3, “Sabrina, The Teenage Witch” Season 5 (Paramount); “Dead Like Me” Complete Series (MGM); “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Season 8, “Murder, She Wrote” Season 9 (Universal)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
John Cassavetes’s “Faces” & “Shadows” (Criterion)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“Feast 3: The Happy Finish” (Weinstein Co.); “Quarantine” (2008) (Sony); “Still Waiting… ” (Lions Gate)
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February 9, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/10/09
TOP PICKS
“Blindness” (Miramax) & “Frozen River” (Sony): Two chilly, desperate films (in very different ways) that ranked among the best of 2008; in the latter, Melissa Leo delivers a performance to rival the bigger stars she’s competing with for the Oscar.
“Obama: All Access” (CBS): Standing out in the glut of Obama product out there, this “60 Minutes” presentation gathers the Inaugural address with other highlights like the news program’s own coverage and his Philadelphia speech on race.
“The Exterminating Angel” & “Simon of the Desert” (Criterion): Two late-ish-career highlights by “Un Chien Andalou” provocateur Luis Buñuel.
“Dennis Potter: 3 To Remember” (Koch): Three teleplays by Potter (“The Singing Detective”), one of the most important writers in British TV history.
“What Makes Sammy Run?” (Koch): The scathing showbiz novel by Budd Schulberg, in a 1959 made-for-TV adaptation starring Larry Blyden and John Forsythe.
“Faerie Tale Theatre” (Koch): Two themed single-disc collections come out this week, but don’t overlook a recent complete collection of the Shelley Duvall-hosted show, which draws on such surprising talents as Tim Burton and Frances Ford Coppola.
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” (Paramount); “Miracle at St. Anna” (Touchstone); “Nights In Rodanthe” (Warner Bros.); “Soul Men” (Weinstein Co.); “W.” (Lions Gate)
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Amadeus” Director’s Cut (Warner Bros.); “Boondock Saints,” “Donnie Darko” (Fox); “Doom,” “The Rundown” (Universal); “A History of Violence” (New Line); “Pretty Woman” (Touchstone)
DOCUMENTARIES
“Iggy Pop: Lust for Life” (MVD); “My Name Is Bruce” (B-movie hero Bruce Campbell, that is) (Image); “Obscene,” “The Universe of Keith Haring” (Arts Alliance America)
ARTHOUSE/FOREIGN
“The Geisha” (AnimEigo); “The Romance of Astrea and Celadon” (Koch)
FROM THE VAULTS
“Ode to Billy Joe” (Warner Bros.)
BEST OF TV
Curious George” “Monkey Collection, Vol. 1 & “Robot Monkey and More Great Gadgets” (Universal); “Kennedy” Complete Series, starring Martin Sheen (MPI); “Melrose Place” Season 5, Vol. 1, “Tales from the Darkside” Season 1 (Paramount); “Shaun the Sheep: Back in the Ba-a-ath,” “Thomas & Friends: Railway Friends” (Lions Gate); “She Stoops to Conquer” (Acorn Media); “Tim and Eric Awesome Show” Season 2 (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE
“Clint Eastwood: American Icon Collection” (Universal); “The Enforcer” (Jet Li,1995) (Weinstein Co.); Hitchcock’s “The Lodger,” “The Paradine Case,” “Sabotage,” and “Young & Innocent” (MGM); “The Skulls Trilogy” (Universal); “Street Fighter” (1994, Blu-ray and DVD) (Universal); “Wallace & Gromit” short films (Lions Gate)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
Steven Seagal tries horror in “Against the Dark” (Sony); “Chocolate,” by “Ong Bak” director Prachya Pinkaew (Magnolia); dubious Hitchcock remake “The Lodger” (2008) (Sony); “Spy School” (Universal); Cuba Gooding, Jr. in “The Way of War” (First Look)
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February 2, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 2/3/09
Pick of the week
“Office Space” (Fox): Call us shameless local boosters, but any chance to celebrate this lovable Mike Judge comedy — one of those fortunate films whose audience grows on home video — is one we’ll take.
Other top picks
“Being There” (Warner Bros.): Peter Sellers’s enigmatic outing as “Chauncey Gardiner,” arguably the last great Hal Ashby film, gets the Blu-ray treatment in addition to a standard DVD reissue.
“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” (Weinstein Co.) & “Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist” (Sony): Two romantic comedies for those fed up with the usual generic fare.
Natalie Wood: Warner Bros. celebrates the actress not only with “The Natalie Wood Signature Collection,” which includes numerous new-to-DVD titles, but with a standalone version of the sci-fi flick “Brainstorm,” directed by Douglas Trumbull — best known for the trippy effects in “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
“I Love the 80’s”: Paramount’s odd reissue series continues, using a VH1 marketing tie-in, corny graphic design, and bonus music CDs to sell both titles that fit its silly retro vibe (“Flashdance,” “Staying Alive”) and those that don’t fit in the least (“Gallipoli,” “Ragtime”).
“Martini Movies”: Sony offers its own odd series of catalog titles, presumably suggesting that everything from the Jeff Goldblum/Cyndi Lauper vehicle “Vibes” to Stephen Frears’s tongue-in-cheek “Gumshoe” either revolves around — or would benefit from — free-flowing intoxicants.
“Rent” (Filmed Live on Broadway) (Sony): For fans of the original musical who thought the Hollywood adaptation left something to be desired.
“The Cure: Trilogy” (Eagle Rock): The hardest working goths in eyeliner take to the stage for straight-through performances of three albums: “Pornography,” “Disintegration,” and “Bloodflowers.”
New on Blu-Ray
“Assault On Precinct 13” (1976), “Jeff Dunham: Arguing with Myself,” “K.D. Lang: Live in London” (Image); “Clerks 2” (Weinstein Co.); “Little Miss Sunshine,” “Napoleon Dynamite,” “Sideways” (Fox)
Fresh from the multiplex
“The Secret Life of Bees” (Fox)
Arthouse/Foreign
“Ben X” (Film Movement)
From the vaults
“Inside Moves” (Lions Gate); “The Magnificent Trio” (Image); “Oliver & Company” (Walt Disney); “Yentl” Extended Director’s Edition (MGM)
Best of TV
“Afro Samurai: Resurrection” (FUNimation); “The Berenstain Bears: Springtime Surprises,” “Bewitched” Season 7, “The Partridge Family” Season 4 (Sony); “Columbo” Mystery Movie Collection (Universal); “Mystery Science Theater 3000” Vol. XIV (Shout! Factory); “Tom and Jerry Tales” Vol. 6 (Warner Bros.)
Reissue/Repackage
“Alec Guinness Collection,” “Peter Sellers Collection” (Lions Gate); “Friday the 13th” Parts 1, 2, and 3-D (Paramount)
Straight(ish) to video
“Space Buddies” (Walt Disney); “Bottle Shock” (Fox)
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January 5, 2009
Noteworthy DVDs released 1/6/09
PICK OF THE WEEK
“The Films of Michael Powell” (Sony): Though this small box set’s name suggests something far more comprehensive, the two films offered here (in uncensored cuts) are more than welcome: “A Matter of Life and Death,” a Pearly Gates-testing affair starring David Niven, and “Age of Consent,” which will be an eye-opener for anyone who knows Helen Mirren only from “The Queen” or “Prime Suspect.”
OTHER TOP PICKS
“Appaloosa” (New Line) : The second feature directed by actor Ed Harris is a straight-ahead Western most appealing for the relationship between Harris’ icy gun-for-hire and his more human sidekick played by Viggo Mortensen.
“Pineapple Express” (Sony) : Stoner humor by way of the Apatow crew and David Gordon Green, who’s better known for highbrow fare like “All the Real Girls.”
“The Wackness” (Sony) : Another pot-centric flick, this Sundance crowd-pleaser got attention with Ben Kingsley playing a shrink who scores drugs from a patient.
“Blind Mountain” (Kino) : A young Chinese woman gets sold into captivity in this drama by Yang Li, director of the similarly named “Blind Shaft.”
“The Lizard” (Image) : Also known as “Bi hu,” this is the latest installment in Image’s Shaw Brothers kung-fu reissue series.
“Patti Smith: Dream of Life” (Palm Pictures) : Commercial photographer Steven Sebring took over a decade making this documentary portrait of punk icon Smith.
NEW ON BLU-RAY
“Caligula” (Image); “Dexter” Season 1 (Paramount); “Friday Night Lights” (Universal); “The Last Emperor” (Criterion)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX
“Babylon A.D.” (Fox); “Bangkok Dangerous,” “Disaster Movie” (Lions Gate); “Ping Pong Playa” (Image); “Righteous Kill” (Anchor Bay)
BEST OF TV
“Battlestar Galactica” Season 4 (Universal); “Bob the Builder: Race to the Finish” (Lions Gate); “Duckman” Seasons 3 & 4, “Transformers: Animated” Season 2, “The Tudors” Season 2 (Paramount); “Frisky Dingo” Season 2, “The Waltons” Season 8 (Warner Bros.)
STRAIGHT(ISH) TO VIDEO
“The Alphabet Killer” (Anchor Bay); “Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia” (Fox); “Eden Lake” (Weinstein Co.); “Hard Gun” (BCI Eclipse, also on Blu-ray)
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December 15, 2008
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/16/08
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Into the Wild” (Paramount): “Milk” fans impressed with Emile Hirsch’s supporting performance can see him starring for director Sean Penn in last year’s critics’ favorite, just upgraded to Blu-ray.
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“Generation Kill” (HBO): David Simon and Ed Burns, writers of “The Wire,” head to Iraq for a seven-part TV miniseries.
“Grindhouse: Death Proof” & “Grindhouse: Planet Terror” (Weinstein Co.): Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez intentionally mutilated their latter-day exploitation flicks to make them a sleazy double feature; now both are expanded to feature-ish length and — beware of bad splices! — immortalized on Blu-ray.
“Same Old Song” (New Yorker): Musical comedy from Alain Resnais, better known for the highbrow brainteaser “Last Year at Marienbad”
“Mamma Mia!” (Universal): Did someone say “musical comedy”? With plenty of ABBA and theater fans disappointed in this adaptation, marketers are pitching it as a home sing-along experience.
“Sangre De Mi Sangre” (IFC): Sundance prize-winner about a Mexican man seeking his father in New York City
“Traitor” (Anchor Bay): The recent Don Cheadle vehicle hits stores on Friday, for some reason, days after the customary Tuesday new-release day.
“The Little Mermaid Trilogy” (Walt Disney): One family favorite bundled with two made-for-video sequels.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
“8 Mile” (Universal); “Bottle Rocket,” “Chungking Express,” “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” “The Third Man” (Criterion); “Coach Carter,” “The Heartbreak Kid” (2007), “Old School,” “Tommy Boy” (Paramount)
DOCUMENTARIES:
“Billy the Kid” (Zeitgeist); “The Corporal’s Diary” (Typecast); “Garbage Warrior” (Open Eye Media); “Operation Filmmaker” (First Run / Icarus)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX:
“The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” (Universal)
FROM THE ARTHOUSE:
“The Wedding Director” (New Yorker)
BEST OF TV:
“Aqua Teen Hunger Force” Volume 6 (Warner Bros.); “Will Shakespeare” (1978 Mini-series starring Tim Curry as the Bard), “Mr.
Bean” Ultimate Collection (A&E); “Swingtown” Season 1 (Paramount)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE:
“The Mummy Trilogy” (Universal)
BLU-RAY IN THE CONCERT HALL:
“Rigoletto” (ArtHaus); “Tchaikovsky Gala” (BelAir); “Der Rosenkavalier” (Medici Arts); “Carmen,” “Zoroastre,” and Balanchine’s “Jewels” (Opus Arte)
STRAIGHT-TO-VIDEO:
Alan Arkin and Frank Langella in “Crossroads” (aka “The Novice”) (MTI); middle-aged author Campbell Scott flings with co- eds in “Crashing” (ThinkFilm)
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December 8, 2008
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/9/08
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Murnau, Borzage and Fox” (Fox): This year’s bonanza for film history buffs is a twelve-feature, two-book set that is all the more impressive for devoting such scholarship and production value to filmmakers whose names aren’t as famous as the one celebrated in last year’s John Ford set.
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“The Dark Knight” (Warner Bros.): Hitting living rooms and home theaters just in time for the “could it get nominated?” Best Picture buzz.
“Man on Wire” (Magnolia): Transfixing and dumbstruck-grin-inspiring, James Marsh’s film about the man who walked a Twin Towers tightrope may be the doc of the year, even in a year that gave us a new Errol Morris film.
“Europa” (Criterion): A weird nightmare that will look even stranger to those who know Lars Von Trier only for his Dogme 95 efforts.
“Three Short Films by Werner Herzog” (New Yorker): ‘Nuff said.
“The Wire” & “Deadwood” (HBO): Complete-series sets of series whose tangled plots and brilliant language reward close viewing and (despite the hours involved) tempt viewers to revisit them.
“TV Party: Color Show” & “TV Party: The Sublimely Intolerable Show” (MVD): A vintage public access show serves as a time capsule of late-’70s hipster New York.
NEW ON BLU-RAY:
“Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story,” “Super Troopers” (Fox); “Dumb and Dumber,” “The Mask” (New Line); “Jet Li’s Fearless” (Universal)
DOCUMENTARIES:
“Flow: For Love Of Water” (Oscilloscope)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX:
“Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!” (Fox); “Sex and the City: The Movie” (New Line)
FROM THE ARTHOUSE:
“Peter & The Wolf” (2008), the Oscar-winning animated short (Magnolia); “The Quare Fellow,” “Takva: A Man’s Fear of God” (Koch)
BEST OF TV:
“Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist” Best of; “Happy Days” Season 4 (Paramount); “Lost” Season 4 (Walt Disney / Touchstone)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE:
“Great Directors Box Set” Volume 1 (Kino); “I Am Legend” Ultimate Collector’s Edition (Warner Bros.); “Irma Vep” (Zeitgeist); “It Happened One Night,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “You Can’t Take It With You” (Sony)
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December 1, 2008
Noteworthy DVDs released 12/02/08
Pick of the week:
“Casablanca” (Warner Bros.): “Ultimate Collector’s Editions” and the like can be silly, knick-knack-plagued affairs, but it’s hard not to be forgiving of this one — which, in addition to unnecessary cute stuff like a luggage tag and passport wallet sporting the film’s logo, includes reproduced lobby cards and inter-studio memos and, most important, lets the classic romance’s die-hard admirers have it on their choice of standard or Blu-ray disc.
Other top picks:
“The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951) (Fox) & “Assault on Precinct 13” (1976) (Image): Two unlikely subjects for high-definition — a B&W icon of science fiction and a Hawksian standoff from one-man pulp factory John Carpenter — get the Blu-ray treatment, and fans will rejoice. With Gort arriving on Blu-ray, who needs interstellar visitations from Keanu Reeves?
“Frost/Nixon: The Watergate Interviews” (Liberation) & “Nixon” (Warner): Just in time for all the “Frost/Nixon” moviegoers who want to see the source material comes a DVD of the original broadcast interview. If that’s not enough for you, Oliver Stone’s recently reissued biopic offers the disgraced president a slice of humanity.
“Saturday Night Live” Season 4 (Universal): The first three boxes of classic SNL have been a treasure trove of long-ago-memorized skits and hilarious surprises; there’s more to come before the series’s first slump.
“The Shawshank Redemption”(Warner Bros.): Users of IMDB have voted it the best film of all time. That’s absurd, but there’s no denying this Stephen King adaptation is popular enough to justify a fancy reissue.
New on Blu-Ray:
“Austin Powers Collection” (New Line); “Home Alone,” “Jingle All the Way,” “The X-Files: Fight The Future” (Fox); “La Femme Nikita,” “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc,” “Stranger Than Fiction” (Sony); “The Contract,” “Day of the Dead” (2007) (First Look)
Fresh from the multiplex:
“The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian” (Walt Disney); “Fly Me to the Moon” (Summit); “The Longshots” (Weinstein Co.); “Wanted” (Universal); “Step Brothers” (Sony); “The X-Files: I Want To Believe” (Fox)
Recent music-related titles:
“Stax: Respect Yourself/Stax-Volt Revue” (Concord); “Cash for Kenya,” a 1991 Johnny Cash benefit concert (Mercury); “Sex Pistols: There’ll Always be an England” (Rhino); “Parliament/Funkadelic: Live 1976” (Shout Factory); “Planet B-Boy” (Arts Alliance); “Words for the Dying,” about John Cale sessions produced by Brian Eno (Provocateur); “Inside Bob Dylan’s Jesus Years” (MVD); “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” (Plexifilm); “Population: 1,” starring The Screamers’ Tomata Du Plenty; “Focus: The Filmstrips of Brian Dewan” (Bright Red Rocket); “Ken Russell at the BBC,” a collection of eccentric portraits of Debussy, Elgar, Isadora Duncan and others.
Documentaries:
“A Galaxy Far, Far, Away” (Cinevolve); “The World Within: C.G. Jung In His Own Words” (Kino); “I, Claudius: The Epic That Never Was” (Image)
Best of TV:
“Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear!,” The Man Called Flintstone,” “Metalocalypse” Season 2 (Warner Bros.); “Law & Order” Season 6 (Universal)
From the Arthouse:
“My Father My Lord” (Kino)
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November 24, 2008
DVD picks for the week
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/25/08
PICK OF THE WEEK: “Bottle Rocket” and “Chungking Express” (Criterion): Two gems from the nineties, each of which introduced a unique filmmaking voice (Wes Anderson and Wong Kar-Wai, respectively) to a broad audience of American cinephiles. (WKW had made many previous films, but none got this kind of Stateside exposure.) Both have been on disc before, but Criterion gives them premium treatment — technophiles should postpone buying for a few weeks to see just how premium, as these two are in the (slightly postponed) first batch of Blu-ray titles the company will release.
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” (Criterion): Put Bourne and Bond aside for a moment to return to John le Carré’s version of international intrigue, in a B&W thriller starring Richard Burton.
“Still Life” (New Yorker): Jia Zhang-ke’s award-winner examines the lives of people whose town is about to be destroyed by China’s enormous Three Gorges dam project.
“A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All” (Paramount): Tongue-in-cheek genius Stephen Colbert may be just the man to make the ever-expanding holiday season not only bearable but fun.
“Hancock” (Sony): Despite some head-spinning twists that don’t play out nearly as satisfyingly as they should, this grumpy-superhero yarn offers some enjoyable smart-alec moments for Will Smith, who returns to Serious Acting this season in “Seven Pounds.”
“Sounder” (Koch): The much-loved family film gets what, shockingly, appears to be its first release on DVD.
“Becket” (MPI): However dated and stodgy this Peter O’Toole / Richard Burton historical drama may be, its arrival on Blu-ray is surprising enough to tempt us to revisit it.
“ABBA: The Movie” (Universal Music): The big screen “Mamma Mia” didn’t do it for you? Go straight to the source with a 1977 tour film (directed by Lasse Hallström), just released on Blu-ray.
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “George Carlin: It’s Bad For Ya” (MPI); “Jarhead,” “The Kingdom” (Universal)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “Fred Claus” (Warner Bros.); “Meet Dave,” “Space Chimps” (Fox)
FROM THE VAULTS:
FROM THE ARTHOUSE: Afro-Cuba: Yesterday and Today: “The Last Run of Papa Montero” / “Sara Gomez: An Afro-Cuban Filmmaker,” “Johan Van Der Keuken: The Complete Collection Vol. 4” (Facets); “Moses and Aaron” (New Yorker)
STRAIGHT(ISH)-TO-VIDEO: “Closing the Ring” (Weinstein Co.); “River Queen” (Weinstein Co.); “Superman: Doomsday” (Warner Bros.)
BEST OF TV: “24: Redemption” (Fox); “Beverly Hills 90210” Season 6 (Paramount) “The Doris Day Show,” “Family Affair” (MPI)
CULT CORNER: Psychic Killer (Dark Sky)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE: “The Atomic Cafe” (Docurama); “Freaks and Geeks” Yearbook Edition (Shout! Factory); “The Pink Panther: Ultimate Collection” (MGM); “The Ron Howard Spotlight Collection” (Universal)
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November 17, 2008
New picks for DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released 11/18/08
PICK OF THE WEEK:
“Tropic Thunder” (Paramount): Nasty and unrepentantly over-the-top, Ben Stiller’s sendup of war flicks inevitably drew protests but is often hilarious and much sharper than detractors admit. One of its cast members deserves an Oscar nomination — and we don’t mean Matthew McConaughey, though he may be more fun here than in anything since “Dazed and Confused.”
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“WALL-E” (Walt Disney): If Pixar’s delightful robo-enviro fable exhibited a shortage of subtlety in imagining the human race’s blubbery future, it more than made up for it with its hero’s delicate, lovable performance.
“Hellboy II: The Golden Army” (Universal): Guillermo del Toro’s moody hero returns in multiple home-vid editions boasting gee-whiz special features.
“Encounters at the End of the World” (Image): Werner Herzog’s recent polar expedition is also the first of his movies to get a Blu-ray release — great for all those icy vistas.
“D.W. Griffith Masterworks Vol. 2” (Kino): “Birth of a Nation” may be plenty for some, but Kino’s 5-disc box offers new restorations of rarely seen titles like “Sally of the Sawdust” and an extensive documentary on the cinematic trailblazer.
“Fanfan la Tulipe” (Criterion): Swashbuckling comedy offers a taste of what the French were watching before the New Wave came along.
“Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson” (Magnolia): The SXSW-shown doc about Thompson’s career hits stores concurrently with “The Gonzo Tapes,” a 5-CD box set of his home recordings.
“Up the Yangtze” (Zeitgeist): Widely praised doc explores the impact of China’s Three Gorges Dam, the largest hydroelectric project in the world.
NEW ON BLU-RAY: “Blue Streak,” “Mirrormask,” National Security,” “Revolver,” “Southland Tales” (Sony); “Caligula,” “Encounters at the End of the World” (Image); “Heathers,” “Mad Money” (Anchor Bay); “Lucky Number Slevin” (Weinstein Co.); “Paris, Je T’aime” (First Look); “The Stendhal Syndrome” (Blue Underground)
DOCUMENTARIES: “The Chomsky Sessions” (Docurama); “High Fidelity: Adventures of the Guarneri String Quartet” (First Run Pictures); “The Last Klezmer” (New Yorker); “Manhattan, Kansas” (Carnivalesque Films); “Stax” (Infinity); “Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell” (PlexiFilm); “Wu: The Story of the Wu-Tang Clan” (Paramount)
FROM THE ARTHOUSE: “The Derek Jarman Collection” (Kino); “The Films of Michael Sporn” (First Run Pictures); “Mister Lonely” (IFC)
BEST OF TV: “Doctor Who” Series 4 & “Doctor Who: The Infinite Quest” (BBC); “Hannah Montana” Season 1 (Walt Disney); “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” Complete Series (A&E); “Night Gallery” Season 2 (Universal); “SpongeBob SquarePants” Season 5, Vol. 2; “Star Trek” Original Series Season 3 (Remastered with new CGI effects) (Paramount); Victor Borge Classic Collection (Questar)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2” (Warner Bros.)
REISSUE/REPACKAGE: “300” (Warner); “Columbia Best Pictures Collection” (Sony); “Monty Python Holy Trinity” (Sony)
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November 10, 2008
New picks for DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released this week
PICK OF THE WEEK: — “JFK” (Warner Bros.): Hot on the heels of the underwhelming “W.” comes an entry from the other end of the Oliver Stone-does-history spectrum. Though sometimes infuriating, the conspiracy-happy “JFK” lingers in the cinematic craw in a way “W.” isn’t likely to, and its lurid vision is just the thing for a new Blu-ray edition.
OTHER TOP PICKS:
— Director’s Series: Roberto Rossellini (Lions Gate): Two little-seen titles, “Dov’è La Libertà” and “Era Notte A Roma,” from the Italian master’s mid-career.
— Walt Disney Treasures (Disney): The latest batch of archival goodies, ranging from obscure (1964’s “Dr. Syn”) to the nostalgic (an Annette-centric Mickey Mouse Club disc).
— “Shogun Assassin” box set (AnimEigo): A quintet of bloody samurai films that are English-dubbed versions of the famous Japanese adaptations of the “Lone Wolf and Cub” manga series.
— “The Boys in the Band” (Paramount): Ten years before he drew fire from gays with “Crusing,” director William Friedkin adapted Mart Crowley’s more gay-friendly (if now very dated) play.
— “Madame Bovary” (1991) (Koch): Claude Chabrol + Isabelle Huppert + Gustave Flaubert = Arthouse catnip.
— Paramount’s “Centennial Collection”: A new line of double-disc classics launches this week with reissues of the much-loved “Roman Holiday,” “Sabrina,” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Sadly, the remasters aren’t available on Blu-ray.
NEW TO BLU-RAY:
“Band of Brothers” (HBO); “Black Christmas” (Somerville House); “Firefly” (Fox); “Soundstage: Sheryl Crow Live,” “Soundstage: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers” (Koch)
FROM THE ARTHOUSE:
“…And the Earth Did Not Swallow Him,” “Liberty Kid,” “Little Fugitive” (1953) (Kino); “Camp de Thiaroye” (New Yorker); “Love Songs” (Somerville House); “Mister Foe” (Magnolia); “Opium: Diary of a Madwoman” (Koch); “Sukiyaki Western Django” (First Look)
FROM THE VAULTS:
“The General” (Kino); “The Homefront Collection,” ” Classic Holiday Collection,” Quo Vadis (Warner Bros.)
RECENT DOCUMENTARIES:
“Dalí in New York” (Jack Bond); “The Dalí Dimension” (Dalí Society); “Here Is Always Somewhere Else” (Cult Epics); “The Kennedys: America’s Emerald Kings” (Warner); “Operation Valkyrie: The Stauffenberg Plot To Kill Hitler” (Koch); “Planet B-Boy” (Arts Alliance America); “Toots” (Indiepix)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX:
“Star Wars: The Clone Wars” (Warner Bros.)
BEST OF TV:
“The Cosby Show” box set (First Look); “I Dream of Jeannie” (Sony); “Little House on the Prairie,” “Shaun The Sheep” (Lions Gate); “Scrubs” Season 7 (Walt Disney / Touchstone); “The Sopranos” Complete Series (HBO)
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November 3, 2008
Best of the new DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released this week:
Pick of the week: The Films of Budd Boetticher (Sony): How significant are these five 1957-1960 Westerns directed by Boetticher and starring Randolph Scott? Ask Clint Eastwood and Martin Scorsese, who provide introductions on this set, which marks their first-ever release on DVD.
OTHER TOP PICKS:
The Gregory Peck Film Collection (Universal): The Peck classics ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘Cape Fear’ are joined by four new-to-DVD titles including ‘Arabesque.’
‘Planet of the Apes’ (40 Year Evolution Blu-ray Collection) (Fox): The entire dirty-ape saga, presented in high-def splendor.
‘A Christmas Story’ (Warner Bros.): It’s good enough news that this Yuletime classic is now out on Blu-ray. The string of ‘leg lamp’ Christmas lights in the new ‘Ultimate Collector’s Edition’ box is just goofy icing on the cake.
‘Tenacious D: The Complete Master Works 2’ (Sony): Concert footage plus a second disc with the AFF-shown doc ‘D Tour.’
‘The Persuaders’ Triple Feature (Lions Gate): Swinging secret agents Roger Moore and Tony Curtis globe-trot their way through three adventures.
‘What We Do Is Secret’ (Peace Arch): Biopic of Darby Crash of The Germs.
‘DJ Spooky’s Rebirth of a Nation’ (Anchor Bay): D.W. Griffith’s troublesome masterpiece gets remixed by DJ Spooky.
‘Futurama: Bender’s Game’ (Fox): Another feature-length outing of the Matt Groening sci-fi comedy that wouldn’t say die.
‘Waterworld’ Extended Edition (Universal): For everyone who thought 136 minutes wasn’t enough.
Documentaries: ‘All Together Now,’ about the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil event ‘Love’ (EMI); ‘Comic Books Unbound’ and ‘Too Tough to Die: A Tribute to Johnny Ramone’ (Anchor Bay)
New to blu-ray: ‘Monster’s Ball’ and ‘Universal Soldier’ (Lions Gate); ‘Vexille’ (FUNimation)
Fresh from the multiplex: ‘Get Smart’ (2008) (Warner Bros.); ‘Henry Poole Is Here’ (Anchor Bay); ‘Transsiberian’ (First Look); ‘When Did You Last See Your Father?’ (Sony)
Best of TV: ‘The Batman’ Complete Animated Series and ‘Popeye the Sailor’ Volume 3 (Warner Bros.); ‘Fraggle Rock’ Complete Series (Lions Gate); ‘Get Smart’ Gift Set (HBO); ‘The Howdy Doody Show’ (Mill Creek); ‘Project Runway’ Complete 4th Season (Genius); ‘The Starlost’ Complete Series (VCI); ‘The Wild Wild West’ Complete Series (Paramount)
Guess it’s nearly that time again: ‘A Christmas Carol’ (1951) (VCI); ‘Christmas Is Here Again,’ ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ (2000) (Universal); ‘The Christmas Toy’ (Lions Gate); ‘This Christmas,’ ‘The Perfect Holiday’ (Sony)
Reissued/repackaged: ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ (Fox), ‘Star Wars’ Trilogy, ‘Star Wars’ Prequel Trilogy (Fox); ‘The Bourne Trilogy’ (Universal); ‘Madagascar’ (Paramount)
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October 28, 2008
The best of the new DVDs
Noteworthy DVDs released 10/28/08
PICK OF THE WEEK: Austin-related films are creeping into the digital realm by hook or by crook lately. David Modigliani’s doc “Crawford” has recently been the most popular feature at video website Hulu.com, and can now be ordered on disc from crawfordmovie.com; Ellen Spiro’s “Body of War” (Docurama) arrives in stores this week; and Jeff Nichols’s “Shotgun Stories” has been out for a while now. “The Unforeseen” (New Yorker) came out after an attention-getting if short theatrical run, and “Hell on Wheels” (IndiePix) carried the tough-girl roller-derby scene out to the rest of the country.Meanwhile, SXSW-veteran documentarians David Redmon & Ashley Sabin aren’t only releasing their own work (like the affecting “Kamp Katrina,” and “Mardi Gras: Made in China”) via carnivalesquefilms.com; this week they’re branching out with Sam Douglas and Paul Lovelace’s music doc “The Holy Modal Rounders: Bound to Lose.”
OTHER TOP PICKS:
“Abbott and Costello: The Complete Universal Pictures Collection”: (Universal): It’s a suitcase full of fat man/skinny man hijinks. Need we say more?
“Baraka” (MPI): The ultra-high-def Blu-ray remaster of this 65mm travelogue has had ultra-picky videophiles raving, with this Roger Ebert quote the most ecstatic: “The restored 2008 Blu-Ray DVD is the finest video disc I have ever viewed or ever imagined.”
“Elf” (New Line): The Will Ferrell charmer is has joined “A Christmas Story” as a modern holiday ritual, and a new Blu-ray version just makes an eighth viewing that much more appealing.
Kirk Douglas x2: Two oddities from the star’s late career emerge, as the internationally-cast “Rain of Fire” (Lions Gate) plays with nuclear disaster and a visit from the Antichrist while the enjoyable time-travel adventure “The Final Countdown” (Blue Underground) comes to Blu-ray.
High-def 3-D: Two titles this week — “Polar Express” (Warner Bros.) and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” (New Line) — promise to bring the theatrical 3-D revival into living rooms, funny glasses and all. Regular 2-D versions are included, for the headache-prone.
DOCUMENTARIES: “Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens” (Warner Bros.), “Billy the Kid” (2007) (Zeitgeist), “Inside Bob Dylan’s Jesus Years: Busy Being Born…Again!” (MVD), Collector’s Editions of “Paradise Lost” & “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” (Docurama)
FRESH FROM THE MULTIPLEX: “Death Defying Acts” (Weinstein Co.), “Hell Ride” (Dimension), “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” (New Line)
BEST OF TV: Complete-series collections of “The Flintstones” (Warner Bros.), “The Little Rascals” (Genius), “NewsRadio” & “Sanford and Son” (Sony), and “War and Remembrance” (MPI); also, the scandalous “Fanny Hill” from Acorn.
CULT CORNER: Fans of the fringe have their plates full this week, with a slew of titles from genre leader Synapse including “Patrick” and “Strange Behavior”; a new edition of “The Beyond” (Grindhouse); recent productions “Hank and Mike” (Magnolia) and “Red” (2008) (Magnolia); and the Serge Gainsbourg/Jane Birkin “Slogan” (Cult Epics). Heck, Sony’s “Zombie Strippers” is even arriving on Blu-ray.
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