Archive for the ‘Blu-ray’ Category

Since not a whole lot is coming out today, most of this column is going to be a review of The Princess and the Frog, which hits streets today in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.  The Princess and the Frog was a return to form for Disney, both in the realm of classic 2D animated storytelling and the princess themed movies that made them famous to start with.

With their first black princess, Disney transformed a well-worn story (The Frog Princess) into a jazzy, 1920s princess tale of New Orleans with plenty of gorgeously animated musical numbers and memorable characters, this film is the Disney movie we’ve been waiting years for, but haven’t had in more than a decade.  The art style is very Jazz age, though it’s wrapped in a contemporary flag, it’s a tremendous film packed into that short time span and I would recommend it to any lover of animation or kid at heart.  It’s a testament to the fact that 2D animated movies are viable forms of entertainment still.  I can’t believe that people are treating 2D animation like it’s a picture with out sound or color.  It’s pretty frustrating.

But the people at Disney, led now by Andrew Stanton, really raised the bar on the storytelling from their status quo.  There’s even very Un-Disney like moves they pull with the story that will pull tears from even the hardest hearts in the audience.  As far as the Blu-ray is concerned, it’s truly a thing of wonder to see contemporary animation in a high-definition format.  And the more I watch animated films of any sort (Traditional, 3D, new, old) my breath is always taken by the quality of it on a nice screen.

So, yeah, don’t buy the DVD only version of these cartoons.  You will regret it.

Other things coming out on DVD or Blu-ray today:

• Twilight: New Moon
• Ninja Assassin
• Astro Boy
• Breaking Bad: Season 2

Jason Reitman’s Academy Award nominated Up In the Air comes out on DVD and Blu-ray today.  I thought this was a pretty solid movie.  George Clooney was good in the film, as well as Vera Farmiga.  And Jason Reitman is certainly a director to watch.  His dad, Ivan, may have directed Ghostbusters, but I think Jason might end up being a better director.  Anything’s possible.

Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story comes out today.  Though I don’t think it’s his best filmmaking, I think everyone should see this movie and get pissed off about things.  That’s always what Michael Moore does best, riling people up into doing something, and this film is no different.  See it.  Watch it.  Know it.

Another documentary I’m incredibly keen on seeing came out on DVD today: The Brothers Warner.  It’s a history of the Warner Brothers and produced by Cass Warner, a direct descendant.  It looks incredible and I love old Hollywood History, so this one is a must have.

I would mention that Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day comes out today, but I hated the first one because it was terrible and I don’t see how this one would be any different.

The top pick today is Spike Jonze’s delightful live action take on Where the Wild Things Are.  It was sad and incredible.  I know some people didn’t like it and found that it wasn’t their cup of tea, but I thought it was a really great film about how hard it is grow up.

Next on the list is a classic from our youth.  Clash of the Titans, starring Harry Hamlin, Laurence Olivier and Burgess Meredith, among others.  This is one of my favorite movies from when I was a kid.  It was an incredible take on greek mythology and between the Gorgons, Medusa, and the Kraken, I had many a nightmare.  Harryhausen’s effects still hold up well and I’m excited to get it on Blu-ray in the special Book version.

Hayao Miyazaki’s latest animated effort, Ponyo, comes out today in a Blu-ray/DVD combo from Disney.  I’m really happy to see Disney buying into Miyazaki’s films so much.  They’re as good or better than most of the average Disney fare and are top notch.  Ponyo is based loosely on the Hans Christian Anderson story of The Little Mermaid and is geared more toward kids than his more recent fare.  I watched it with my kids and they loved it, they were laughing hysterically the whole way through.  Also from Miyazaki and Disney today are the 2 disc DVD sets of Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro. For Castle in the Sky and Kiki’s Delivery Service, these are excellent versions and I would recommend getting them.  Totoro, on the other hand…  Disney went and fixed wasn’t broken and redubbed the audio and I would have to say that until they restore the original English language dub that Fox put out, you should avoid this one.

Another classic from my childhood that I am terrified won’t hold up is getting a Blu-ray release today: The Neverending Story. I’m hoping it holds up better than I think it will, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

Also out today on DVD:

• 2012
• Eureka Seven: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers
• Gentlemen Broncos

I think perhaps the most important release today is the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths disc that I wrote a review of last week. (You can read that review here.)

Next on the list is the first 10 episodes of Flash Forward. I posted a separate review of that as well and you can read that here.

On Blu-ray today is a great steal: A single-disc version of Presumed Innocent and Roman Polanski’s masterpiece Frantic. I’m pretty lukewarm about Presumed Innocent, but Frantic makes me sick in all the right ways just thinking about it. It’s an incredibly tense thriller and sticks with you.

Scott Soderbergh’s latest is out on DVD today. I meant to see this one but never got a chance. I’m definitely going to have to check it out: The Informant. It stars Matt Damon in a true story about a bipolar guy who feeds the government information about his corporation that’s pretty damaging. It’s been described as a mix between The Informant and Duck Soup. Sounds interesting to me.

That’s about it for this week, see you next time.

Warner Bros. has been doing a pretty good job on their DC original movies, bringing to life stories from the comics that wouldn’t fit into a regular series or with the standard continuity of anything else that has come before it.

Sometimes, they score a hit, like Superman: Doomsday, sometimes they catch a piece of the ball and knock it to the back of the park but in foul territory, like Batman/Superman: Public Enemies, and sometimes they knock it out of the park, like with Crisis on Two Earths.

After watching the preview of this film on the Public Enemies DVD, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. I’ve always been of the opinion that most of DCs “Crisis” story lines were too convoluted for me to follow and too dense with characters I couldn’t remember for me to care, but Crisis on Two Earths, despite its awkward title, really boiled down a Crisis story to its essence and nailed it.

It made me excited over Crisis stories and wish that this is how they were told in the DC Universe, proper. This film opens up with Earth-2’s Lex Luthor and Jester (a pretty generic Joker ripoff) stealing some manner of technology and escaping from the Crime Syndicate, which consists of a Superman riff called Ultraman, a Batman riff called Owlman, a Wonder Woman riff called Superwoman and so on. These guys are evil and on their Earth they’ve completely subverted the people into making them rich gangsters.

Lex Luthor is the leader of this Earth’s iteration of the Justice League and develops a way to get to our Earth, wherein he asks the Justice League for help. The entire league, sans Batman, agree to go back to Earth-2 to help Lex Luthor. Batman stays behind, insisting that The Justice League is tasked with saving only their own Earth from criminals and intergalactic threats and the like, but his attitude soon changes when the Crime Syndicate hatch a plan to blow up Earth-Prime, which would cause a chain reaction that would destroy every Earth in the multiverse.

I really liked this movie, the voice acting was good even though Kevin Conroy wasn’t Batman. I mean, seriously, Kevin Conroy should ALWAYS be Batman. James Woods was excellent as the creepy and psychopathic Owlman and Mark Harmon filled Superman’s shoes quite capably. The animation was top-notch and the action sequences had an incredible kinetic energy to them. They were exciting and fit in with the story to the point where each and every one of them meant something. They were all very, very cool to watch.

On a side note, I can see the Italian American community upset about Ultraman. He’s a greezy goomba and, though it worked for me, they seem to get upset about any iteration of Italian American as a mobster, and that’s pretty much all Ultraman is.

Having said how much I liked this movie, there is a major problem I had with the film and I need to preface this with a MAJOR Spoiler warning.

There, you’ve been warned.

At the end of the film, and Owlman has set the QED device to blow up and destroy Earth prime, Batman changes the coordinates of the bomb, batarangs Owlman to it, and then leaves him to explode. It seems incredibly out of character for Batman to specifically tie a villain to a bomb and send him off to who knows where for him to die. It was very un-Batman. I understand the stakes were high, and this guy would probably try it again, etc, but that’s Batman’s one unwavering rule: The Bat does NOT kill.

So, that was my biggest gripe.

Aside from that, they decoded the film version of a Crisis story perfectly.

As for the Spectre short… Wow… On the disc there is an 11 minute short film that was written by Steve Niles featuring the Spectre. It had the look and feel of a 70s exploitational cop procedural on 16mm and though it was incredibly short, the first rate animation and story concentrated into such a tight time frame worked so well that I’d almost like to see more of these instead of more feature length films. A disc of these would be to die for. I must have watched this five times and shown it to twice as many people, I couldn’t believe how excellent it was.

The last thing on the disc I’d like to mention is the preview for the next DCU Animated film, “Under the Red Hood.” The good news is that we’ll be seeing portions of my favorite Batman story, A Death in the Family, animated. The bad news is that they are basing this off of Judd Winicks lackluster run, taking Jason Todd out of the grave and under the hood. We’ll see how it plays out, but this was my least favorite Batman arc in the last 20 years.

Overall, this disc was worth the price of admission and it has hours of bonus content that will occupy your time for…well…hours…

To order it on Amazon, simply click the link.

The first film on the list this week is the special 20th anniversary Blu-ray edition of Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece Goodfellas.  Aside from the fact that it’s a little disconcerting that films from the 90s are getting 20th anniversary editions, this is a genuinely exciting release and one I’m going to snatch up as soon as possible.

The second film on the list today is the Blu-ray re-release of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran.  This is a disc I’m both keen and wary to check out.  Criterion, who always does an incredible job with film transfers, announced this title last year, but were unable to get all the proper rights in order and had to back out.  Lions Gate stepped up to do it and word around the campfire is such that I’m wary.  It seems as though it’s a better transfer of this film than has been released, but it is more akin to an upconversion than the sort of frame-by-frame restoration that Criterion would have done.  I don’t know how it looks, but if I get my hands on a copy, I’ll certainly pass the word along to you.

Next we have Criterion’s release of Lola Montes.  Expect a full review tomorrow.

From the unnecessary nostalgia department: Small Wonder season 1.  For those of you whipper-snappers who don’t remember, this is a show about an inventor who creates a mind-bogglingly creepy robot girl who lives at the house with them.  It was on every day after school at some point in my youth and I watched it on alo occasion along with Mr. Belvedere.  Since it’s robot oriented, expect a full review soon.

For you Halo fans out there, the Halo Legends disc is coming out on Blu-ray and regular DVD.  I know next to nothing about Halo, but talking to Halo fans, this seems like something you must own if you care at all about the mythos.  I’d like to hear some more opinions about this one since it does look pretty cool, but I have no context for it.

The last release I’ll mention today is something I haven’t seen but it has been recommended to me so many times, I imagine there must be something to it.  The satirical blacksploitation film Black Dynamite.

See you next week!

HELL-o all you FABULOUS, SHINY robots! The Flaming-Gynoid here, back from Broadway tour. Oh, for those of you who didn’t know, I sometimes fill in for Ms. Liza when she’s down, out, or just plain beat to a pulp.  Any-who, I have missed all you Clanks, Cranks, Droids, Tron’s and Voids…and I hope you missed me too.

Moving right along…there’s this fantastic movie, just released on Blu-ray after a DVD re-re-release in 2004 (first in 99, re-released 2002), which I saw AGES AGO . Let me define “AGES”: I originally watched it on VHS. Can you all say VID-EO TAPE, you daft cows! (Side note; I’m shocked at the number of people who have never seen, nor heard of this film when asked about it.) SERIOUSLY!! Like me, you all have those BIG, soft, pink, veiny, wet organs that I call BRAINS. Its helps us think and make choices and for those Robots who use it, must know that this film is probably one of the greatest Sci-fi /Action films of the 80’s….Ok, probably not the greatest, BUT it’s certainly worth watching at least one time in your life. Don’t give me that look BITCH! I said it, and I meant it.

The film is “Running Man”. It’s based on an early story by Stephen King (writing as “Richard Bachman“).  Set in Los Angeles, the year is 2017, & the country has pretty much gone to hell. Can’t wait…7 more years for us kiddies!! The government controls everything with an iron fist, including all television programming. The “Must See TV” of the future, is the reality game show The Running Man, produced in conjunction with the Department of Justice, where a group of colorful, diverse, murderous hunters, called “Stalkers” pursues convicted criminals across a 400 city block radius, all the while being filmed and televised. It’s a game comparable to the Roman Gladiators at the Coliseum. If a criminal can complete the course, he’ll have a full pardon and a place of his own in Hawaii… but I’m sure we have all heard that famous saying, “the bad guy never wins”…or do they?

(Now let us take a moment and think about this…here’s a film made long before the reality crap on television was produced, aired and has now taken over our screens. I loathe and despise reality TV, but wouldn’t we all enjoy watching this sort of reality TV? Or better yet, be able to play as a Stalker and destroy the scum of the earth in an all out obstacle course, rather than air a bunch of Wanna-be Flaming Gynoids on that filthy, trashy show called American “Loser”, well except for Adam…I do feel a warm sensory overload when I see him gyrate on stage. Mmm-Hmm…..GYRATE ADAM!!)

The err…eh….loveable? Richard Dawson (you remember..he’s that famous old pervert who loved to molest his female contestants on Family Feud) plays the role of Damon Killian, the slimy, ruthless game show host of “T.R.M”, who will stop at nothing to get high ratings. It’s not much of a stretch for Dawson, seeing as how he’s really just playing himself, Dirty old pig!…but he does a good job of entertaining throughout the film.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the star, the hero, the sexy one in the show…although I do think Jesse Ventura (a Stalker aka Captain Freedom) could give Arnie a run for his money when it comes to being sexy…Such big muscles you have Mr. Ventura, *giggling to myself*…he was one fine HUNK with a lot of JUNK, back in the day. HELL-O!!

Oh yes, so our leading man, Ben Richards (Arnie) is falsely accused of some horrible massacre of innocent civilians, when in reality he tried to prevent it from ever happening, and has now found himself a contestant on T.R.M. He’s joined by his two military buddies, William Laughlin (Yaphet Kotto) and Harold Weiss (Marvin J. McIntyre) who were promised that they would not have to compete if Richards would go on in their place…Richards accepts, but SURPRISE!!! Tricked you! You still have to compete…Oh, you silly boys. When will you learn? Why do you fall for such lame promises? You never change…Now, more than 20 years later and you’re still falling for it. Hahahaha…*sigh*

It’s pretty easy to guess what direction this film takes next, and therefore I’m not going to go any further into the storyline, but I will say this…The film is a product of its time/generation. Its sets/design/costumes/special effects are cheesy, and the script is what you would expect a movie like this to be. The film is filled with corny, funny puns, mostly delivered by Arnie, which you can’t help but roll your eyes at, while sporting a huge grimacing grin. There’s a fair share of blood, guts, and glory, and let’s not forget a tag-a-long, bombshell beauty named Amber Mendez(Maria Conchita Alonso) who worked for the game show network, but found herself on the other side when she questioned the truth behind Ben Richards past. So throw all these things together in a giant, stainless steel mixing bowl from Pottery Barn, mix it up, throw it in the oven @375 temp. and what you get is a delicious helping of entertainment. Sheer entertainment in fact.  Or at least for the truly devoted Arnie fans. I give Running Man, 8 out of 10 Ventura Biceps!

The Blu-ray is cheap if you buy @ Amazon.com. Only $11.99!! Its single disc and nothing fancy as far as extras…just clean, crisp imagery.

The Coen Brothers hit another home run with their perfectly handcrafted latest effort, A Serious Man, which comes out on DVD and Blu-ray today.  If you’re a fan of the Coen brothers (and seriously, if you read this website and you’re not at least a fan of The Big Lebowski, you must have been living in a cave for the last decade) then this movie is a must own.

Next on the list is a 10 DVD set of Chaplin films that I’m pretty keen on getting for myself.  It includes City Lights, The Kid, Modern Times, The Gold Rush, and The Great Dictator, among others, and is priced to move at $20.  This is both a steal and a must see for anyone interesting in films or great comedies.  In fact, I watched City Lights over again last night and it once again proved to me that it’s perhaps one of the best movies ever made.  (In fact, it was #5 on Stanley Kubrick’s list of best films ever.)

I wish there were more, but aside from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Running Man on Blu-ray, there isn’t much of note to mention.

Until next week.

Off the heels of last years Hulk vs. animated movie from Lionsgate (who were kind enough to provide BSR with a review copy) comes the much anticipated Planet Hulk, a thrilling animated adaptation of the Gladiator-esque story arc that put The Incredible Hulk on the top of sales charts a few short years ago.

For those who who are unfamiliar, Planet Hulk begins with the Hulk, restrained in a ship bound for a young green world devoid of intelligent life courtesy of Tony Stark and friends who feel they are finally giving Bruce Banner what he’s always wanted. Solitude. None too pleased with the kiss off, Hulk proceeds to do what he does best and after smashing up the better part of the ship’s guts he finds himself on a new course to the savage planet of Sakarr.  Upon landing the Hulk finds himself enslaved as a gladiator play thing for a cruel Emperor along with a rag tag group of natives, soldiers and aliens like himself who are fighting for their freedom.

Planet Hulk provides a rare, almost “what if” scenario where the Hulk is not feared and reviled as an unchecked force of destruction but revered as a champion and savior.

Expertly rendered and ample fight scenes, along with a substantial cameo appearance by one of my favorite Marvel B-Listers (easily my favorite part of the movie) give the movie a brisk pace while still taking the time to develop scores of character’s that are completely new to the Marvel Universe, cramming but not cluttering the narrative with a balance of action and story.

As adaptations go, Planet Hulk demonstrates the if it’s not broken, don’t fix it storytelling model with flying colors, relying largely on the strength of the original vision while taking enough liberties to keep those of us who have read the comic on our toes.

The disk includes a glut of extras, many of which are to be expected but some that were pleasant surprises, namely issue 1 of  The Astonishing X-Men and Spider-Woman motion comics. Highly skeptical of the whole concept of motion comics (which are exactly what you imagine them to be) I gave both of them a watch. I wish I could sit here and tell you otherwise but I really dug them both and at $0.99 a pop on iTunes I could actually see myself getting into them.  I think the concept is really in the testing phase from a market perspective but so long as the price is right, I could see it taking off based on the strength of what I’ve seen so far.

All in all I’m excited to see how well Lionsgate is treating their Marvel properties and Planet Hulk is no exception, on par with their previous Hulk releases for sure.  I’m just crossing my fingers that they’ll continue this Hulk yarn into World War Hulk territory.

Planet Hulk is in stores today.
Planet Hulk (Two Disc Special Edition)
Planet Hulk [Blu-ray]
Planet Hulk

Today is a big day with lots of interesting things to check out .  First we have the excellent Zombie parody film, Zombieland.  Though not as good as Shaun of the Dead, this is still and incredibly entertaining piece of zombie satire.    And let’s be honest, Bill Murray’s cameo is one of the best cameos in film history.  It belongs up there with Orson Welles in The Third Man.

One of the best and most important films to ever grace the silver screen is getting an affordable Blu-ray release today.  Casablanca is coming out now for only $16.99.  This is easily one of my favorite films and I’m dying to get my hands on it to see it in glorious high definition.  If you haven’t seen this film, now is the time.

Another classic to hit Blu-ray today is Martin Scorsese’s sprawling epic Gangs of New York.  This picture was tremendous, please don’t make me explain why you should check it out any more than that.  Forget for a second that Cameron Diaz is in it and just get it.  Seriously.  You won’t regret it.  And if you do, I’m not sorry.

Next we have Planet Hulk, another surprise gem from the Marvel/Lions Gate partnership.  If there’s one thing I’ll be sad to see go because of the Disney/Marvel acquisition, it’s that Lions Gate will have to stop making these animated films.  Clang! Boom! Steam! will be around with a full review of the DVD, but rest assured, I enjoyed it immensely.  And it reminded me why I like Beta Ray Bill so much.

Terry Gilliam’s masterpiece Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas comes out on Blu-ray today.  Though it seems as though no one has ever heard of this movie anymore, maybe Johnny Depp on the cover will bring in some new blood and extend the fan base of this film.  This was in the batch of the first 20 movies I bought on DVD and I’ll be happy to add it to that same number on Blu-ray.

The House of the Devil comes out today.  I haven’t even really heard of it, but Budgetron gave it an incredibly stunning review here.

Last on the list this week is the release of all of David Tennant’s Dr. Who specials.  I haven’t known much about Dr. Who at all, but I was tricked into watching The Water of Mars and The End of Time Part 1 and 2 and I haven’t been the same since.  I really, really enjoyed these and they got me in the mindset enough to want to seek out more Dr. Who.  So, I still don’t know much about the whole Dr. Who thing, but thanks to most of that box set, I’m going to find out.