Release of the Week
Big Trouble in Little China (Blu-ray only)
This has been one of my most-anticipated high-def upgrades since I started obsessively tracking what is and is not available on Blu-ray. The 1080p resolution of the picture is the biggest "get" for fans of the movie like myself who have worn out VHS tapes of it over the years. The added clarity makes it look like a completely different movie for me and others who never saw it on the big screen. All of the extras from the most recent DVD special edition carry over, including the John Carpenter/Kurt Russell Commentary. Enjoyable for me was the Spanish Trailer, which re-titles the movie "Rescue in Chinatown," or more literally, "Rescue in the Chinese Neighborhood." Big Trouble can be found for right around $20, and is the Disc Release of the Week partly on its own merit, but mainly because it's the only true must-own of the week. titles like this one being handled correctly will be what makes Blu-ray sink or swim in the long run.
New Releases
The Soloist (Blu-ray & DVD)
This is a much better movie than people gave it credit for during the takedown campaign that pre-dated its actual release. I don't know if it would have made the Best Picture nominee list, but it didn't deserve to be buried in April. Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx are both very solid, Foxx in particular. What really angers me most about all the damning-with-faint-praise buzz now that I've seen the movie are the slams against Foxx I read months ago. Downey puts it best in one of the featurettes when he says that when someone portrays schizophrenia and does it badly, it's just dreadful. What Jamie put together is an absolute mimicry of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers, and I mean that as the highest compliment. I would not consider this a movie I think everyone would want to go out and buy, but the movie and all the supplements deserve at least a rental. The blu-ray includes Director's Commentary with Joe Wright, some Deleted/Alternate/Extended Scenes, and various featurettes that are worth looking at (unlike many).
Race to Witch Mountain (Blu-ray & DVD)
Disney has wisely decided to issue their family films on Blu-ray with the DVD and a Digital Copy included, thus removing any and all inclination to "rip" video through other means. The movie itself is better than I expected, mostly thanks to Dwayne Johnson's showmanship, which makes a lot of things he's in tolerable all on his own. I never had any attachment to the original whatsoever, and it didn't knock my socks off. I can say, however, that seeing Drew "Moriarty" McWeeny as a Featured Background Artist did encourage me that he may have finally found a steady job. Extras include Bloopers and Deleted Scenes on both the DVD and Blu, with a "Which Mountain" feature exclusive to the Blu-ray that points out references to the original movie.
Mutant Chronicles (Blu-ray & DVD)
I wish I could say this movie has some redeeming value other than being unintentionally hilarious. Loosely-based on a role-playing game from some years ago, there's a great deal of talent on display despite a plot out of the mind of a middle-schooler and effects that are often shockingly bad. Thomas Jane is once again squandered, Ron Perlman plays a priest with a better-than-most Irish accent, Malkovich plays a guy with so few lines he must have only worked for a couple days, and Benno Furman barely gets a chance to do anything but act "sinister" and "bad-ass." As long as one goes in expecting it to be terrible, it's watchable while planning a couple accidental naps. A friend recently remarked on Twitter that you learn the most from movies that don't turn out well, and I completely agree.
For every Criterion multi-disc set, I have a super-in-depth special edition of something like Mutant Chronicles. Believe it or not, for a movie this negatively-reviewed and generally dismissed, there's a metric ton of supplements included. There's a Feature Commentray with Simon Hunter & Ron Perlman, a Making-of Documentary, Deleted Scenes, Greenscreen/Storyboard Comparisons, a Promo Teaser Short Film with Director's Commentary, a Making-of for the Promo Teaser (thorough!), Cast & Crew Interviews, Storyboards, Concept Art & Visual Effects featurettes, an HDNet promo, a San Diego Comic-Con Panel Q&A, Webisodes, and the Theatrical Trailer. Most movies that do as poor of business as Mutant Chronicles hit DVD without so much as the trailer. Magnet (genre subsidiary of Magnolia) allows the curious to see how the sausage was made, which I think is utterly brilliant.
Delgo (DVD only)
Independently produced and released, Delgo fell victim to the mass failures of independent labels that followed the tanking worldwide economy. It was released in the middle of December 2008, which is why most people forgot it existed. I'd rather expose kids to this than all the gimmicky crap 3D CG-animated stuff out there, as there's some real effort, ingenuity, and interesting creature design at play. It's also notable in that it features Anne Bancroft's final performance.
The voice cast is full of famous people, from Malcolm McDowell and Val Kilmer to Burt Reynolds and Michael Clarke Duncan to Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Freddie Prinze Jr. to Louis Gossett Jr. and...Kelly Ripa? Lots of famous people worked on the cheap, let's put it that way.
The movie is not terrible by any stretch, relative to movies of its type. did it blow me away? No, not really, but it was authentically original, and that nice in CG animation. It actually reminds me of some of the less-remembered Rankin-Bass animated fantasy movies, like Flight of Dragons.
The visuals really deserve a Blu-ray upgrade at some point. The check disc I received looks all right, I suppose, and the financial prospects for the movie bode not too well for sales, but this movie will look a lot better in 1080p.
In terms of extras, there's a Directors' Commentary, Behind the Scenes, fully-animated and rendered Deleted Scenes [13:00], and a Sound featurette. Also included is an original animated short, Chroma Chameleon [4:48], which I'm assuming accompanied Delgo's theatrical run. The major uphill battle Delgo has on home video is the fact it doesn't have accompanying toys that kids expect to compliment their new favorite movie of the moment. I hope the filmmakers have a grassroots campaign going, because otherwise this worthwhile family-friendly title will get buried by the likes of Ice Age 3: Yawn of the Dinosaurs.
New to Blu
Sling Blade
This is one movie that has aged really well, as has Thornton's performance as Karl. The picture on the Blu-ray is as close to the look of the print I saw back in '96 as I think I'll see again until (I'm assuming) it's re-struck as a repertory title for its 20th anniversary in 2016. The Blu-ray includes all of the following: Mr. Thornton Goes To Hollywood; Bravo Profiles: Billy Bob Thornton; A Roundtable Discussion with Billy Bob Thornton, Dwight Yoakam, Mickey Jones, and Producer David Bushell; A Conversation with Billy Bob Thornton and Robert Duvall; A Conversation with Robert Duvall (on his own); A Conversation with Billy Bob Thornton and Composer Daniel Lanois; The Return of Karl; On the Set: Billy Bob at Work, Doyle's Band: The Johnsons, Doyle Gets Pummeled; "Doyle's Dead" with Intro by Thornton; and finally a Feature Commentary with Thornton.
The Waterboy
It's been over ten years since this came out, and it's still on my "tune-out and veg" list of movies I'll come across on cable and just leave on for three hours on TBS. Do I endorse the horde of imitators that have flooded multiplexes since 1998? No, not at all. nor am I surprised that Touchstone included no extras here. The movie doesn't really need them. No one cares how they did Sandler's makeup, they just want to watch him tackle people.
My Cousin Vinny
Tomei won an Oscar for this, and the movie's good too. Haven't looked at this disc yet.
New to Region 1
Ulysses (DVD only)
There were crap all-region versions of this out there previously. I'm waiting for this to arrive to put it through its paces, but I'll keep beating the drum: more Kirk Douglas movies on DVD is a good thing.
You Must Remember This: The Warner Bros. Story
I'm going to track this one down at some point when I want to soak in studio history. The reviews are raves across the board.
Reissue
The Tigger Movie: 10th Anniversary Edition (DVD only)
Does my credibility take a minor blow for including a Winnie The Pooh spin-off movie in a DVD roundup for a column with the word "Arthouse" in the title? Probably. Do I care? Not at all. Disney appears to have remastered this one, included a Digital Copy, and a couple Tigger-centric episodes of The New Adventures of Winnie The Pooh along with a pile of interactive extras. The whole reason I'm covering this is to emphasize what they're doing right here: bundling Digital Copy and actual added-value (more than just the movie, i.e. the TV show episodes). The "movie" (more like extended episode) is just over an hour and teaches some lessons about what family means. To my delight, this may inadvertently start a "nature versus nurture" kinship conversation in a lot of conservative households that don't know what they're getting into. I blame socialism, naturally.
TV Catalog
Stargate Atlantis: Fans' Choice
I never got into this show, and this is the perfect gateway drug or shortcut, depending on how one reacts. Fans of the show voted for the full, feature-length version of the Pilot episode, "Rising," and the unedited Series Finale, "Enemy at the Gate" to be released on Blu-ray. They even voted on packaging design. Either I'll get sucked in and decide to catch up on the whole thing, or I'll watch the very beginning and very end. SPOILER ALERT: I watched both and skipped everything in-between, reasoning that I'd never have time to catch up on yet another show. It looks a hell of a lot better than shows like this usually do on broadcast TV.
The Young Black Stallion Season 2
My wife and I have two horses. We will probably own this at some point.
TV New Releases
Flight of the Conchords Season 2
It would be advisable to start with the first season of this show.
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Splitting the Disc releases from VOD wasn't a big deal, but structuring the VOD Roundup has been more time-consuming than ever expected. A big one with plenty of backdated on-demand stuff is coming later this week.