Category: External Movie DVDs (Page 27 of 74)

Blu Tuesday: Battlestar Galactica, Fast & Furious and Green Lantern

July 28, 2009 /

After last week’s fantastic selection of Blu-ray titles, you’d think that we’d have to wait another month or two before getting anything even remotely as good, but for fans of sci-fi, you really can’t do much better than today’s offering. There are no less than six geek-worthy Blu-rays this week, as well as a few other major titles definitely worthy of a spot in your collection.

“Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series” (Universal)

Okay, so I may have never actually watched “Battlestar Galactica” (save for the pilot/miniseries), but it’s one of those shows that I’ve been meaning to check out for quite awhile. And with the release of the complete series box set, what better time than now? This is the first time the show has been available on Blu-ray, and thanks to the fact that it’s actually shot in HD (though not broadcast that way, curiously enough) old and new fans alike can finally enjoy the show as it was meant to be seen. The included extras are mostly a retread of previously released bonus material, but Blu-ray owners do get a few exclusives, like picture-in-picture video and a pop-up encyclopedia. The series is housed in a sweet metallic cube that expands to reveal all four seasons and includes your very own frakkin’ toaster figurine. Even if you’re not a fan of the series, that’s pretty hard to resist.

“Fast & Furious” (Universal)

I don’t care how you may feel about the fourth installment of the popular car porn franchise, or even the series as a whole, because Universal has delivered yet another fine Blu-ray packed with just about everything you could hope for. Personally, I thought the movie was good mindless fund, but I know that a lot of people found it silly and contrived. Fair enough, but for those of you who did enjoy it, the double-disc effort includes a director commentary, stunt featurettes and even a cool Vin Diesel-directed short film that acts as a prequel to the movie. Of course, the real highlight is the Take Control feature, which offers an in-depth look at the film hosted by Justin Lin and Paul Walker. Though it’s only activated for the bigger sequences, it enables the filmmakers to go into further detail than the typical commentary track. Lin pauses, rewinds and fast-forwards his way through key moments, highlighting things with the help of storyboards and behind-the-scenes footage. Zack Snyder may have technically beaten everyone to the punch with a similar feature on the “Watchmen” Blu-ray, but it’s just good to see that Warner Bros. isn’t the only studio looking ahead. This is the future of the HD format.

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Action Movies, Actors, Battlestar Galactica, External Movie DVDs, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies, TV, TV Comedies, TV Dramas, TV DVDs, TV Sci-Fi

Wrapping Comic-Con, if that’s even possible

July 27, 2009 /

Okay, so the big show has been over for more than 24 hours and it’s time to come to some grand conclusions. The thing is the only grand conclusion I can offer you is one that isn’t news, and really hasn’t been for many years now: Comic-Con is less and less about comics as a medium — a medium that is too frequently confused with a genre — and more and more about a kind of obsession in the media business with appealing to a young males with tales of butt-kicking monoliths and moderately dressed babes who bend over a lot, and now to young females with tales of forbidden love with troubled vampires who are more a lot more James Dean than Bela Lugosi or Max Shreck — not that there’s anything wrong with any of that, in theory. (I’ve never seen/read “Twilight,” hence my blissful tolerance on that score.)

Of course, there are plenty of bright spots and I’m fond of reminding the world of “Sturgeon’s Law,” the dictum uttered by science fiction great Theodore Sturgeon that “90 percent of everything is crap.” In other words, don’t expect greatness most of the time from any genre, whether it’s superhero funnybooks or Elizabethan plays (though the ones that survive a few centuries tend to be dandy).

And, as someone who bemoans the lack of emphasis that the still nascent art form of comics gets at its own convention, I need to get serious myself and read a few more of them this year. (If you’re curious about comics as a medium and how they relate to other media, including film which grew up alongside it, one of the best books about media ever created is a comic book, “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud.) For this kid who grew up dreaming of the day his comic book favorites would finally become major motion pictures, the phrase “be careful what you wish for” is certainly valid.

Before we go, we do have a few lingering con and geek related news items I should probably mention…

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Action Movies, Comic-Con, External Entertainment, External Movie DVDs, External TV, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVDs, Movies, News, Sci-Fi Movies

Comic-Con Saturday odds and ends

July 26, 2009 /

Things may be somewhat winding down as the con’s final day unspools, but there was plenty of big movie stuff yesterday.

* I attended part of a live event that was basically the equivalent of a nifty Blu-Ray disc feature for the “Watchmen” director’s cut Blu-Ray disc, in which director Zack Snyder (“300“) performed a live commentary that was really more of an Q&A with users of the “BD Live” feature for the disc and audience members. What I saw didn’t quite rock my world in terms of the level of discussion. When asked whether the Comedian is a good guy or a bad guy, his answer was words to the effect of “I don’t know. That’s kind of the point.” Things were also light in terms of techno-geekery, slightly to my disappointment and slightly to my relief.

Here’s what bugs me, rightly or wrongly: Snyder has basically finished making two huge comic-book adaptations from opposite sides of the political spectrum — not necessarily overtly, but very clearly in their background — and he hasn’t seemed to notice. I’m a political animal by nature, so that kind of baffles me. Not everybody has to be super-political, but morality and politics is very much at the heart of “Watchmen” at least, and I don’t know how you can make the film without having more of a position on it. Also, Snyder says he hasn’t decided whether or not Veidt/Ozymandias is gay or whether Rorschach might have issues there as well. I’m not saying he had to publicly out any fictional characters, but it’s sort of conventional wisdom (and wise wisdom, I think) that a writer or a director should know that kind of detail for himself about major characters in his film, much as the actors also need to , though sometimes they can make differing calls on those matters. It has to do with committing.

There was also some mention, and free XL polyester t-shirts, for Snyder’s new project, “Sucker Punch.”

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Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Comic-Con, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, Movies, Sci-Fi Movies

For All Mankind

July 24, 2009 /

Reissued by Criterion to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, this documentary from journalist-turned-filmmaker Al Reinert is comprised of truly remarkable, extremely high-quality footage from NASA’s own vaults. Featuring all 24 of the Apollo program astronauts who went to the moon, the film impressionistically leaps back and forth in time, covering both the mundane day to day preparations for the various trips by both astronauts and mission control personnel and moving forward to the ecstatic reveries brought on by traveling through space and ultimately reaching the moon. Since the only narration is provided by comments from the astronauts themselves and much of the footage has a fly-on-the-wall feeling to it, “For All Mankind” feels very much like a vérité documentary. The effect can be prettymind-blowing at times, as we realize that we are watching science fiction become living history, and with a visual clarity that the millions who watched the original Apollo landings on their television sets never imagined was even possible.

Still, for an 80-minute documentary, “For All Mankind” plays a bit long. First-time director Reinert does a solid job here of assembling the footage, but the film’s impressionistic structure makes it feel a bit more arty and, yes, spacey than it really needs to be. Also, with all due respect to the great musical innovator, musician/composer/producer Brian Eno, his atmospheric score, while often beautiful, at times lends an air of unwelcome pretension to certain scenes. Still, no space enthusiast is going to want to go through life without perpetual access to this remarkable film and some reliably awesome DVD extras from the folks at Criterion.

Click to buy “For All Mankind.”

Documentaries, External Movie DVDs, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

Beau Geste

July 22, 2009 /

William Wellman’s 1939 hit is the second and best-known version of the frequently filmed adventure novel by Percival Christopher Wren. This 1939 action not-quite-classic features superstar Gary Cooper (“High Noon”) and then-rising stars Ray Miland (“The Lost Weekend”) and Robert Preston (“The Music Man”) as three English brothers and best pals who flee their ancestral home in the wake of the mysterious theft of an extremely valuable emerald. Joining the infamously torturous French Foreign Legion, the brothers Geste encounter the brutal, greedy, thoroughly villainous but entirely courageous Sgt. Markoff (Brian Donleavy), who quickly hears of the stolen jewel and becomes determined to re-steal it for himself between attacks by Arab groups who’d prefer Frenchie goes home.

Unlike other classic-era tales of imperialist derring-do, “Beau Geste” doesn’t go out of its way to glamorize or morally justify the work of the Legion. At the same time, the mystery of the stolen jewel takes the focus away from the setting and becomes a kind of odd distraction. Ironically made in the same year as two similar but superior adventures, George Stevens’ comedic “Gunga Din” and Zoltan Korda’s wondrous, propagandistic “Four Feathers,” “Beau Geste” has been beautifully restored to its black and white glory and is worth seeing for its lucid direction, a moving finale, ans the outstanding cast. Character actor Brian Donleavy’s evil-but-admirable Markoff pretty much walks away with the film. It’s a savagely honest portrait of pure selfish survival instinct that makes this tale of brotherly love and sacrifice work, more or less.

Click to buy “Beau Geste”

Action Movies, External Movie DVDs, External Movies, Movie Dramas, Movie DVD Quicktakes, Movie DVDs, Movies, Reviews

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