The lovely woman above is Michelle Van Schaik, a Dutch model who makes her movie debut in “Death Race 3: Inferno.” The Death Race franchise is based in large part on action, violence and explosions. With the third installment, there’s more room for beautiful actresses, and this should help drive success for this film being released directly to Blu-ray/DVD. Van Schaik has a great look and as you can see from this video interview she has a great presence about her as well. It will be interesting to see if she gets opportunities outside of South Africa.

The most recognizable actress on “Death Race 3” is the lovely Tanit Phoenix, another actress turned model. She looks amazing and she has the talent to handle one of the lead roles in the film. She’s also a great interview as well.

Finally, in this film the producers added the Navigation Girls, twelve beauties who ride along with the drivers. Bullz-Eye had the opportunity to interview three of them as well.

Overall, the eye candy effect should definitely help this film.

The thing about people who are naturally good at making people laugh is that they often lose sight of when it’s time to drop the mic and walk away. Now take a movie like “Horrible Bosses,” which is 96 of the funniest minutes you’ll spend this year or any other. For a movie so packed with humor and wit, there is surely something just as awesome that didn’t make the cut, right?

Well, maybe. The truth is, we have yet to watch the extended version of the film (it’s eight minutes longer, and if we knew where those eight minutes were, we’d go straight to them), but if the deleted scenes in the Special Features section on the Blu-ray are any indication, the makers of “Horrible Bosses” left nothing in the bag, as it were. There are a couple of alternate openings, neither of which is as good as the one in the final film, and we get to hear the full recording of Kurt’s tryst with Nick’s boss’ wife (hint: it doesn’t take long). The only other scene worth the film it’s printed on is Colin Farrell at the supermarket, accosting the pharmacist (a snippet of which you can see in the closing credits of the movie). There are featurettes on working for horrible people and how much fun it is to play mean, but the general tone of the featurettes is pretty dry. This is a movie worth owning, no question, but don’t expect the bonus features to serve as the motivation for the purchase. They’re really just a pleasant addition.

Of course, we may change our minds on that once we’ve seen the Totally Inappropriate Edition of the movie, but we’re betting against it. ‘Unrated’ tends to mean ‘overrated’ when it comes to these things.

* Playwright George Kaufmann famously defined satire as “what closes on Saturday night” and these days you might as well define political thrillers as “what doesn’t get greenlit unless a bunch of big stars really want to do it, and then bombs.”  “The Manchurian Candidate” is both political thriller and a satire and it didn’t fail at the box office, though it was kept out of circulation for nearly twenty years after its initial release for reasons that remain somewhat mysterious to this day.

I’m hardly alone in feeling this is probably the best political thriller ever made and possibly the second best political satire after “Dr. Strangelove.” Long after the end of the Cold War which spawned it, it’s continues to resonate with our political culture and it’s title still gives peoples the willies. Just ask John McCain.

Directed by John Frankenheimer and based on a novel by the mordantly comic suspense novelist Richard Condon of “Prizzi’s Honor” and “Winter Kills,”, you might know that it’s the story of what happens when a Soviet/Red Chinese brainwashing unit gets its hands on a group of captured soldiers, including Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey, who makes aloof bitterness very cool), the highly estranged step-son of a Joe McCarthy-like senator. Frank Sinatra does maybe his best acting work as a traumatized fellow soldier who realizes something might be up because of some very strange and very bad dreams he’s having — and the fact that he keeps calling the unpleasant Shaw “the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.”

It’s a brave blend of politics, off-the-wall black comedy (what was called “sick humor” back then), suspense, and borderline Jacobean classical tragedy. Frankenheimer had a knack for making political material work dramatically, and also for drawing out strong performances. Janet Leigh (“Psycho“) was perfect as the female love interest, who was written so oddly by Richard Condon and screenwriter/playwright George Axelrod that many have theorized she’s actually an operative of some sort — an idea capitalized on in Jonathan Demmes’ disappointingly morose 2004 remake. The greatest casting coup here, however, is Angela Lansbury’s absolutely chilling turn as Raymond Shaw’s hated extremist Washington-hostess mother. She wasn’t the only less-than-pleasant character Lansbury ever played, but there’s something about what happens when actors who make a career largely playing nice people play extremely not-nice people that can be electrifying.

I also can’t resist mentioning the fight scene between Sinatra and Henry Silva as a North Korean spy, which Frankenheimer was often proud to mention was the first use of martial arts fighting styles in an American film. Seeing it again, it’s not only more brutally effective than I remembered as Sinatra and Silva all but destroy Laurence Harvey’s Washington apartment, but — especially in the initial moments when Sinatra instinctively begins fighting the Silva character without even knowing who he is — it’s pretty obvious to me now that it had to be one of the main inspirations for the terrific first fight scene in “Kill Bill, Volume I,” in which Uma Thurman and Vivica A. Fox lay waste to a Pasadena living room.

The Blu-Ray is, by the way, not a deluxe restoration, but it includes all of the excellent features that earlier DVDs have included and the print has been kept in excellent enough shape that a new restoration isn’t really necessary. It looks great. Super highly recommended, though pricey.

* 1961’s “The Comancheros” is getting a deluxe-packaging with plenty of extras and a Blu-Ray presentation that is really nifty. This high-end Western starring John Wayne is another film that’s been kept in decent enough shape to look great in high-definition without a major restoration to-do.

In terms of film history, though, “The Comancheros” is probably best noted as the final directing credit for that somewhat under-valued if uneven craftsman, Michael Curtiz, whose credits included two absolutely classic examples of polished Hollywood entertainment at its greatest, “Casablanca” and “The Adventures of Robin Hood.”  Sadly, he fell ill and faltered during the production and John Wayne, by then a highly experienced hand around movie sets, completed the production.

Pairing Wayne with the then-rising young star Stuart Whitman in a part that might have once been filled by Clark Gable, this is essentially a buddy western in which grizzled Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (Wayne, of course) must escort courtly gambler and accused murderer Paul Regret (Whitman) to his not-so-just reward. As the two battle Comanche Indians and non-native gun-runners (the “Comancheros” of the title), they naturally forge one of those unlikely movie friendships we all love and Cutter starts to wonder whether or not Regret should really hang.

Some almost unconscious racism towards Indians aside, this is an effective enough big budget Western. On the downside, Stuart Whitman, who spent most of his career making television (8 appearances on “Fantasy Island”!), is really nowhere near the same acting ball park as Wayne. On the other hand leading lady, Ina Balin, who apparently angered Wayne with her Method acting ticks, does a rather fantastic job as an alluring and oddly flexible criminal heiress. Lee Marvin also pops up as a disfigured bad man, which is always good for a laugh.

* Coincidentally, “The Horse Soldiers” gets a less deluxe and slightly less gorgeous Blu-Ray treatment. Made two years earlier, this production also pairs John Wayne with a younger co-star in another story of adversaries who eventually become friends. Though directed by perhaps the greatest director in American cinema and co-starring one of my favorite classic era leading men, this John Ford directed Civil War drama starring Wayne as the leader of a Union cavalry division, who clashes with an heroic army doctor played by William Holden, never really takes off. Viewers should definitely check out Ford’s earlier grand entertainments around the cavalry, “Fort Apache” and “Rio Grande,” first — though neither film is yet available in high definition.

* Finally, I have an assortment of DVD-on-demand titles from MGM. The most interesting of these is another western, “Man from Del Rio” from 1956. It’s a not entirely successful but intriguing attempt at a noir-influenced, politically progressive low-budget “High Noon” of sorts. It stars the always entertaining Anthony Quinn as a galoot of a reluctant Mexican-American gunfighter trying to hang up his guns for the love of the vastly underused Katy Jurado.

Less succcessful is 1952’s “The Captive City,” a Robert Wise-directed semi-noir starring John Forsythe as a crusading reporter taking on small town organized crime. It’s not terrible but a bit clunky. It is interesting as it is a sort of anti-mobster propaganda film from the days when Senator Estes Kefauver, who appears in the film, was alerting the nation to the existence of organized crime even as FBI head J. Edgar Hoover was denying it.

Wise did a lot better in other noirs, but “Captive City” film is a masterpiece of disciplined cinema compared to the bizarre “Cop Hater,” a 1958 misfire which is maybe worth a look for nuts like me as it stars a very young Robert Loggia (“Big”) with much smaller parts for an even more wet-behind-the-ears Jerry Orbach (“Law & Order“) and Vincent Gardenia (“Moonstruck“). It’s also the first adaptation of one of Ed McBain/Evan Hunter’s 87th Precinct novels. A few great cast members notwithstanding, “High and Low” it ain’t.

Those who basked in the wonders of “Planet Earth” and its follow-up “Life” would do well to delve into this frequently mind-blowing five hour series from the Beeb, hosted by physicist (and ex-rock star) Professor Brian Cox. “Wonders of the Solar System” is a triumph of both education and entertainment. On solar eclipses, Cox explains: “The sun is 400 times the diameter of the moon. And by sheer coincidence, it’s 400 times further away from the Earth. There’s something like between 145 and 167 moons in the solar system, depending on how you’re counting, but none of them produces such perfect eclipses as the Earth’s moon.” He then goes to India to partake in a breathtaking total solar eclipse in the presence of a massive, fervent crowd. Cox marvels, “That’s the solar system comin’ down and grabbin’ you by the throat!”

The youthful professor trots all over the globe, using locations and incidents on Earth such as volcanoes, the Grand Canyon, tornadoes and the Northern Lights to practically explain what the rest of the planets in our solar system are actually like. The series also mixes satellite photography and gorgeous CGI that give plenty of insight into our neighboring worlds. When it really comes down to it, though, it’s Cox’s enthusiasm, intelligence, and unexpected bursts of humor that give “Wonders of the Solar System” an edge over other, similar documentary series. It’s a pleasure to have this man as a living, breathing guide as opposed to an unseen narrator. The only area where the series comes up a little short is in the aforementioned CGI department, as a fair amount of it manages to be recycled perhaps a few too many times. There are two extra programs (presented in SD) entitled “What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity?” and “Do You Know What Time It Is?,” which brings the total running time of the set up to almost seven hours. While watching this material, I kept thinking, “If I’d been able to see this kind of stuff in high school, I probably wouldn’t have fallen asleep in science class.”

Click to buy “Wonders of the Solar System”

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (New Video)

Who said nothing good ever came of the writers’ strike? While most of Hollywood was forced to sit on their asses (or stand around in a picket line) waiting for the studios to strike a deal with the WGA, Joss Whedon decided to take advantage of his newly earned free time by producing a free-to-the-public internet short that just so happened to be a musical. It was pretty ambitious stuff, but nothing out of the ordinary for Whedon. Still, even with a fanbase as loyal (and some might even say cultish) as his, no one could have anticipated that “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” would turn into the pop culture phenomenon it is today. From the casting of Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion and Felicia Day, to the smart writing and memorable music, “Dr. Horrible” is certainly a one-of-a-kind experience. It might seem strange that a show originally conceived to be viewed on a computer screen would be released on Blu-ray, but it looks good in high definition, and its 42-minute runtime makes for brisk and enjoyable viewing. The inclusion of a making-of featurette and cast and crew commentary beefs up the single-disc release, but it’s “Commentary! The Musical” – a secondary track where the cast and crew sing about everything from the writers’ strike to an iPhone game called Ninja Ropes that they played during production – that is the real gem. It’s all very meta, and of course, very Whedon.

“Spartacus” (Universal)

Stanley Kubrick’s historical epic celebrates its 50th anniversary with a digitally restored edition of the film available for the first time on Blu-ray. Though I’m not exactly a fan of the movie (it’s incredibly cheesy at times, about an hour too long, and Kirk Douglas just rubs me the wrong way), there’s no denying that it played a major part in Kubrick’s evolution as a director. In fact, you can even spot some of his trademarks if you look hard enough. “Spartacus” is also terribly uneconomic with its use of time – from the overture and intermission to the numerous montages – but it’s still worth seeing at least once. It isn’t exactly the best restoration on the market, but it is a much-improved print that should please fans who’ve become accustomed to watching the film on cable.

“Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood – Part One” (Funimation)

It’s barely been a week since the release of “Dragon Ball Z Kai,” but anime fans are already getting another remake of a hugely popular series in the form of “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.” Whereas “DBZ Kai” is more like a director’s cut of the original series, however, “FMA: Brotherhood” is, for all intents and purposes, a completely new show – although one that tells the same general story, only the way that Hiromu Arakawa originally wrote it in the manga. As someone who never watched the first series, I’m not really sure how different the two are from one another, but after reading some comments around the web, I’m led to believe that they’re different enough to warrant experiencing Edward and Alphonse Elric’s journey of redemption all over again. At the very least, they’ve earned a new fan, as the show didn’t waste any time in winning me over with its colorful cast of characters and action-packed storyline. And unlike “DBZ Kai,” this release features two audio commentaries with members of the English-language cast. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing at all.

Also Out This Week:

“The Road” (Sony)
“Dear John” (Sony)
“Stagecoach” (Criterion)
“True Blood: The Complete Second Season” (HBO)