Here's what's new on DVD and Blu-ray this week as featured on Videodrone

 

Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

New Releases:

'Midnight in Paris' – A Fantasy Come True

'Margin Call' - How to Crash the Economy in 24 Hours

The New Release Rack: 'Colombiana,' 'Warrior,' 'Dolphin Tale,' the 'Straw Dogs' remake, the 'Glee' concert and more

 

TV on DVD:

TV on DVD Channel Guide: More 'Futurama' and 'One Tree Hill'

 

The Cool and the Collectible:

Definitive Editions of 'A Farewell to Arms' and 'Nothing Sacred,' plus 'Love Exposure' and Colin Quinn on Broadway

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

'Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection'

Seijun Suzuki’s 'Tokyo Drifter' and 'Branded to Kill'

 

MOD Movies:

MOD Movies Calendar: Recent Releases from Sony's Columbia Pictures Classics By Request

Horror and Science Fiction: Cornel Wilde's 'No Blade of Grass' and more

 

Streams and Channels:

'Abduction' On VOD Before DVD

 

Coming up next week:

"Final Destination 5" (Warner)

"Brighton Rock" (MPI)

"Apollo 18" (The Weinstein Company)

"A Good Old Fashioned Orgy" (Sony)

"The First Grader" (Vivendi)

"Love Crime" (IFC)

"Tuesday, After Christmas" (Kino Lorber)

"The Borgias: Season One" (Paramount)

"Shameless: The Complete First Season" (Warner)

"Archer: Season Two" (Fox)

 

For calendar of upcoming releases, click here

 

"No Blade of Grass" (Warner Archive) - Cornel Wilde's end-of-the-world thriller "No Blade of Grass" is, to my mind, the most underappreciated science fiction film of the seventies. Gritty and brutal, built on fears of ecological devastation through pollution and overcrowding (with hints of genetic manipulation gone bad), it is both ambitious and rough around the edges, a warning of the stresses we put on the planet and a commentary on the nature of humanity under pressure reverting to a kind of tribal behavior in the wake of social breakdown. This 1970 eco-apocalypse got lost in the overcrowded apocalypse now science fiction cinema of the era and has never been available for rediscovery on home video. Until now.

 

Imagine a survival thriller set in the collapse of civilization as directed by Sam Peckinpah. Nigel Davenport stars the husband and father who reaches back to his military service and treats the panicked citizens of his once-peaceful country as potential enemies as he makes his north to his brother's estate, a piece of property transformed into a veritable fort. This is "The Road" while the roads were still crowded with desperate and scared people, ready to do anything to protect themselves and their own, and you can see films as diverse as "Mad Max" and "Time of the Wolf" springing from this film. Wilde's film isn't as thrilling as the former or as polished as the latter. He's a provocateur, favoring primal images to make his points, and as a result "No Blade of Grass" is as blunt and grim as it is ambitious, directed with a matter-of-fact presentation of desperation and savagery in the rapid spiral into a tribal existence. The "Remastered Edition" from the Warner Archive looks very good and is complete, with all the provocative imagery (including a clinically explicit live child birth) intact.

 

"Moon Zero Two" (Warner Archive) was promoted as "the first moon western" and the description is apt. The Hammer Film production, helmed by veteran Roy Ward Baker (director of the superior "Five Million Years to Earth"), stars James Olson as William Kemp, planetary explorer turned independent salvage contractor in 2021 with an old moon ferry capsule that, even by 1969 standards, looks like old Apollo technology. He's the original Han Solo as a lunar scavenger roped into a space-age version of a mining scam, caught between the authorities and the moon's most notorious crime boss. It's a bit sluggish and the special effects are cool but cut-rate, more impressive in their creativity and cleverness than realism, but it gets extra points for its inventive use of gravity, physics and actual science (in concept if not in detail). If you recognize co-star and love interest Catherina von Schell, it may be because she later dropped the "von" and went on to star in "The Return of the Pink Panther" and "Space 1999."

 

"The Snow Devils" (Warner Archive) is a damndest genre mash-up I've seen all year. Ostensibly an Abominable Snowman horror, it turns the Himalayan Yeti into extraterrestrial invaders bent on melting the polar ice caps in a bid to take over the world! (Ah, now we know the REAL cause of global climate change!). Director Antonio Mergheriti (under his nom de plume Anthony Dawson) was handed leftover sets from earlier Italian science fiction adventures so he sends the heroes rocketing back and forth between space stations and earth bases to target the strange power signatures they detect on the planet. It's all pretty cheap and cheesy, with aliens that look like blue-skinned Cro-Magnon and scene after scene set in anonymous space station and space ships rooms.  

 

Also recently released:

"Hysteria" (Warner Archive) is another of the post-"Psycho" thrillers from Hammer Films, this one written and produced by studio stalwart Jimmy Sangster (who passed away this year) and directed by cinematographer turned director Freddie Francis. Robert Webber stars as an amnesiac who thinks he may be murderer. Released in a "Remastered Edition."

 

"Doctor Blood's Coffin" (MGM Limited Edition Collection) is a 1960 British horror of gruesome Frankenstein experiments deep in the abandoned mines of a small Cornish village. An early effort from director Sidney J. Fury.

 

Available exclusively from Warner Archive:

"No Blade of Grass"

"Moon Zero Two"

"The Snow Devils"

"Hysteria"

 

Available by order from the MGM Limited Edition Collection, from Amazon, Screen Archives Entertainment, Critics' Choice Video, Classic Movies Now and other web retailers.

"Doctor Blood's Coffin"

 

MOD stands for "Manufacture on Demand" and represents a recent development in the DVD market, where slipping sales have slowed the release of classic, special interest and catalogue releases. These are DVD-R releases, no-frills discs from studio masters, ordered online and "burned" individually with every order. You can read a general introduction to the format and the model on my profile of the Warner Archive Collection on Parallax View here and on the MGM Limited Edition Collection on Videodrone here.

 

 

"Abduction," Taylor Lautner's bid for legitimacy outside of the "Twilight" franchise, comes to DVD and Blu-ray on January 17, 2012, but between December 22 and January 4, it will be exclusively available via cable and digital Video on Demand and Pay Per View platforms.

 

The junior action film, which casts Lautner as the son of CIA agent who goes on the lam, was a flop with audiences and critics alike, notable largely for the moments when Lautner channels his sensitive werewolf persona or takes off his shirt. (See reviews here.) John Singleton directs and Lily Collins, Alfred Molina, Jason Isaacs, Maria Bello and Sigourney Weaver co-star.

The VOD experiment targets viewers when they are home for the holidays and parked around the home theater.  

 

The film will be available for rental in standard definition for $6.99 and high definition for $7.99 and all VOD platforms will also feature a DVD-style behind-the-scenes featurette.

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

"Underworld Trilogy: The Essential Collection" (Blu-ray) (Sony) collects all three of the "Underworld" films in anticipation of the upcoming fourth installment. The first "Underworld" is not a comic book movie, but it sure plays like one. In the bleak tech noir future of drizzly nights, rain slicked streets, and neon blue and cold white lighting, a centuries-old war between the vampires and werewolves rages. Kate Beckinsale is the vampire’s greatest warrior, a “Death dealer” armed with silver-bullet guns and high-tech throwing stars and dressed in shiny black leather so tight and form-fitting that the corset has to be tied around the outside. Lithe, limber Kate looks great but her first kiss with ostensible love interest Scott Speedman, a medical intern of particular interest to the Lycan (werewolf) pack, is single flattest, coldly curious liplock in the last century of cinema, and that disaffection spreads to the entire tech-noir spectacle. They turn out to be pawns in a beastly conspiracy that flips the conflict into a modern version of class warfare between old European aristocracy and peasant serfs fighting for freedom and equality, but this sleekly stylized monster mash is just a big, muddy mess of bad guys: predator versus predator, and the winner takes the human race. Len Wiseman (Beckinsale's husband) directs and Bill Nighy stands out as the once and future vampire king.

 

"Underworld Evolution" sets Beckinsale and Speedman back on the run from immortals of all persuasions who don’t want the bloodlines to mix. Again directed by Len Wiseman (Beckinsale's husband), the nighttime action film stars Tony Curran, Shane Brolly, Steven Mackintosh, Bill Nighy and Sir Derek Jacobi as immortal aristocracy and, quite frankly, it's bloody awful (emphasis on the bloody). "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans" is actually a prequel set in medieval times chronicling… well, you can read it in the title. The vampires (led by Bill Nighy) have enslaved the werewolves, but one of the oppressed (Michael Sheen) rises up to free his people. It's bombastic and bloody and full of medieval faire flair, done up in a shadowy nocturnal palette of steel blue and stone gray with the requisite splashes of blood red accents, but it's also junky genre fun and more fun that "Evolution."

 

All three films feature commentary by director Len Wiseman and others, documentaries and featurettes. The films have all been available before on a Blu-ray box set but this release features the exclusive bonus disc "Underworld: Endless War" with new anime shorts, plus the cloud-based Ultraviolet function for digital download and instant streaming via wi-fi.

 

Seijun Suzuki’s whacked out crime films are a breed apart, stylistically outrageous tales of hit men and gangsters in almost abstract narratives. Criterion releases two of his best on Blu-ray (and newly remastered DVD editions). High contrast B&W photography explodes into the candy colored comic book images in "Tokyo Drifter" (Criterion), the story of a hitman (Tetsua Watari) who decides to go his own way. The twisting narrative takes Tetsu from deliriously gaudy nightclubs, where killers hide behind every pillar, to the beautiful snowy plains of Northern Japan and back again, whistling his own theme song as he dodges assassins and leaves a trail of corpses in his wake. His extreme stylization, jarring narrative leaps, and wild plot devices combine to create a pulp fiction on acid, equal parts gangster parody and post-modern deconstruction.

 

"Branded to Kill" (Criterion) looks like a pop art collage come to life in B&W CinemaScope in its almost incoherent story of one gang’s number three hitman who becomes their own number one target after the butterfly effect upsets an important mission. Played by genre icon Jo Shishido, he's no pushover and leaves all comers splayed in death contortions that could qualify for an Olympic event, but the rat-a-tat violence gives way to a surreal, sadistic game of cat and mouse when the legendary Number One hitman moves in with him in a macho, testosterone-laden Odd Couple truce that ends up with them handcuffed together. Kinky? Not compared to earlier scenes. Suzuki so pushed his yakuza parodies and cinematic surrealism that his studio Nikkatsu finally called in their own metaphoric hit and fired the director with such force that he was effectively blackballed from the industry for a decade.

 

Both discs feature archival video interviews with Suzuki from 1997 and new interviews with Suzuki and assistant director Masami Kuzuu conducted from this release, plus booklets with essays by Howard Hampton and Tony Rayns. I don't have the 1998 Criterion editions to compare to, but Gary Tooze did direct comparisons at DVD Beaver and writes that both are significant improvements of the previous release. (Tokyo Drifter here and Branded to Kill here). Definite upgrade material.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

 

Gary Cooper is the young ambulance in WWI and Helen Hayes a British nurse in the 1932 "A Farewell to Arms" (Kino), the first film based on Ernest Hemingway’s novel and still the most sophisticated. Made in the era before enforcement of the production code, the film, directed by Frank Borzage, offers a far more adult portrait of the love affair on the battlefield than the 1957 version.

Coop is almost impossibly young and beautiful as the stalwart soldier resigned to the grind of war and Helen Hayes practically glows as Catherine, an angel of a nurse who is nonetheless down to earth when it comes to sex. Borzage's romanticism would seem a poor match for Hemingway's stoicism but he elevates their love to a holt purity even as it takes place outside the official bounds of the church and social acceptance. A priest performs a benediction over their union, which in this film passes for marriage; the Catholic League wasn't fooled and condemned the film. Hemingway didn't much like it much, either, but Borzage's vision just looks better with time. It's gorgeous (it won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography), even as the choppiness suggests a rather violent treatment by the studio. But my, it glows.

 

"Nothing Sacred" (Kino) was born when David Selznick hired Ben Hecht to pen a fast paced newspaper comedy to rival his own play “The Front Page.” Perhaps he didn’t top it, but the smart, cynical screwball comedy gave Carole Lombard one of her most memorable roles: a sweetly sexy small-town girl who has been misdiagnosed with radium poisoning and keeps up the pretense that she's dying when she's offered a free trip the New York. Director William Wellman is at his best sparring with his romantic duo (Fredric March plays the opportunistic newspaperman who falls for Lombard) and juggling the barbed banter, but he sometimes slips in the pacing.

 

Both of these films have been long available in inferior public-domain DVD editions. Kino remasters both films for DVD and Blu-ray debut from original nitrate 35mm prints preserved by George Eastman House.

 

"Love Exposure" (Olive), a four-hour drama of youth culture in Japan from director Sion Sono, follows the odyssey of a good kid (Takahiro Nishijima) from a Catholic family who turns to upskirt photography to commit sins big enough to impress his father and falls in love with a man-hating martial arts whiz (Hikari Mitsushima). "This intricately plotted Japanese epic has so many twists and turns - not to mention bizarre characters with even more bizarre backstories - that the time will fly by, writes San Francisco Chronicle film critic David Lewis. "As the old cliche goes, you will not have another moviegoing experience quite like this one all year." In Japanese with English subtitles.

 

Originally shot for HBO, "Colin Quinn: Long Story Short" (VSC) presents Colin Quinn's one man show, directed for Broadway by Jerry Seinfeld. On DVD and Blu-ray, with commentary by Colin Quinn and Jerry Seinfeld, behind-the-scenes footage and a press conference.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

"Futurama: Volume 6" (Fox) features 13 new episodes of the Matt Groening's recently revived animated sci-farce about a modern day human frozen in the wacky future of the year 3000. The humor is in the same anything-goes vein of popular culture trawling of Groenig's first series, a little thing  called "The Simpsons," but in the words of Groenig: "'The Simpsons' is fictional. 'Futurama' is real." Features commentary on every episode, deleted scenes and three featurettes. On DVD and Blu-ray.

 

A wedding, a birth, a scandal, a fight to survive in a raging storm: "One Tree Hill: The Complete Eighth Season" (Warner) offers yet another season of young-adult melodrama shenanigans that has made this CW night-time soap opera into a long-running hit.

22 more episodes on five discs in a standard case with hinged trays, plus commentary on two episodes, three featurettes and a gag reel, plus an Ultraviolet digital copy for downloading and instant streaming via Wi-Fi.

 

"A Christmas Wish" (eOne) is a TV movie with Kristy Swanson, Edward Herrmann and Tess Harper. Originally made for the Hallmark Channel.

 

"Swamp People: Season Two" (History) features more episodes of the documentary series on the Cajun culture that lives in the Louisiana bayous and swamplands. 16 episodes on four discs, plus bonus footage.

 

"Mob Wives: Season One Uncensored" (VH1), the VH1 reality series about four women in Staten Island whose husbands are serving time for mob-related crimes, comes to DVD via the CreateSpace DVD on Demand platform, exclusively via Amazon. 10 episodes on three discs, plus deletes scenes and a reunion special.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

Who would have predicted that "Midnight in Paris" (Sony) would become Woody Allen's most financially successful film ever? Owen Wilson is perhaps the most amiable of Allen stand-ins as an American writer in Paris who is transported back to the twenties in this valentine to Paris of yesterday and today. Videodrone's review is here. "Margin Call" (Lionsgate) accomplishes something that Oliver Stone failed to show in his "Wall Street" sequel: it explains how and why the market crash happened, not just in terms of economics but in the culture of Wall Street and the actions of real people. Videodrone's review is here.

 

Rising star Zoe Saldana (Uhura in the big-screen "Star Trek" reboot) takes the lead as a sexy assassin in "Colombiana" (Sony), the latest from the Luc Besson international action movie factory. This one is no "La Femme Nikita" -- it's not even a "Taken," as far as that goes -- but once you get past the clichés and the reckless obsession of its heroine, it's a classic Besson action fest, a souped-up drive-in action thriller with exotic locations (Chicago, New Orleans, Mexico doubling as Bogota), clever set pieces and action sequences that favor impressive physical stunts over CGI-enhanced spectacle. Saldana is a natural as an action star, with her slinky figure, her lithe moves going through vents and snaking through air ducts, her dancer's moves fighting and shooting. And how could a director with a name like Olivier Megaton not deliver an action blast? It a bit silly, with logical gaps and absurd romantic detours, but a lot of fun. More reviews here. See the trailer below, after the jump.

The DVD and Blu-ray both feature an extended, unrated version of the movie (it runs about three minutes longer) and two featurettes. The Blu-ray adds three more featurettes on the stunts and action scenes in the film.

 

More serious is "Warrior" (Lionsgate), a sports drama about two brothers (Joel Edgerton and Tom Hardy) who square off in the world of mixed martial arts when they both vie for the purse in a MMA tournament. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny praised the film when it was released earlier this year: "A double-barreled "Rocky" for the mixed martial arts generations, the practically epic fight film "Warrior" is one of the most exhilarating surprises of this summer movie season." Nick Nolte co-stars as the father training one brother (Tom Hardy) and Jennifer Morrison is the wife of the other (Edgerton), a schoolteacher and former MMA fighter who needs to money for his family.

The DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack features commentary by director/co-writer by Gavin O'Connor, co-writer Anthony Tambakis and actor Joel Edgerton, a making-of documentary, bonus featurettes, a deleted scene and a gag reel. The DVD also features select on-screen commentary by the filmmakers and Nick Nolte, and the Blu-ray features the "Full Contact" enhanced viewing mode, which is essentially a running audio-video commentary track with interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and featurettes. The Blu-ray Combo also includes a bonus DVD and digital copy. Also available via Digital Download and On Demand.

 

"Straw Dogs" (Sony) is the 2011 remake of the violent Sam Peckinpah drama, this one starring James Marsden, Kate Bosworth and Alexander Skarsgård and set in the backwoods of the American South. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny isn't very impressed with what director/screenwrite​r Rod Lurie does with the material: "Lurie lards his scenario with, on the one hand, some moderately clever jibes at Hollywood convention, and, on the very unfortunate other, a truckload of crushingly literal-minded redneck-bashing stereotypes…" DVD and Blu-ray editions both feature commentary by Lurie and four featurettes. Also available via Digital Download.

 

More family oriented is "Dolphin Tale" (Warner), based on the true story of an injured dolphin saved by a dedicated marine biologist and starring Harry Connick, Jr., Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny recommends the film for what it is: "A smart, sweet and even -- dare I say it? -- inspiring kid-engineered story of real-life courage and ingenuity…" The DVD features a deleted scene and a gag reel. The Blu-ray includes an animated short and four featurettes. There is also a Blu-ray 3D Combo pack edition.

MSN film critic Glenn Kenny gives "Glee: The Concert Movie" (Fox), featuring the cast of the TV series, five stars for doing its thing. "The title promises a concert movie, in 3-D, based on the show "Glee," and the film delivers precisely that, in a way that I believe is sure to overjoy fans of the show." There is a Blu-ray 3D  version of the film, along with the standard DVD and Blu-ray editions, all of which feature two bonus songs, extended versions and featurettes, plus "Shazam" technology for an interactive experience via smartphone. The Blu-ray includes more supplements. Also available on digital download.

 

John Landis takes on the famous tale of "Burke and Hare" (MPI), the infamous 19th century grave-robbers turned body-snatchers, and turns it into a black comedy with Simon Pegg and Andy Serkis as entrepreneurs in a business that gets cutthroat when the competition for fresh corpses increases. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny likes what Landis does here: "All this and more is stirred into a heady brew by Landis, who makes of the proceedings something like a Hope-Crosby road movie crossed with a classic but not overly refined Ealing comedy… crossed with something like, well, "American Werewolf"." The DVD features deleted scenes, outtakes, interviews and a featurette.

 

"Blackthorn" (Magnolia), a western directed by Mateo Gil, stars Sam Shepard as an aged Butch Cassidy, living out the end of his days in a Bolivian village until a new adventure comes along. "Blackthorn is less interested in realism than in elegy, and in bringing this American folk hero in line with the Latin American places and people with whom he ended his days," writes Boston Globe film critic Ty Burr. "Given a choice between the legend and the facts, Gil and Barros make up a new legend - and then gild it with light." On DVD and Blu-ray with deleted scenes, two featurettes and short films from director Mateo Gil.

 

True Stories:

"Eames: The Architect and the Painter" (First Run) profiles the lives and achievements of Charles and Ray Eames, the design team whose modern furniture made them legends, through interviews with employees in their studio and archival footage. New York Times film critic A.O Scott writes: "The most gratifying thing about "Eames" is that it shows, in marvelous detail, how their work was an extension of themselves and how their distinct personalities melded into a unique and protean force." The DVD features deleted scenes.

 

"Senna" (Universal) is a portrait of Brazilian Formula One racing driver Ayrton Senna, a world champion who died at age 34. Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan describes it as: "A documentary with the pace of a thriller, a story of motors and machines that is beyond compelling because of the intensely human story it tells."

 

Plus:

Freddie Highmore is Nigel Slater in "Toast" (Image), based on the memoir of the famous chef and author, and Helena Bonham Carter is the housekeeper who (inadvertently) inspired his journey into the culinary arts.

 

Julie Taymor's 2010 version of "The Tempest" (Touchstone) arrived on Blu-ray only earlier this year. No one seemed to notice, and this belated DVD edition almost slipped by me entirely. Bruce Willis hits another direct-to-DVD feature with "Catch .44" (Anchor Bay), co-starring Forest Whitaker and Malin Akerman.

 

Dick Maas directs "Saint Nick" (MPI), a Dutch horror about Bishop St. Nicholas as a serial killer. Miki Manojlovic stars in "The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner" (Olive), a road movie about amnesia from Bulgaria and in Bulgarian, Germany, Italian, Slovenian and Hungarian with English subtitles.

 

See below, after the jump, for select trailers from featured reviews.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs and Blu-rays for December 20

 

"Margin Call" (Lionsgate) accomplishes something that Oliver Stone failed to show in his "Wall Street" sequel: it explains how and why the market crash happened, not just in terms of economics but in the culture of Wall Street and the justifications that individuals tell themselves in order to follow the company line.

 

Written and directed by J.C. Chandor, whose fictional portrait echoes the real-life activities of Leman Brothers in 2008, "Margin Call" is not played for tension, tragedy or melodrama. This is not "Glengarry Glen Ross," with venal salesman and savage banter. Chandor is more interested in the banality of greed and opportunism and the ease in which principled employees are swayed to engage in unprincipled acts. If they don't do it, someone else will.

 

The film has been criticized as an apology for the people behind the market crash, but I don't see Chandor's sympathy for the various individuals on display -- notably Kevin Spacey as a career company man disgusted by the corporate behavior -- as any kind of apology. I see it more as a social study, a kind of fictional ethnographic profile of the corporate culture, with characters more suggested than fully fleshed out. It’s to the credit of the actors, from Spacey and Zachary Quinto (as the young risk management officer who finally figures out the Achilles heel of their highly-leveraged position) to Paul Bettany, Simon Baker, Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci as the corporate professionals who put the company -- and, ultimately, the entire American financial system -- on the precipice, that they emerge as real people.

 

Chandor underplays the human drama and the anonymity of the Wall Street office building so much it risks slipping into doldrums, but the stakes are too great and the actors too sharp to let that happen. Along the way, Chandor shows us not just how it happened, but why it's destined to repeat itself. Quietly, without editorializing, he reveals an increasingly familiar pattern: the people who had nothing to do with the crisis, and even those who predicted it and were ignored, are fired after it comes crashing down, while the folks who let it happen are kept on to see how they can turn this crisis into profit.