Kenneth Branagh brings "Thor" (Paramount, the Norse god-as-comic-book hero, to the big screen with Shakespearean dimension and god-versus-robot fantasy action. Videodrone's review is here, and we talk with Kenneth Branagh about gods, superheroes and movies here.  Kelly Reichert's "Meek's Cutoff" (Oscilloscope), a frontier drama about a wagon train lost in the high plains of Oregon, may be the quietest western you've ever seen. Videodrone wanders through the film here.

 

Joseph Gordon Levitt is a headbanging blast of anarchy with a healing presence in "Hesher" (Lionsgate), a dark comedy of a bullied kid (Devin Brochu) trying to come to terms with the death of his mother while his dad (Rainn Wilson) completely checks out in his grief. Hesher, a metalhead covered in crude tattoos and sporting an even cruder mouth, moves right in to the dysfunctional household and prods them back to life with a jolt of tough-love so chaotic it's hard to tell what his intentions are, or if he even has any.  

 

"Susser's first film feels like an original -- imperfect but often fresh and true, and a worthy showcase for a star on the rise," recommends MSN film critic Kat Murphy. "It goes without saying that Hesher's often repellent character, and the movie itself, owes everything to the snaky charisma of Gordon-Levitt. This gifted young actor is clearly having a high old time inside the (mostly naked) skin of such a relentlessly vulgar and violent creature." Natalie Portman and Piper Laurie co-star.

 

On DVD and Blu-ray, with deleted scenes, outtakes, a behind the scenes featurette and sketch gallery of drawings featured in the film.

Julie Taymor turns Shakespeare's banished wizard king Prospero into a sorceress, Prospera, and casts the indomitable Helen Mirren in role in her take on "The Tempest" (Touchstone). It sounds inspired but MSN film critic Kat Murphy finds it "remarkably dumb and artless… In contrast to Shakespeare's gift for weaving words into enchanted worlds, Taymor's "Tempest" leeches most of the magic out of his language and Prospera's fertile island of the imagination." Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming, Djimon Hounsou and Felicity Jones co-star in the film that closed the Venice Film Festival last year but withered at the box office after a critic drubbing. It's been a bad year for Ms. Taymor, what with this and getting fired from the troubled "Spider-Man" stage musical.

 

Curiously, there is no DVD release: it is available exclusively on Blu-ray and via Movie Download and OnDemand. The Blu-ray features commentary by Taymor, an alternate commentary track by Shakespeare experts Virginia Vaughn and Jonathan Bate, the documentary "Raising The Tempest" and rehearsal footage with Taymor, Djimon Hounsou, Russell Brand and Alfred Molina and its supplements.

"Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop" (Paramount) chronicles the comic's "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV" tour after his departure from "The Tonight Show." "It isn't as sad a movie as "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work," another behind-the-mask documentary, observes Washington Post film critic Michael O'Sullivan. "It's funnier. But it's just as illuminating." Features commentary, interview outtakes and a new interview with Conan O'Brien.

"Bill Cunningham New York" (Zeitgeist) profiles the New York Times photographer. "The Bill Cunningham captured here is a puckish, eightysomething man with electric energy and a wish to devour all of New York through his camera lens," writes Slate film critic Nathan Heller.

"Love Wedding Marriage" (IFC) is a romantic comedy starring Mandy Moore as a newlywed marriage counselor whose own marriage issues are far from solved, but MSN film critic James Rocchi doesn't recommend making an appointment with this film. In his words, this generic production "inspires a bleak and baffling mix of anger and amnesia: You'd be furious with having wasted time on "Love Wedding Marriage" if only you could remember it."

Foreign Affairs:

The French-language "Incendies" (Sony), a Canadian drama about siblings who travel to the Middle East to find family members they never knew existed and uncover hidden family secrets in a war zone, was an Oscar nominee for "Best Foreign Language Film." MSN film critic Glenn Kenny is unimpressed. He describes the film from director Denis Villeneuve as "meretriciously overdetermined as art cinema, or any kind of cinema for that matter, gets." And adds "But very professionally done." The Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack offers director commentary and a featurette.

"Lourdes" (Palisades Tartan) stars Sylvie Testud as a young woman on a pilgrimage for a miracle. New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis writes: "One of the pleasures of this intelligent, rigorously thoughtful, somewhat sly film is that it takes place in the space between the inexplicable (no explanation is possible) and the unexplained (enlightenment might be around the corner)." In French, Austrian and German with English subtitles.

"Le Quattro Volte" (Kino Lorber) from Italy is a meditation on the mysterious cycles of life via the odyssey of a soul through four states of existence. "Grave, beautiful, austerely comic, and casually metempsychotic, Michelangelo Frammartino's Le Quattro Volte is one of the wiggiest nature documentaries-or almost-documentaries​-ever made," praises Village Voice film critic J. Hoberman.

Yuen Woo Ping directs the Asian action film "True Legend" (Indomina), starring Vincent Zhao and featuring appearances by Jay Chou, Michelle Yeoh and David Carradine. "In countless over-the-top set pieces, Yuen delivers striking combat clarity without sacrificing the visceral editing and crazy digital effects of modern bloodbaths," writes Village Voice critic Nick Schrager. In Mandarin with English subtitles and optional English-dub soundtrack, plus behind-the-scenes featurettes, storyboard comparisons and other supplements.

And the rest:

Joseph Cross is mistaken for the messiah in the comedy "Son of Morning" (eOne), co-starring Heather Graham and Danny Glover. Keir Gilchrist is "Just Peck" (Image), a high-school outcast in a coming-of-age comedy.

 

Romantic comedies: Brian White and Mallika Sherawat are political rivals as (literal) bedfellows "Politics of Love" (Codeblack), Dean Cain and Juliana Paes star in the "Bed and Breakfast" (Green Apple) and Tamala Jones, Nicole Ari Parker and Keith Robinson headline "35 & Ticking" (One Village). "Leading Ladies" (Wolfe), a gay-themed romantic comedy set in the world of ballroom dance, features contestants from "So You Think You Can Dance."

 

Mayim Bialik and Joey Lawrence voice a couple of canines in the family comedy "The Dog Who Saved Halloween" (Anchor Bay), Teri Polo headlines the ghost story "Haunting at the Beacon" (Take 2) and Michael Jai White directs and stars in "Never Back Down 2: The Beatdown" (Sony).

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs for September 13

 

Starz continues to pursue its signature style of historical spectacle and contrived cable nudity with "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" (Anchor Bay) and the short-lived "Camelot: The Complete First Season" (Anchor Bay), the story of King Arthur… with a little sex in it.

 

John Hannah and Lucy Lawless dominate the six-episode prequel "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena," which chronicles their rise as purveyors of arena entertainment. The original "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" had its fans but I wasn't one of them, so when I say "Gods of the Arena" offers more of the same—a succession of brutal arena battles painted over in swaths of crimson CGI spatter and gaping wounds (a la "300") interspersed with softcore sex right out of a late-night Cinemax Eurotica import with the thinnest of stories connecting the scenes—you can take that as either a warning or a recommendation. It is the closest that Starz has to a signature series, though, and the DVD and Blu-ray releases are packed with featurettes and other supplements. The Blu-ray also features commentary on each episode, extended episodes and a 3D battle sequence. Both are two discs in a booklet with slipsleeves.

 

You could say that "Camelot: The Complete First Season" (Anchor Bay), the Starz original series take on the legend of King Arthur, opens with Merlin (Joseph Fiennes) summoning Arthur (Jamie Campbell Bower) in the wake of the death of King Uther Pendragon. The king's bastard son, hidden away in the provinces and raised by a farming family, is roused to take the throne and his destiny while his half-sister Morgan (Eva Green) schemes to have Arthur murdered and his reputation sullied so she can take the throne. That's accurate enough but here's a more telling description of the show's skewed focus: it opens with the hunky young Arthur rolling in the meadow with a naked maiden, who lolls around like a centerfold in a photo shoot.

 

Yes, like "Spartacus," "Camelot" flaunts nudity and gore by forcing it into scenes with the grace of a product placement, the "Look at me, I'm a cable show" approach to R-rated spectacle. Its not as empty-headed as "Spartacus" and is even marginally better than the BBC series "Merlin," the "I Was a Teenage Camelot Legend" series that takes far more liberties with the Arthurian myths and tales. But  that's not to say it's actually any good. Bower and Tamsin Egerton, the show's Guinevere (in this incarnation the wife of Arthur's most loyal knight, which is a problem since Arthur had a fling with her on her wedding day) are overshadowed by Fiennes, who plays Merlin as a carnival con artist with glowering stares and eccentric ticks, and Green, who smolders as Morgan, a woman who turns to dark arts and darker plots to take the power her culture denies her.

 

It turns out that "The Complete First Season" is also the only season. The series was cancelled with the Arthur legend barely begun and nary a sign of Lancelot, but at least a few key pieces of the legend were dropped into place by the end of the last episode. 10 episodes on three discs on DVD and Blu-ray, with featurettes, character profiles, bloopers and episode recaps.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs for September 13

 

Kelly Reichert's "Meek's Cutoff" (Oscilloscope) opens without explanation, just a place and a year -- "Oregon, 1845," stitched into a piece of homespun embroidery -- before we are dropped in the high desert to observe three families ford a river and then wordlessly, almost morosely, take the opportunity to fill canteens, wash and check the wagons before setting off again. Little do they or we know that it will be their last water for some time.

 

Michelle Williams stars as Emily, the young wife of Soloman (Will Patton), an older man looking to start again in the new land, and Bruce Greenwood is their buckskin guide Stephen Meek, who talks a good story of frontier adventure but has clearly lost the tiny wagon train in the desert.

 

This is the quietest American film I've heard in years. Apart from the tall tales spun by Meek, the dialogue is hushed and the audience strains to hear the discussions of the men debating their options. Much like the wives, who are left out of the discussions and stand apart, patiently picking up what they can. The frustration is palpable and illuminating. Kelly Reichardt, who directed Williams (and, in a small role, Patton) in her previous "Wendy and Lucy," and screenwriter Jon Raymond draw the story from history (Stephen Meek was the brother of Joe Meek, a colorful entrepreneur whose place in Oregon history is the stuff of tall tales) and the texture from the journals kept by the women, which gives the film its defining perspective.

 

This isn't a film about hope or heroism or the ideals and opportunities of the new land. It's about day to day struggle and survival and the fear of not knowing if they'll emerge alive. It's a severe life in a hostile world, observed with such delicate detail that the film achieves a grace and poetry. But it is also a primal piece of filmmaking, carved out of dirt and rock and calico and illuminated by natural light and campfire, with a metaphysical power arising from the mortality and the mystery.

 

In the words of MSN film critic Glenn Kenny, ""Meek's Cutoff" gives adventurous moviegoers a reason to rejoice…. for most of its time, "Meek's Cutoff" does seem like something new under the sun: a cinematic immersion of both modest and cosmic proportions, beautifully acted by a cast that makes you fully believe that they are these beleaguered characters, and makes you glad that you aren't."

 

Available on DVD and Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack, both in Oscilloscope's distinctive four-panel paperboard digipak. Both feature the nine-minute "The Making of Meek's Cutoff," an impressionistic look at the shoot san narration or interviews. Which makes it quite the companion piece to the movie.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs for September 13

 

When I ponder the choice of Kenneth Branagh to direct the big screen debut of Marvel Comics' "Thor," the Norse god as comic book superhero, I can't decide if it is inspired or obvious. After all, why wouldn't (and why shouldn't) the gods of Valhalla speak and behave as the monarchs of Shakespeare's plays? And who better to bring out the Shakespearean dimension of the mythical figures and epic tales (filtered through the four-color sensibilities of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and many others since) than Branagh?

See an MSN exclusive clip with Kenneth Branagh and Chris Hemsworth from the Blu-ray supplements below.

 

The story of the big-screen "Thor" is the story of power, hubris and lessons learned when the might Prince Thor (Chris Hemsworth), son of Odin (Anthony Hopkins), is stripped of his immortality and his magical hammer, Mjolnir, and banished to the mortal plane of Midgard (that Earth to you and me) when he starts a war with the Frost Giants. Which is in many ways a boilerplate retelling of a familiar story, with gods and robots and magic and science, not to mention a hunky goldilocks of a god and a spunky, cute as a button female physics visionary (Natalie Portman) playing at modern romance, to liven things up. A little, anyway, but not much.

Kenneth Branagh talks movies with MSN at "Watching with Kenneth Branagh" here.

 

Which is not to say that "Thor" is awful, simply uninspired, full of sound and fury and not much else. Hopkins can do regal grace and tortured tough-love imperiousness in his sleep and, practically buried in his flamboyant outfit, does so at times here. Hemsworth is an impressive specimen but not much of a presence and The Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson, Josh Dallas and Tadanobu Asano, struggling through his English dialogue) plus one (Jaimie Alexander as warrior woman Sif) are fun-loving comrades with generic charm. But it does offer a dimension of tragedy in the primal scream of little brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), god of mischief always in the shadow of golden boy and heir apparent Thor, confronting an identity crisis with a fierce plot and a heartbreaking endgame that, unfortunately, gets lost in the Earthbound politics (hey, it's S.H.I.E.L.D. on the spot once again) and weird god-versus-robot spectacle. And, of course, Kat Dennings as the saving grace of the mortal cast, her eyes lingering over Hemsworth's physique with a playful sexuality absent from Portman's performance.

 

 

New Releases:

Kenneth Branagh brings "Thor" (Paramount, the Norse god-as-comic-book hero, to the big screen with Shakespearean dimension and god-versus-robot fantasy action. In other words, full of sound and fury and not much else. Chris Hemsworth does cut an impressive figure as the Aryan princeling god, though. Videodrone's review is here, and we talk with Kenneth Branagh about gods, superheroes and movies here.

 

Kelly Reichert's "Meek's Cutoff" (Oscilloscope), a frontier drama about a wagon train lost in the high plains of Oregon, may be the quietest western you've ever seen. Michelle Williams, Bruce Greenwood and Will Patton star in this superb, beautifully observed film. Videodrone hits the trail with the film here.

 

Joseph Gordon Levitt is a headbanging blast of anarchy with a healing presence in "Hesher" (Lionsgate) and Helen Mirren is Prospera in Julie Taymor's take on Shakespeare's "The Tempest" (Touchstone), which co-stars Russell Brand, Alfred Molina, Chris Cooper, Alan Cumming and Felicity Jones.

 

"Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop" (Paramount) chronicles the comic's "Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on TV" tour after his departure from "The Tonight Show." The French-language Canadian drama "Incendies" (Sony), about siblings who travel to the Middle East to meet family they never knew existed, was an Oscar nominee for "Best Foreign Language Film." Other imports this week include the French/Austrian/Germ​an coproduction "Lourdes" (Palisades Tartan) and "Le Quattro Volte" (Kino Lorber) from Italy.

Browse the complete New Release Rack here

 

TV on DVD:

After seven years of self-destructive behavior and incendiary lives, the characters of "Rescue Me: The Sixth Season and The Final Season" (Sony) are given as satisfying a send off as they could expect. It ends not with fire but with family. And a few ghosts. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Blue Bloods: The First Season" (Paramount) is an old-school family cop drama with Tom Selleck as clan patriarch, NYC Police Commissioner and father of two policeman and one Assistant D.A., and it arrives in advance of its second season debut. And Gleeks will sing for joy for "Glee: The Complete Second Season" (Fox) (or, if you picked up the earlier half-season release, "Glee: Season 2, Volume 2").

 

Starz continues to pursue its signature style of historical spectacle and contrived cable nudity with the prequel "Spartacus: Gods of the Arena" (Anchor Bay) and the short-lived "Camelot: The Complete First Season" (Anchor Bay), the story of King Arthur… with a little sex in it. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

 

And more, including "Grey's Anatomy: The Complete Seventh Season" (Disney) and "Private Practice: The Complete Fourth Season" (Disney), the cult series "Supernatural: The Complete Season Sixth Season" (Warner), sitcoms "The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Fourth Season" (Warner) and "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: The Complete Sixth Season" (Fox) and the British import "Masterpiece Mystery!: Inspector Lewis 4" (PBS).

 

Flip through the TV on DVD Channel Guide here
 

Cool, Classic and Cult:

The 1952 "My Cousin Rachel" (Twilight Time), from the Daphne du Maurier novel, stars Olivia De Havilland and features Richard Burton in his debut American role. "Eating" (Breaking Glass) is back on DVD for the 20th Anniversary of Henry Jaglom's "very serious comedy about women & food."

 

On the cult front is "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Manos: The Hands Of Fate Special Edition" (Shout! Factory), a deluxe edition celebrating what is arguably the worst film ever made, and "Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers" (Shout! Factory) a motion-comic adaptation of the 2004 comic book mini-series, timed for home video release with the feature film.

All of the Cool, Classic and Cult here

 

Blu-ray Debuts:

Has a Blu-ray release ever arrived with as much anticipation and apprehension as "Star Wars: The Complete Saga" (Fox)? Arriving in a nine-disc box (there are also separate editions with each of the two trilogies), it's packed with commentaries, documentaries, interviews and plenty of behind-the-scenes peaks and techno-geek Lucas promises state of the art remastering for high definition. But once again, he's tinkering with the original films, adding yet more special effects (to make the 1977 effects look more modern?), rejiggering scenes and even adding scenes (see Corwin Neuse on The Hitlist). Expect the fan blogosphere, already buzzing with indignation, to explode when it finally arrives on Friday, September 16.

 

No such controversy surrounds "Citizen Kane: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition" (Warner), a beautifully mastered edition of what has been called The Greatest Film Ever Made. Well, except for the Amazon exclusive edition which features the DVD debut of "The Magnificent Ambersons" as a supplement. Videodrone's review is here.

 

Criterion upgrades "3 Women" (Criterion) and "My Life as a Dog" (Criterion), previously on DVD, to Blu-ray. On the cult front is Wes Craven's original "The Hills Have Eyes" (Image), the Italian sci-fi satire "The 10th Victim" (Blue Underground) and the grindhouse revenge flick "The Exterminator" (Synapse).

Peruse all the new Blu-rays here

 

Build Your Library Essential of the Week:

"Citizen Kane: 70th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition" (Warner) is the definition of the great American movie. Above all, Welles was a showman and "Citizen Kane" is a three ring circus of cinematic ingenuity, a startlingly entertaining blend of pulp melodrama, historical biography, detective story, political drama, storytelling confabulation, and plain old theatrical flourish. And this Blu-ray, as good a digital edition as we're likely to see (the negative was lost in a fire so a fine-grain print was used for this edition), also features the documentary "The Battle Over Citizen Kane" and "RKO 281," a fictionalized dramatization of the making of the film.

 

The complete calendar of releases this week is after the jump:

 

Kenneth Branagh may not be the first name that comes to mind to direct a superhero film, but when that hero is Thor, the Norse god of thunder, who better than a director steeped in the Shakespeare and the classics? Which is not to pigeon-hole Branagh, whose heart belongs to Shakespeare but whose career spans stage, cinema and TV and all manner of projects, including a portrayal of Sir Laurence Olivier in the upcoming feature "My Week With Marilyn" and another BBC series as the gloomy Swedish detective "Wallander." To mark the release of "Thor" on DVD, Blu-ray and Blu-ray 3D this week (reviewed on Videodrone here), we talked with the Branagh about gods, superheroes and what he's been watching at home.

What have you been watching?

 

Kenneth Branagh: Well, I can tell you I've been watching "Thor" for the past few days because I was checking on how the DVD worked out. Ah, what a question, because my mind's gone blank now. Just the other day I watched for the second time "Taken," which was on BBC. My wife is a fan of that movie and I'm a great fan of Liam Neeson so I enjoyed that very much.

 

I'm quite a fan of that movie and the Luc Besson-produced European action films in general. They remind me of what American action films used to be like in the seventies and eighties, when they were on a budget.

 

Branagh: You're absolutely right. And I think they have a distinct style and flair to them. That film has a great economy and knew exactly what it was and the action elements of it were most impressive.

 

I enjoy seeing older actors play action figures defined by experience. What would you think of becoming one of Besson's action heroes?

 

Branagh: I've just been making my TV show "Wallander" and we just shot an episode of it, a ninety-minute film based on a book called "The Dogs of Riga," in Latvia. By the time we were a week into it and I was running around for the fourth or fifth day with a gun in the market in Riga, someone said, "Hey, this is like 'The Bourne Ultimatum.' I like this. I want to see this film.' So maybe that's my audition for Besson.

 

 

Anyone with a nominal understanding of film history knows that, while the ubiquity of sequels are a startling trend, they are not a modern phenomenon. Hollywood has indulged in sequels and series films since the Nickelodeon, finding success in everything from Gene Autry and Roy Rogers westerns to "Andy Hardy" and "The Thin Man" to a dozen Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone. The difference is that, back in the day, producers usually spent less on sequels and series films than on adult fare, not more. Here are a few of the franchises of the era recently released to DVD-R via the manufacture on demand lines at Warner and MGM.

 

"I'm no angel so they call me Saint." "The George Sanders Saint Movies Collection" (Warner Archive) collects all five "Saint" features starring George Sanders as Simon Templar (Louis Hayward played him in the first film, "The Saint in New York"), Leslie Charter's modern Robin Hood with the reputation of a rogue, the manners of a society gentleman and the cool of a con artist. Sanders rarely got the opportunity to play the hero -- he's better known for the silky corruption and sinister calculation of Addison Dewitt in "All About Eve" -- and he enjoys himself greatly as the international rascal and charming man about town, navigating a thin line between cop and crook as a freelance detective with a streak of chivalry and a penchant for making a little money on the side.

 

"The Saint Strikes Back" (1939), running a brisk 64 minutes, has the running time of a B-movie but the budget and supporting cast (Wendy Barrie, Barry Fitzgerald, Neil Hamilton) of an A film, and director John Farrow (in his feature debut) gives it a snappy pace and style. Jonathan Hale reprises his role as Simon's foil and respectful nemesis, Inspector Henry Fernack of the NYPD (he first played the part opposite Hawyard), forever getting the slip and worse from Simon but usually rewarded in the end with a headline-grabbing arrest. Sanders, meanwhile, gets to have all the fun as the rogue of a modern knight who particularly enjoys the joust of a mystery when the client is an attractive woman. And, of course, his signature whistle (the defining motif of the subsequent radio show) is prominently featured.

 

"The Saint Strikes Back" has an expectedly complicated premise and twisty plot, at least for a film running barely over hour, and the well-plotted script is layered in misdirection and suspicion, all of which elevates beyond the usual studio programmer. Unlike a lot of the series detective films, it was adapted from an original Charter story, as were most of the films in the Sanders run of the series, including "The Saint in London" (1939), with Sally Gray, and "The Saint's Double Trouble" (1940), where Sanders takes on his identical double, a gangster trying to frame him for murder. Co-starring Bela Lugosi as a criminal henchman, it's perhaps the most colorful story in the B&W run of the series, with Sanders sending an Egyptian mummy to his old archeology professor, sparring with the man's suspicious daughter (Helene Whitney) and slipping between identities from scene to scene. "The Saint Takes Over" (1940) and "The Saint in Palm Springs" (1941) fills out the collection of five films on two discs.

"The George Sanders Saint Movies Collection" is available directly from the Warner Archive

"Four Daughters: Movie Series Collection" (Warner Archive) – It's unlikely that "Four Daughters" (1938), adapted from the Fanny Hurst story, was begun with series potential in mind. It was directed by Michael Curtiz, who had pretty much become the top house director for Warner Bros. by 1938, and featured a solid (if not quite) all-star cast: Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane, Lola Lane (that's right: three sisters) and Gale Page as the daughters and Claude Rains as their widowed father. It's classic Warner family filmmaking, with a quartet of pretty girls looking for romance while their father tries to keep them focused on their music training, with plenty of cute flirtations and romantic interludes. It's also the feature debut of John Garfield, who owns every scene he's in as the street-smart, angry young man of a musician softened by the affections of one of the sisters.

 

The film spawned three sequels. "Daughters Courageous" (1939) is an unofficial sequel at best, with practically the entire cast reshuffled in similar roles with all new names (in this one, Rains is the father of John Garfield, not the four girls), but they returned to old family tree (without Garfield) for "Four Wives" (1939) and "Four Mothers" (1941). The first two of these were directed by Michael Curtiz, which suggests that Warner thought pretty highly of the films. William Keighley (who co-directed "The Adventures of Robin Hood" with Curtiz) took the reigns of the final film.

 

"Four Daughters: Movie Series Collection" is available directly from the Warner Archive

Boris Karloff played Mr. Wong, aka Hugh Wiley's James Lee Wong, in five features for Monogram between 1938 and 1940. It was the poverty row studio's answer to the Charlie Chan series at 20th Century Fox and a continuation of the shabby studio tradition of casting Caucasian actors as Asian character. Which is nothing against Karloff, who plays the role with delicate dignity behind the make-up and Asian clichés, just a reminder of the realities of Hollywood's racial politics. Three of the films have recently been released through the MGM Limited Edition Collection: the first film in the series, "Mr. Wong, Detective" (1938), where Karloff created the screen incarnation of the character, the second film "The Mystery of Mr. Wong" (1939), and his final appearance as Mr. Wong in "Doomed to Die" (1940). Grant Withers co-stars in all three as Captain Street and William Nigh directs all three.

 

The films have been available in various public domain editions, most of them in horrible condition. The MGM Limited Edition Collection editions are far superior, decently mastered from good prints with decent image and sound, but the films themselves are static, slow, awkward, with only Karloff to recommend them. These are for die-hard Karloff fans and B-movie mystery buffs only.  

 

Available by order only from the MGM Limited Collection, from Amazon, Screen Archives Entertainment, Classic Movies Now and other web retailers.

 

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.

 

"Transformers: Dark of the Moon" debuts on home video on Friday, September 30 on DVD and a Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack, but it won't be the definitive home video release. In fact, based on the press release, it won't have anything more than the movie (and in the case of the Combo Pack, the movie times three: Blu-ray, DVD and digital copy).

Says Michael Bay (as quoted in the press release): "As you know, we put a lot of effort into the 3D experience for the theatrical release and I want to make sure we get it right for home viewing—and that process takes time.  So stay tuned for an even more incredible release that will include the film on Blu-ray 3D and loads of bonus features."

In other words, they're saving the bells and whistles and extra dimension for the holiday season. Because nothing says "Merry Christmas" like giant robots decimating Chicago.

What remains an open question is if this release will boost the 3D home theater market -- which requires a 3D compatible monitor and Blu-ray player and a special set of technologically advanced glasses (a lot more elaborate -- and expensive -- than the polarized glasses for theatrical 3D) -- the way it boosted theatrical 3D. I'm sure the upcoming "The Lion King 3D Blu-ray" would appreciate any help in that department.

Anyone out there investing in home theater 3D? If so, how do you like it?

 

For the complete home video calendar, click here