DVD Blog on MSN Movies - Videodrone

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Plus the complete runs of 'Columbo,' 'The Firm,' 'Alcatraz,' and 'Mr. Lucky,' and more

By SeanAx Oct 17, 2012 9:30AM

"Mad Men: Season Five" (Lionsgate), arguably the best season to date of one of TV's best shows, finds the stress of keeping the prestigious but struggling new advertising firm on Madison Avenue afloat taking its toll on the partners and Don's marriage. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Touch: The Complete First Season" (Fox), created by Tim Kring of "Heroes," stars Keifer Sutherland as Martin Bohm, a former investigative reporter reduced to blue collar jobs after losing his wife in the September 11 attacks and dedicating himself to caring for his possibly-autistic son.

 

Jake (David Mazouz) doesn't speak (though he does narrate the show) and doesn't like to be touched, but it becomes clear that he sees complex patterns in the world and communicates through numbers that connect seemingly unconnected events and people in a web of relationships and meanings. The scripts combine Martin's efforts to reach his son through the trail of numbers with stories spread across the globe, all coming together by the end of each episode in unexpected, sometimes contrived, usually heartwarming ways. Sort of like "Lost" meets "Crash," but with a real attempt at emotional sincerity.

 

It's six degrees of separation collapsed into direct links in metaphysical short-circuits engineered by Jake, with the fiercely dedicated Martin almost as intense as Jack Bauer as he follows his son's leads, reaches out to help people in crisis, and come that much closer to his isolated son. It makes the show a very curious (and actually kind of interesting) mix of metaphysics, secular mysticism, corporate conspiracy, and feel-good family drama, with a dash of Kabala tossed in toward the end of the season.

 

Gugu Mbatha-Raw co-stars as the social worker who joins forces with him to follow the clues and heal the universe, one crisis at a time and Maria Bello guest stars in the two-part season finale as a woman following a similar path destined to cross with Martin and Jake.

 

13 episodes on DVD, including an extended version of the pilot, plus two brief featurettes and deleted scenes.

 

"Columbo: The Complete Series" (Universal) - "There is just one more thing…" Peter Falk first played the cigar-chomping, eternally disheveled L.A. police detective, Lt. Columbo, in the 1968 telefilm "Prescription: Murder" (1968), Richard Levinson and William Link’s adaptation of their Broadway play, which introduces the detective in protean form: loquacious and dogged, but not yet rumpled or cagey in his trademark form. After one more tele-feature, "Ransom For a Dead Man" (1971) with Lee Grant, it started its rotation in the "NBC Mystery Movie" anthology series with "Murder By the Book," directed by a young Steven Spielberg with a snap, a smooth assurance, and a tension missing from the previous films, and featuring a fully formed Columbo: a charming eccentric whose forgetful, fidgety, constantly questioning manner is his key tactic in keeping his suspect off balance, a formula that worked all the way up to his last appearance in the 2003 TV movie "Columbo Likes the Nightlife." This 34-disc DVD box set collects all 69 episodes and 24 TV movies featuring the most distinctive detective on TV, then and now.

 

"The Firm: The Complete Series" (eOne) and "Alcatraz: The Complete Series" (Fox) offer every episode of two shows that never made it past the 2011 TV season. Josh Lucas takes the Tom Cruise role in "The Firm," which ostensibly picks up his story ten years later, coming out of witness protection to get tangled with another shady firm and face the son of the mob boss he helped put behind bars. The rest is your usual underdog courtroom drama, with Lucas playing one of the most insufferably condescending and smug attorneys on TV. 22 episodes on six discs, plus featurettes, interviews, and other supplements. DVD only.

 

More high concept is "Alcatraz," a pseudo-supernatural series from producer J.J. Abrams about criminals from the past returning to resume their crimes, sort of like "Prison Break" from Hell. Sam Neill, Parminder Nagra, Sarah Jones, and Jorge Garcia are the specialists called in to track down the criminals and solve the mystery, though they don't get too far on the latter count; the show never made it past the initial 13-episode order. Blu-ray and DVD, with a featurette on the real-life prison and deleted scenes, plus an UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming.

 

"Mr. Lucky: The Complete Series" (Timeless Media Group), ostensibly based on the 1943 movie, stars John Vivyan as Mr. Lucky, a professional gambler with a floating casino he runs off the American coast with his friend partner Andamo (Ross Martin). Blake Edwards developed and produced the half-hour series, which ran a single season in 1959-1960, and brought composer Henry Mancini and cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop with him to set the atmosphere. 34 episodes on four discs on DVD, plus a bonus CD soundtrack featuring music from Mancini's scores.

 

"Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule: Seasons 1 & 2" (Warner) features 12 episodes of the parody of public access information programming starring John C. Reilly as a font of misinformation with dubious credentials. Produced from the Adult Swim block on Cartoon Network, these purposely low-fidelity live-action programs run under 15 minutes apiece. DVD only.

 

BritTV:

"Waterloo Road: Series 1" (Acorn), a high school drama of a troubled school, a desperate headmaster (Jason Merrells), a new, young deputy with bold ideas (Jamie Glover), and a hothouse of teenage melodrama, arrives on disc with the promise that it's "U.K.'s most popular drama series." Seen stateside on BBC America. Eight episodes from the 2006 season on two discs. DVD only.

 

"The Ice House" (BBC), the 1998 mystery miniseries, debuts on DVD with co-star Daniel Craig front and center on the cover. He's the junior partner to Corin Redgrave in murder mystery involving the corpse of a man missing for ten years. Adapted from a novel by Minnette Walters. DVD only, with an interview with the author.

 

The 2010 documentary series "Nazi Collaborators" (Shanachie) explores the culture of collaboration with the Nazis in occupied countries during World War II. 13 episodes on four discs, DVD only.

 

"The Royal Bodyguard" (BFS), a six-episode comedy series from 2011, stars David Jason as disaster-prone veteran soldier promoted from car park attendant to head of Royal security. "Ain't Misbehaving" (BFS), from 1997, star Robson Green and Jerome Flynn as big band musicians getting in and out of scrapes in wartime London. Both on DVD only, two discs each.

 

Jon Pertwee is The Doctor in "Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death" (BBC), story number 53 from the series. DVD only, with commentary, featurettes and other supplements.

 

Another season:

"Psych: Season Six" (Universal), the comic mystery series about a detective who poses as a psychic, features guest stars William Shatner, Cary Elwes, Molly Ringwald, and Danny Glover this season. 16 episodes, plus video and audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes, and featurettes, on four discs. DVD only, in sturdy book-case digipak case.

 

"Gunsmoke: The Sixth Season, Volume 2" (Paramount) features 19 half-hour episodes from the 1960-1961 season (when it was still a half-hour drama) of western justice from James Arness' Marshall Matt Dillon and friends on three discs.

 

"Ghost Hunters: Season Seven, Part 2" (Image) presents 13 episodes of the seventh season of the supernatural reality series on four discs and "Drinking Made Easy: Season 2" (Magnolia) features 24 episodes, plus commentary, interviews, and a bonus one-hour special, on four discs. Both DVD only.

 

Christmas Telefilms:

"An American Christmas Carol" (Shout! Factory) is the 1979 updating of the Dickens classic, a network TV movie with Henry Winkler repossessing the items of struggling families in Depression-era New England. It's on DVD and Blu-ray with a new interview with Winkler.

 

More contemporary are these made-for-cable holiday movie: "Annie Claus is Coming to Town" (Vivendi) with Maria Thayer as Santa's daughter loose in the big city and "The Christmas Pageant" (Vivendi) with Melissa Gilbert and Edward Herrmann (both made for the Hallmark Channel), "A Princess for Christmas" (Lionsgate) with Roger Moore playing royal European cupid, the Canadian-made "Christmas Miracle" (Vivendi) and "The Heart of Christmas" (Image), made for the Gospel Music Channel.

 

Plus:

- The first four seasons of "I Love Lucy" (Paramount) get rereleased in separate volumes with new artwork and a drop in retail price. Features all the supplements of the earlier releases. DVD only.

- "Brave New World" (Acorn), hosted by Professor Stephen Hawking, is a five-part science series exploring the frontiers of scientific discovery. Two discs, DVD only.

- "Big Bad BeetleBorgs: Season One, Volume One" (Shout! Factory) features the first 27 episodes of the 1996 live-action "Power Rangers"-esque series of three kids turned into superheroes. Three discs, DVD only.

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of October 16

 
Tags: ReviewsTV

Two box sets, one classic and one contemporary, of gangster movie landmarks

By SeanAx 5 hours ago

Back in the thirties, as sound remade the movie industry, Warner Bros. blasted into the new decade as the studio of scrappy, snappy, street-smart movies, full of wise-cracking reporters, blue-collar hustlers, and hard-luck guys and dolls struggling to get by in the hard times of the depression. They were also the godfathers of the gangster movie, launching the genre and its two most famous icons with early sound movie landmarks "Little Caesar" (1931) with Edward G. Robinson and "The Public Enemy" (1931) with James Cagney.

 

Both of those films debut on Blu-ray this week in "Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics" (Warner), which arrives with its companion set "Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Contemporary" (Warner). Together they present nine films on Blu-ray, from 1931 to 2006, and a bonus documentary on DVD.

 

Enter to win a copy of both volumes in a giveaway from MSN and Warner Home Entertainment.

 

"Classics" is the more exciting of the two releases, as the four landmark gangster movies from Warner Bros. all make their respective Blu-ray debuts this week (they also debut in individual volumes on Blu-ray). Along with "Little Caesar" (1931), which established the classic rise-and-fall arc of the gangster thriller, and "The Public Enemy" (1931), which unleashed dynamo Cagney in a star-making turn, is "The Petrified Forest" (1936), which gave supporting player Humphrey Bogart his breakthrough role as a mad dog of a fugitive killer, and "White Heat" (1949), with Cagney in an explosive performance as the most psychotic gangster in classic cinema: “Made it, ma. Top of the world!” 


All four films also debut in individual volumes on Blu-ray include the commentary tracks, featurettes, archival shorts, and other supplements from the earlier DVD releases, and the set includes the bonus documentary "Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film" on DVD.


 

All of these films are newly mastered in 1080p from the best elements available for their Blu-ray debut. In the case of "Little Caesar," which was produced in 1930, they are not in top shape and the disc shows the damage of its surviving elements, but as with other preserved classics, the sharpness and detail of the image helps us see "through" the damage to the film below. The other films are in better condition, with "White Heat" being both the best film and the best looking disc in the set. As directed by Raoul Walsh, it’s white hot and Cagney gives a blindingly unhinged performance as an emotionally unstable and mentally unbalanced Cody Jarrett, putting his dancer’s moves to work in a riveting physical performance.

 

See clips of Cagney in "The Public Enemy" and "White Heat" below.

 

"Contemporary" collects five films that have previously been released on Blu-ray, including three by Martin Scorsese: "Mean Streets" (1973), the director's first great film and perhaps the most personal gangster movie ever made; the violent, dynamic, and exhilarating "Goodfellas" (1990), a stylistic tour-de-force which has lost none of its visceral charge or cinematic ecstasy in the twenty-some years since its release; and "The Departed" (2006), which earned Scorsese his first Academy Award for Best Director. Scorsese's gangster films offer a vibrant alternative to the "Godfather" films, suggesting both the glamor of gang life and the lurid, mercenary reality of the life, and his filmmaking captures the energy of the violent life, as well as the jittery paranoia.

 

Brian De Palma's "The Untouchables" (1987) was actually a Paramount production and takes a more operatic approach to the classic gangster movie, while Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995) is a thoroughly modern crime thriller of professional heist crew headed by Robert De Niro and Al Pacino as an obsessed cop on their trail. As mentioned, they have all been released on Blu-ray before and this release includes the supplements from the previous Blu-ray releases: commentary tracks, featurettes, and more.

 

Both sets collect the five discs in a compact cast with hinged trays (my preferred storage option) in a sturdy box with an accompanying booklet with stills and (very brief) notes on the films.

 

Two films clips are after the jump. Click on "More" below…

 

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of May 21 

 

Plus 'Beautiful Creatures,' 'The ABCs of Death,' 'Yossi' from Israel, and the Rolling Stones

By SeanAx 13 hours ago

"Side Effects" (Universal), medical drama-turned-psychological thriller with Jude Law and Rooney Mara, is ostensibly the last feature film from Steven Soderbergh, and it's a pretty sharp piece of filmmaking. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"The Last Stand" (Lionsgate) – Always on the look-out for new flavors for its studio projects, Hollywood is now drafting directors from South Korea's lively action and crime thriller industry and "The Last Stand" is the first out of the gate. Designed as a come-back for Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's also the American debut of Korean director Kim Jee-woon, who made a reputation with dark horrors like "I Saw the Devil" and "A Tale of Two Sisters" but hit it big with the wild, wild Eastern take on old west goofiness, "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird."

 

The buoyant energy of that colorful lark is conspicuously absent in this thoroughly conventional frontier showdown, which pits border town sheriff Schwarzenegger and his crew against a Mexican drug lord (Eduardo Noriega) on a fast car getaway with a small army of soldiers clearing the roads with maximum collateral damage. Kim does create an amiable camaraderie within the group (even with Johnny Knoxville's comic relief overkill) but fails to add any memorable invention to an otherwise familiar shoot 'em up / blow 'em up / smash and crash action movie. More from MSN film critic Glenn Kenny.


Blu-ray and DVD, with four featurettes and deleted and extended scenes. The Blu-ray includes a digital copy of the film for portable media players and an UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming. Also On Demand and at Redbox.

 

"Parker" (Sony) stars Jason Statham as the brutal anti-hero of the crime novels of Richard Stark (a pseudonym for Donald Westlake). He's not the first to take the role (Lee Marvin was, in "Point Blank") but he is the first to take name from the books, even if he is a Brit in an American role, and MSN film critic Glenn Kenny recommends the film as "not only a very good vehicle for the star; it's a pretty damn good crime movie overall."


"Director Taylor Hackford's certainly had his ups and downs but he always seems energized when working with down-and-dirty material. He doesn't shy away from the material's less reputable aspects…. Statham stomps and chomps through all his action scenes with spectacular vigor while never losing his cool, and Jennifer Lopez, believe it or not, is better than credible as his skeptical and then smitten eventual accomplice." Michael Chiklis

 

Blu-ray and DVD, with director commentary and two featurettes, plus an UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming. The Blu-ray also includes two additional featurettes. Also On Demand and at Redbox.

 

"Beautiful Creatures" (Warner) is the latest attempt to launch a new franchise of teen romance with a supernatural setting, with Alice Englert as the new girl in town with magical powers and Alden Ehrenreich as the local boy entwined with her fate. "Just as the "Twilight" series rejiggered (rather idiotically, if you ask me) the mythologies of vampires and werewolves and other supernatural favorites, so does "Beautiful Creatures" -- written and directed by Richard LaGravenese from the first novel in a series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl -- give us a new vision of witchery that is more playful, coherent and intelligent," explains MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. "If you're thinking a deep-fried, more hormonally charged Harry Potter, that's not it, but it's close to the intention at least." Jeremy Irons, Viola Davis, and Emma Thompson provide the adult supervision here.

 

Blu-ray and DVD, with deleted scenes. Exclusive to the Blu-ray are six short featurettes, plus an UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming. Also On Demand.

 

"Perfectly agreeable thanks to the charms and charisma of its three stars, "Stand Up Guys" (Lionsgate) promises buckets of fun and a raucous team-up between Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin," writes MSN film critic James Rocchi. "The fact is, that bill of sale isn't quite matched by the contents of the movie, but the enterprise is light and slight enough to mean that you can enjoy watching the three lead actors playing sunset-years tough guys out for one last spree before the bill has to be paid."


Blu-ray and DVD, with director commentary, three featurettes, and deleted scenes. The Blu-ray also includes an UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming. Also at Redbox.

 

Indies and oddities:

"The ABCs of Death" (Magnet) is an anthology horror film with a short piece for every letter of the alphabet and an impressive line-up 27 directors from around the world, including Jason Eisener ("Hobo with a Shotgun"), Xavier Gens ("Frontier(s)"), Jorge Michel Grau ("We Are What We Are"), Nacho Vigalondo ("Extraterrestrial"), Ti West ("The Innkeepers"), Ben Wheatley ("The Kill List"), and the team of Bruno Forzani & Hélène Cattet ("Amer"). "With such a wide pool of talent and so many different themes and plots covered, "The ABCs of Death" unquestionably has something to offer for every horror fan (even as they snooze through the film's tamer segments)," offers MSN critic Kate Erbland. This is unrated and definitely for mature audiences.

 

Blu-ray and DVD, with commentary, numerous featurettes, deleted scenes, and other supplements. The Blu-ray features more supplements and there's also a Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack.

 

"The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane" (Eagle Rock) premiered on HBO in 2012, but the nearly two-hour documentary is a feature film-worthy tour through their history, through a rich array of archival clips and counterpoint with new interviews by the band. With primary focus on their dramatic sixties and seventies, the film, in the words of Time Magazine TV critic James Poniewozik, "uses documentary outtake footage from decades of earlier films to spin a new take on that trip, paralleling the Stones as news story (the drug busts, Brian Jones’ death, Altamont) to their development as artists, aiming to show how one was inseparable from the other." Bret Morgen directs and the Blu-ray and DVD editions feature bonus performances by the band from concert and TV appearances in 1964 and 1965.

 

'Totoro' and 'Howl's Moving Castle debut of Blu-ray

By SeanAx 21 hours ago

Director, artist, producer, and animation visionary Hayao Miyaziki is much more than Japan’s Walt Disney. Miyazaki is an original with an epic vision, an animist mythology, an environmentally-conscious subtext, and a dedication to the art of hand-drawn animation maintained in the face of the digital revolution. As both director and producer (through his Studio Ghibli), Miyazaki believed that children deserved stories with depth and emotional complexity as well as imagination and excitement, and that's what he delivered in film after film. Two of his greatest films debut on Blu-ray this week: "My Neighbor Totoro" (1988) and "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004).

 

"My Neighbor Totoro" (Disney), a gentle film of magic and imagination in a time of childhood anxiety, is Miyazaki's first genuine masterpiece. Released in 1988, it's a darling story of two young sisters befriended by a forest spirits (among them a friendly, perhaps imaginary, giant blue hedgehog who introduces them to the wonders of nature) one magical summer. While the fantasy and whimsy captures the playful imagination of children, a powerful undercurrent of emotional crisis grounds their experience: their infirm mother is recuperating from some unexplained illness in a local hospital. Rarely has there been such a tender and respectful exploration of the emotions and fears of children, and never in such a delightful flight of fantastical adventure and wonder. A masterpiece of modern animated fantasy made for children and adults alike.

 

HBO's vampires are top disc sellers, but MTV's wolves deliver a better show

By SeanAx Tue 1:53 PM

"True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season" (HBO), HBO's gothic pulp vampire melodrama, goes for broke with the most extreme season yet: more blood, more conspiracies, more transformations, and way more internal wars within and between the species.

 

Bill and Eric (Stephen Moyer and Alexander Skarsgård) get called before the Vampire Authority, a cult-like vampire cabal (led by guest star Christopher Meloni) with an insidious plot that involves the vampire goddess Lilith and hallucinogen-fueled trips. The werewolf pack gets a scruffy new alpha who makes them the V-addicted lapdogs of the vampires. War vet Terry (Todd Lowe) is pursued by a fire demon. Heartbroken Hoyt (Jim Parrack) joins an anti-vamp hate group. Jason keeps screwing himself into more trouble. The Fey… will, they just keep partying on in their alternate dimension nightclub. And, how yeah, Tara is a vampire and she's pretty pissed about it.

 

Oh Sookie! Our ostensible heroine (Anna Paquin) seems just a bystander anymore, the all-purpose damsel in distress for a growing number of protectors (add Joe Manganiello's wolfman Alcide to the ranks). It's all pretty silly and feels rudderless, like a supernatural soap opera tossing everything into the mix for shock value and exploitation spectacle (blood and sex: the pay-cable formula!). It's the final season with series creator Alan Ball (who took the characters from Charlaine Harris' books and went his own way with them) and seems out of ideas. Hard to tell if things will get better with the next season, but there are a lot of fans who figure any change has got to be an improvement at this point.

 

The show still has passionate followers addicted to the supernatural soap opera and the discs remains TV bestsellers. That's fine, but for those less sanguine about the changes in the show, might I suggest taking a look at "Teen Wolf: Season 2" (Fox).

 

MTV's entry in the supernatural teenager series, is turning out to be one of the best of the genre, interesting and engaging and a lot smarter than "True Blood." The first season (available on DVD, Netflix Instant, and VOD) reworked the eighties horror comedy as a coming-of-age drama by way of young adult melodrama for the post-"Buffy" era, with a supernatural Romeo and Juliet story at the center: teen wolf Tyler Posey is in love with new girl Crystal Reed, who just happens to come from a line of werewolf hunters.

 

Videodrone's take on the biggest, best, coolest and culty-ist releases of the week

By SeanAx Tue 11:34 AM

New Releases:

"Side Effects" (Universal), medical drama-turned-psychological thriller with Jude Law and Rooney Mara, is ostensibly the last feature film from Steven Soderbergh, and it's a pretty sharp piece of filmmaking. Kind of like an updated Joe Esterhaus thriller from the nineties, only smarter and without any ice picks in sight. Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"Beautiful Creatures" (Warner), the latest teen romance with a supernatural setting, stars Alice Englert as the new girl in town with magical powers and Alden Ehrenreich as the local boy entwined with her fate. Apparently it wasn't popular to spawn a franchise. Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand.

 

On the more traditionally action-oriented front, there is "The Last Stand" (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand and at Redbox), the Arnold Schwarzenegger come-back film, and "Parker" (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, On Demand and at Redbox), with Jason Statham as the brutal anti-hero of the Richard Stark's crime novels. Skewing older is "Stand Up Guys" (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, and at Redbox), the geriatric gangster buddy film with Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin.

 

"The ABCs of Death" (Magnet, Blu-ray and DVD) is an indie anthology horror film with 26 short pieces, "The Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane" (Eagle Rock) looks back on the first two decades of the legendary band, and the Israeli drama "Yossi" (Strand, DVD) toplines the foreign list this week.

 

"Citizen Hearst" (HBO, DVD) and "Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters" (Zeitgeist, DVD) lead off the features in the monthly "True Stories" roundup. More releases here.

 

Most releases are also available as digital download and VOD via iTunes, Amazon, and other web retailers and video services.

 

TV on Disc:

"True Blood: The Complete Fifth Season" (HBO) is the final season of HBO's gothic pulp vampire melodrama supervised by Alan Ball, and he goes for broke with the most extreme season yet: more blood, more conspiracies, more transformations, and way more internal wars within and between the species. A little too much for many fans, but it's still addictive supernatural soap opera for many others. Oh, Sookie! 12 episodes on Blu-ray and DVD, plus commentary tracks, featurettes, and other supplements.

 

"Teen Wolf: Season 2" (Fox), MTV's entry in the supernatural teenager series, is turning out to be one of the best of the genre and a much more interesting and engaging series than "True Blood," as far as I'm concerned. 12 episodes on two discs on DVD.

 

"Perception: The Complete First Season" (ABC) is TNT's latest attempt at the high-concept detective show with a damaged genius in the lead, this one with Eric McCormack as a schizophrenic neuroscience professor who can’t separate his hallucinations from real life. 10 episodes on two discs, DVD.

 

Plus: "Saving Hope: The Complete First Season" (eOne), which is also the only season of this cancelled medical show-turned-supernatural drama, and "The Aquabats Super Show: Season One" (Shout! Factory), a kid's show with "the world's first musical crime-fighting super group." Both DVD.

 

Cool and Classic:

"The Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics" (Warner) and "The Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Contemporary" (Warner) present nine films on Blu-ray, from 1931 to 2006, and a bonus documentary on DVD, across two box sets. You can enter to win a copy of both volumes in a giveaway from MSN and Warner Home Entertainment.

 

Two of Hayao Miyazaki’s animated films debut on Blu-ray: "My Neighbor Totoro" (Disney) from 1988, a gentle film of magic and imagination in a time of childhood anxiety and Miyazaki's first genuine masterpiece, and his 2004 fantasy adventure "Howl's Moving Castle" (Disney). Both in Blu-ray+DVD combo packs with Japanese and English soundtracks.

 

"National Lampoon's Vacation: 30th Anniversary Edition" (Warner) is a new Blu-ray release of the family road movie comedy with a new documentary.

 

Cult films from Italy: "Cold Eyes of Fear" (Redemption) and "The Sinful Nuns of St. Valentine" (Redemption), two exploitation horrors of the seventies, are restored for Blu-ray and DVD, and the spaghetti western "Grand Duel" (Blue Underground) with Lee Van Cleef arrives in DVD with the four-disc collection "Spaghetti Westerns Unchained" (Blue Underground).

 

Also new: the disc debuts of horror films "The Burning" (Shout! Factory) and "The Town that Dreaded Sundown" (Shout! Factory) on Blu-ray+DVD Combo Pack special editions and the Blu-ray debut of the 1990 "Captain America" (Shout Factory) in its correct aspect ratio.

 

Streams and Channels:

The Netflix original revival of "Arrested Development" debuts on Sunday, May 26 with 15 episodes. Meanwhile, here's what currently new and available on Netflix Instant.

 

"The Dictator" (2012) is a Sacha Baron Cohen comedy without the mock-documentary stuntwork of "Borat." Which means the gleefully outrageous bad taste and wild exaggerations are pushed to even more cartoonish extremes.

 

"Defiance" (2008) is a real-life World War II drama with Daniel Craig. Not new but getting a lot of renewed interest is "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), still the best of the big screen "Star Trek" movies.

 

And here are a couple of recommended titles that aren't on disc yet: "Longmire: Season 1," the A&E original series starring Robert Taylor, Katee Sackhoff, and Lou Diamond Phillips, and the shadowy British psychological drama "The October Man" (1947).

 

New On Demand:

"Side Effects," Steven Soderbergh's medical drama-turned-psychological thriller with Jude Law and Rooney Mara, and "Beautiful Creatures," the first film in a new supernatural teen romance franchise, are now available.

 

Also new is Arnold Schwarzenegger's come-back action film "The Last Stand" and "Parker" with Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez.

 

Arriving before theatrical release are two comedies: "Free Samples" with Jess Weixler and Jesse Eisenberg and "Kid-Thing" with Sydney Aguirre and Nathan Zellner.

 

Available from Redbox this week:

Arriving day and date with video stores is "The Last Stand" (Lionsgate Blu-ray and DVD), Arnold Schwarzenegger's come-back action film, "Parker" (Sony, Blu-ray and DVD) with Jason Statham, and "Stand Up Guys" (Lionsgate, Blu-ray and DVD) with Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin.

 

Also arriving in Redbox kiosks this week is "Gangster Squad" (Warner, Blu-ray and DVD), with Josh Brolin and Ryan Gosling as cops in 1940s Los Angeles, and "Promised Land" (Universal, Blu-ray and DVD), a drama about fracking in Midwest farmlands written by and starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski.

 

For a calendar of upcoming releases, click here

 

We reveal one of the witches to you so you can partake in the hunt

By MSN Movies Tue 9:07 AM

Stars Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton are the brother and sister team seeking to avenge their parents’ deaths as they face evil greater than anything they’ve seen before. The digital release of the unrated cut of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters” is now available so you can watch the adventure unfold before your eyes! To celebrate MSN Movies is partnering with Paramount Pictures so you can be a part of the witch hunt.

 

Bing: More on Jeremy Renner

 

The first person to find all six witch images and uncover the secret URL will win an iPad mini with digital versions of the theatrical and unrated cut of “Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters.” You also have a chance to win a trip to the premiere of “World War Z” the latest film starring Brad Pitt.

 

Follow and take part in the official “Hansel & Gretel” witch hunt by going to this Twitter and Facebook handle.

 

 

"Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters" digital release is available now and the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack is available starting June 11.

 

For all you hunters out there, here is the first of six witches that will be revealed!

 

 

Soderbergh's intelligent take on a familiar genre reminds us how much we'll miss his touch

By SeanAx Mon 7:26 PM

Steven Soderbergh says that "Side Effects" (Universal) is his last theatrical feature before retirement (he doesn't count his upcoming made-for-HBO film "Behind the Candelabra"). The modestly scaled but satisfying thriller reminds us just how much we'll miss his take presence on the big screen.

 

What begins as a medical drama of wonder drugs and pharmaceutical conspiracy turns into a sly psychological thriller, with Jude Law as a committed psychiatrist and Rooney Mara as a troubled patient with a coldly calculating soul. Law prescribes a new, experimental drug to combat her depression and anxiety attacks (recommended by fellow therapist Catherine Zeta-Jones, all very controlled and steely), Mara ends up killing her husband (Channing Tatum) in a sleepwalking nightmare, and the more he looks into the suppressed side effects of the drug, the more suspicions are raised about the whole situation. Meanwhile the film's observation on how cozy the medical profession is with the pharmaceutical industry, and how her murder trial is intertwined with big business and medical malpractice, puts a whole new angle on the stakes of the murder trial.

 

"Side Effects" is less twisty in retrospect than it appears as the drama unfolds moment to moment. Like so many of Soderbergh's films, it turns on human nature, perception, and expectations, which Soderbergh and screenwriter Scott Z. Burns play with to great effect. As Law's ambitious, seemingly sincere, and possibly paranoid psychiatrist says, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Fittingly the entire last act rests on that simple observation.

 

Soderbergh has been bringing a sharp intelligence and a strong understanding of character to his films throughout his career, but beginning with "Out of Sight," he's been playing increasingly with genre films and pulp stories and making clever, intriguing, surprising films of them. (I cover many of them in a survey of Soderbergh's career for MSN Movies here.) He doesn't refashion the stories so much as hone in on their reason for being and focus on those aspects, pulling character out of types and fashioning human stories out of plots. "Side Effects" is like Soderbergh's take on the Joe Esterhaus thrillers of the nineties, only smarter, more clinically-focused (as Soderbergh is wont to do), and without the ice picks. For all the twists, this is a thriller that turns on character.  



MSN film critic James Rocchi proclaims it "a nice farewell: fun and smart, with cutting satire and blunt shocks. In fact, looking at the shooting and story of "Side Effects," it's almost perfect."


Blu-ray and DVD, with featurettes and the two fictional pharmaceutical commercials seen the films. The Blu-ray also includes a bonus DVD, digital copy of the film for portable media players, and UltraViolet digital copy for download and instant streaming.


For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of May 21

 
Tags: Reviews

Enter to win a Blu-ray collection of the great gangster movies, classic and contemporary

By SeanAx Mon 11:30 AM

Warner Bros. created the modern gangster movie in the early thirties, when they were the kings of high-energy, street-smart filmmaking. The genre remained dear to the studio throughout its history.

 

They pay tribute the best of their gangster films, yesterday and today, with two Blu-ray box sets: "Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Classics" (Warner) and "Ultimate Gangsters Collection: Contemporary" (Warner). Both debut on Tuesday, May 21.

 

Bing: 'Ultimate Gangster Collection' Blu-ray

 

To celebrate the release, MSN and Warner Home Video are giving away a gift set of both volumes: nine films in two sets.

 

"Classics" offers the respective Blu-ray debuts of four landmark gangster movies -- "Little Caesar" (1931) with Edward G. Robinson, "The Public Enemy" (1931) with James Cagney, "The Petrified Forest" (1936) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and the incendiary "White Heat" (1949) with Cagney -- plus a bonus DVD with the documentary "Public Enemies: The Golden Age of the Gangster Film."

 

"Contemporary" collects five films that have previously been released on Blu-ray, including three by Martin Scorsese -- "Mean Streets" (1973), Oscar-nominates "Goodfellas" (1990), and Oscar-winning "The Departed" (2006) -- plus Brian DePalma's "The Untouchables" (1987) with Kevin Costner and Robert DeNiro and Michael Mann's "Heat" (1995) with DeNiro and Al Pacino.

 

See a clip for "Heat" below.

 

Enter to win by following these steps:

 

1.      Like MSN Movies on Facebook and Twitter

2.      Tweet and comment the following message: I want to win the @MSNMovies #ULTIMATEGANGSTERS giveaway!

3.      Email msnmovies@hotmail.com with the following message: I want to win @MSNMovies # ULTIMATEGANGSTERS giveaway!

4.      Stay in touch with MSN Movies Facebook to see if you’ve been selected as the winner

 

Entries are accepted until Monday, May 27. Good luck, MSN Movies fans!

 

In the meantime, enjoy a clip from "Heat."



 

about the blogger

Sean Axmaker, Videodrone blogger

Sean Axmaker is MSN's DVD columnist and the editor of Parallax View. He writes for Turner Classic Movies Online and his work has appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Seattle Weekly, The Stranger, Senses of Cinema, Asian Cult Cinema, Psychotronic Video and "The Scarecrow Video Guide."

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