This week sees a number of classic releases in and
out of the genre. Pick up the best of them this
Tuesday.
First, the genre releases:
- Bambi:
The
fantasy classic comese to DVD. It’s a Platinum
edition from Disney,
so it’ll be pulled from shelves in a few weeks
time. - Exorcist
– The
Beginning: The prequel has come to DVD. Did we
need to see a
prequel to this story? - Godzilla
7
Pack: Has basically every Godzilla film but the
original. - Lost
In Space
– Season 3, Vol. 1: The classic series in its
high camp years. - The
Spongebob
Squarepants Movie: I’ve tried watching Spongebob,
and just don’t
get the appeal. - Wonder
Woman –
The Complete Second Season: Yes, the first season
was cheap and
cheesy, but it was still fun. I’ll be getting this
season, too.
Now, the non-genre releases:
- The
Brady
Bunch – Season One: Yes, this is the old show.
You bring the
wine, we provide the cheese. - Hoosiers
– 2
Disk Special Edition: Gene Hackman is always
great. - My
Own Private
Idaho (Criterion Collection): It’s Criterion
Collection, so you
know you’ll be paying for a good movie. - SCTV
Volume
3: So, how does one represent the theme to “Great
White North” in
text, anyway?
This week also has a rather large assortment of
3-pack collections
with movies already released. Some of these, though,
look rather
interesting, and they hit many genres. They don’t
always list the
individual titles, so I’ll just link to the theme
names when they
don’t: Audrey
Hepburn, Austin
Powers
(with all three movies from that series), Bette
Davis, Black
History
(with Driving Miss Daisy, The Color
Purple, and
Malcolm X), Bogart /
Bacall,
Christopher
Guest (with A Mighty Wind, Waiting
for Guffman,
and Best In Show), Comedy
(with
The Big Bounce, Starsky and Hutch,
and The Whole
Ten Yards), Denzel
Washington
(with John Q, Fallen, and
Training Day), Film
Noir, Friday
(with
Friday, Next Friday, and Friday
After
Next), Jim
Carrey (with Dumb and Dumber and the
Ace Ventura
movies), John
Carpenter (with Christine,
Vampires, and
Starman), John
Grisham
(with The Pelican Brief, A Time To
Kill, and The
Client), Man
Versus Nature (with Twister, The
Perfect Storm,
and Deep Blue Sea), Mandy
Moore (with
Chasing Liberty, A Walk To
Remember, and How To
Deal), Musical
Westerns,
Oh
God! (with
all three Oh God! movies), Romantic
Comedy
(with You’ve Got Mail, The Wedding
Singer, Two
Weeks Notice), Sci-Fi
(with no
titles listed, but with Leslie Nielsen in the cast
listings,
Forbidden Planet is a fairly safe bet), Slapstick
Comedy
(with Caddyshack, Blazing Saddles,
and National
Lampoon’s Vacation), Stanley
Kubrick
(with A Clockwork Orange, The
Shining, and 2001:
A Space Odyssey; ownership of these films should
be mandatory for
Bureau 42 readers, as far as I’m concerned, although
buying the in this
set is
optional), Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles (with all three films in
that series), Thriller,
and WWII.
Finally, the pick of the week. Bringing
Up Baby
is one of one of the first screwball comedies.
Starring Katharine
Hepburn and Cary Grant, and directed by Howard Hawks,
you can be sure
that there was talent behind and before the camera.
I saw this in a
film studies class just over a year ago, and have
been watching for
the DVD release. You’ll find numerous homages to
this film in the
screwball comedies since then, some of the most
blatant of which can
be found in What’s
Up, Doc?, which should be taken as a sign of the
respect this
films has earned within the industry. This movie is
well worth your
time, especially if you need a laugh. Also available
as part of a classic
comedies
collection.
If nautical nonsense be something you wish
You have to be in he mood for tiki-themed absurd humour.
Godzilla
From amazon, it appears to be missing quite a few Godzilla movies, including my favorite Godzilla 1985.
Beware Leslie Nielsen scifi flicks
Beware the jabberwocky, I mean, untitled Leslie Nielsen flicks as it could be this POS.
Damien
Doctor Who
No mention of the latest batch of Doctor Who DVD releases? Admittedly one of the two is not a great set of episodes, but it seems a bit of an oversight to neglect them.
For those not aware, the stories The Green Death and The Visitation come out this week.