This week has some good new stuff, and some great old stuff.
First, the DVD picks:
- Alias: Complete Second Season
- Alias: Complete Third Season
- Alias: Complete Fourth Season
- Alias: Complete Fifth Season
- Bedtime Stories: Single disc edition
- Bedtime Stories: Two Disc Special edition. The Blu-Ray hit last week.
- Ben 10: Season One, Vol. 3
- Beverly Hills 90210: Seventh Season
- The Boys From Brazil: I’ve heard a lot about this, but haven’t seen it.
- The Brave Archer: Shaw Brothers Martial Arts film inspired by the world of the Condor Heroes books.
- The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008): Two disc edition
- The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008): Three disc edition
- Doubt
- Dynasty Season Four, Vol. 1
- Felicity: Season One
- Felicity: Season Two
- Felicity: Season Three
- Felicity: Season Four: I think this was the season that ratings fell through the floor because Keri Russell cut her hair.
- Fruits Basket Viridian Collection: Series Brick of Fruit’s Basket, the anime ends before the manga gets more depressing and… well… emo. Where there was still a fairly heavy amount of comedy to be had to go alongside the romantic/drama stuff.
- Giant Spider Invasion – The Directors Cut: Yes, this is the movie that ended up on MST3K, notable for featuring scenic rural Wisconsin, and also having the Spider kill people by having it shove them up it’s spinnerets.
- Hunter X Hunter Vol. 2
- The Loyal 47 Ronin: This would be the Japanese film about the plot of the 47 Ronin during the very early parts of World War II. Consequently, it feels like propaganda.
- Madlax: The Complete Collection
- Max Fleischer’s Superman: This is actually Max Fleischer’s Superman and the Paramount shorts that came later Fleischer wasn’t involved in. (The non-Fleischer entries are the ones that don’t propagate negative stereotypes against cultures America was at war with at the time.) Fully restored, and well worth watching. A previous collection was reviewed here.
- Mysterious Cities of Gold: Complete series brick, a dubbed version of this show aired on Nickelodeon back in, IIRC the late 80s, early 90s.
- Naruto Uncut Vol. 13: available with or without kitch. Still during the filler arc.
- Nighthead Genesis Vol. 4
- No Country for Old Men: Three disc collector’s edition
- Nosferatu DVDTee: Murnau’s classic “Nosferatu,” and a T-shirt with the movie poster image on it.
- Pre-Code Hollywood: Includes “The Cheat,” “Merrily We Go To Hell,” “Hot Saturday,” “Torch Singer,” “Murder at the Vanities” and “Search for Beauty.”
- Shaw Brothers Collection: Brick of 4 Shaw Brothers films with new transfers, re-mastered audio, and new (hopefully good) dubs. The films included are “The Battle Wizard,” “The Heroic Ones”, “Duel of the Century”, and “Two Champions of Shaolin”
- The Tale of Despereaux
- TCM Spotlight: Doris Day Collection: Includes “It’s a Great Feeling,” “Tea for Two,” “April in Paris,” “The Tunnel of Love” and “Starlift.”
- Tenchi Muyo Ryo-Ohki Viridian Collection: This looks like the second season of the OVA, rather than the 4-disk release previously that ended with Tenchi meeting Ayeka and Sasami’s parents.
- Tweeny Witches: True Book of Spells: Either complete series or complete franchise brick.
- Vandread The Complete Series: Brick of Vandread first and Second stage.
- Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra: Opera by Verdi, with the plot based around an attempt to overthrow the first Doge of Genoa. It’s a tragedy.
- Yes Man: Two Disc Special Edition
Now, the Blu-Ray picks:
- 2010: The Year We Make Contact: AceCaseOR says “I actually liked this movie, and I think it was a good follow up to 2001.” Fiziko reviewed the movie here.
- Tale of Despereaux
- Yes Man
- The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008)
- No Country For Old Men
- Doubt
- Fly Away Home: A decent family movie
- Final Destination
- Bricktown
- Wedding Singer
- Collateral Damage
- American History X
- Taking Lives
- Tango and Cash: I’m surprised to see this on Blu-Ray this early. Can there really be that much demand for it?
- Point of No Return
- John Q
- Above the Law
Finally, the picks of the week. AceCaseOR says “My Pick of the Week is – 2010. I’ve heard people complain because the movie answers too many questions, I like it because it answers questions from the first movie, while still leaving some questions unanswered, and posing some more of them.” Fiziko says “go with a classic. The Superman set or the Nosferatu release both have great, old-school, highly influential early movies.”
I keep hearing about the Naruto series, and I only recently realized just how many volumes there are (in either manga or anime) — it’s huge! Is the whole thing telling a single massive story (or several massive stories), or is it more episodic? Idly curious.
The filler arc is more episodic, but when it’s not in fillers it’s generally more serialized – either in a multi-season arc or meta-arc (such as the stuff involving Orochimaru), or in an arc contained within a single season (like the Land Of Waves arc).
Basically all of it is up on Hulu, all the way up to the time skip at the end of the first series, which takes us to the current series “Naruto Shippuden” – once you get to the end of the Sasuke Retrieval Arc, you can reasonably skip the rest of the filler until you get to Shippuden. There are some pearls amongst the crab cakes, but there are a lot of crab cakes in the filler arc.
I’ve heard Tango and Cash was pretty funny, or at least Kurt Russell made it funny – what I’m suprised about is how much Steven Segal we’re getting so quickly on Blu-Ray. I like watching martial arts movies, and I’ll even watch some of the bad Lee-Alike movies (“Fists of Bruce Li”), but I just can’t stand Steven Segal.
Tango and Cash occupies a good spot in the Buddy Cop Action Movie genre. It sits in there well with the Bad Boys and Lethal Weapon series.
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No Country for Old Men: Three disc collector’s edition – Great psychological thriller. Kept me riveted. Not sure why you’d want two discs of extras though.
Felicity: Season Four: I think this was the season that ratings fell through the floor because Keri Russell cut her hair. – Wasn’t that just amazing how the ratings dropped. She looked like an entirely different person afterward. I understand why her on-screen boyfriend was upset. Just goes to show that looks do matter.