This close to Christmas, the doorcrashers are done, as a large number of people are already done their Christmas shopping. There are still a couple of notables that are big hits among smaller demographics.
First, the DVD picks:
- Ah, My Buddha – Volume 6
- All About Steve
- American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
- Audrey Hepburn: Couture Muse Collection: Includes “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “Sabrina,” “War and Peace,” “Roman Holiday,” “Paris When It Sizzles,” “My Fair Lady” and “Funny Face.”
- Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
- Blind Date
- District 9 (Single Disc Edition)
- District 9 (Two Disc Edition)
- Extract
- Family Guy Presents: Something Something Dark Side
- Family Guy Presents: Something Something Dark Side / Blue Harvest: The combo pack.
- Ghost Machine
- Guyver – The Complete Series: Alex: This is the newer Bio-Booster Armor Series, rather than the series of OVAs from the late 80s.
- Ichi: The Movie
- It Might Get Loud: Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), The Edge, and Jack White discuss guitar playing and generally jam.
- The Kartemquin Films Collection: The Early Years, Vol. 1: Includes “Parents” and “Thumbs Down.”
- Kyle XY: The Complete Third and Final Season
- Metallica – Orgullo, Pasion y Gloria: Concert movie featuring Metallica’s concert in Mexico City.
- The Philadelphia Experiment
- The Secret Life of the American Teenager: Season 3
- Spice & Wolf – Season 1: Alex: An interesting little anime series about medieval economics – sort of but not really. It’s a fantasy road-trip series based around a merchant who is going to one of the northernmost kingdoms, to help Haro (a wolf goddess, travelling with him in human form) to get back to her home. It’s also available streaming from Funimation’s web page if you want to check it out before you buy it.
- Staten Island
- Taxi: The Final Season
- Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day: Blaine: As a Canadian, I find it embarrassing to note how highly the first Trailer Park Boys movie ranks on the all time Canadian highest grossing films list.
- WWE Survivor Series 2009
Now, the Blu-Ray picks:
- (500) Days of Summer
- All About Steve
- American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
- Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
- District 9
- Extract
- Family Guy Presents: Something Something Darkside
- Grizzly Man: Alex: Warner Hurzog’s documentary about Timothy Treadwell.
- Ichi: The Movie
- It Might Be Loud
- Staten Island
- Trailer Park Boys: The Movie / Countdown to Liquor Day
Finally, the picks of the week. Alex says, “To be absolutely honest, I haven’t seen District 9 yet, so I can’t choose it as my pick of the week. So, instead, I will choose something I have seen – Spice and Wolf.” Blaine says, “I haven’t seen District 9 either. In fact, all I’ve seen on the entire list are Taxi and one of the movies in the Audrey Hepburn box set. Neither warrants a strong recommendation, so I’m going to sit this week out. Save up for the detective TV releases that will flood March.”
I haven’t seen District 9 either. Wasn’t it supposedly Really Good and everyone saw it? Except us, that is. I might just pick it up as a gamble.
The first half-hour kind of drags a bit as it establishes the backstory and just how big of jerks humans were to the prawn. The rest of the movie was pretty damn enjoyable after that as it flowed into sci-fi/action territory.
The Bureau review, for what it’s worth, is here.
Some people felt the film divided between attempts to be deep and attempts to be flashy/explody, as evidenced by someone’s very brief, other review, about halfway down this page.