New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/12/13

This week, the biggest new release on Blu ray/DVD is Ang Lee’s LIFE OF PI, fresh from winning four Oscars, and it’s available in a 3 disc Blu ray 3D set (includes digital copy and DVD), and in a standard single disc DVD. It has an abundance of Special Features such as Deleted Scenes, a bunch of featurettes, Art Gallery, Storyboards, and a theatrical trailer, all of which are in 3D for those with those fancy new 3D TVs. Read my review of LIFE OF PI here.

Next up, Peter Ramsey’s RISE OF THE GUARDIANS is also out today in a 3 disc Blu ray 3D edition with a bunch of whistles and bells (commentary with director and producers, deleted scenes, multiple featurettes, some sort of interactive game). It’s also available in a 2D 2-disc Blu ray version, and a single disc DVD. I missed this one when it hit theaters last fall (not a big fan of DreamWorks' animated output), should I see it now? Anybody?

Sacha Gervasi’s bland biopic HITCHCOCK, a real disappointment last December (my review), is also out today on Blu ray/DVD (not in 3D thankfully), with a plethora of Special Features: a deleted scene, a plethora of featurettes including somehitng called “Sacha Gervasi's Behind-the-Scenes Cell Phone Footage,” a commentary with Sacha Gervasi and Stephen Rebello, the theatrical trailer, and that damn Hitchcock Cell Phone PSA that I’m getting sick to death of as it has been playing before every movie at the theater where I work part-time for 3 months now! 

Mojtaba Mirtahmasb and Jafar Panahi’s THIS IS NOT A FILM is another movie I missed in its theatrical run (actually I’m not sure if it came to my area), so I’m happy to see it out now on DVD. It comes with only a few Special Features but they look juicy: an interview with Panahi by Iranian expat film professor Jamsheed Akrami, and a feature commentary by Jamsheed Akrami.

A movie I did see when it briefly played in town and liked was James Ponsoldt’s SMASHED, starring North Carolina native Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Breakin’ Bad’s Aaron Paul, out today on both Blu ray and DVD. It’s a thoughtful, well acted drama about alcoholism that’s definitely worth a rental. Special features: commentary with director James Ponsoldt and Winstead, deleted scenes, and a couple of featurettes, one a “Making of” deal, and the other concerns the Toronto Film Festival Red Carpet and Q&A. 

Dave Grohl’s documentary about the legendary Los Angeles recording studio Sound City Studios, SOUND CITY, also drops on Blu ray and DVD today. It contains over 40 minutes of bonus material, including 3 full songs. 

A film I’m a little scarred of seeing, Paolo Sorrentino’s THIS MUST BE THE PLACE, starring Sean Penn as Robert Smith of the Cure (well, not really but he sure looks like it), comes out today. But how can I resist a movie that has the tagline: “A former rock star is hunting down a Nazi criminal...This could be his greatest hit.” It doesn’t bode well that neither the Blu ray/DVD have any Special Features, but I’ll give it a chance. 

On the remaster re-issue front we’ve got deluxe Blu ray releases of Robert Zemeckis' WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT?: 25th Anniversary Edition, and Ron Howard's WILLOW (also celebrating its 25th Anniversary), a movie that I bet comes off differently now after watching Warwick Davis’s pitiful BBC/HBO series Life's Too Short.

More later…

Oscar Nominations, Upcoming movies, & Other Whatnot

When the Oscar nominations were announced earlier this month one of the biggest surprises was that Ben Affleck wasn’t nominated for Best Director for ARGO. Critics are theorizing that this may help it win Best Picture to make up for the snub, but to me it’s just another factor in what looks like one of the most unpredictable Academy Awards programs ever.

For instance, try to predict who will win for Best Supporting Actor - Alan Arkin, Robert De Niro, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Tommy Lee Jones, or Christoph Waltz. They’ve all won Oscars before! I guess this will take the edge off for all five nominees because no matter who wins, the other four can’t really be that disappointed. They’ll each think something like “it’s not like I don’t already have one.”

There’s also the interesting inclusion of Michael Haneke’s AMOUR as both a Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Picture of the Year nominee. I’ve just seen the movie and am happy it got nominated, but it looks like a real long shot for it to win Best Picture. Not sure if that means it’s a shoo-in for Best Foreign film though. I’ll still make predictions when the day is closer (the Oscar ceremony will take place on February 24th), but I bet I’ll get more wrong than ever before. 

In other movie news, this is a pretty slow season for quality movies but there are some that I’m looking forward to: Fisher Stevens’ STAND UP GUYS starring Al Pacino, Alan Arkin, and Christopher Walken and Dave Grohl’s documentary SOUND CITY (a recent episode of Marc Maron’s WTF podcast with Grohl really whet my appetite for this one).

Speaking of documentaries, I recently saw an interesting one by Douglas Tirola called ALL IN: THE POKER MOVIE (2009). Come to think of it, this poker movie reminds me that I never saw ROUNDERS. As it is expiring from Netflix Instant at the beginning of next month, I better get on that.

More later…