New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 8/27/13

Technically, summer isn’t over until September 21st, but most people consider it concluded once school is back in session. But I consider summer to be over when the first run of summer blockbuster wannabes hits home video. Such as Baz Luhrmann’s big ass adaptation of the classic 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald novel THE GREAT GATSBY, out today in a Blu-ray+DVD+UltraViolet Combo Pack, and a 2-disc DVD edition.



I saw the film when it came out last May, and thought that it was so full of quick cuts of glitzy bling that it felt like the movie was doing “jazz hands” in front of my face the whole time, especially as it was in 3D. It does have a capable good looking cast including Leo DiCaprio in the title role, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, and Joel Edgerton, who still looks like a butch Conan O’Brien to my eyes.



Special Features: A bunch of featurettes ranging from 9 to 30 minutes in length (“The Greatness of Gatsby,” “Within and Without” with Tobey Maguire, “The Swinging Sounds of Gatsby,” “Gatsby Revealed,” “The Jazz Age,” “Razzle Dazzle: The Fashion of the ‘20s,” “Fitzgerald’s Visual Poetry”), 15 minutes of Deleted Scenes (includes an alternate ending), and a vintage Trailer for the 1926 silent film version (the oldest film adaptation of the book).

Another film released at the same time releases today on Blu ray and DVD: Michael Bay’s true crime comedy PAIN & GAIN, starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie as boneheaded Miami-based bodybuilders who kidnap a millionaire businessman (Tony Shalhoub) in order to extort his fortune in a stupid scheme that goes way wrong. Sure, it’s a comic caper that the Coen brothers could’ve pulled off way better, but it has its share of funny moments. Oddly, neither the Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy package or the single disc DVD edition have any Special Features.

Ramon Bahrani’s AT ANY PRICE couldn’t get
many moviegoers to pony up any price for it when it made its theatrical run
earlier this year – seriously, it made less than a million – but it gets
another chance on Blu ray and DVD (both 1-disc editions) this week. Dennis
Quaid, Zac Efron, and Kim Dickens star in the Iowa-set family farm drama that
comes packaged with an audio commentary by Writer/Director Bahrani and Quaid,
Toronto International Film Festival Q & A, rehearsal footage, and
trailer.

Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg’s 2012 Norwegian drama KON TIKI, Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Film, also drops today on Blu ray (2-disc) and DVD (1 disc). Only a few Special Features: “Kon-Tiki: The Incredible True Story,” and “Visual Effects Featurette.”



Other notable titles out today: Mira Nair’s 2012 thriller THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, Neil Barsky’s 2012 documentary about former New York Mayor Ed Koch: KOCH (DVD only), Sang-yoon Lim’s 2012 Korean action film A COMPANY MAN, and the Criterion Collection titles: Ernst Lubitsch’s 1942 Jack Benny classic TO BE OR NOT TO BE, and Eclipse Series 39: Early Fassbinder (1969-1971).



The highlights of today’s TV series sets: The Walking Dead: The Complete Third Season, Sons of Anarchy: Season Five, Grey’s Anatomy: The Complete Ninth Season, and Elementary: The First Season.

More later…

New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 4/30/13

David O. Russell’s critically acclaimed crowd pleaser SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK is the next to last of 2012’s Best Picture Oscar nominees to be released on Blu ray and DVD (Michael Haneke’s excellent AMOUR is the hold-out with no set release date), and it’s available today in either a double disc Blu ray set (Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet) or a single disc DVD. Special Features: deleted Scenes, featurettes (“Silver Linings Playbook: The Movie That Became A Movement,” “Dance Rehearsal,” “Learn To Dance Like Pat & Tiffany,” “Going Steadicam With Bradley Cooper”), and edited highlights from various Q & A sessions promoting the film.

A movie I quite enjoyed makes its debut too today on Blu ray and DVD: David Chase’s NOT FADE AWAY, starring John Magaro as an aspiring ‘60s rock ‘n roller and James Gandolfini as his disapproving father. Special features on both the single disc Blu ray and DVD include a doc entitled “The Basement Tapes,” which contains 3 segments called “Track 1: The Boys in the Band,” “Track 2: Living in the Sixties,” andTrack 3: Hard Art,” deleted scenes, and a featurette (“Building the Band”). I love how big they made the words “From David Chase
creator of The Sopranos” on the cover.

A movie I missed from last year (and will most likely keep on missing), Anne Fletcher’s comedy THE GUILT TRIP, starring Barbara Streisand and Seth Rogen, is also out today in a 2 disc Blu ray (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) and single disc DVD. Its bonus material includes five featurettes: “Barbra & Seth,” “Barbra's World,” “Guilt Trip: A Real Mother of a Road Trip,” “In the Driver's Seat,” and something called “Not Really a Road Trip Movie.”

Another I didn’t see in its brief theatrical run was Allen Hughes’ BROKEN CITY, starring Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe, but from what I hear I didn’t miss much. Folks who may be more interested in it than I may want to note that it’s out today in the expected Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy package. Special Features: deleted scenes, and “in-depth” documentary about the making of the film, and an alternate ending.

Other releases today include: Jacob Aaron Estes’ indie comedy drama THE DETAILS, starring Tobey Maguire, James Plumb’s ultra cheap zombie horror flick NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD RESURRECTION (DVD only), and the extensive rock band bio-doc HISTORY OF THE EAGLES, which contains 4 hours of never before seen material of the Californian band from the past 40 years. The 3 disc Blu ray or DVD Eagles release has a lot of special features but I’m not going to go into them because as the Dude says “it’s been a long night and I hate the fuckin’ Eagles!” 

On the older movie front, Paramount is releasing all of the STAR TREK movies on individual Blu rays just in time for J.J. Abrams’ high anticipated STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (May 17th).

Other vintage releases today on Blu ray include the 1951 Humphrey Bogart classic THE ENFORCER, and Marlon Brando's  1950 film debut in Fred Zinneman's THE MEN, which soon will kick off a new series here on Film Babble Blog: Marlon Brando Mondays. Hope you stop back by and check it out.

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TED: For Seth MacFarlane Fans Only

TED (Dir. Seth MacFarlane, 2012)







“I don’t sound that much like Peter Griffin!” protests the profane protagonist of Seth MacFarlane’s first full-length feature film, but obviously that’s a hollow claim.

MacFarlane, of course, voices Ted, the teddy bear that magically comes alive to a little boy that grows up to be Bostonian man-child played by Mark Wahlberg, and, yes, he sounds exactly like his famous Family Guy character.

That does a lot to call out what this movie essentially is: a collection of gags that were too R-rated for basic cable, decorating a flimsy plot.

It’s a plot everyone should recognize from many movies and sitcoms - a man-child’s girlfriend, in this case played by Mila Kunis, begs her beau to grow up, but he’s too attached to a lifestyle of juvenile high jinks, in this case embodied in a stuffed plush talking toy.

Come to think of it, it was a scenario even used in last year’s THE MUPPETS, with Jason Segel asking himself the musical question is he a “Man or a Muppet,” after being left by Amy Adams.

But at least in that film it was just a silly subplot, and not the full narrative as it is here. An attempt to create conflict between Wahlberg and Kunis by having Joel McHale (Community, Talk Soup) as Kunis’ slimy corporate boss constantly come on to her, doesn’t raise any stakes because of how her character is set up we never believe she would go for him over Wahlberg.

But back to the talking Teddy Bear part, I mean it’s his movie, right? Ted is an aimless comedy archetype – a hard drinking, drugging, foul-mouthed party animal just like last year’s PAUL (which was stupid, sure, but much funnier than this).

With the sheer volume of jokes, one-liners, and pop culture pot-shots, there can’t help but be some humorous moments, but TED gets tiresome really quickly (two 9/11 jokes, really?). The CGI used to animate the bear is flawless, but to what avail with this lazy material?

That is, I suppose, unless you’re a die-hard Family Guy fan, or a big American Dad fan, or even just a casual The Cleveland Show fan (I'm none of those things), and you’re way into folks making fun of crappy movies, celebrities, and music mostly from the ‘80s.

For some reason there’s a lot of focus on the infamous 1980 sci-fi flop FLASH GORDON (it’s the movie Ted and Wahlberg watch the most while getting high, you see), including a lengthy cameo by Flash Gordon himself, Sam Jones in a wildly typical party sequence.

At the screening I went to, plenty of people laughed, but how many folks in the audience really knew that 32-year old film? Sure, it’s got a classically kitschy theme song by Queen and it may qualify for the so bad it’s good factor (like Wahlberg says at one point), but is it really worthy of this kind of satiric attention?

MacFarlane takes what feels and looks like a warmed-over Farrelly brothers project, and interjects it with his distinctive smarmy tone. However there is little a bit of a heart within purely because of Kunis’ invested performance. But next time she does a movie like this, she really ought not to waste so much energy.

Oh yeah, there’s also the third act action climax involving a creepy Giovanni Ribisi kidnapping Ted for his rotund son (Aedin Mincks), but, hey, it’s an ending consistent with the uninspired rest of the film.

The not terrible but tedious TED is really a film for MacFarlane fans only, but even they might want to wait to get the inevitable unrated DVD or Blu ray, because I bet it and all the bloopers, gag reels, and outtakes will be much funnier on the small screen.

And as cheap as the humor is in TED, people should really get their money’s worth.

More later...

CONTRABAND: An Action Thriller Failure, But It's Not Mark Wahlberg's Fault

CONTRABAND (Dir. Baltasar Kormákur, 2012)

It’s not Mark Wahlberg’s fault that this film is such a forgettable failure of a action thriller.

Wahlberg shows up, punches the time clock, and puts in a workman like performance, but director Kormákur and screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski don’t give the man much to work with.

Based on the 2009 Icelandic film “Reykjavík-Rotterdam” (which starred Kormákur), “Contraband” has Wahlberg as a New Orleans family guy trying to go legit after years of smuggling, grand theft, and espionage.

Just when Wahlberg thought he was out, he’s pulled back into that world to pull off one last job involving millions in counterfeit bills, because his brother-in-law Caleb (Landry Jones),wife (Katie Beckinsale), and kids are being threatened by a sleazy shaky drug lord Giovanni Ribisi (even sleazier and shakier than his turn in last year's THE RUM DIARY which I didn’t think was possible).

So a lot of the movie is Wahlberg on a barge, helmed by the great character actor J.K. Simmons who is one of the film’s few plusses, to and from Panama, with precious little action or thrills to speak of. Back home, Ben Foster, as Wahlberg’s best friend, squirms through his role as a guy caught up in the scheme who we never believe that anybody would ever trust.

It’s tired faux gritty heist plots like this that make me appreciate more the 2 Boston set crime flicks that Ben Affleck has made (GONE BABY GONE, THE TOWN). Affleck's films certainly weren’t masterpieces, but they had a much better sense of character and tonality when it came to the working class townie tough guy milieu.

CONTRABAND has none of that, and it's too full of quick cuts which makes it seem like a giant trailer instead of a real movie, with no room for audience connection to anything but the bare basics of the uninteresting narrative.

There weren’t even enough instances of visceral violence to keep my mind from wandering.

I was so bored during this tedious slog that I imagined what if Wahlberg had played the lead in “We Bought A Zoo” instead of Matt Damon. It would be like the Saturday Night Live sketch with Andy Sandberg doing a dead-on Wahlberg talking to animals – “Hey, chicken, how's it hanging? A lot of people want to eat you, but I just want to talk to you, okay?”

That’s how bored I was.

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THE FIGHTER: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE FIGHTER (Dir. David O. Russell, 2010)

Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale play Boston boxing brothers Micky Ward and Dicky Eklund in this strong drama based on true events.

Set in the early '90s, the film begins documentary style as HBO is filming Bale for a film about his comeback. We see archival video of the real Eklund in the ring with Sugar Ray Leonard.

Wahlberg is following in his half brother's footsteps, being trained by him for an upcoming fight. Their tough talking mother Melissa Leo manages Wahlberg and also has 7 daughters who act as a sort of trashy teased Greek chorus on the sidelines.

A very skinny Bale (well, maybe not as thin as in THE MACHINIST) is unhinged and bug-eyed, yet utterly believable and not over the top in his portrayal. He spends most of his time in a crackhouse when he should be at the gym with Wahlberg.

Wahlberg meets Amy Adams as a bartender and asks her out, but he stands her up because he's embarrassed about losing his latest bout. She confronts him on this and almost immediately they are dating.

Wahlberg is offered a chance to be paid for training year round in Las Vegas for a chance at the title, but his loyalty to his mother and brother gets in the way.

Adams believes he should take the opportunity and this makes her unpopular with Wahlberg's family - especially the 7 sisters who gang up on Adams, but they find that the petite redhead has a bit of the fight in her too.

Trying to hold on Wahlberg, Bale goes to the dark seedy side of addiction and creepy criminal behavior. We find out that the HBO documentary about Bale is actually about crack not his improbable comeback.

Bale lands in prison while Wahlberg signs on for new management. Wahlberg starts winning fights, but he's aware that it's Bale's training that ultimately gets him there.

With it's blue collar background and salt of the earth archetypes, THE FIGHTER doesn't break any new ground and its narrative rambles at times, but it has solid performances and a great grasp on the genre's well worn conventions.

In his third film with director O. Russell, Wahlberg shows off the years of work he's put into the part and delivers some of his most layered acting. Bale may steal every scene he's in (it's nearly impossible to look elsewhere when he's on the screen), but Wahlberg more than holds his own as do Adams and Leo.

The fight scenes are shot digitally so that they resemble how boxing appears on television through bright lighting and resolution lines - an effect that enhances the realism nicely.

O. Russell has had trouble when thinking outside the box in previous work (I HEART HUCKABEES was an overreaching unfunny mess), but here his indulgences are reigned in - seems here he neatly thinks inside the box (or in the ring) and it pays off.

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