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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Hey Kids - Funtime Oscar Picks 2013!

As I’ve said before, the 85th Academy Awards, airing Sunday night on ABC, is looking like one of the most unpredictable Oscars ever. So I bet I get more wrong this time than usual. But it's all in fun so what the Hell!

Here are my picks:

1. BEST PICTURE: ARGO 

Yep, I'm going with the theory that the Academy will make up for not nominating Ben Affleck for Best Director and give him the gold for his film, which I think deserves to win. LINCOLN looks pretty possible too, and I could see SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK being an upset, but I'm still going with ARGO.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg for LINCOLN

3. BEST ACTOR: Daniel Day-Lewis for LINCOLN



4. BEST ACTRESS: Jennifer Lawrence for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK


5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Robert De Niro for SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway for LES MISÉRABLES

And the rest:

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: LES MISÉRABLES (Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson)

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: LIFE OF PI (Claudio Miranda)

9. COSTUME DESIGN: ANNA KARENINA (Jacqueline Durran)

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: OPEN HEART (Kief Davidson, Cori Shepherd Stern)

12. FILM EDITING: ARGO (William Goldenberg)

13. MAKEUP: THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Peter King, Rick Findlater, Tami Lane)

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: LIFE OF PI (Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik De Boer, Donald Elliott)

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: LIFE OF PI (Mychael Danna)

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Skyfall” (Adele, Paul Epworth)

17. ANIMATED SHORT: PAPERMAN (John Kahrs)

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: CURFEW (Shawn Christensen)

19. SOUND EDITING: ZERO DARK THIRTY (Paul N.J. Ottosson)

20. SOUND MIXING: LES MISÉRABLES (Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Simon Hayes)

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: DJANGO UNCHAINED (Quentin Tarantino)

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: LINCOLN (Tony Kushner)

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: BRAVE (Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman) What I want to win: WRECK-IT RALPH.

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: AMOUR (Dir. Michael Haneke)

Check back Monday morning to see how many I got wrong.

Also, I should again plug my appearance on postmodcast in which I discuss the Oscars with host Kevin Brewer.

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Holiday Season Cinema Roundup 2012 Part 1

This hasn’t been the strongest holiday movie season I’ve experienced (how could it be without the Coen brothers or George Clooney?), but it’s a pretty strong one with a few entertaining epics, a couple of decent comedies, and one big overwrought musical competing for movie-goers attention.



So let’s take a look at what’s currently playing as the year is ending:

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK 

(Dir. David O. Russell)

Although it must be stressed that this is ultimately a best-case scenario rom com, this tale of a bio-polar Bradley Cooper getting together with Jennifer Lawrence as a neurotic widower has a punchy screenplay that’s energetically (and very loudly) delivered by the leads, including Robert De Niro, in one of his most invested performance in years, as Cooper’s Philadelphia Eagles superfan father. Chris Tucker, who keeps popping up after repeatedly escaping from Cooper’s former mental institution, adds to the film’s already plentiful laughs. Director and screenwriter Russell's last film, 2010's THE FIGHTER, was a winner as well, so here's hoping he's on a roll.

HITCHCOCK 

(Dir. Sacha Gervasi)   



Sacha Gervasi’s (2008's rock doc ANVIL: THE STORY OF ANVIL) second film as director boasts a stellar cast - Anthony Hopkins, Helen Mirren, Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collett, and Danny Huston – but a not so stellar story. The conceit that every good idea that went into the making of the classic 1960 thriller PSYCHO came not from the Master of Suspense, but from his wife Alma falls flat in the midst of these fine actors being put through T.V. movie-ish motions. Read my full review here.



THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (Dir. Peter Jackson)

Peter Jackson takes us on another sweeping slog through Middle Earth in this prequel set 60 years before THE LORD OF THE RINGS series. Martin Freeman, best known as Tim on the mockumentary sitcom The Office [UK], stars as Bilbo Baggins who reluctantly finds himself on a quest with an unruly band of dwarves to overtake what looks like the Paramount mountain. I saw it in HFR (Higher Frame Rate) 3D, but, although it looked exquisitely sharp, it wasn’t as immersive an experience as I’d heard. Probably would’ve been just as well off with the 2D version.



There are some amazing heavily CGI-ed sequences, including battles and chases inside an elaborate underground city that comes off like THE TEMPLE OF DOOM times 100, but you can really feel its length (169 min.), and the idea that this is just part one of another trilogy seems to come more from greed than pure inspiration. 



But that's too cynical of me. This is really for the legions of Tolkien fans who can’t get enough of this stuff and will love spending more time with Ian McKellen’s Gandalf, and getting cameos from Frodo (Elijah Wood), and Ian Holms as the older incarnation of Bilbo who presents the story as a flashback. What I enjoyed most was Bilbo's cave encounter with the slimy creature Gollum (once again beautifully played by motion-capture specialist Andy Serkis), which is nicely faithful to the original Tolkien text.

 DJANGO UNCHAINED 

(Dir. Quentin Tarantino)




Tarantino’s blaxploitation Western is also a long-ass film (165 min!) that could’ve been served by better editing (sadly his long-time editor Sally Menke died in 2010), but it’s still a hugely entertaining epic that tackles revenge, slavery, and possibly contains the most excessive use of the “N-word” in cinematic history. 



Jamie Fox stars as a slave who gets freed by a former dentist played by Christoph Waltz who offers Fox a new job as a bounty hunter. Together, they set off to rescue Fox’s wife (Kerry Washington) from the plantation of the brutal yet charming Leonardo DiCaprio. The film drags a bit in DiCaprio’s company, which includes Samuel L. Jackson as his cruel conniving house slave, but when its “on” it's a blast. Read my full review here.

Coming soon: Part 2 of Film Babble Blog's Holiday Season 2012 Roundup.



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