New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 9/10/13

J.J. Abrams’ summer smash sequel STAR TREK
INTO DARKNESS heads
the pack of new releases on Blu ray and DVD this week. Having enjoyed Abrams’
2009 reboot, I was disappointed in the follow-up as you can obviously tell in
my review entitled “STAR TREK Into Disappointment” (5/16/13). But even fans who
loved the film may be disappointed in its home video release as the Blu
ray+DVD+Digital Copy package (also available in a 3D Starfleet Phaser Limited
Edition Gift Set) only boasts a bunch of featurettes as its bonus material,
with no commentary, deleted scenes, or an extensive “making of” documentary.
This is surely because there will surely be a more expansive Special Edition someday, so fans
thinking about purchasing it should maybe take that into consideration.

To take advantage of the release stardate (sorry) of the newest film in the long-running franchise, Paramount is putting out a bevy of Star Trek titles on Blu ray including Star Trek: The Original Series – Origins, STAR TREK: Stardate Collection (a box-set of 10 movies with additional content), and new individual Blu ray or DVD editions of each of the previous ST films.

Also out this week: Suzanne Bier’s LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED (read my review from last May), Tina Gordon Chism’s TYLER PERRY PRESENTS PEEPLES, Alex Gibney’s documentary about Julian Assange’s infamous website WikiLeaks: WE STEAL SECRETS: THE STORY OF WIKILEAKS (DVD only), Richard Raaphorst’s sci-fi horror flick FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY, Nick Murphy's 2012 crime thriller BLOOD, Kieran Darcy-Smith's 2012 mystery drama WISH YOU WERE HERE, and David Mamet's HBO telefilm PHIL SPECTOR, which despite starring such classy types as Mamet, Al Pacino (in the title role) and Helen Mirren is a pretty trashy affair.

The Criterion Collection has a few notable titles out today that are new to Blu ray, both with choice bonus features. First up, there’s Edouard Molinaro’s 1978 French comedy classic LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, which is enhanced by a new 20 minute video interview with director Molinaro, 30 minutes of Archival Footage, a 22 minute interview with professor Laurence Senelick about the film’s history and influence, original theatrical trailers, and an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by critic David Ehrenstein.

Martin Ritt’s 1965 thriller classic THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD also gets the deluxe Criterion treatment with over 4 hours of Special Features including an interview with John Le Carre, an hour long BBC biodoc entitled “The Secret Centre: John le Carre,” audio excerpts from an 1985 interview with director Ritt conducted by film historian Patrick McGilligan, a featurette in which cinematographer Oswald Morris discusses select scenes, an audio commentary, a Set Designs featurette, an episode of the BBC program Acting in the 60's focusing on Richard Burton, and an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Sragow.

Also on the older films new to Blu ray front is Kurt Neumann's 1958 Vincent Price classic THE FLY, Dario Argento’s 1970 Giallo genre landmark THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, John Schlesinger's MARATHON MAN (1976), Anthony Minghella's Patricia Highsmith adaptation made into a Matt Damon vehicle THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY, and the largely forgotten 1998 Nicholas Cage caper that was Brian De Palma's SNAKE EYES.

The BBC/HBO mini-series Parade's End, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall, also hits home video this week in 2-disc Blu ray and DVD sets. The 5-part series is joined then sole bonus feature of playwright Tom Stoppard, who adapted Ford Mattox Ford's “Parade's End” series of novels from the 1920's for the production, getting interviewed on KCRW's The Treatment with Elvis Mitchell.

Other TV series sets hitting home video today include Homeland: The Complete Second Season, The Big Bang Theory: The Complete Sixth Season, Castle: The Complete Fifth Season, Supernatural: The Complete Eight Season, Blue Bloods: The Third Season, and Luther 3.

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STAR TREK Into Disappointment

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in the galaxy:

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS 

(Dir. J.J. Abrams, 2013)

At first, it seemed that it was just that this sequel was just messier and less fun than Abram’s 2009 reboot. That the freshness of how that movie so entertainingly re-established Star Trek’s most iconic characters with new faces had faded.

But as the quick-cut convolutions of the plot swirled around my head, aided by the heavy lens flare (now in 3D!), I began to shudder. Abrams, along with screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof, were no longer simply paying homage, they were blatantly ripping off scenarios, dialogue, and the emotional pull of what many consider the best of the original run of STAR TREK movies.

Of course, I’m talking about STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (from here on: STII: TWOK).

Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 sequel to Robert Wise’s STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979) was a game changer for the franchise. The first one, which brought the cast back from the popular '60s TV series in part to capitalize on the STAR WARS craze of the late ‘70s, was seen as too cerebral, and worse – boring, but the second one was a terrific action adventure that appealed to both fans and a mass audience, without sacrificing the smarts (largely thanks to an excellent screenplay by Jack B. Sowards and Meyer).

Abrams had already touched on STII:TWOK in his first installment of STAR TREK, with the Kobayashi Maru element (the no-win scenario Starfleet test) and a few lines, but here the allusions are out in full force starting with Benedict Cumberbatch as a villain from 300 years in the past that, c’mon, everybody knows going in who he’s going to turn out to be.

The entire cast returns headed by Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, who again lives to ignore Federation regulations, have sex with alien women (he’s in bed with two of them early on), and perform death defying stunts at early possible chance.

Their amusing rivalry has died down, so Kirk and Zachary Quinto’s Spock are settled into the friendship as seen on the old series, and Spock’s romantic relationship with Uhuru (Zoe Saldana), something that was somewhat shocking when it was introduced 4 years ago is also background fodder here. As for the rest, Karl Urban as McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and John Cho as Sulu, they’re around mainly to say their character’s classic lines (McCoy: “Damn it Jim, I’m a Doctor not a torpedo technician!”).

So the movie has Kirk being demoted for breaking the Prime Directive (you know, the deal where Starfleet can’t interfere with the development of an alien civilization) in the film’s big ass opening volcano sequence, then made First Officer under Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood, also returning from the previous film). When Pike is killed by Cumberbatch (who has some effectively sinister moments but is no Ricardo Montalban) in a gunship in a violent assault in San Fransisco, Kirk and crew chases him down with the Enterprise to the Klingon territory of Kronos.

With the Klingon entanglements, sometimes confusing negotiation tactics, and muddled back story about Cumberbatch’s people each encased in hollow photon torpedoes, I got a bit drowsy, but I snapped too when I realized they were not only trying to replicate the high points of the 2009 reboot (revealing that they can do something new with warp speed, Leonard Nimoy cameo, etc.), they were mounting a re-approximation (with an obvious variation) of one of the highest points of the entire franchise, i.e. Spock’s death scene in STII:TWOK.

No doubt, some folks are going to enjoy that they did this. The film goes so by fast, with a lot of kinetic energy surrounding the immaculate CGI, that movie-goers are likely to get caught up in it all, and then love that they recognize the set-up with some of the same dialogue as it unfolds, but when I saw that they were so transparently aping what worked so well in the past it felt forced and a bit desperate to me.

I also didn’t buy the extra villainy of Peter Weller’s (ROBOCOP!) angry Starfleet admiral Marcus (father of Alice Eve as Carrol Marcus, another element from STII:TWOK), who threatens to destroy the Enterprise and everybody on it just to get to Cumberbatch.

On The Daily Show earlier this week, Abrams admitted, as he has many times before, that as a kid he was never into Star Trek, adding that “it always felt too philosophical to me.” Here it really shows that his STAR WARS-ified sexed-up version of the world that Gene Roddenberry created just aims to be mindless entertainment. 

At its previous best, say in STII:TWOK, Star Trek was never mindless, even in its most failed forays, say the William Shatner-directed STAR TREK V, it had an aim to question and seek out new possibilities.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, surely to be a blockbuster knocking IRON MAN 3 out of the #1 position at the box office this weekend, is a disappointment on many levels, the biggest one being that it retreads sacred ground with no new purpose.

Now Abrams will go off and reboot STAR WARS (set for Summer 2015) for probably even bigger box returns. That franchise is obviously better suited for him (and he’s actually a fan of it) so I hope the Force is strong with him in that galaxy, because he really broke the Prime Directive of this one.

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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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