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…

From A Dark Theater On A Sunny Spring Day...

This season has been pretty dicey - movies have come and gone week after week with nothing really catching on to reel in the crowds. 2 new films open today at my local downtown theater are hoping to buck the trend. Let's see if either has a fighting chance: THE COUNTERFEITERS (Dir. Stefan Ruzowitsky, 2007) It's frustrating making Oscar picks every year in the category of Best Foreign Film because of no access to the nominees. The films don't show in my area until months afterward (if they come to theaters here at all) or their DVD releases are way after the fact. The buzz was strong on this one - it won the Academy Award as predicted and it is thankfully making the rounds arriving here today. It is so welcome because THE COUNTERFEITERS is an excellent stirring World War II era drama about what has been called “the largest counterfeiting operation in history”. It begins in the late 40's with an infamous forger named Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) who while gambling in Monte Carlo with large sums of money flashes back to 1936 Berlin. In that turbalent time his success in the illegal trade is interupted when he is arrested by the police led by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow) and thrown into a concentration camp. He impresses his Nazi captors with his skills in art drawing romantised portraits of his guards which helps him avoid harsher treatment. He is transferred and brought up before the snooty Herzog again who places him in a select group of other talented print-minded prisoners is forced to forge in a special secret unit of Sachsenhausen called Operation Bernhard. The accomendations, including actual beds and showers, are extremely appealing in this new deal but the concept of helping the Nazis flood the market with fake currency destroying Britain and America's economy is more than a bit troubling. A fellow forger with a reactionary agenda - Adolf Burger * (August Diehl) constantly sabotages the efforts to counterfeit the U.S. dollar as the Nazis turn the heat up creating a level of gripping tension that never lags. Markovics carries the movie with a stern furrow-browed brood intensely persuading us to Sorowitsch's cunning sense of survival. While not pretty this Austrian film is filled with what I can only describe as a lush grittiness - Benedict Neuenfels' cinematography, even with a limited pallette of greys and darkness, is as absorbing as the story. THE COUNTERFEITERS is a near perfect depiction of a true story, albeit with amalgams and slight embellishments, and a film that I really hope folks will seek out. * The film is based on the book by Adolf Burger who is "the only prisoner character in the film that has an authentic historical name and is not synthesized from several real-life prisoners involved in Operation Bernhard." Thanks again Wikipedia! SMART PEOPLE (Dir. Noam Murro, 2008) Dennis Quaid is Lawrence Wetherhold - a haggard looking washed up widower professor at Carnegie Mellon University with a ne'er-do-well adopted brother (Thomas Haden Smith), a wisecracking Republican daughter (Ellen Page), and what he is told is an unpublishable manuscript. It is illustrated right off the bat that Wetherhold is a schlub. He doesn't take time to get to know his students - let alone learn their names and he double parks his car which gets it towed and him injured, getting knocked out cold jumping the fence trying to recoup his briefcase. Coming to in a hospital room he is greeted by Sarah Jessica Parker as his attending doctor. There is something of a spark between them so Quaid and Parker attempt to have what he calls a “face to face” meeting despite disaproval from his daughter and his being extremely embarrassingly 'out of practice' as he apologizes after their first disastrous dinner date. The underlining question is - will Whetherhold get his groove back? The jaded faded writer/professor role has shades of Quaid's role in D.O.A. (he who crucially stated “publish or perish”) - another character who had to regroup to reclaim his passion and Thomas Haden Church seems to be macking on his former glory in SIDEWAYS - a fact the poster calls attention to with it's lime green and “from the producers of” plug. Then there's Ellen Page whose character is conservative with a 8X10 of Reagan on her bedroom wall and citing career steps from Dick Cheney but this character trait is just a disposable detail - it never comes up in any conflict or specified way. Her lines just come off like recycled JUNO: “I Appreciate the tip, Dr. Phil” and “suddenly I'm in an Afterschool Special”. It's her schtick and Haden Church's dubious deliveries in the first half that has SMART PEOPLE play like quirk by the numbers. The second half is more of a sober drama with introspection and pondering close-ups but the whole affair never rises above WONDER BOYS-light. Quaid does befuddled wonderfully and it's nice to see Parker as someone less neurotically obsessed with romance as her Carrie Bradshaw character on Sex And The City but this, as earnest as it is in some scenes, never really amounts to anything special. SMART PEOPLE was no doubt made by smart people but I wish they were smarter about making them interesting people. Then maybe I would give a damn about them. More later...

10 DVD Special Features Pet Peeves

Today, we take a look at DVD technology with:

10 DVD SPECIAL FEATURE PET PEEVES

Don't you just hate:

1. DVD's that don't let you skip trailers for other movies to get to the menu

2. Films that have their special features on a second one sided disc. There's no reason not to use both sides of one disc! Do we really need double disc editions of movies like DUPLEX or EIGHT CRAZY NIGHTS? I don't think so.

3. DVDs that are so packed with extras - documentaries, deleted scenes, interviews, etc. But for some reason don't include the original theatrical trailer.

4. DVDs that only include the original theatrical trailer as a "special feature."

5. Does anyone care whether a DVD has a "collectible booklet" or not? Ever hear anyone ever say anything along the lines of "man, the special edition of GOLDFINGER has an awesome booklet inside?" I didn't think so.

6. Chapter Selection listed as a "special feature."

7. Photo galleries and written bio/filmographies. Uh - we have the internet thank you.

8. DVDs that have special features listed in their menus but when you go there it says "for special features insert disc 2." I mean come on!

9. That off setting pause while a layer switches during play. Some discs its less notable than others, but dammit it foreshadows another better format on the horizon I feel.

10. When directors talk about material in the commentaries that should be included on the DVD but isn't. 

For Example, AIRPLANE! had a lot of outtakes re-inserted in it's network TV debut but it is stupidly absent from the DVD, ROGER AND ME showed on PBS with a half hour sequel of sorts - a short called Pets Or Meat in which Michael Moore follows up on what happened to the people presented in the movie. It feels like a criminal act not to include it on the DVD.

One final mention - the original Simpsons shorts from The Tracy Ullman Show. Why weren't they part of the 1st season Simpsons DVD set? Why?!!? 

More later...