New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 2/11/14

The biggest new release on home video this week has to be Gavin Hood’s ENDER’S GAME, last year's adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s hugely popular sci-fi novel from the mid ‘80s, which is out today in 2-disc Blu ray or 1-disc DVD editions. I enjoyed the film when I saw it last November (my review: ENDER’S Big Screen Video GAME, 11/4/13), but honestly I haven’t thought much about it since then. 

The film, which stars Asa Butterfield as a young fighter pilot in training with a stellar cast including Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Viola Davis, and Ben Kingsley, is packaged on Blu ray and DVD with two commentaries (one with Director Hood, the other with Producers Gigi Pritzker and Roberto Orci), a collection of eight featurettes that make up a 49-minute “Making Of” documentary, over 10 minute of Deleted/Extended Scenes, “Inside the Mind Games” (a 4 minute look into the movie’s motion capture techniques), and theatrical trailers.

Also out today is the movie that many thought Robert Redford was sure to get a Best Actor Oscar Nomination for: J.C. Chandor’s ALL IS LOST, now available in both 1-disc Blu ray and DVD versions. Redford alone owns the screen in this tension-filled tale of a man stranded at sea, as I noted in my review last year (ALL IS LOST: The Film Babble Blog Review, 11/8/13). Special Features include Filmmaker Commentary with Chandor, “Preparing for the Storm” Featurette, “Big Film, Small Film” Featurette, 3 vignettes (“The Story,” “The Filmmaker: J.C. Chandor,” and “The Actor: Robert Redford”), and “The Sound of ALL IS LOST” Featurette. This bonus material is good ‘n all, but I really wish Redford had done a commentary. I mean, his character barely speaks in the film so it would be nice to hear him take us through what he went through making the film. Oh well.

A movie that I missed in its theatrical run, but am very curious about because a friend (Kevin Brewer of postmodcast) chose it as his favorite film of 2013, also releases today: Ridley Scott’s THE COUNSELOR. The Cormac McCarthy-scripted thriller, available in 2-disc Blu ray or 1-disc DVD editions, stars Michale Fassbender as a lawyer who gets caught up in the crazy world of drug trafficking along with Brad Pitt, Goran Visnjic, Cameron Diaz, Penélope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. The R-rated theatrical cut is joined by such Special Features as The Unrated Extended Version (21 minutes longer!), and the featurettes “Truth of the Situation” and “Virals.” Again, I’ve got to check this one out.

Kevin McDonald’s (THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, STATE OF PLAY, MARLEY) latest film, HOW I LIVE NOW, drops today in both single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. Based on the popular young adult novel by Meg Rosoff, the British drama stars Saoirse Ronan as an American teen sent from New York to live with her cousins in England as a war appears to be breaking out with terrorist attacks on London. Ronan has the unfortunate factor of looking and sounding like Lindsay Lohan at times, but her invested performance strongly carries the film even through overly artsy sex and dream sequences. Special Features: Interviews (with Cast, Director, and Author), Behind the Scenes Comparisons, Deleted Scenes, “Making Of” featurette, and AXS TV: A Look at HOW I LIVE NOW, and the Theatrical Trailer.

“We sang a fun song in a church,” Masha Alekhina of the Russian punk rock protest group Pussy Riot told Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report last week in answer to the question “what did you do that got you arrested?” Folks wanting more context should check out Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s 2013 documentary PUSSY RIOT: A PUNK PRAYER releasing today on DVD. Though the footage is fascinating, the film, which I first saw at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival last April, could be better structured, but it’s still a worthwhile watch. Bonus Features are spare, only a Skype Q & A with Pussy Riot’s Katya Samutsevich and the trailer.

Other notable films releasing today on home video: Nick Ryan’s K2 climbing documentary THE SUMMIT, Oliver Hirschbiegel’s little seen biopic DIANA starring Naomi Watts as Princess Di, Jared Hess’ AUSTENLAND starring Keri Russell, Malcolm D. Lee’s THE BEST MAN HOLIDAY starring Monica Calhoun and Morris Chestnut, Brad J. Silverman’s Christian music drama GRACE UNPLUGGED, Bryan Fogel’s Jewish rom com JEWTOPIA, and Nicolas Aaron Mezzanatto’s Navy SEALS action flick SEAL PATROL. 

TV series sets out today: Sherlock Season Three, Newhart: Season Two, Dallas: The Complete Second Season (Larry Hagman’s last), The Americans: Season One, Red Skeleton Show – The Lost Episodes, and the 15th Anniversary Edition of Farscape: Season 2.

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ENDER’S Big Screen Video GAME

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

ENDER’S GAME (Dir. Gavin Hood, 2013)

Two things I’m not going to do: compare this film to Orson Scott Card’s original 1985 novel, and recount the controversy over the author’s outspoken hatred of homosexuals. This is because I haven’t read the book, and the views of Card, who hails from my home state North Carolina, are well documented on these internets, as are the calls within the LGBT community to boycott the movie.

As its #1 at the box office (take that, boycott!), audiences have found what I found out when attending an advance screening last week - Gavin Hood’s ENDER’S GAME is, simply put, a rock solid sci-fi flick.

It’s also one of the most successful attempts to make a big screen video game vividly come alive, something that Hollywood has been trying to do since the early ‘80s in movies like TRON and THE LAST STARFIGHTER. Here, the tried and true premise of kids’ gaming skills being put to the test in actual intergalactic combat fully envelops the viewer like never before, largely thanks to its lavish IMAX scope.

Set in the year 2086, in which Earth has been attacked by an alien race called the “Formics” (they were called “Buggers” in the book, but that could be seen as an anti-gay slur), and the International Fleet is training a bunch of young cadets via intense simulations and drills to be able to fight off the next invasion. The star pupil, Ender Wiggin (the brilliant Asa Butterfield from HUGO), is recruited by Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford) and Major Anderson (Viola Davis, always making the most out of supporting roles) to attend Battle School, located on an elaborate space station orbiting the earth.

War game after war game goes by, with Butterfield sharpening his skills under Ford’s tutelage. Man, there is a lot of over serious strategizing, and military minded mumbo jumbo, but Hood, who adapted Card’s novel for the film’s screenplay, keeps it all moving with an entertaining precision aided by sparkling visuals.

Hailee Steinfeld (TRUE GRIT) puts in a poignant performance as one of Butterfield’s classmates who becomes his best friend and ally, while Moisés Arias (KINGS OF SUMMER) affectively flares his nostrils as a pint sized adversary along the way to the inevitably climatic battle simulation, which houses the film’s big thematic fake-out.

In what will likely become his fourth major franchise, Ford tops his almost unrecognizable role in Brian Helgeland’s Jackie Robinson biopic 42 earlier this year, by showing he can give a damn again as the gruff Graff. Ford’s iconic presence is one that Butterfield’s Ender and audiences trust, bringing a stately gravitas to his overseer position, and it’s enjoyable to see him act alongside Sir Ben Kingsley in a brief bit as half-Maori war legend Mazer Rackham sporting a pretty prominent face tattoo.

Despite growing up on STAR WARS and Star Trek, I don’t consider myself a sci-fi guy, and I’m certainly not a gamer, but ENDER’S GAME kept me interested with its neat narrative and absorbing sense of purpose. Anyone who’s felt the competition in the air of a locker room can attest to the tone that this film nails. It also deftly captures the coming-of-age realization of how manipulative the world of adulthood can be. 

Now, these are pretty fancy themes indeed to be embedded inside a film that could just function as eye candy. Hood’s adaptation of Card’s creation succeeds in being a big screen video game with a brain.

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