This Week on Blu-ray and DVD - April 24, 2012

I'm so confused. Am I the tinker, the tailor, the soldier, the spy? Or is it Alec Guinness? And who's this guy in uniform who keeps saying, "Ooo, Oooo!" as if he ever got a bright idea in his life?

James

Plath

First online:

Sunday, April 22, 2012 - 1:55pm

If you take a look at this week’s list of new releases you’ll have a twinge of déja vu, because there are more spies, more Tom Selleck, and more Titanic offerings. Been there, done that. When Joshua Logan’s flawed musical presentation of “Camelot” on Blu-ray is one of the highlights, you know it’s a slow week. What are you going to do? Call a cop? Maybe. HELP!

Fans of vintage TV might be the big winners this week with Season 2 of “Car 54, Where Are You?” coming out on DVD. The popular 1961 sitcom featured Joe E. Ross (“Ooo, Oooo!”) and Fred “Herman Munster” Gwynne as NYPD beat cops Toody and Muldoon.

And speaking of Khrushchev’s due at Idlewild, Alec Guinness may have missed spy week, but fans of the recent remake of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” can get the original 1979 miniseries on Blu-ray this Tuesday. The Cold War drama, about an agent coaxed out of retirement in order to find a Soviet mole, earned a BAFTA award for Guinness and more raves than the 2011 film.

There’s no mole in “Contraband”—just a brother-in-law whose keester needs saving by Mark Wahlberg, who gets involved with drug kingpins and counterfeit money (trailer). The action-crime drama is being released on Blu-ray combo and DVD, but be warned: William Lee says it's formulaic through and through.

Fans of Asian action films get 1920s crime drama with “Let the Bullets Fly,” a 2010 action-comedy with a Western plot starring Yun-Fat Chow, Wen Jiang and You Ge in the highest grossing film ever released in China (trailer). It’s out on Blu-ray and DVD.

For serious drama aside from “Tinker” there’s the Criterion Blu-ray and DVD release of “The Organizer,” a 1963 crime drama about a union organizer in Turin, Italy, played by Marcello Mastroianni.

The setting is Germany in the late 1700s for "Young Goethe in Love," a film that, while it doesn't have the same wit as "Shakespeare in Love" nor the same consistently playful tone, still makes for a nice night of home theater for fans of period dramedies (trailer). It's out on DVD this week (review).

Finally, there’s the 1967 Joshua Logan musical version of “Camelot,” a sprawling 179-minute medieval songfest starring Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero in an epic love story involving King Arthur, Guinevere, and Sir Lancelot. It's being released in a Blu-ray book (review).

I wonder what the king is doing tonight.

Here are select new releases for the week of April 24, 2012:

BLU-RAY

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Series 4
Badge 373 (1973 crime drama)
Birdsong (Masterpiece Classics)
Camelot (Blu-ray Book) (1967 musical)
Cinema Verite (2011 TV movie)
Contraband (+ DVD + Digital Copy + UV Digital Copy) (2012 crime drama)
Dark Tide (2012 Halle Berry adventure)
Fields, The (2011 drama-thriller)
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: Complete Collection 1 (anime)
Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood: The Sacred Star of Milos Movie (+ DVD) (anime)
Girl on a Motorcycle (Remastered Edition) (1968 romance)
Hit! (1973 crime action)
Hollis Frampton Odyssey, A (Criterion) (1979 anthology)
Innkeepers, The (2011 horror-thriller)
Jayhawkers, The (1959 Western)
Killer Nun (1978 thriller)
Kite (anime)
Let the Bullets Fly (Collector’s Edition) (2010 action-comedy)
Marquis De Sade’s Justine (Remastered Edition) (1977 sexploitation)
Marvel Animated Features 3-Movie Collection (Hulk / Iron Man / Doctor Strange)
Organizer, The (Criterion) (1963 labor union drama)
Pariah (2011 drama)
Red House, The (+ DVD) (1947 horror-mystery)
Shogun Assassin (5 Film Collector’s Edition)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979 Alec Guinness miniseries)
Titanic (2012 miniseries)
Titanic (+ DVD) (2012 miniseries)
Ultimate Avengers Movie Collection (Ultimate Avengers / Ultimate Avengers 2 / New Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow) (2006+ direct-to-video animation)
Ubaldo Terzani Horror Show (2010 biodrama)
Underworld: Awakening (2012 action-horror)
Wicker Tree, The (2010 drama-horror)

RECENT RELEASES

Contraband (2012 crime drama)
Marvel Anime Ex-Men: Complete Series
Marvel Anime Iron Man: Complete Series

CATALOG TITLES

Buccaneer, The (1938 swashbuckler)
Hit! (1973 crime action)
I Was a Spy (1933 drama-thriller)
Jayhawkers, The (1959 Western)
Lassiter (1984 Tom Selleck crime drama)
Perils of Pauline, The (1914 serial)
Pony Express (1953 Charlton Heston Western)
Ultimate Avengers Movie Collection (Ultimate Avengers / Ultimate Avengers 2 / New Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow) (2006+ direct-to-video animation)

FAMILY/CHILDREN

Spot and his Grandparents Go to the Carnival

TV-ON-DVD

Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Series 4
Amazing Race, The: Season 5
Amazing Race, The: Season 6
Billy the Exterminator: Season 4
Birdsong (Masterpiece Classics)
Car 54 Where Are You?: Season 2
Cinema Verite (2011 TV movie)
I’m Dickens . . . He’s Fenster (50th Anniv. Collector’s Edition)
Jonny Quest, The Real Adventures: Season 1, Vol. 2
Real Housewives of New York City, The: Season 4
Saving the Titanic (PBS)
Titanic (2012 miniseries)
Top Chef: Chicago (Season 4)
Top Chef: Las Vegas (Season 6)
Top Shot: Season 3
Wild Thornberrys, The: Season 2, Pt. 2

INDIE/ART-HOUSE/FOREIGN

Albatross (2011 drama)
Contradictions of the Heart (2009 romance)
Crime after Crime (2011 documentary)
Eclipse Series 32: Pearls of the Czech New Wave (Pearls of the Deep / Daisies / A Report on the Party and Guests / Return of the Prodigal Son / Capricious Summer / The Joke) (Criterion)
11-11-11 (2011 horror-thriller)
Elizabeth Taylor: American Diamond (2012 documentary)
Fields, The (2011 drama-thriller)
Girl on a Motorcycle (Remastered Edition) (1968 romance)
Hollis Frampton Odyssey, A (Criterion) (1979 anthology)
Innkeepers, The (2011 horror-thriller)
Kahaani (2012 Bollywood)
Karate Girl (2011 action)
Let the Bullets Fly (Collector’s Edition) (2010 action-comedy)
Merry Wives of Windsor, The (Globe Theatre)
Michael Tilson Thomas: The Thomashefskys (2011 multi-media documentary)
Night Wolf (2010 action-horror)
Of Dolls and Murder (2012 documentary)
Organizer, The (Criterion) (1963 labor union drama)
Pariah (2011 drama)
Return (2011 drama)
Story of Rock N Roll Comics, The (2005 documentary)
Theatre Bizarre, The (2011 horror)
Time That Remains, The (2009 history of Israel)
Titanic: 100 Years On (2012 documentary)
Young Goethe in Love (2010 dramedy)
Wicker Tree, The (2010 drama-horror)