This Week on Blu-ray and DVD - January 8, 2013

First the world didn’t end, as advertised, then we didn’t fall off a fiscal cliff? Looks like any excitement is going to have to come from the movies, as usual.

For new stuff—well, unless you consider it a rehash of his 1984 short film—there’s Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie,” released by Disney in a four-disc 3D Blu-ray combo pack, two-disc Blu-ray combo, and DVD. The black-and-white stop-motion animated film offers the latest riff on the “Frankenstein” tale, this time with Victor Frankenstein young enough to where his reanimated corpse experiment could be the ticket to winning the school science fair (review). Featuring the voice talents of Charlie Tahan, Atticus Shaffer, Winona Ryder, Martin Landau, Martin Short, and Catharine O’Hara, it's rated PG for “thematic elements, scary images and action.” Trust me. Going to school these days is scarier. (trailer)

So is the future in Pete Travis’s “Dredd,” a 2012 action-crime story about a society in which the cops are also judge, jury, and executioner . . . which actually sounds kind of retro, like the old Wild West (trailer). It’s about a trainee and seasoned cop who try to bust a gang dealing in a reality-altering drug called SLO-MO, which I could have sworn I took by mistake this past holiday season. It’s out on 3D Blu-ray combo pack or DVD, and you have to bet that more studios are going to be by-passing the double Blu release in favor of the 3D/Blu-ray combo packs in the (hopefully not as violent as this) future.

For some of the most realistic and graphic war action in movies, there’s “Stalingrad,” the much-praised 1993 drama from the producers of “Das Boot.” Out on no-frills Blu-ray or DVD, it depicts a turning point in World War II as German troops advancing deep into Soviet Union territory in the spring of 1942 came up against tenacious soldiers who were not ready to be conquered, and, worse, were abandoned by their leaders and all but left for dead in the freezing wasteland (trailer).

Then there’s the latest frightfest, “House at the End of the Street,” with its new town, new residents, and old murder mystery plot. This one stars three people you don’t mind watching navigate the familiar maze of horror-thriller genre conventions: Jennifer Lawrence, Elisabeth Shue, and Max Thieriot. Rated PG-13, it’s out on Blu-ray combo pack and DVD (trailer).

Still, thriller fans will probably think that the best bet for excitement this week is the Blu-ray release of the original “Cape Fear,” starring Robert Mitchum as a convicted rapist who stalks the family of the lawyer who helped put him in prison (trailer). Gregory Peck and Polly Bergen also star in this thriller, which was remade slightly less successfully in 1991 with Robert De Niro as the heavy.

There aren’t many thrills, but fans will find it exciting that a number of catalog titles are coming to Blu-ray this week.

If you’re collecting Oscar-winning Best Pictures and lining them up on shelves chronologically, you can add three more on January 8.  “Grand Hotel” stars Greta Garbo and John Barrymore in drama-romance that won top honors in 1931-32 (trailer). The weave of plot strands includes a baron-turned-hotel-thief and the woman who would help him turn his life around. Also coming out on Blu-ray, finally, is William Wyler’s “Mrs. Miniver,” the WWII romantic drama starring Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon in a story about an upper middle-class British family and their lives in the first few months of the war (trailer). It won Best Picture in 1942. Then there’s “Driving Miss Daisy,” which, despite strong performances, many feel was one of the weaker Best Picture winners. The 1989 comedy-drama stars Jessica Tandy as a staid old Jewish woman in the Deep South who develops a relationship with her chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) over the years (trailer).

It won a Special Award at the Oscars rather than Best Picture, but the first “talkie,” “The Jazz Singer” starring Al Jolson, comes out on Digibook this week. I personally think it’s more historical curiosity than it is an engrossing film. What excites me more is that one of my favorite romantic comedies—“French Kiss,” starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline—comes to Blu-ray this week. What happens when an afraid-to-fly woman is jilted by a fiancé who met another woman in Paris? She finds the gumption to travel there and try to win him back, with the “help” of an obnoxious French smuggler. Most critics gave it lukewarm reviews, but I was always a sucker for this Lawrence Kasddan film, which is rated PG-13 for some sexuality, language, and drug references (trailer).

If you like artsy cinematography that uses the juxtaposition of images rather than the spoken word to tell a story, you’ll want to know that “Samsara” comes out on Blu-ray and DVD this week. Like the "Qatsi Trilogy," it’s a documentary that relies on music and footage—some of which is quite graphic and repulsive—to make a statement about life in the 21st century. It was filmed in 25 countries on five continents over five years (trailer).

Finally, there’s the hip animated comedy “Archer: Season 3,” which features a spy who says and does the most politically incorrect things since James Bond tore off Tiffany Case’s own bikini top and choked her with it in "Diamonds Are Forever." In this animated series, the secret agents screw each other as much as they do their nemeses (review). Featuring the voice talents of H. Jon Benjamin, Judy Greer, and Jessica Walter, it comes to Blu-ray and DVD this week (trailer).

After all of the Armageddon predictions, it turns out that the closest thing to a disaster this week is the release of yet another “Barney” children’s DVD featuring the annoying, singing purple dinosaur. Is it going to take an asteroid collision to take that obnoxious guy down?

Here are select new releases for the week of January 8, 2013:

BLU-RAY

• American Masters: Inventing David Geffen
• Anger Management: Season 1
• Archer: Season 3
• Assassins, The (2012 historical action)
• Bear City (2010 gay-themed comedy)
• Bodacious Space Pirates (anime)
• Bone Collector, The (1999 crime drama)
• Cape Fear (1962 thriller)
• Compliance (2012 true crime thriller)
• Driving Miss Daisy (1989 drama)
• Enlightened: Season 1
• Fear (1996 drama-thriller)
• Frankenweenie (+ DVD) (2012 animation)
• French Kiss (1995 romantic comedy)
• Game Change (+ DVD + Digital Copy) (2012 TV drama)
• Grand Hotel (1932 drama-romance)
• Guns, Girls and Gambling (2011 crime)
• Hit & Run (+ DVD + Digital Copy + UV) (2012 action-comedy)
• Hour, The: Season 2
• House at the End of the Street (+ DVD + Digital Copy) (2012 horror-thriller)
• Jack & Diane (2012 drama-horror)
• Jazz Singer, The (Digibook) (1927 musical drama-romance)
• Lost Films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, The (+ DVD)
• Midsomer Murders: Set 21
• Mrs. Miniver (1942 drama-romance)
• One Fine Day (1996 romantic comedy)
• Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers (2011 war)
• Red Dwarf: X (sci-fi comedy)
• Samsara (2011 documentary)
• Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden (2012 movie)
• Sleep Tight (2011 thriller)
• Stalingrad (1993 war drama)
• Stolen (2012 action-drama)
• Touchback (2011 sport drama)
• Triple Feature: Goonies / Gremlins / Gremlins 2: The New Batch
• Triple Feature: The Time Traveler’s Wife / P.S. I Love You / Lake
• Two-Lane Blacktop (1971 “road” drama)

3D

• Dredd (+ Blu-ray + Digital Copy + UV) (2012 Sci-fi crime action)
• Frankenweenie (+ Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy) (2012 animation)

RECENT RELEASES

• Dredd (+ Digital Copy) (2012 Sci-fi crime action)
• Frankenweenie (2012 animation)
• House at the End of the Street (+ DVD + Digital Copy) (2012 horror-thriller)

FAMILY/CHILDREN

• Angelina Ballerina: Dance around the World
• BabyFirst: Best of BabyFirst - An Educational Adventure
• BabyFirst: Harry the Bunny – Come along & Play
• BabyFirst: Shushybye Baby – Bedtime Stories & Songs
• Barney: Let’s Go to the Moon (2013)
• Pajanimals: Pajanimals Playdate
• Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!: Best of Widget!

TV-ON-DVD

• American Masters: Inventing David Geffen
• Anger Management: Season 1
• Archer: Season 3
• Arts & the Mind (PBS)
• Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Season 2
• Dallas (2012): Season 1
• Dance Moms: Season 2, Vol. 1
• Dance Moms: Season 2, Vol. 2
• Doctor Who: Sahda (Story 109)
• Enlightened: Season 1
• Episodes: Seasons 1 & 2
• Fury: The Lost Episodes
• Ghoul (2012 thriller)
• Goode Family, The: Complete Series
• Hearts Afire: Complete Series
• Hour, The: Season 2
• Idiot Abroad: Season 2
• Jerry Lewis Show, The: Fan Favorites
• Love Notes (2007 movie)
• Midsomer Murders: Set 21
• Nova: Mystery of Easter Island
• Red Dwarf: X (sci-fi comedy)
• Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden (2012 movie)
• Smash: Season 1
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars – Darth Maul Returns
• 3rd Rock from the Sun: Season 5
• 3rd Rock from the Sun: Season 6
• Tiny Toon Adventures 3
• VR Troopers: Season 1, Vol. 2

SMALL STUDIO/INDIE/FOREIGN

• Assassins, The (2012 historical action)
• British Cinema Collection: 8 Acclaimed Films (Love Among the Ruins / The Inheritance / Robert Louis Stevenson’s St. Ives / Rowing with the Wind / School for Seduction / Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina / Dirty Pretty Things / Rogue Trader)
• Brooklyn Brothers Beat the Best (2011 music comedy)
• Compliance (2012 true crime thriller)
• Dangerous Place, A (2012 thriller)
• Guns, Girls and Gambling (2011 crime)
• Hit & Run (2012 action-comedy)
• Hollywood: Streets of Gold (Henry Fonda-narrated documentary)
• Inbetweeners, The (2011 comedy)
• Jack & Diane (2012 drama-horror)
• Pathfinders: In the Company of Strangers (2011 war)
• Samsara (2011 documentary)
• Sleep Tight (2011 thriller)
• Spirit of the Beehive, The (Criterion) (1973 fantasy-drama)
• Stalingrad (1993 war drama)
• Stella Days (2011 drama)
• Stolen (+ Digital Copy) (2012 action-drama)
• Touchback (2011 sport drama)
• Whores’ Glory (2011 documentary)
• Wise Kids, The (2011 drama)

ANIME/MANGA

• Jubei-Chan: The Ninja Girl