This Week on Blu-ray and DVD - May 1, 2012

It's not the same old song, I tell you. As time goes by, the releases get bigger and better.
James Plath's picture
James
Plath
First online:
Sunday, April 29, 2012 - 4:18pm

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. I remember every detail. The Germans wore grey; you wore blue. Here’s looking at you, kid. Play it! Play it again, Sam.

Like, for the 70th time.

“Casablanca” gets the big-box “Ben-Hur” treatment this week with a 70th Anniversary Limited Edition Collector’s Blu-ray combo set. Keep your pencils handy. In almost every scene there’s an iconic movie image or quotable line. It’s one of the films you need to see in order to be culturally literate . . . or perhaps you have already observed that in Casablanca human life is cheap (review). The 1942 classic romantic drama features Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and Paul Henreid in one of the big screen’s most famous triangles. And the black-and-white WWII-era classic tops more recent theatrical releases this week—like the disappointing “Haywire,” “Joyful Noise,” “New Year’s Eve,” or Madonna’s “W.E.” 

This week, if anything’s worth handing Amazon or Best Buy your credit card again, it’s the catalog titles—like “Men in Black,” the Steven Spielberg executive produced sci-fi/action/comedy starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as agents from an über-secret agency charged with monitoring alien activity on planet earth. The creatures are fun, and director Barry Sonnenfeld manages just the right balance of genre tropes and conventions to make it work, and work well (review). The 1997 film blows the gills and tentacles off of the 2002 sequel, which is also new to Blu this week. 

Romantic comedy fans can add the Blu-ray book/combo treatment of “Pillow Talk”—the 1959 Doris Day/Rock Hudson romantic comedy—to their collections. In this one, Hudson plays a womanizing songwriter who shares a party line with a woman who can't stand him. Soon he realizes that a woman he's interested in is none other than his annoyed party-line neighbor. What's a party line, the cell-phone generation may wonder? In the '50s consumers had a choice betweem a private phone line or a much-cheaper shared line with another number or two. If you picked up the phone and you heard someone else talking, the polite thing to do was to hang up and try again later. Of course, that's not what Day does . . . did. Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter are hilarious in supporting roles.

For a more recent offering new to Blu there’s “Clueless,” the modern teen comedy that takes its cues from Jane Austen’s Emma. Alicia Silverstone plays a Valley Girl in this light slice-of-life, like, adventure that also stars Stacey Dash and Brittany Murphy (review). Or if you’re a Hugh Grant fan there’s the poignant dramedy “About a Boy,” based on Nick Hornby’s best-selling novel about an immature adult closing in on 40 who gets lessons in growing up (finally) from a boy he meets after crashing a single parents group and faking his own back story. Typically Grant, he’s a cad—but a charming one. Rachel Weisz also stars.

Then there’s Robert Redford’s stoic performance in “Jeremiah Johnson,” the 1972 Western about a mountain main who gets involved in a Sydney Pollack-directed vengeance plot (review). New to Blu-ray this week, “Jeremiah Johnson” is based on the novel by Vardis Fisher. Movie Met’s John J. Puccio wrote in his DVD review that “notwithstanding its requisite violence, the film is essentially gentle and poetic.” 

Finally, if you aren’t anal about alphabetizing your collection and just want to see movies in HD, you might check out a bevy of Triple Features that could save you money. Some of them are pretty random, but the John Wayne, Denzel Washington, Sly Stallone, and Steve McQueen collections make sense.

Sam? Play it!

Here are select new releases for the week of May 1, 2012:

BLU-RAY

  • About a Boy (2002 dramedy)
  • Believe in Me (2006 sport drama)
  • Bird of Paradise (Kino Classics) (1932 adventure-romance)
  • Blood-Drenched Double Feature: Wizard of Gore / The Gore Gore Girls
  • Casablanca (70th Anniversary) (1942 classic)
  • Clueless (1995 romantic comedy)
  • Definitely, Maybe (2008 romantic dramedy)
  • George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011 documentary)
  • Haywire (2011 action-thriller)
  • Jeremiah Johnson (1972 Western)
  • Joyful Noise (+ UV Digital Copy) (2012 musical comedy)
  • Meet Joe Black (1998 fantasy-drama)
  • Men in Black (+ UV Digital Copy) 1997 action-sci-fi-comedy)
  • Men in Black II (+ UV Digital Copy) (2002 action-sci-fi-comedy)
  • Mimic 3 Film Set (Mimic / Mimic 2 / Mimic 3)
  • Mystery of Edwin Drood, The (Masterpiece Classics)
  • New Year’s Eve (+ DVD + UV Digital Copy) (2011 romantic comedy)
  • New Year’s Eve (+ UV Digital Copy)
  • Pillow Talk (Blu-ray Book + DVD + Digital Copy) (1959 romantic comedy)
  • Tim Burton Collection, The (with Book) (2006 – Amazon exclusive) (Pee Wee’s Big Adventure / Beetlejuice / Batman / Batman Returns / Mars Attacks! / Corpse Bride / Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
  • Triple Feature (Beetlejuice / Charlie & the Chocolate Factory / Corpse Bride)
  • Triple Feature (Blazing Saddles / Caddyshack / National Lampoon’s European Vacation)
  • Triple Feature (Body Heat / L.A. Confidential / Player)
  • Triple Feature (Body of Lies / Edge of Dark / Pride & Glo)
  • Triple Feature (Deep Blue Sea / Long Kiss Goodnight / Snakes on a Plane)
  • Triple Feature: Denzel Washington (John Q / Pelican Brief / Training Day)
  • Triple Feature (Executive Decision / Point Break / Swordfish)
  • Triple Feature: John Wayne (The Cowboys / The Green Berets / The Searchers)
  • Triple Feature (Rest Stop: Dead Ahead / Rest Stop: Don’t Look Back / Otis)
  • Triple Feature: Sylvester Stallone (Assassins / Cobra / Specialist)
  • Triple Feature: Steve McQueen (Bullitt / Cincinnati Kid / Getaway)
  • W.E. (2011 drama-romance)
  • W.E. (+ DVD + Digital Copy) (2011 drama-romance)

RECENT RELEASES

  • Haywire (2011 action-thriller)
  • Joyful Noise (2012 musical comedy)
  • New Year’s Eve (+ UV Digital Copy) (2011 romantic comedy)

CATALOG TITLES

  • Beat the Band (1947 musical-drama) (May 3 release)
  • Big City (1948 drama)
  • Bird of Paradise (Kino Classics) (1932 adventure-romance)
  • Case of the Black Parrot, The (1941 crime drama)
  • Close Call for Boston Blackie, A (1946 crime drama)
  • Mimic 3 Film Set (Mimic / Mimic 2 / Mimic 3)
  • One Mysterious Night (1944 crime drama)

FAMILY/CHILDREN

  • Bubble Guppies
  • Happiness Is Peanuts: Team Snoopy
  • Sesame Street: Singing with the Stars
  • Tom and Jerry: Around the World

TV-ON-DVD

  • American Experience: Jesse Owens (PBS)
  • Art 21, Art in the 21st Century: Season 6
  • Benson: Season 2
  • Covert Affairs: Season 2
  • Curiosity with Stephen Hawking (Discovery)
  • Dirty Sexy Money: Season 1
  • Dirty Sexy Money: Season 2
  • Felicity: Season 1
  • Felicity: Season 2
  • Ghost Story aka Circle of Fear: Complete Series
  • Invisible Man: Complete Series (1975-76)
  • Kate’s Secret (1986 TV drama)
  • Kojak: Season 4
  • Level Up (2011 movie)
  • Mystery of Edwin Drood, The (Masterpiece Classics)
  • Nova: Secrets of the Sun
  • Shazzan: Complete Series
  • She’s Not Our Sister (2011 drama)
  • Snow White: A Tale of Terror (1997 movie)
  • Suits: Season 1
  • 10 Items of Less: Season 3
  • Virginian, The: Season 6
  • Wagon Train: Season 5
  • Woman of Substance Trilogy, A (Complete Miniseries)

INDIE/ART-HOUSE/FOREIGN

  • Drive-In (1976 comedy)
  • George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011 documentary)
  • Rise of the Animals (2011 adventure-comedy-horror)

ANIME/MANGA

  • Pokemon DP: Sinnoh League Victors, Set 2
  • Psychic Squad: Collection 1
  • Transformers Japanese Collection: Super-God Masterforce