DVD/Blu-ray DISCussion (New for 8.17.10)

DVD Special Features: Set Tour with Bobby Coleman ; Miley Cyrus Music Video: "When I Look At You"; Making of the Music Video, "When I Look At You" with Miley Cyrus

Additional Blu-ray Features: Alternate Opening Sequence: The Church Fire (With optional commentary by director) ; Deleted Scenes (With optional commentary by director); Ronnie At The Piano; Steve & Ronnie At The Beach; Hospital Montage; Vegan Cookies; Juggling On The Pier; Audio Commentary- with Director Julie Anne Robinson and Co-Producer Jennifer Gibgot

Amazon Price: $17.99 (DVD), $24.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 2.5 stars, Video 4.5 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 3 stars, Replay 0 stars (out of 5). Rent it.


Furry Vengeance (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
After directing the mildly entertaining Cruel Intentions, the seedy Roger Kumble has been giving us more and more crap ever since (and that’s putting it nicely) with films such as Cruel Intentions 2, The Sweetest Thing and College Road Trip. He has continued to reach new lows with this family "comedy" directing Brendan Fraser and Brooke Shields in Furry Vengeance.

Real Estate Developer Dan Sanders (Fraser) moves his family to rural Oregon to supervise construction in a forest. However nature starts to fight back against Dan and his construction plans.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 8% (awful)
Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, The Pitfalls of Pratfalls, Working with Animals: A Profile of Ken Beggs, Audio Commentary w/ Director & Cast

Amazon Price: $15.49 (DVD), $24.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A




Red Riding Trilogy  (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
Red Riding Trilogy is a British Television Adaptation of a series of novels by David Peace, an epic series spanning from 1974 to 1983 in the county of Yorkshire. In the USA it was given a limited theatrical release. Tony Grison (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) adapts the novels and three acclaimed directors, Julian Jarrold (Becoming Jane), James Marsh (Man on Wire) and Anand Tucker (And When Did you Last See Your Father?), direct a film each. Red Riding Trilogy also features an outstanding cast of top British actors including Sean Bean, Andrew Garfield, Rebecca Hall, David Morrissey and Paddy Considine.

Red Riding Trilogy is a complex story set in a journalism backdrop at the Yorkshire Post, where police corruption and a string of murders including the murders of Yorkshire Ripper, as failed Fleet Street journalist Eddie Dunford (Garfield) investigates the disappearance of a young girl. There is talk of Ridley Scott directing a remake.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 85% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Amazon Price: $24.99 (DVD), $27.49 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A




The Good, the Bad, the Weird (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
The director of the excellent horror thriller A Tale of Two Sisters, Kim Jee-won, directs an homage to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns. Set in the Manchurian desert in the 1930s the search for a map to ancient Chinese treasure brings three men together: Yoon Tae-goo, the Weird (Song Kang-ho), Park Chang-yi, the Bad (Lee Byund-hun) and Park Do-won, the Good (Jung Woo-sung), while avoiding the Japanese Imperial Army. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is an action packed film and  shows that the modern Western is no longer just an American genre.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 82% (very good)
Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Amazon Price: $16.49 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com):  Content: 4 stars, Video 4.5 stars, Audio 4.5 stars, Extras 2 stars, Replay 4 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended


Cemetery Junction (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
Ricky Gervais and Stephan Merchant are two of Britain’s most successful recent comic talents with their TV shows The Office and Extras. Gervais has flirted with Hollywood, with roles in Alias, For Your Consideration, Ghost Town and directing The Invention of Lying. The two men have reunited to write and direct a British coming-of-age story set in the 1970s.

Freddie Taylor (Christian Cooke) is a young man from working class stock who wants to escape the Cemetery Junction area of Reading. With his friends they spend their time joking, drinking, fighting and chasing girls. But slowly this group has started to start to grow up. Cemetery Junction underperformed in Britain, probably because it was not the post-modern politically incorrect comedy that people excepted. They missed out on a touching dramedy, with excellent performances from the young actors and Emily Watson. The film was not released theatrically in the United States.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 62% (good)
Player Affinity Score: 8.0/10

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Amazon Price: $20.49 (DVD), $23.49 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 4 stars, Video 4 stars, Audio 3.5 stars, Extras 3.5 stars, Replay 3.5 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended.


Skellig: The Owl Man (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
Skellig: The Owl Man is an adaptation of an award winning children’s novel by David Almond. It was made as a TV film in Britain and it is getting a direct-to-DVD release in the land of Apple Pie. Commercial director Annabel Jankel helms the project, with Tim Roth (Reservoir Dogs), Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men), John Simm (Doctor Who) and Bill Milner (Son of Rambow) in the leading roles.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): N/A

Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: Trailer

Amazon Price: $23.49 (DVD), $26.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A



Dead Man Running (DVD and Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
There are two types of British gangster films: excellent ones such as Layer Cake, Get Carter and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and really bad ones such as Revolver and Essex Boys. By critical consensus, Dead Man Running fits into the latter category. Alex De Rakoff (The Calcium Kid) write and direct this film staring rapper 50 Cent, Tamer Hassan and Danny Dyer.

A major New York loan shark named Mr. Thigo (50 Cent) heads to London and plans to make an example out of Nick (Hassan) who owns him £100,000. Mr. Thigo demands his money back in 24 hours or he will kill Nick’s disabled mother (Brenda Blethyn). Nick and his best friend Bing (Dyer) have to go through every scam in the book to earn this large sum of money.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 10% (awful)
Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Amazon Price: $26.99 (DVD), $26.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A




Hamlet (1996) (Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
Kenneth Branagh is one of the most talented actors around and his love of Shakespeare has lead him to direct adaptations of Henry V, As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing. Hamlet is one of his best-known films, for which he earned an Academy Award Nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and the San Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best Actor.

Branagh’s version of Hamlet is a four-hour epic and set in the 19th Century. Branagh assembles an all-star cast including Charlton Heston, Richard Attenborough, Robin Williams and Judi Dench in the tragedy about the Danish prince.

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 94% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: 10/10

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: Exclusive DigiBook; Director/Shakespeare Expert Commentary; Making-Of

Amazon Price: $23.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A





Nanny McPhee (Blu-ray)

What's the Deal?
With Nanny McPhee Returns’ release just around the corner stateside, the first film has earn itself a Blu-ray re-release. Nanny McPhee is based on Christianna Brand’s Nurse Matilda children books, with Emma Thompson starring and writing the screenplay. The film also boasts leading roles for Colin Firth, Angela Lansbury and a cast of young children.

Set in the late 19th Century, the strict and homely Nanny McPhee (Thompson) has the ability to tame even the most unruly children with her magic walking stick. Her new mission is to tame the children of Mr. Brown (Firth) who is pressured into finding a new wife or losing his allowance from his wealthy aunt (Lansbury).

Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 73% (good)
Player Affinity Score: N/A

DISC DETAILS

DVD Special Features: N/A

Amazon Price: $19.99 (Blu-ray)

Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 3.5 stars, Video 4 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 3.5 stars, Replay 4 stars (out of 5). Recommended.