There is a large contingent of prestige and art-house releases and re-releases this week, but none bigger than the Best Picture Oscar winner, The King’s Speech, loved my most critics and audiences around the world. But if you have a more anti-establishment viewpoint, then the more independent films will appeal to you.
First Releases
- The King’s Speech (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Somewhere (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Rabbit Hole (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Gulliver’s Travels (DVD and Blu-ray)
- The Way Back (DVD and Blu-ray)
Re-Releases
- Kes (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Sweetie (Blu-ray)
- Mortal Kombat (Blu-ray)
- Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Blu-ray)
- Zombie Holocaust (Blu-ray)
- Bambi (DVD)
The King's Speech (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
The King's Speech was the big winner at this year’s Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Screenwriter David Seidler originally planned to make The King’s Speech a play but was convinced to turn it into a film. Tom Hooper (John Adams, The Damned United) directed with skill. The films stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, Helena Bonham Carter, Guy Pearce, Timothy Spall and Michael Gambon.
Set in the late '30s early '40s when radio became a prominent tool for world leaders, Prince Albert ‘Bertie‘, the Duke of York (Firth) has a terrible stammer made even worst by his nerves and need for public speaking. His wife, Elizabeth (Bonham Carter), arranges for her husband to see a controversial Middle-class, Australian speech-therapist, Lionel Logue (Rush). As the two become closer and explore Bertie’s upbringing and become friends. But Bertie has to face his destiny when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicates the throne of Britain, the Empire and Commonwealth, forcing Bertie to become King George VI.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 95% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: 8.4/10
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Audio commentary with director Tom Hooper; A 20-minute "Making Of The King's Speech"; Archival footage of the actual King George VI
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 4 stars, Video 4 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 3.5 stars, Replay 5 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended.
Somewhere (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Sofia Coppola’s first foray into the film world was a disaster when she appeared in The Godfather Part III. Luckily her career as a director has been much better with The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. With Somewhere, Coppola won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
Stephen Dorff (Blade, Public Enemies) stars as a major Hollywood star who questions his life and what he does. He simply lives life day by day and is very bored. But all that changes when he has to care for his 11-year-old daughter, Cleo (Elle Fanning).
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 72% (good)
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $19.99 (DVD), $26.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 1 stars, Video 4 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 4 stars, Replay 0 stars (out of 5). Skip It.
Rabbit Hole (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Rabbit Hole was a Pulitzer Prize-winning play and writer David Lindsay-Abaire adapted this film version himself. John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) took on what was an Oscar-bait project. The film stars Nicole Kidman in an Oscar-nominated performances and Aaron Eckhart as grieving parents. Dianne Wiest (I Am Sam), Sandra Oh (Grey’s Anatomy) and newcomer Miles Teller also star.
Becca and Howie Corbett (Kidman and Eckhart) are a married couple struggling with the aftermath of the worst event imaginable: the death of their young child. Both take different approaches to deal with it: Becca become more distant and befriends a local teenager, Jason (Tellers), whilst Howie tries to continue as normal and clings to his memories.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 87% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: 2.0/10
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Audio Commentary with the Director, Writer, and Director of Photography; Deleted Scenes; Theatrical Trailer
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 4.5 stars, Video 4.5 stars, Audio 4.5 stars, Extras 2.5 stars, Replay 4.5 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended.
Gulliver's Travels (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Rob Letterman's (Monsters vs. Aliens) modern adaptation of the Jonathan Swift classic was a commercial and critical flop, debuting eighth at the box office on Christmas weekend: a disaster for a film that was meant to be a 3-D blockbuster. Jack Black took on the lead as Lemuel Gulliver and the film features Emily Blunt, Jason Segel, Amanda Peet, Catherine Tate (Doctor Who) and Billy Connolly.
Gulliver is a lowly mailroom worker for a New York newspaper and tries to impress journalist Darcy (Peet) by writing about his “travels.” She assigns him the story to investigate the Bermuda Triangle and he ends up in the kingdom of Lilliput, a nation of little people run by King Benjamin (Connolly), Queen Isabelle (Tate) and Princess Mary (Blunt).
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 20% (poor)
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Gag Reel; Deleted Scenes; I Don't Know...with Lemuel Gulliver; Little and Large; Jack Black Thinks Big; Down Time; Gulliver's Foosball Challenge; War Song Dance; Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character Jack Black; Fox Movie Channel Presents: In Character Jason Segel; Life After Film School Rob Letterman of Gulliver’s Travels; World Premiere; Theatrical Trailer
Amazon Price: $16.99 (DVD), $27.99 (Blu-ray), $29.99 (3D Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 1.5 stars, Video 0 stars, Audio 0 stars, Extras 0 stars, Replay 0.5 stars (out of 5). Skip It.
The Way Back (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
The Way Back was a prestige picture with obvious awards ambitions, which it did not receive. It was based on a historically true story (though historical evidence has questioned it). Directed by the highly regarded Peter Weir (The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society), it features a great cast: Colin Farrell, Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe), Mark Strong, Ed Harris and Saiorse Ronan.
Based on the book by Sławomir Rawicz, The Way Back tells story of a ragtag group of Russians and Polish people who escape a Soviet Golag in 1940 and attempt to escape to freedom in India. But they have to avoid both the Soviet army and security forces as well as the wilds of Siberia and the mountains.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 76% (very good)
Player Affinity Score: 6.0/10
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Trailer; Behind the Scenes Featurette
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $15.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 4.5 stars, Video 5 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 4 stars, Replay 3.5 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended.
Kes (DVD and Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Ken Loach is a highly respected director who has made social realist films with a socialist perspective, such as The Wind That Shakes the Barley and Land and Freedom. Kes is one of his best-known works, a film about Billy Caster (David Bradley), a teenage boy struggling at school and bullied by his older brother (Freddie Fletcher). His prospects are bleak, but the boy finds an outlet when he adopts a kestrel chick and becomes interested in falconry. Loach is a filmmaking legend in my local area.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): N/A
Player Affinity Score: 8.0/10
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: New, restored digital transfer, approved by director Ken Loach and director of photography Chris Menges ;Making "Kes”, a new documentary featuring Loach, Menges, producer Tony Garnett, and actor David Bradley; The Southbank Show: “Ken Loach” (1993), a profile of the filmmaker, featuring Loach, Garnett, directors Stephen Frears and Alan Parker, and other Loach collaborators; Cathy Come Home (1967), a feature directed by Loach and produced by Garnett, with an introduction by film writer Graham Fuller; Original theatrical trailer; PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by Fuller
Amazon Price: $21.99 (DVD), $27.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 4 stars, Video 0 stars, Audio 0 stars, Extras 0 stars, Replay 4 stars (out of 5). Highly Recommended.
Sweetie (Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
On the other side of the world, Jane Campion is a New Zealander director with a long career. Her films include The Piano, Bright Star and Holy Smoke!. Her Australian film Sweetie played in competition at Cannes in 1989. Sweetie is a family drama about a lonely young woman Kay (Karen Colston) who chooses a partner because of the shape of his mole, her sister Dawn (Genevieve Lemon), also known as Sweetie, who is obviously mentally ill and their parents who ignores Sweetie health problems.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 92% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Restored digital transfer, supervised by director of photography Sally Bongers and approved by director Jane Campion with DTS -HD Master Audio soundtrack; Audio commentary featuring Campion and Bongers and screenwriter Gerard Lee; "Making Sweetie," a new video interview featuring the stars of the film; Campion's early short films: An Exercise in Discipline: Peel, Passionless Moments, and A Girl’s Own Story; "Jane Campion: The Film School Years," a 1989 conversation between Campion and critic Peter Thompson; Extensive gallery of behind-the-scenes photos and production stills; Original theatrical trailer; Booklet with a new essay by film scholar Dana Polan
Amazon Price: $27.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Mortal Kombat (Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
By 1995 it was clear that films based on video games ranged from poor to terrible, but that did not stop Hollywood from trying. Mortal Kombat was a massively popular beat-’em-up arcade game that brought video game violence to new levels (and making me into the loveable psychopath I am today). The film adaptation was Paul W.S. Anderson’s first big film with Christopher Lambert (Highlander) as the star.
The limited plot tells how the God Lord Rayden (Lambert) gets a martial artist, Liu Kang (Robin Shou), movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby) and soldier Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) to fight in the Mortal Kombat tournament to stop the evil Shao Kahn (Frank Welker) from taking over the world.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 33% (poor)
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Animated piece, Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins; Theatrical Trailer; Digital Copy; HD Mortal Kombat Video Game Trailer
Amazon Price: $12.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Mortal Kombat is considered one of the best video game adaptations, but seeing that it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 33%, the bar is low. On the other hand, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation is considered a cinematic abomination. Mortal Kombat cinematographer John R. Leonetti took over the directing duties and Robin Shou is the only actor to remain for the sequel. This time round Shao Kahn (Brian Thompson) has backtracked on the terms of the previous Mortal Kombat and attempts to merge Earth with Outworld and take over the both worlds. Our heroes split up to find a way to stop Kahn.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 7% (awful)
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $12.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content: 1 stars, Video 2 stars, Audio 3.5 stars, Extras 0.5 stars, Replay 1 stars (out of 5). Skip It.
Zombie Holocaust (Blu-ray)
What's the Deal?
Italian cinema is reknowned for making great high-end pictures and art-house flicks, but it may surprise you that Italy used to be a Mecca for horror cinema, particularly zombie films. These violent films have a cult audience within the horror community and Zombie Holocaust is one of the most famous. Zombie Holocaust tells how an expedition land on a small Caribbean island where they are hunted by cannibals and the living dead.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): N/A
Player Affinity Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Bambi (DVD)
What's the Deal?
Bambi was only released onto Blu-ray just over a month ago, but Disney knows how to milk money out of their loyal fans, or at least wanted to cater to those who do not have a Blu-ray player, so the animated classic is getting a DVD release.
Directed by David Hand (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Bambi features loveable creatures like Thumper the rabbit, Flower the skunk, Faline and of course Bambi. Bambi tells the story of a young fawn’s first year of life as he forms friendships and encounters tragedy (I think even people who have not seen Bambi know that scene).
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 91% (excellent)
Player Affinity Score: 7.0/10
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Features Disney Enhanced Picture and Sound; Intro by Diane Disney Miller; Inside Walt's Story Meetings - Enhanced edition (linear); Game: DisneyPedia Bambi's Forest Friend
Amazon Price: $16.99 (DVD)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A