Blu-ray Highlights for 4/12/11 – Cast Your Spell

We’ve had a couple of big weeks for Blu-ray releases in a row. This week, the volume of incoming discs slows down dramatically to make room for one huge new release and one equally desirable catalog title. Beyond that, well… At least we know where we’ll all be spending our money this week.

For what it’s worth, here’s the complete list of new releases:

Of course, the disc everyone’s going to rush out to buy this week is ‘Country Strong‘. Because if there’s one thing that Hollywood knows about folks in the red states, it’s how much they love Gwyneth Paltrow and cast members from ‘Gossip Girl’ singing a li’l down-home country music… Right? Wait, no? No one’s going to buy this turkey? Huh…

I guess then perhaps you might be more interested in a little movie called ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1‘, which hits store shelves on Friday. I have to say, I don’t understand Harry Potter fans at all. For years now, J.K. Rowling purists have been complaining that her books are so huge that the only way to do them justice on screen is to divide them each into two movies. So the studio finally does that with the final novel, and when ‘Part 1’ hit theaters, everybody was abuzz about how it was by far the best Potter movie yet. But then Aaron wrote his Blu-ray review a couple weeks ago, and now all the readers in our site forums can do is whine about how much it sucks and what a stupid idea it was to split the book up. Whatever. This thing’s still going to sell a bazillion copies anyway. I didn’t get a chance to see this in theaters, but I have a standing date to watch the Blu-ray with my niece. I’m sure it will be consistent in quality with the last couple, which were very good in my book.

While we’re waiting for that at the end of the week, don’t forget to pick up ‘The Incredibles‘ today. While it got edged out by ‘WALL-E’ in our recent Pixar poll, most people will agree that this is a great movie and one of Pixar’s finest. (Except perhaps for Javier, who inexplicably hates it.)

If those movies are a little too mainstream for you, the Criterion Collection puts its focus on French cinema this week. Aaron loved Jean-Pierre Melville’s heist classic ‘Le Cercle Rouge‘. (Check out his review by following the link above.) For more recent fare, Claire Denis’s 2009 film ‘White Material‘ takes a look at the effects of French colonialism in Africa. Both titles are going on my wish-list for that next Barnes & Noble 50% sale.

7 comments

  1. Incredibles and the new Cars combo pack for me. I never got around to buying Cars on Blu-ray, so I might as well since it’s around $22 including The Incredibles at MovieStop with the coupons.

  2. Domenick

    Picked up Incredibles and Cars rerelease at Best Buy for $25 after combo deal and coupons!

    I’m going to wait on Harry Potter. Thinking there might be a combonation of parts 1 and 2 released this fall/winter sometime.