Blu-ray Highlights: Week of March 23rd, 2014 – The Show Goes On!

This week’s new Blu-ray release slate is overrun with wolves, dinosaurs and babies. I’m not sure which is more dangerous.

Which Blu-rays Interest You This Week (3/25/14)?

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New Releases

The Wolf of Wall Street‘ – Of the nine movies nominated for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony, five walked away completely empty-handed. One of those bypassed was Martin Scorsese’s blackly comic bio-pic about corrupt stock market scammer Jordan Belfort. The movie was actually one of the more divisive of the Best Picture nominees. Some critics and viewers complained that it was an overlong wallow in decadence and debauchery. Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio would no doubt argue that was their whole point. I look forward to judging for myself.

Walking with Dinosaurs‘ – Early in its conception, this feature film spin-off of the 1999 BBC documentary miniseries was intended to be completely dialogue-free, a naturalistic depiction of how dinosaurs may have lived on our planet played out with CG dinos against live action backdrops. After picking it up for distribution, studio heads at 20th Century Fox freaked out about that and imposed both a narrator and cutesy voiceover dialogue from a celebrity cast. The result looks like a lame knock-off of Disney’s flop ‘Dinosaur‘, which was already plenty lame. Exclusive to the 3D Blu-ray package (but not the 2D) is a so-called “Cretaceous Cut” of the movie that I believe is meant to be the original version. Whether that’s really any better remains to be seen.

Delivery Man‘ – In 2011, Canadian director Ken Scott made a French-language comedy called ‘Starbuck’ about a hapless slacker who learns that the sperm donations he made in his youth have resulted in over 500 children. The movie received tepid reviews and was only a modest success in Canada. Nevertheless, someone at DreamWorks hired Scott to remake his own film as a vehicle for Vince Vaughn… which likewise received tepid reviews and was only a modest success. I feel like the writing was already on the wall for this one from the beginning.

The Past‘ – Iranian director Asghar Farhadi follows up his Oscar-winning ‘A Separation‘ with a French-language drama that explores some similar themes. Bérénice Bejo from ‘The Artist’ stars.

Catalog Titles

The Criterion Collection inducts three new titles this week. Two are classics: Harold Lloyd’s silent comedy ‘The Freshman‘ and Ingmar Bergman’s existential drama ‘Persona‘. Despite the latter’s reputation as one of cinema’s greatest masterpieces, I had a lot of trouble getting into it when I last watched it many years ago. Like many of Bergman’s works, the film is deliberately alienating. I suppose I need to give it another shot. The more recent title is this year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film. The Italian comedy ‘The Great Beauty‘ is said to evoke the spirit of Fellini’s ‘La Dolce Vita’, which doesn’t sound like a bad thing.

Timed to piggyback off Paramount’s promotion for ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, Fox brings out one of Martin Scorsese’s most underrated films, ‘The King of Comedy‘, in which Robert De Niro plays a celebrity stalker obsessed with a late night talk show host. At the time of its release in 1983, the film was largely dismissed as a retread of themes from ‘Taxi Driver’, but the picture stands very well on its own and has a deliciously ironic ending.

From the grindhouse, a label called New Video Group offers up the gritty revenge thriller ‘Ms. 45‘ from Abel Ferrara, the king of ’80s exploitation sleaze.

Distributing for itself, New Line and Paramount, Warner Bros. rolls out a number of catalog title reissues this week. Although the listings at Amazon don’t mention anything about SteelBook packaging, those at some other retailers do. Based solely on price, I’m inclined to assume that they probably are metal cases.

Television

TV box sets this week include the second seasons respectively of HBO’s brilliant political satire ‘Veep‘ and Syfy’s sort-of-OK time travel drama ‘Continuum‘. For an almost astoundingly low asking price, Lionsgate has a high-def edition of the classic family drama ‘Little House on the Prairie‘, said to be restored from the original film elements.

I’m in for ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’, ‘The King of Comedy’, ‘The Freshman’ and ‘Persona’. Did I fail to mention something this week that interests you?

14 comments

  1. William Henley

    I am reliving my childhood this week, I am getting both Little House on the Prairie and The Chipmunk Adventure. According to “The Site who Must Not Be Named”, LHOTP doesn’t just go back to the original film elements, but it is also the first time ever that these episodes are presented uncut. And thank you Lionsgate for keeping the price of these seasons realistic – season 1 is under $20, season 2 is on preorder for under $25! This is actually cheap enough that I am buying two copies of each season, one for me and one for my mom.

    I am also interested in Ranma 1/2, but not at $50. Funimation has spoiled me with being able to pick up entire seasons of shows for under $30. While I like Ranma, it is not a must-have for me, so $50 for a season just feels steep.

  2. Trond Michelsen

    Price is a funny thing. I’m not really that interested in Little House on the Prairie. But, at less than $20 per season, for a properly restored, and uncut, blu-ray, I might very well pick them up.

  3. Chris B

    Definately picking up The Wolf of Wall Street, although it’s not on of Marty’s best (I agree it’s overlong and gratuitous in some areas), second-tier Scorsese is still better than 90% of all the other stuff that came out last year. I’ll probably pick up The King of Comedy as well, I’ve actually never seen it…

  4. Timcharger

    Josh, I’ve seen those Steelbooks released months ago at Best Buy. I guess they must have
    been a retailer exclusive. Did you do a write up on this week’s Steelbooks?

  5. Timcharger

    Chinese Zodiac, this is the one known as CZ12, right?
    Wasn’t this in 3D? Was is real or fake 3D? Was the 3D good?
    Do I have to import the Asian 3D version?
    Is it an U.S. edited down version?

    Is there a review in the works? Kevin Yeoman on it?

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      According to realorfake3D.com, CZ12 was a post-conversion.

      IMDb says that this was also known as Armour of God III. I had no idea Jackie Chan made another of those.

      • William Henley

        Are you just a fan of the movie and all things related, or of the Dune franchise and all things related? It seems like something you would pick up just from a collector completionist standpoint.

        In any case, I ordered it! Stupid Amazon.fr though sucks with their currency converter – converted prices from Euros to pounds to dollars, so I really got screwed. $27 for a 12 Euro disc. I don’t understand how shipping from france to the US is 8 and a half pounds. Strange

        I used to prefer the miniseries, but now that I read the book, I prefer the movie. I still really like the miniseries though. Plus, there is Children of Dune miniseries as well (also available on Blu-Ray)

        • Josh Zyber
          Author

          I am a fan of the movie and the first book, but not of the sequel books or other things peripheral to the franchise. I sat through that cheapjack miniseries when it first aired on the Sci-Fi Channel back in the day and found it painful. Bad acting, laughable costumes and silly hats, atrocious low-res visual effects, sets that look like cardboard backdrops. Just awful in every way.

          And contrary to popular belief, the miniseries is not any more faithful to the book than the Lynch movie. It drops the entire first 1/3 of the book entirely, adds in a stupid subplot for Princess Irulan just for political correctness reasons, and misinterprets the personalities and motivations of almost every single character. I couldn’t possibly hate it more than I do.

          • William Henley

            Hence why I prefer the movie after reading the book. However, before reading the book, the movie made no sense. At least I could follow the story in the miniseries.

            The Extended Edition of Dune helped, Would love to see a HD release of both the theatrical and extended editions

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