Blu-ray Highlights for May 1st, 2012 – As If!

Happy May Day, everyone! Does anyone even know what May Day is about? Personally, I don’t have a clue. I guess we’re supposed to celebrate that it’s the start of a new month. If that’s so, why don’t we have an April Day or a June Day, etc.? Just because those don’t rhyme? I could probably Wikipedia this if I felt like it, but I think that I’ve already strayed on this tangent long enough. Sorry about that. This is what happens when you write your blog posts on an airplane. Anyway… as far as Blu-ray releases go, the new month is off to a slow start.

Here’s a look at the weekly release slate:

New Releases

The most promising of the recent theatrical titles to hit video today would be ‘Haywire‘, Steven Soderbergh’s action movie starring MMA fighter Gina Carano. I like Soderbergh, and I like the idea of him experimenting in new genres. On the other hand, I don’t like that he’s apparently now best buds with Channing Tatum and feels the need to cast the oaf in his movies. I think this will be a rental.

I recall that our reader William was a fan of the church choir musical drama ‘Joyful Noise‘, starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah. I also recall that pretty much no one else anywhere was. My interest in this is so minimal that it actually bounces into the negative range and I want to push it far, far away from me. Sorry, William. We can’t all like the same things.

Once upon a time, Garry Marshall was a very important TV producer who, while never a great filmmaker per se, was also capable of making decent populist entertainment movies. Now he churns out lazy rom-com crap like ‘Valentine’s Day’ and its new pseudo-sequel ‘New Year’s Eve‘. Look for the all-star ‘Flag Day’ to go into production soon.

Why does Madonna suddenly think that she can direct movies? Her latest attempt, the historical romance ‘W.E.‘ tells the story of the scandalous affair between England’s King Edward VIII and divorcee Wallis Simpson. You may recall this as a subplot in Oscar winner ‘The King’s Speech’. This one was never in any danger of being an Oscar winner. The singer’s fans may enjoy this, but I don’t see it having much appeal outside those circles.

Catalog Titles

Like, ohmygawd, ‘Clueless‘ is totally now on Blu-ray! Amy Heckerling’s clever comedy repositions Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ in the contemporary high school scene. It made Alicia Silverstone a star for about a minute, and is a smarter movie than it appears at first glance. Seeing co-star Brittany Murphy on screen again may be a little melancholy, however. Not just because it will remind you that she died in 2009, but because her career was pretty much a train wreck after this point.

Weeding out the huge volume of reissues flooding the market today, other titles of interest include the Doris Day/Rock Hudson musical classic ‘Pillow Talk‘, Robert Redford’s “Mountain Man” drama ‘Jeremiah Johnson‘, and Hugh Grant’s very touching and very funny ‘About a Boy‘.

Television

I’ll be honest; I have no idea whether the ’70s cult TV series ‘The Invisible Man‘, starring David McCallum as an invisible scientist, is actually being released on Blu-ray today. DVDEmpire and Deep Discount both say so, but Amazon has bumped the street date to May 29th. This comes after it was already delayed from earlier in the year.

I don’t feel a burning need to own any of today’s releases. How about you?

13 comments

  1. I, for one, will definitely be picking up Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in a Material World today. As both a Beatlemaniac and a huge Scorsese fan, it’s sure not to disappoint.

  2. paramedic0112

    I preordered the George Harrison doc from amazon. It’ll be here today. I’m also a huge fan of the beatle and Scorcese.

  3. paramedic0112

    I want to get Haywire, Jeremiah Johnson, and About a Boy but I’ll have to wait. I bought some Criterions from amazon cause a lot of them have been like 20 bucks lately. I got Bottle Rocket, Kiss Me Deadly, Modern Times, Hunger, and Tokyo Drifter. So yeah, some of these new releases will have to wait til next payday.

  4. JM

    May Day is best known for its tradition of dancing the maypole dance and crowning of the Queen of the May.

    In the 20th century, neopagans began reconstructing the old traditions and celebrating May Day as a pagan festival. It became an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.

    In some parts of the US, May Baskets are made. Small baskets filled with flowers or treats are left at someone’s doorstep. The giver rings the bell and runs away. The person receiving the basket tries to chase the flee-er. If they catch them, a kiss is exchanged.

    • EM

      According to lore, a witches’ sabbath occurs on May Day or its eve—called by names such as May Eve, Walpurgisnacht, or Walpurgis Night—which occurs six months from Halloween. For a classic film giving an unusual horror treatment of May Eve and May Day, see The Wicker Man (1973).

      The May Day name is often used to refer to the workers’ holiday, à la Labor Day, that is observed in many countries on May 1. The date of the holiday actually originates with the starting date of a nationwide American labor strike which, in Chicago, resulted in bloodshed. The government of the United States, fearful of repetition of the violence and suspicious of associated political undesirables (unionists, Communists, anarchists, et al.), resisted the holiday even as it gained traction internationally—hence Labor Day’s falling at a different time of year and the government’s various proclamations of May 1 as Loyalty Day or Law Day.

  5. JM

    ‘Haywire’ and ‘Meet Joe Black’ are on the Q!

    ‘Definitely, Maybe’ is a maybe, probably…

  6. Random Commenter

    I just picked up Clueless for about $7 with Best Buy’s Upgrade and Save. Definitely getting Pillow Talk after a price drop. Not really interested in anything else.

  7. “Meet Joe Black” is one of my favourite movies ever. It’s three hours long, but it should have been four hours. I love the slow pace, the way the character unfold, the screenplay, the direction, Brad Pitt’s Jamaican accent … extremely excellent. I have the VHS, the LaserDisc and the HD DVD. Do I need the Blu-ray? Probably not, unless it features new extras.

  8. August Lehe

    I’m looking ahead to The 39 Steps, Hondo, Jaws, Empire of the Sun and Cinderella – the best of the second-tier Disney Classics: (‘Little Mermaid,’ ‘Lady and the Tramp,”Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ etc), while I await USPS delivery of ‘Chicago’ and ‘March of the Wooden Soldiers’ w/Laurel and Hardy. Anybody know if it will take an act of Congress to get the WPIX TV New York-exclusive footage from Wooden Soldiers on a future blu ray disc?