When the biggest and most enticing Blu-ray release of the week is a collection of short films – some of them even rather old… well, gawrsh! That says somethin’, don’t it?
Loading ...New Releases
‘Walt Disney Animation Studios Short Film Collection‘ – Considering the success Disney had selling the two dedicated collections of Pixar shorts, I’m surprised it took this long to put together a similar volume of its own work. With a focus on so-called “Modern-era” Disney, the pieces compiled here range from very recent (the requisite ‘Frozen’ spinoff) back to around the early 2000s. As with the Pixar collections, many of these shorts previously appeared in the supplement sections of other Blu-rays, but this makes a much more convenient way to gather them together in one place for easy access. Others are appearing on home video for the first time here. I suspect that a lot of our readers will find the highlight of the set to be Goofy’s delightful ‘How to Hook Up Your Home Theater’ skit.
‘Little Boy‘ – A young child prays really hard for his daddy to come home from World War II in the latest cynical attempt to exploit the “faith-based” entertainment market from Mark Burnett and his wife Roma Downey.
‘Strangerland‘ – Nicole Kidman’s children vanish into the Australian desert. Did a dingo eat her babies? If movies are to be believed, that happens a lot there. Most reviews of this were bad, and word-of-mouth even worse.
Catalog Titles
Francois Truffaut’s ‘Day for Night‘ (a.k.a. ‘La nuite américaine’) is one of the definitive movies-about-making-movies, and the kind of film that the Criterion Collection was invented to cherish and revere. In fact, I’m a little shocked that Criterion had never previously released it on DVD or Laserdisc.
If perhaps not as highbrow or sophisticated, I’m actually really excited to see the Warner Archive unearth Tony Scott’s ultra-stylish and cool vampire flick ‘The Hunger‘. I last streamed it in HD from VUDU a few years back and wasn’t too impressed with the video or audio quality, so I hope the Blu-ray has a fresh transfer.
The week also brings some cult horror flicks from Europe. These include the 1962 British film ‘Burn, Witch, Burn‘ (not to be confused with the 1970 German film ‘Mark of the Devil’, which sometimes goes by that same title), and the Italian ‘Nightmare Castle‘.
While not necessarily horror-themed, the French gross-out satirical farce ‘La grande bouffe‘ will probably also appeal to viewers with some predilection for the sick and twisted.
Someone will have to explain to me why the dopey cyberpunk thriller ‘Hackers‘ merits a 20th Anniversary Edition. I mean, yeah, sure, it features a very young Angelina Jolie, but beyond that, this thing is a relic of the mid-1990s that deserves to be forgotten.
I remember Michael Ritchie’s con artist/boxing comedy ‘Diggstown‘ getting some good reviews and word-of-mouth back in 1992, but the film was unfortunately sucked down in the wake of a drowning MGM Studios, which was incapable of marketing any movie worth a damn at the time. As such, the picture has perpetually been a scrappy underdog fighting for attention. Perhaps it will finally get some on Blu-ray?
Television
Notable TV box sets this week include the second season of ‘The Blacklist‘, the fourth season of ‘Once Upon a Time‘, and Part 2 of Season 2 of BBC’s ‘Atlantis‘.
My $.02
‘The Hunger’ and ‘Day for Night’ are must-buys for me. The Disney short films collection will go on my wish list, and I really ought to catch up with ‘Diggstown’ at some point.
What are your plans?
Chris B
This is a actually pretty big week for spaghetti western fans, with the release of Navajo Joe, Face to Face and A Reason to Lie , A Reason to Die. I plan on picking up all three eventually.
Csm101
A lot of interesting stuff, but I will be sitting this week out for movie purchases (probably). I’ve always been curious about The Hunger and Psycho Beach Party. The cannibal sleazefest double feature looks like fun. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of Nightmare Castle, but the bluray seems to have two bonus movies as well, although I’m not sure about the quality cramming that many movies into what seems to be a single layer blu. I love Disney shorts, but haven’t even checked which ones are on this release.
William Henley
I’m sitting this week out as well. I got all excited when I saw the banner image, then I realized it was NEW Disney stuff and lost interest.
I am also bored by faith-based films – I mean, good for Hollywood for discovering that there is a market for clean, faith based stuff, but BOO for making them so bad. I mean, God’s Not Dead and Do You Believe and Fireproof were so focused on the message, they didn’t care about story, acting or directing. The Disney remake of Left Behind was so lazy, that the original direct-to-video Kirk Cameron Left Behind movies were better (and they seem to have higher production values). When I saw the trailer for Little Boy, that did not even look good in the trailer
Atlantis sounds interesting, but I know very little about it
Julian
Did Disney make the new ‘Left Behind’?
Ian Whitcombe
It actually is a bit shocking that Criterion has now released Day For Night. It is Criterion’s first (or second, depending on how you count Badlands) acquisition from Warner Home Video. It even has the WB shield on the back cover.
C.C.
“Welcome to Diggstown!”
A fun B mashup of The Sting and Rocky, I guess! It is a fun flick. Gossett and Woods are great. But there is terrific support from Bruce Dern (as the baddie), Oliver Platt, and Heather Graham in one of her earliest roles. It’s a solid Michael Ritchie outing that deserved better. And if you like a slick & fast James Woods performance- this is one of them. He kills it.
C.C.
Based on that headline I was expecting a Willard Huyck film on the list…(Howard the Duck maybe?)
EM
I have the Disney shorts preordered. “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater” is a blast that I will welcome to HD; I look forward to owning “Paperman”, “Feast”, and “Get a Horse!”; and I’m curious to check out some of the other inclusions.
I’ve been aching to see Burn, Witch, Burn for years. I’m hoping my local psychotronically oriented video-rental shop will carry it.
Over the weekend I saw a trailer for Cub. Looks interesting.
Julian
Ah, ‘Cub’. A Belgian film, no less!
EM
Those expecting a movie about Belgian cub reporter Tintin will be disappointed, perhaps traumatized. “Non, Milou, non…!”
Julian
Correct, but then again, Spielberg already gave us an excellent ‘Tintin’ movie 🙂
(called ‘Kuifje’ in Dutch, by the way)
EM
That’s much funnier than Milou → Snowy.