Blu-ray & Discs
 Posted by - May 17, 2011

Blu-ray Highlights for 5/17/11. What Are You Buying?

When I wrote up last week’s Blu-ray Highlights post, I somehow missed the fact that ‘Justin Bieber: Never Say Never‘ was released on Friday the 13th. What an inexcusable oversight! Can you ever forgive me? I sure hope so. Anyway, turning to this week’s new Blu-ray releases, it looks once again like the catalog titles are a lot more interesting than any of the brand new movies.

Including those discs released this past Sunday, here’s the week’s full release slate:

I suppose that the three big day-and-date titles of the week are ‘The Mechanic‘, ‘The Rite‘, and ‘The Roommate‘. All three were box office duds earlier this year. I haven’t seen any of them. Even though the Jason Statham actioner ‘The Mechanic’ is technically a remake of an old Charles Bronson movie, it looks like it should be titled ‘Transporter 4’. Nonetheless, it also looks like it might be kind of fun. It could be decent rental fodder. The other two seem pretty dreadful in all respects and should probably just be ignored.

Among the catalog titles, Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning ‘Platoon‘ stands out as perhaps the best of the bunch. Despite star Charlie Sheen’s recent “Winning!” antics, I think most people will acknowledge that this is a phenomenal movie with a terrific cast (including a very young Johnny Depp). Unfortunately, advance word has it that MGM’s Blu-ray is sourced from a pretty dated master. (Never mind. Looks like we had an error in our release list. ‘Platoon’ won’t be released until next week. Thanks for the correction, vihdeeohfieuhl.)

Anyway, let’s look at another ’80s star who has fallen from favor in recent years. This week also brings us the Blu-ray debut of Eddie Murphy’s blockbuster ‘Beverly Hills Cop‘. This is a really fun movie. The two sequels are also expected for release sometime later this year. The second entry (directed by Tony Scott) is a worthy follow-up, but the third is best forgotten entirely.

The Criterion Collection offers up two classic foreign suspense films. Henri-George Clouzot’s ‘Diabolique‘ is a straight-up masterpiece. (Let’s pretend that the awful remake with Sharon Stone never happened.) I know very little about the Japanese Yakuza thriller ‘Pale Flower‘, but it sounds interesting.

If you weren’t able to attend any of the ‘Rifftrax Live!‘ movie screenings in the theater, you can now catch up with all the laughs on video as Mike Nelson and company tear ‘House on Haunted Hill’ and the legendary ‘Reefer Madness’ to pieces.

Other titles of note include Dario Argento’s ‘Deep Red‘, the ridiculous but fun erotic thriller ‘Jagged Edge‘, and the Paul Newman classic ‘The Hustler‘.

One note of warning: No matter how much you might want to own ‘From Dusk Till Dawn‘ or any of the ‘Halloween‘ and ‘Hellraiser‘ sequels on Blu-ray, you should stay far away from any discs released by Echo Bridge. The distributor has already earned a notorious reputation for the worst Blu-ray quality of any studio in the business.

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About Josh Zyber

Josh Zyber is a veteran movie and video disc reviewer from Laserdisc to DVD and beyond. He previously wrote for DVDFile.com, DVDTalk.com, and Home Theater magazine.
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13 comments

  1. Tim H
    May 17, 2011 at 6:19 am -

    The Twilight Zone season 4 (I actually already picked up season 4 at Costco last week. I guess they had it out early? odd!) I also picked up 2 and 3 at Costco.

    I’m interested in Beverly Hills Cop but don’t understand why all 3 films are not being released in a set?? Not sure why the studios use this strategy at times.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author
      May 17, 2011 at 6:26 am -

      I bet a lot of people are happy that they aren’t being forced to buy Beverly Hills Cop 3 to get the first one or two. 🙂

  3. vihdeeohfieuhl
    May 17, 2011 at 7:27 am -

    It looks like a mistake was made as far as Platoon goes. Unless you are aware of a retailer that is offering a special early release, it does not come out until 5/24. You might want to update the main page as well as the Bonus View blog.

      • vihdeeohfieuhl
        May 17, 2011 at 9:48 am -

        Any time. It’s really too bad. This was the title I was most looking forward to this week. Most of the initial information about this release suggested a 5/17 release date. I wonder when they decided to change it to 5/24. Damnit! I guess just Diabolique for me this week.

  4. Aaron Peck
    May 17, 2011 at 8:22 am -

    BTW, just to let everyone know the ‘Twilight Zone: Season 4’ review should be posted today or tomorrow. Keep a look out for it.

    SPOILER: It looks just as amazing as the other seasons.

  5. Shannon Nutt
    May 17, 2011 at 8:40 am -

    Just BEVERLY HILLS COP for me this week. Who knows, maybe Paramount is gauging the sale of this release to see how much interest there is in another sequel…not sure they’ve greenlit Part IV yet.

  7. Nate "the boss" Boss
    May 17, 2011 at 11:49 am -

    Echo Bridge: where 2 films on a single BD25 sounds like a good idea.

    Echo Bridge: where they’ll fix packaging errors, but not the error that they should never have been granted access to the product.

    Echo Bridge: fuck Echo Bridge.

  8. EM
    May 17, 2011 at 3:26 pm -

    My DVD of Diabolique looks a little long in the tooth, and so I plan to pick up the Blu-ray. Not this week, though.

  9. lordbowler
    May 18, 2011 at 6:15 am -

    For me its John Wayne…

    The Commancheros along with Horse Soldiers and more next week!