Blu-ray Highlights for 10/12/10. What Are You Buying?

Still recovering from last week’s onslaught of terrific Blu-ray releases? Have any money left? Fortunately, things slow down a bit this week to provide a little breather before some of the major titles coming out at the end of the month. Even so, there are a few things of note waiting to claim what little cash remains in your wallet. Let’s take a look.

As you can see, the release slate this week isn’t quite as daunting as last week’s.

The only major day-and-date title on the docket is this past summer’s box office bomb ‘Jonah Hex‘, which proved once again that not every obscure comic book character needs his own movie. After the similar failure of ‘Jennifer’s Body‘ last year, ‘Hex’ may have also proved that Megan Fox doesn’t have much of a career in front of her now that she’s been dumped from the ‘Transformers‘ franchise.

On a drastically different note, Oscar winner Tilda Swinton drew some rave reviews for the art house melodrama ‘I Am Love‘. I didn’t get a chance to catch this one in theaters, but have a feeling that its location shooting in Italy will make for some nice high-def visuals.

On the catalog front, The Criterion Collection comes on strong with Wes Anderson’s ‘The Darjeeling Limited‘ and Ingmar Bergman’s ‘The Magician‘. These are my two must-buy discs this week, personally.

Also notable: ‘Three Kings‘, ‘Sex and Lucia‘, and the second (and final) season of Joss Whedon’s ‘Dollhouse‘.

One disc I won’t be buying is the pointless re-release of ‘The Hangover‘. The previous Blu-ray edition was more than sufficient. This isn’t a movie that will benefit at all from extra bonus features. What new things of interest are we expected to learn – just how much awesome fun everybody had working with everybody else, and how it was the most incredible experience of their lives? Yawn.

I think I’ll also skip over ‘Red Dragon‘, Brett Ratner’s uninspired prequel to ‘The Silence of the Lambs‘. It’s based on the Thomas Harris novel of the same name that was written prior to ‘Lambs’. Michael Mann previously adapted the same story under the title ‘Manhunter’ to vastly superior results. (That one is available on Blu-ray as part of the ‘Hannibal Lecter Collection‘ box set.)

4 comments

  1. I have The Original Christmas Classics coming in the mail today. For the first time ever, I am in the Christmas spirit before Halloween. That alone has Rudolf, two Frosty’s, and Santa Clause is coming to town. I just finished last night watching The Year Without A Santa Clause, which has two additional features on it. I just got that last week. Also in this past week, I got The Peanuts Holiday Collection, How The Grinch Stole Christmas (Animated), The Grinch (HD-DVD), Let The Right One In, and Miracle on 34th Street (Both, although I was disappointed that the old one did not have a colorized version, like the Its A Wonderful Life Blu-Ray did). Thank goodness for used Blu-Rays and HD-DVDs, I would have gone broke!

    The X-Men looks interesting. I will probably add this to my Netflix que

    • I’m glad I’m not the only one! I woke up cold a week or two ago (you know, back when it actually felt like October) and I just had this rush of Christmas excitement. Sure it’s a few months early, but Halloween has lost a bit of appeal and I could use a good holiday 🙂

  2. Adam

    After picking up Community Season One (on DVD since no Blu-ray – HIGHLY recommended) and The Maltese Falcon last week, I hadn’t planned on picking up anything this week. Until, that is, I was on Amazon today and saw their Gold Box special of the day – Band of Brothers on Blu-ray (along with a teaser episode of The Pacific) for $36.99. I love this show, but could never justify spending $60 on it. But $37? Well, I guess I can convince myself of that.

  3. My two must haves are on completely different ends of the spectrum: The Original Christmas Classics and Radley Metzger’s Score. What can I say? I love my movies either super sweet or totally depraved.