New to VUDU: Week of December 4th, 2011

When it comes to new releases, there isn’t a whole lot to talk about with this week’s VUDU update. The streaming service is only adding a small assortment of new titles, most of which we’ve already discussed around here this week. On the other hand, I dug through the catalog a bit and found a great film that you can’t get on Blu-ray yet.

The following titles enter the VUDU stream this week:

  • ‘Archie’s Final Project’ (12/6)
  • ‘Cowboys & Aliens: Theatrical Cut’ (12/6)
  • ‘Cowboys & Aliens: Extended Cut’ (12/6)
  • ‘The Debt’ (12/6)
  • ‘The Hangover: Part II’ (12/6)
  • ‘The Help’ (12/6)
  • ‘Mangus!’ (12/6)
  • ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins’ (12/13)
  • ‘Standing Firm’ (12/6)

As you can see, the week’s major new additions are ‘Cowboys & Aliens‘, ‘The Hangover: Part II‘, ‘The Help‘, ‘The Debt‘ and ‘Mr. Popper’s Penguins‘. (Technically, that last one is available for purchase this week and rental next.) I feel that we already debated the relative merits of all those in Tuesday’s Blu-ray post. None of them interests me enough to talk about them further. I suppose it’s worth saying that all of these make better rental candidates than purchase candidates.

I’d never heard of the three indie titles on the list before, so I YouTube’d up some trailers and… eh… See for yourself.

See what I mean?

Josh’s Random VUDU Pick:

Now, here’s something a lot more interesting. In my browse for a random recommendation, I discovered that VUDU has Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece ‘Vertigo‘ available for streaming in 1080p HDX format. Unfortunately, since it’s a catalog title from Universal, I expect this to be sourced from an old and problematic DVD master. The film is worthy of a full-blown restoration, so this probably isn’t going to be ideal. However, given Universal’s reluctance to release movies older than 1980 on Blu-ray (and even greater reluctance to properly remaster them when it does), we may be waiting a very long time before we see a better version for home viewing.

All dates provided refer specifically to rental availability. Check VUDU for sell-through availability, if interested. Be sure to also check for VUDU’s $0.99 Movie of the Day offers, which are announced each day on the company’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

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