Looks like it’s western week on Blu-ray. Today’s release slate gives us one of the best films of last year (which just so happens to be a western) and a slew of catalog titles to tie in with it. Giddy up!
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We’re not just<\/em> getting westerns, of course. In fact, this week’s release list is one of the longest we’ve seen in a while.<\/p>\n When it was first announced that the Coen brothers would be remaking ‘True Grit<\/strong>‘, a lot of people approached the project with skepticism. Isn’t the original a classic? It’s the film that John Wayne won his Oscar for, after all. If the Coens are to be believed, they avoided rewatching the old film (which they regard as “cheesy”) and went straight back to the source material \u2013 the novel by author Charles Portis. Lo and behold, it turns out that they were right. Their version of the story is a big improvement in just about every respect, including Jeff Bridges’ performance as the drunken U.S. Marshal Rooster Cogburn. Hailee Steinfeld is also a revelation as the young girl who hires the Marshal to hunt down the man who killed her daddy. She got robbed at this year’s Academy Awards ceremony in favor of a hammy, cartoonish performance from Melissa Leo in ‘The Fighter<\/a>‘, a crap movie that had no business being nominated for anything.<\/p>\n Hoping to tie in with the western theme, MGM brings out Walter Hill’s sort-of-classic western ‘The Long Riders<\/strong>‘ and Mario Van Peebles’ not-at-all-classic ‘Posse<\/strong>‘. Warner repackages a double bill of ‘Wyatt Earp<\/strong>‘ and ‘The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford<\/strong>‘ (both of which are very long movies, so I hope the studio hasn’t tried to cram them onto a single disc!).<\/p>\n Warner also gives us Clint Eastwood’s ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales<\/strong>‘. While they’re at it, how about tossing out a bunch of Eastwood’s other old movies in double-bills too? To that end, we get a pairing of ‘Heartbreak Ridge<\/strong>‘ (previously available separately on Blu-ray) and ‘Firefox<\/strong>‘ (new to the format), as well as ‘Every Which Way But Loose<\/strong>‘ (also previously available) with its sequel ‘Any Which Way You Can<\/strong>‘ (new). This seems like a shameless ploy to force fans to rebuy some movies they may already own in order to get some they don’t.<\/p>\n Back to day-and-date titles for a moment. New this week, director Mike Leigh brings us another slice of British life with ‘Another Year<\/strong>‘, Ben Affleck gets downsized in ‘The Company Men<\/strong>‘, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston ‘Just Go With It<\/strong>‘, and some Australian cave divers get trapped in the 3D ‘Sanctum<\/strong>‘. Personally, the Mike Leigh movie interests me, but the rest do not.<\/p>\n Other notable catalog titles include Finally, Warner packages up all five of the ‘Superman<\/strong>‘ movies together for its “Motion Picture Anthology” box set. Previously, only the Director’s Cut<\/em> of the first film, the Donner Cut<\/em> of the second, and the tedious ‘Superman Returns’ were available on Blu-ray. This is high-def debut of the cheesy third and godawful fourth films, plus the original theatrical cuts of ‘Superman’ and ‘Superman II’. Apparently, the first movie in the series has been remastered, but the Donner Cut of the second and ‘Returns’ have not (though they’ve been given lossless audio). The supplement package will mark the first appearance of the “Return to Krypton” deleted scene from ‘Returns’ that Bryan Singer was hoping to save for a sequel that he’ll never get to make, now that the franchise’s reigns have been handed over to Zack Snyder. [Thanks to that1guypictures for the corrections on which titles have been remastered.]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Looks like it’s western week on Blu-ray. 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Wolfgang Petersen’s submarine thriller ‘Das Boot<\/strong>‘,<\/del>Martin Scorsese’s one and only attempt to make a musical in ‘New York, New York<\/strong>‘, John Huston’s adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling novel ‘The Man Who Would Be King<\/strong>‘, Peter O’Toole as a megalomaniac film director in the cult classic ‘The Stunt Man<\/strong>‘, and guy Pearce and Hugo Weaving in drag in ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert<\/strong>‘. [Correction: It looks like ‘Das Boot’ has been pushed back to July.]<\/em><\/p>\n