Hi , Bryan Here…
Alright, all caught up now. There are some AMAZING releases this week. Damn, Ausgust and September are going to be great months for new blurays. JAWS!!! Anywho, let’s jump right in and get to all the goodies. As usual in this article, you will get some info about the disc and the extras that come with the movie as well as a personal opinion about the movie and a link to purchase the film over at AMAZON where you can save quite a bit of money, and it will give a small percentage kick back to this site so we can continue bringing you excellent stories and bizarre tales. So click on the pictures and start saving.
Enjoy and Here We Go!!
JAWS (BLURAY+DVD+DIGITAL COPY)
This is definitely one of the greatest films of all time. I can’t help but watch this at least once a month. I’m so excited this is finally out on bluray. I remember writing about this bluray about a year ago when it was announced. And now it if finally here. There are tons of extras. If you only purchase one thing this week, let this be it. A giant great white shark arrives on the shores of a New England beach resort and wreaks havoc with bloody attacks on swimmers until a part-time sheriff teams up with a marine biologist and an old seafarer to hunt the monster down.
EXTRAS
- Documentaries
- Featurettes
- Still gallery
- Deleted Scenes
- Trailer
- BD-Live Functionality
- My Scenes
- Pocket Blu
BIGFOOT (BLURAY)
I have not yet seen this but, holy shit, this looks amazing. Amazingly bad, that is. I can’t wait to see this with friends at midnight while drinking. When Bigfoot attacks an 80s themed music festival, a concert promoter and hippie burnout will do anything to protect the “endangered species.” And any film that stars Danny Bonaduce should be watched at least once. Just WOW.
DEXTER: 6TH SEASON (BLURAY)
Solid season for Dexter. The explosively popular Dexter is back with a vengeance for a sixth season of startling suspense and unexpected twists. It’s been a year since last season’s shocking and heartbreaking conclusion, and mild mannered criminologist-cum-grisly serial killer Dexter Morgan has come to terms with who he is. But his existence is shattered when he crosses paths with an enemy unlike any he’s faced before. A delusional religious zealot with unflinching convictions, this new adversary soon draws Dexter into a dangerous game that could well end in disaster. I definitely recommend this show, and if you haven’t seen it, I think Amazon has the whole series so far on sale.
EXTRAS
- BD-Live
- BD-Live Interviews
- BD-Live Bonus Episodes of Showtime Programs
FALLEN (BLURAY)
I really liked this movie. Denzel Washington just owns this film. Homicide detective John Hobbes witnesses the execution of serial killer Edgar Reese. Soon after the execution the killings start again, and they are very similar to Reese’s style. Highly recommended.
LA PROMESSE (BLURAY CRITERION COLLECTION)
Criterion knocks it out of the park yet again. This is the breakthrough feature from Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, who would go on to become a force in world filmmaking. The brothers brought the unerring eye for detail and the compassion for those on society’s lowest rungs developed in their earlier documentary work to this absorbing drama about a teenager (Jérémie Renier) gradually coming to understand the implications of his father’s making a living off of illegal alien workers. Filmed in the Dardennes’ industrial hometown of Seraing, Belgium, La promesse is a brilliantly economical and observant tale of a boy’s troubled moral awakening. Amazing.
EXTRAS
- Conversation between film critic Scott Foundas and filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- New interview with actors Jérémie Renier and Olivier Gourmet
- Trailer
- A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones
LES VAMPIRES (BLURAY)
A series from 1915. Comprised of ten episodes, and clocking in at nearly seven hours in duration, Les Vampires…follows journalist Philippe Guerande (Edouard Mathe) in his efforts to expose a vast criminal organization known as the Vampires. Joined by a comical sidekick, Mazamette (Marcel Levesque), and often competing against a rival gang lord (Fernand Herrmann), Guerande dethrones a succession of the Vampires’ Grand Masters. But most evasive of all is the Vampires’ muse, a seductive assassin who performs her job with deadly grace: Irma Vep.
KORCZAK (BLURAY)
Wojtech Pszoniak stars in Andrzej Wajda’s biographical paean to renowned humanitarian Henryk Goldzmit, who wrote under the name Janusz Korczak. The film opens in the late 1930s with pediatrician, writer, teacher, and radio personality Korczak working as the administrator of an orphanage in the slums of Warsaw. When the Nazis invade Poland, move Korczak and his Jewish charges into the ghetto, and begin shipping cattle cars full of adult Jews to Treblinka, the doctor does everything in his power to try to protect the children from the uglier aspects of the ominous quarantine. Friends and well-wishers urge Korczak to leave the children to their fate and save himself, but the dedicated doctor adamantly refuses, demonstrating a dedication to the children that knows no bounds. Pszoniak is superb in this affecting portrait, which is austerely photographed in black and white by the gifted German cinematographer Robby Müller. Remastered in HD for Blu-ray and DVD. Polish with English Subtitles.
EXTRAS
- Still gallery
- Trailer
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A PORNO GANG (BLURAY)
One of the most fucked up movies ever made. This title has a special place in my DVD cabinet to go along with the likes of ‘Irreversible’, ‘Salo’, ‘Visitor Q’, and ‘A Serbian Film’. During the final days of Slobodan Miloševic’s Serbian rule, a young film student named Marko becomes desperate to make a feature film. Finally getting a job as an adult film director, he quickly runs afoul of the mob and needs to get out of town fast! Assembling a traveling group of misfits into a “porno cabaret,” Marko and his new friends drive though the quiet countryside in a beat-up van performing live sex acts for peasants and farmers. But life is hard on the road, and they find it hard to earn enough money to survive. That doesn’t even do the film justice. There is bestiality, hardcore sex, and something so un-imaginable, you won’t ever forget it. Ummmm…I can only recommend this for the…well, you already know if you are going to pick this up. Do it at your own risk. I used to think the French had hardcore films, but Serbia has definitely taken that title.
EXTRAS
- “Making of” Featurette
- Deleted Scenes
- Theatrical Trailer
- Reversible Alternate/Explicit Cover Art
- “Made in Serbia” (101 min.) – Feature length documentary on the Serbian adult film industry
THE RAID: REDEMPTION (BLURAY)
One of the most fin and entertaining action films I have seen in a long time. This is literally a non-stop action film from start to finish. As a rookie member of an elite special-forces team, Rama (Iko Uwais) is instructed to hang back during a covert mission involving the extraction of a brutal crime lord from a rundown fifteen-story apartment block. But when a spotter blows their cover, boss Tama (Ray Sahetaphy) offers lifelong sanctuary to every killer, gangster and thief in the building in exchange for their heads. Now Rama must stand in for the team’s fallen leader Jaka (Joe Taslim) and use every bit of his fighting strength – winding through every floor and room to complete the mission and escape with his life. High recommendation. Get this today.
EXTRAS
- Commentary with writer/director Gareth Evans
- Video blogs
- 5 Behind-the-scenes featurettes
- An Evening with Gareth Evans, Mike Shinoda, and Joe Trapanese conversation
- In Conversation with Gareth Evans and Mike Shinoda feature
- Claycat’s The Raid
- The Raid TV show ad (circa 1994)
ROSETTA (BLURAY CRITERION COLLECTION)
Criterion rolls out the red carpet again for this masterpiece called ‘Rosetta’. The Belgian filmmaking team of brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne turned heads with Rosetta, an intense vérité drama that closely follows a poor young woman struggling to hold on to a job to support herself and her alcoholic mother. It’s a swift and simple tale made revelatory by the raw, empathetic way in which the directors render Rosetta’s desperation, keeping the camera nearly perched on her shoulder throughout. Many have copied the Dardennes’ style; few have equaled it. This ferocious film won big at Cannes, earning the Palme d’Or for the filmmakers and the best actress prize for the indomitable Émilie Dequenne. Definitely worth getting.
EXTRAS
- Conversation between film critic Scott Foundas and filmmakers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne
- New interview with actors Émilie Dequenne and Olivier Gourmet
- Trailer
- A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Kent Jones
THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS (BLURAY CRITERION COLLECTION)
Virtually, the same DVD Criterion release, but now in Bluray form. I must admit, I had to get it again. This film is classic. Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife, Etheline (Anjelica Huston) had three children—Chas, Margot, and Richie—and then they separated. Chas (Ben Stiller) started buying real estate in his early teens and seemed to have an almost preternatural understanding of international finance. Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) was a playwright and received a Braverman Grant of $50,000 in the ninth grade. Richie (Luke Wilson) was a junior champion tennis player and won the U.S. Nationals three years in a row. Virtually all memory of the brilliance of the young Tenenbaums was subsequently erased by two decades of betrayal, failure, and disaster. The Royal Tenenbaums is a hilarious, touching, and brilliantly stylized study of melancholy and redemption from Wes Anderson.
EXTRAS
- Audio commentary by Anderson
- An essay by film critic Kent Jones
- With the Filmmaker: Portraits by Albert Maysles, featuring Anderson
- Interviews with and behind-the-scenes footage of actors Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray, and Danny Glover
- Outtakes
- The Peter Bradley Show, featuring interviews with additional cast members
- Studio 360 radio segment on painter Miguel Calderón, along with examples of his work
- Scrapbook featuring young Richie’s murals and paintings, still photographs by set photographer James Hamilton, book and magazine covers, and storyboards
- Trailers
- Insert with Eric Anderson’s drawings of the Tenenbaum house
THE HUNGER GAMES (BLURAY+DIGITAL COPY)
Now, technically this bluray does not release until Saturday, but I thought I should include it on here. Still, I prefer the ‘Battle Royale’ films to this, but this film is a bit different. Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the Capitol of the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games. A twisted punishment for a past uprising and an ongoing government intimidation tactic, the Hunger Games are a nationally televised event in which “Tributes” must fight with one another until one survivor remains. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers in her younger sister’s place to enter the games, and is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch Abernathy when she’s pitted against highly-trained Tributes who have prepared for these Games their entire lives. If she’s ever to return home to District 12, Katniss must make impossible choices in the arena that weigh survival against humanity and life against love. I suggest purchasing the ‘Battle Royale’ films over this, but if you must, the link is below.
EXTRAS
- Eight-part The World is Watching: Making of The Hunger Games
- Game Maker: Suzanne Collins and The Hunger Games Phenomenon
- Letters from the Rose Garden featurette with actor Donald Sutherland
- Controlling the Games on the control center
- Conversation between Gary Ross and film critic Elvis Mitchell
- Complete version of the film’s Panem propaganda video
- Marketing archive
- Preparing for The Games: A Director’s Process
JUAN OF THE DEAD (DVD)
By the end of Alejandro Brugués’ foreign film Juan of the Dead, you’ll be chanting the film’s title over and over. For the past ten years or so, the zombie genre has become a household brand and form of entertainment. Each director of a new zombie film tries to find novel ways to portray the flesh-eating undead. There are the comedic horror zombies of Shaun of the Deadand the scary-as-hell, running zombies in the recent Dawn of the Dead. I’ve even seen African zombies, stripper zombies, and nazi zombies. With Juan of the Dead, we get a black- humor zombie film with a caricatured backdrop of modern-day political Cuba. Juan of the Dead is an entertaining movie-going experience, particularly if you love the genre. Although zombie movie fans will likely have seen this same story before, there is a treasure trove of laughs, and all of the characters are very likable (even Lazaro with his psychotic desire to use his giant harpoon and machetes even when no zombies are in sight). I know I will see Juan of the Dead at least 250 more times before I die, and I can’t wait to show my friends this film. Get this film. I just hope it will be released on bluray before too long.
EXTRAS
– Trailer
That’s it for this week, folks. Hope you enjoyed. Tons of good stuff out there. Until next week….Shop Smart…Shop S-Mart!