My love for Blu-ray threatens every bit of financial security I’ve managed to build up over the years. Amazon.com is my dealer, and I am its numero uno degenerate junkie. The challenge is that most of my embarrassingly large DVD collection actually looks perfectly fine in 1080p, thanks to the enhanced technology of my Blu-ray player. Not all of my DVDs do; for some reason, 20th Century-Fox films tend to look a little blurry. But even Warner Bros. titles purchased fifteen years ago in those hybrid cardboard/plastic cases, when DVD technology was just starting to take off, look great. Not Blu-ray great, but plenty sharp and perfectly acceptable — which leaves me with no real excuse to buy them again on Blu-ray.

Still, what’s a junkie to do when “The Matrix” (the freakin’ “Matrix!”) Blu-ray goes on sale for $5.99? No sales tax. No shipping fees. Just that warm, ticklish feeling in the tummy that comes with the sound the UPS truck pulling to a stop in front of the house.

For those of you who share this dreaded disease, here’s something of a buying guide on some recent Blu-ray releases. Some of these I’ve rented, some I’ve purchased, and some have been sent to me as screeners. The pile got a little overwhelming, so rather than knock them out one at a time, this felt like the most efficient way.

Title links will take to you directly to my dealer, Amazon.

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I Don’t Know How She Does It (2011)

Sarah Jessica Parker, Greg Kinnear, Kelsey Grammar, and Pierce Brosnan are all game, but the script, based on Allison Pearson’s best-seller is a complete letdown. Maybe in 1983, a film about a woman attempting to juggle a high-powered career as a wife and mother might have resonated, but these days that theme’s been completely played out. With its cutesy voice-over and trite romantic complications, what we really have here is a sitcom episode stretched out over 90 minutes. Most off-putting, though, is a hostile mean-streak directed at that legion of left-wing apostates known as stay-at-home moms.

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Will Ferrell’s career could use a Redbull following duds like “Land of the Lost” and “Everything Must Go.”

The latter reaffirmed Ferrell’s range without making a dent at the box office, and the former should be put in a time capsule and buried indefinitely. “The Other Guys” proved Ferrell could still draw a crowd, but the film couldn’t measure up to the likes of “Anchorman,” “Old School” or the brilliant “Elf.”

But Ferrell’s new comedy, “Casa de mi Padre,” hardly looks like a return to form. instead, It’s a one-joke premise without an actual laugh judging by the trailer. The Spanish-language film casts Ferrell as one of two brothers warring with a drug lord to save the family ranch. The film co-stars Diego Luna (“Contraband”), Nick Offerman and Gael Garcia Bernal.

The trailer looks like a wonderful starting point for a comedy, but we’re still waiting for the actual jokes to be weaved into the footage. The notion of Ferrell speaking Spanish might be good for a chuckle, but the gimmick wears out before the trailer’s two-minute running time elapses. That doesn’t bode well for the finished movie.

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This week on the HomeVideodrome podcast, Hunter reviews “The Iron Lady“, we talk The Golden Globes, and of course, we run down this week’s releases.  Head on over to The Film Thugs to check it out!

Despite the fact that “The Ides of March” is un filme de George Clooney, which ensures that most of those right-of-center will ignore it, it’s ultimately a movie that anyone who actively keeps up with politics should enjoy, especially during the heat of the Republican primaries.  Indeed, “The Ides of March” doesn’t tell you anything you don’t already know, thematically.  Politics?  Dirty?  You don’t say, George.  Please, send more of your pearls of wisdom for the masses to consume.  What the film does provide, though, is a efficiently plotted, well-acted, engaging thriller, despite its cliched old-hat themes.

Clooney co-stars as a Democratic Presidential candidate in the throes of the primaries, playing as a mix of Bill Clinton’s governor running-on-his-record and Barack Obama’s cult of personality claptrap.  This gives Clooney’s character opportunities to espouse what are clearly his own political views from the podium, which contain various liberal talking points and, much like our current president, promises no one could keep, including the elimination of the internal combustion engine in four years and free puppies for everyone.  But Clooney wisely keeps his politics in the background for the most part, not using it merely as a vehicle for his views.

George Clooney’s active role in politics has often sparked speculation as to whether or not the actor would run for political office; after all, a handful of actors like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger have proven that the leap from acting to political office isn’t necessarily a big one.  After all, both vocations involve making audiences believe your bullshit.  However, Clooney has consistently squashed such speculation by stating that his playboy bachelor reputation would make him unelectable, and “The Ides of March” seems to be an extension of these sentiments.  Too bad it’s not necessarily the fact that Clooney goes through women like Kleenex, so much as his la-la-land Hollywood politics (his cruel mocking of Alzheimer’s patients doesn’t help him in my eyes either, however his humanitarian work is certainly deserving of praise).

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This is all about collapsing DVD sales, but what the studios refuse to come to terms with is that if their movies didn’t stink, we would purchase more of them. Right now, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” is selling plenty of DVD copies. That’s because it’s a terrific film. See how that works? Furthermore, through the Blockbuster Pass, I will  still only pay what I would watch through Netflix. So this move makes even less sense.

And now you know why Hollywood hates capitalism.

Anyway, more desperate and counter-productive behavior from an industry increasingly unable to create a product the customers would like to own:

Warner Bros., which was the first to impose a 28-day embargo on the release of DVDs to Netflix, RedBox, and other cheap rental companies, is likely to double that delay this year, according to published reports on Thursday. The studio, which is believed to have taken a big hit on DVD sales in the third quarter, is expected to announce the new delay at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week. Universal and 20th Century Fox, which also impose 28-day embargoes on Netflix and Redbox, are also expected to double that time period.

This will fix nothing. Oh, there might be a small bump for pay-per-view and brick-and-mortar Blockbuster, but the real money is in sales, and not only are we losing our passion and the all-important “impulse” to buy new films, we are also getting used to waiting for a longer period of time to see them. And that’s a huge mistake on Hollywood’s part. Sixty days after the release-hype dies down, the movie is released to two of the biggest outlets on the planet. Moreover, this genius move will only hurt sales. That’s how short-sighted  and desperate it is.

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THIS YEAR’S LIBRARY OF CONGRESS SELECTIONS FOR THE NATIONAL FILM REGISTRY

The Big Heat (1953) – You always enjoy seeing personal favorites receive the recognition they deserve, and this hard-boiled noir starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame and Lee Marvin is long overdue. Director Fritz Lang proves that in the hands of a genius, the limitations of the Production Code meant nothing when it came to conveying sadism or a good man desperately trying to hold on to his soul. Ford was a very special actor who’s also overdue for recognition. Nobody slow-burned like Glenn Ford. Nobody.

El Mariachi (1992) – For good or bad (mostly bad), this $7000 wonder put overrated director Robert Rodriguez on the map.

Faces (1968) – With this fascinating and somewhat overrated drama, writer/director John Cassavetes probably started the now tired and clichéd attack on suburban America. We’re all unhappy, living in quiet desperation, and kinky moral hypocrites donchaknow. Oh, and gay. Don’t forget how gay we all are — especially us Christians.

Hester Street (1975) – Carol Kane was nominated for an Oscar, and one of the writers is Joan Micklin Silver, who wrote one of my favorite novels (“Chilly Scenes of Winter”), that was later turned into one of my favorite under-appreciated movies of the same name. Why haven’t I seen this?

The Iron Horse (1924) – The epic that put John Ford on the map. Prior to this, however, the now legendary director directed dozens of features, sometimes as many as three or four in a single year. One of the reasons films are so bad today is because directors might do a film every couple of years. Directors from the Golden Age learned through doing… and doing… and doing.

The Kid (1921) – Charlie Chaplin’s masterpiece still makes me laugh and cry.

The Lost Weekend (1945) – Still powerful depiction of alcoholism, though I never quite buy the happy ending.

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DO 2012’s NEW RELEASES PROMISE A BOX OFFICE COMEBACK?

In the New York Times story I wrote about earlier today, there was this quote:

The good news for Hollywood is that the first quarter of 2012 looks much stronger than the same period this year, when studios had little to generate audience excitement.

Warner has two sequels — “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” and “Wrath of the Titans,” while Sony has a prominent remake in “21 Jump Street.” Disney will re-release “Beauty and the Beast” in 3-D, followed by Fox’s 3-D re-release of “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” And Lionsgate will weigh in with its highly anticipated “The Hunger Games.”

So two re-releases, a sequel to a flop (“Journey 2″), and another remake of an ’80s television show rank as reasons for Hollywood to be optimistic?

The link in the title looks at the box office slate for the first three months of 2012. Take a look. Anything excite you?

What most struck me about those thirty or so titles was an almost complete lack of movie stars.

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The Hollywood Reporter has given 2011 up to the Grinch, despite a strong opening for Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, closing a stretch of weak box office performances for big budget productions.

YouTube

From the article:

Hopes are dimming that Hollywood can completely close the gap in domestic box office revenues by the New Year, even though the long Christmas weekend should best last year…

With 2012 fast approaching, Hollywood is now reisgned to the fact that it probably won’t be able to close the gap in domestic box office revenues, even as international grosses surge. One veteran studio executive believes domestic revenues will come in at $10.1 billion, a 3 percent dip from 2010.

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There are small but key roles in great movies that make a crucial difference in the way a film turns out. Think of Marlon Brando getting the top billing in “Superman” for less than 15 minutes of time as Jor-El, the Man of Steel’s father.

In the new Oscar-buzzed film “The Descendants” by Alexander Payne (“Election,” “Sideways,” “About Schmidt”) George Clooney may be getting all the glory for his terrific lead performance as Matt King, a real estate mogul who has to deal with his comatose wife’s wishes to die at the same time he is forced to become a better father to his two daughters.

But it’s when he learns that his wife had been cheating on him with a smarmy-looking real estate agent named Brian Speer that the film really takes off, as he sets out to find Speer in order to gain closure.

It would be easy to play Speer as a heartless cad, and a lout who callously disrupted the family life and betrayed the marriage of another man. But as Speer, actor Matthew Lillard delivers a powerfully nuanced performance that actually makes viewers feel his pain as he begs for forgiveness from King and also begs King not to tell his own wife what he had done.

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Den of Geek sums it up well:

There are some guns, too, some fire, some more guns, a few baseball hats, and a bit of sweat too. The only scene we get is Bruce Willis being all sinister with Sylvester Stallone, but it’ll do for now.

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For a guy who’s made mostly conventional movies in his career, Jonah Hill finds himself in a very unusual career position these days.

He’s built his reputation on being an offbeat yet obnoxious slob in such movies as “Superbad” and “Get Him to the Greek,” while occasionally showing a deeper side in the outstanding “Cyrus” (my favorite film of last year) and “Moneyball.”

But for thus far unspecified reasons, Hill has spent the past year on an impressive effort to lose more than 100 pounds. While this will no doubt prolong his life and has transformed him into a surprisingly dapper fellow, it also means that he will have to completely reinvent his performance style.

That might be a good idea after his new movie “The Sitter,” in which he plays Noah, a college-dropout slacker who stumbles into a babysitting gig on the same night the hottest girl he knows makes him a deal: she’ll finally have sex with him, but only if he brings her some cocaine from her drug dealer (Sam Rockwell).

Well, the man’s got needs, so despite being in charge of three young kids – a 13-year-old dreamboat of a boy (Max Records) who turns out to be gay, an 8-year-old girl (Landry Bender) who aspires to be a Kardashian-style club tramp and reality TV star, and an adopted Latino boy named Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), who steals the movie with his nonstop criminal antics – he takes her up on her offer.

But when Rodrigo not only steals a porcelain egg filled with cocaine from the dealer but also sets off cherry bombs in the bathrooms of two luxury restaurants, events spiral out of control and the gang is on the run for their lives from the dealer’s henchmen.

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In September, I had a post on Big Hollywood that looked at the Discovery Channel’s top–rated “Sons of Guns” television program. The show, which airs at 9 p.m. EST Wednesday nights, features the owner of Red Jacket Firearms, Will Hayden. “Guns” is a non-stop pro-America, pro-gun, pro-U.S. military extravaganza.

Regardless of the weapon they’re building on a particular episode, Hayden is always the same: he’s in charge, he’s in love with his family and his country, and he’s bound and determined to pay homage to the “our boys” fighting overseas.

His love for the military was front and center when he and I spoke recently:

AWR: As I’ve watched “Sons of Guns,” the episode that really sticks with me is the one where you hosted the World War II veterans. What was it like to be around them and to spend time with them on that particular show?

Will: Have you ever read a book that gives an account of an incredible action or deed, be it in battle or civilian life, and it just really moves you, and you catch yourself trying to imagine the kind of men who were capable of such things?

AWR: Yes

Will: Okay. Well, when those veterans visited I knew I was sitting there having coffee with the men who are capable of such things. I was with the men we often read about: I was with heroes.

It’s humbling. You are looking those men in the eyes and talking to them, and they are the men who have done the deeds of which poems are made. It’s an incredible thing.

AWR: Will, when I’ve talked to veterans like that, and thanked them for the things they did, to a man they’ve all responded by saying, “I didn’t do anything special, I just did my duty.” Did you have a similar experience with the gentlemen who visited your show?

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Audiences have no idea whether Daniel Radcliffe will forever be known as Harry Potter, or if the British actor’s career has only just begun.

Either way, his first major post-”Potter” screen assignment looks like a step in the right direction. “The Woman in Black,” hitting theaters Feb. 3, 2012, casts Radcliffe as a lawyer who runs into one very persistent ghost.

Radcliffe already proved he could stretch with his Broadway run in “Equus” as well as a more recent turn in “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.”

He doffed his clothes in the former, flashing the kind of abs that could find him a gig in a “Twilight” sequel. But just like that franchise’s star players, a lengthy film career is hardly guaranteed for Radcliffe. That’s why his first few films in the wake of the outstanding “Potter” finale are so crucial.

“Black’s” first trailer was out and out creepy, and the second snippet above is just as satisfying if a bit recycled from prior haunted house affairs. As for Radcliffe, he’s clearly benefiting from those sculpted sideburns and period garb that chases away thoughts of the boy wizard.

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Hollywood’s dealing with a whole new world. New Media can now get the word out days before the hugely important opening weekend begins. And if Hollywood thinks this right-of-center nation is outraged over the dozen-or-so box office bombs they produced in order to give aid and comfort to our jihadist enemies, the targeting of our children with their noxious leftist lies is going to be an even bigger problem.

“Happy Feet Two” cost 600 people their jobs.

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Leftist Hollywood wants to sexualize our kids and leftist Hollywood wants to brainwash our kids.

There is no place a leftist is happier than in that sweet spot found between the influence of parent and child.

Paul Bond at THR:

Director George Miller acknowledged five years ago that he reworked the script for the first Happy Feet to amplify the environmental themes, and conservatives who weren’t turned off by them the first time around expected similar messages in the sequel. Some, though, complain that Happy Feet Two ramped up the liberalism to the point of propaganda, and these disenchanted right wingers are getting the word out to like-minded moviegoers.

[...]

There’s about 123 million adult conservatives in the U.S., so if Hollywood insists on inserting liberal messages in its family fare, it risks alienating a huge chunk of its potential audience. And many conservatives are accusing Hollywood of doing just that.

After Pixar head honcho John Lasseter revealed ahead of the opening of Cars 2 that the oil industry would be the “uber bad guy,” a blogger at LonelyConservative.com wrote this: “We conservatives and believers in free markets are accused of being paranoid when we say the Hollywood industry is trying to indoctrinate our children with left-wing propaganda. But now movie directors and producers are coming out and admitting what they’re doing. I’m just glad I found this out before I allowed my kids to persuade me to take them to see the movie Cars 2.”

Cars 2 this year, by the way, took in 22 percent less at the domestic box office than its predecessor did in 2006.

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Left-wing filmmaker Michael Moore has been touring Occupy Wall Street demonstrations across the country–including some of the most violent, such as Occupy Oakland–urging activists to continue their fight against the wealthy “one percent” of Americans.

Initially, Moore tried to deny that his massive wealth made him a member of that one percent. Even when forced to admit the obvious, Moore suggested that he was not always among the one percent, based on his income: “Other years, like last year, I don’t have a job (no movie, no book) and so I make a lot less.”

The fact is that Moore is so wealthy that he does not need to worry about his income. According to public tax records, Moore owns a massive vacation home on Torch Lake, Michigan–one of the most elite communities in the United States–in addition to his posh Manhattan residence.

Through an independent source, Big Hollywood has obtained exclusive photographs of the house matching the address of Moore’s waterfront mansion. It is the kind of luxurious summer home that 99 percent of Americans can only dream of owning.

Moore’s vacation property is located on the southeastern shore of Torch Lake itself, which locals tout as the “third most beautiful lake in the world.” Here is an aerial view of the house, situated on the turquoise blue waters for which Torch Lake is famous:

Property values on Torch Lake, according to one real estate website, range “from $400,000 to plus $3 million.” (more…)

The upcoming Oscar telecast has lost its host, its producer and probably a whole lot more still to be determined in the last 24 hours over a spoken word.

One. Single. Word.

Don’t buy the argument that show producer Brett Ratner was forced out for spilling his sexual secrets on “The Howard Stern Show.” This is all about Ratner using the new F-word and the repercussions which followed.

No one could credibly defend Ratner for saying that “rehearsal is for fags” during a Q&A for his latest film, “Tower Heist.” It was a boorish and cruel comment, period.

Ratner immediately acknowledged that fact and apologized, and not the kind of pseudo-apology we often hear from politicians who aren’t remotely sorry but know the media demands some mea culpa from them.

That wasn’t enough. The PC mafia wanted Ratner to pay, and the fact that he’s hardly a critic’s darling made his scalp all the more valuable.

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WOW: WARNER BROS. STOPS GIVING NEW TITLES TO BLOCKBUSTER

Studios are getting desperate:

According to The Financial Times, Warner Bros has stopped supplying discs of its latest releases to Blockbuster after the rental chain refused to agree to a 28-day window between the films going on sale and becoming available for rent, The FT reports.

FT:

The move is the first step taken by Warner Bros to stimulate retail sales and make owning film content more appealing to consumers. It will be followed by efforts to expand similar release “windows” already in place with other movie rental services, such as Netflix and Redbox.

Blockbuster rejected Warners’ window request and instead bought discs of “Horrible Bosses” and “The Green Lantern” on the open market to in turn offer them to customers for rent.

“They felt it was important to continue to offer day and date rental so rather than work with us they went around us,” Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Bros Home Entertainment, told the paper.

If you’ve ever wondered why Hollywood is so enamored with tyrants like Castro and Chavez, look no further than this. It must be infuriating to have Blockbuster run to Walmart as a workaround to this stupid 28-day moratorium.

5 WAYS NETFLIX CAN STOP THE BLEEDING

This is not only a good list, but what’s most fascinating about it is how it’s focused on the importance of Netflix’s streaming content.

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Genre movies offer filmmakers the chance to step a toe or two on the soap box of their choice. Think George A. Romero’s anti-consumerism vibe from ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and the immigrant’s lament at the heart of ‘District 9.’

‘Attack the Block’ pits an unruly gang against a wave of aliens, and darned if the movie doesn’t touch on class envy as well as nature versus nurture arguments amidst the creature attacks. But writer/director Joe Cornish refuses to let sloganeering mar his feature film debut.

Cornish also risks audience sympathy by making heroes out of a gaggle of petty thugs. He’s piled so much on his plate it’s a small miracle a taut science fiction thriller emerges from the wreckage.

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Trust me, I am no Chelsea Hander fan, but GLAAD’s fascist war against humor and Hollywood rolling over most every time they crybaby over something, is an appalling assault on free and artistic speech.

THR:

E! Entertainment talk show host and comedian, Chelsea Handler, may have a problem on her hands after making several jokes about Dancing with the Stars competitor Chaz Bono on her show, Chelsea Lately, Tuesday night. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) issued a request for Chandler’s apology on Wednesday.

“Last night’s episode of Chelsea Lately repeatedly made a mockery of Chaz Bono’s transgender identity when discussing the transgender advocate’s upcoming appearance on Dancing With the Stars,” writes GLAAD’s Associate Director of Entertainment Media, Matt Kane.

Kane points out that the “transphobic humor” started in Handler’s opening remarks and continued later in the show with her roundtable comedians, Fortune Feimster, Bill Bellamy, and Jo Koy.

“The Dancing with the Stars cast has been announced,” Handler joked in her opening remarks. “It includes Chaz Bono, otherwise known as Chastity Bono [laughs] before she got her penis [laughs].”

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What to make of this…? Something Alec Baldwin might enjoy…?

Via Comic Book Resources:

Rick Veitch wants you to think about things. Specifically, the writer/artist wants readers to think about the events of 9/11. Set to debut nearly 10 years after the tragic events of September 11th, 2001, “The Big Lie” from Image Comics features a physicist named Sandra who goes back in time to save her husband from perishing in the World Trade Center buildings. Veitch teamed with longtime collaborator Gary Erskine on inks as well as editors Thomas Yeates and Brian Romanoff who got the ball rolling on the project and saw it through to completion. CBR News spoke with Veitch about what he wants readers to come away thinking after reading the miniseries, how Uncle Sam comes into play and the problems Sandra encounters in her quest to save her husband. …

“If you are an American of my age, 9/11 was a major event; emotionally and politically” Veitch said. “How can an artist not want to explore it? ‘Can’t Get No’ was a flutterball about the emotional side of 9/11. ‘The Big Lie’ is a fastball aimed straight at the politics.”

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Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a Republican from Kansas, has introduced a bill that would stop the administration’s use of taxpayer money to help Sony Pictures, director Kathryn Bigelow, and screenwriter Mark Boal produce what is obviously going to be a $50 – $75 million Obama 2012 campaign commercial — and one that is currently (and not coincidentally) scheduled to be released just a few weeks prior to the 2012 election.

Bigelow and Boal

The Hill:

A Republican lawmaker from Kansas wants to prevent the administration from helping Sony make a move about the killing of Osama bin Laden.  

The Stop Subsidizing Hollywood Act introduced by Rep. Lynn Jenkins (R-Kan.) would stop the Obama administration from spending taxpayer money to share information about the killing of bin Laden with Sony Pictures, which is looking to release a film about that event in October 2012. 

Jenkins said the bill, introduced on Friday, is necessary because the government has no role to play in helping the movie industry at a time of fiscal crisis.  

“In an era of 9 percent unemployment, trillion dollar deficits, credit downgrades, and record debt ceiling extensions it is unconscionable that tax payer dollars are being used to aid the Hollywood film industry in fact checking and script research,” Jenkins said. “American families have been forced to go through their budgets line by line and look for ways to tighten their belts, and it is time the federal government does the same.”

Sony, Bigelow and Boal have been given every opportunity to do the right thing and push the film’s release date into late December and out of the political arena. They have CHOSEN not to do so. Furthermore, they were the ones who chose to play politics with this film to begin with, not Rep. Jenkins and not anyone on the Right.

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