Why doesn’t the government subsidize artists and bring edgy, envelope pushing fair to the masses, cries Redford.

Redford shared his State of the Movie Union thoughts this week during the kick off to his successful Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. An event which began as a way to give power to independent films is now a place where major deals go down, sizable swag gets handed out and some of the biggest movie stars on the planet huddle to seize their next film roles.

As the founder of the festival, which showcases and gives opportunities to independent filmmakers, Redford hit at politicians who prefer to help big budget studios that toe conservative lines and present little risk….

Redford continued his attack, alluding to state-sponsored film funds in Europe and other countries that help filmmakers produce their movies, despite potentially risque messages.

“For years and years and years, you’ve all experienced what we had to live with, the fact that other countries are far more supportive of their artists than we are,” the Oscar-winning actor and director continued. “But when you have congressional narrow-minded people, people who are afraid of change when change is the only thing that succeeds, the only thing we know is going to happen is that things are going to change.

Here’s part of your answer, Sundance Kid. The masses don’t want to see independent films as much as they crave “Transformers VIII.” The people vote with their movie tickets, and while there’s not a thing wrong with a microscopic indie film, we prefer popcorn excitement.

And, more importantly, if Redford’s peers didn’t demand multimillion dollar salaries, perhaps the cost of modern filmmaking wouldn’t be quite so sky high. Has Redford asked Johnny Depp why he pockets so much coin for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, and how it might impact the franchise if Depp chose a less gaudy salary for each installment?

Studios often can’t take risks on star-laden features because said stars demand salaries that put the film’s return on investment in serious jeopardy.

‘LADY AND THE TRAMP’ ARRIVES ON BLU-RAY FEBRUARY 7

The link above is a hi-def clip from the upcoming Diamond Edition, which will be a three-pack that includes a Blu-ray, DVD, and digital copy.

‘TRANSFORMERS’ FANS REJOICE

Coming Jan 31:

The 7-Disc Limited Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Trilogy includes all three films in high definition, Transformers: Dark of the Moon in high definition 3D, more than 10 hours of bonus material, as well as a plaque of movie images signed by director Michael Bay.  Disc specifications are as follows:

·         Two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray of Transformers presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD, French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

·         Two-disc Special Edition Blu-ray of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen presented in 1080p high definition with English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 Dolby Digital and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

·         Three-disc Combo Blu-ray 3D/Blu-ray of Transformers: Dark of the Moon presented in 1080p high definition with English 7.1 Dolby TrueHD, English 5.1 Discrete Dolby Digital, English 2.0 Discrete Surround Dolby Digital, French 5.1 Dolby Digital, Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital, Portuguese 5.1 Dolby Digital and English Audio Description and English, English SDH, French, Spanish and Portuguese subtitles.

2011: THE RISE OF VIDEO ON DEMAND

This is a big deal:

Super, Trespass, Melancholia, Quarantine 2: Terminal, Black Death, We Are What We Are, Red State, Kidnapped, Rammbock: Berlin Undead, Phase 7 (Fase 7), Hobo With A Shotgun, The Shrine, Burke & Hare, Cold Fish, Atrocious, The Last Circus, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil , Outcast, The Pack (La Meute), The Human Centipede Part 2: Full Sequence, Chillerama.

What do those films have in common? They’re horror films (or films with enough intensity, gumption and violence for tertiary association) that incorporated Video On Demand into their distribution models in a major way this year. …

Just look at that list above. It’s kind of staggering. Most of these films aren’t in the hands of the cavalier. It’s not just people deciding to toss their product wherever they can – it’s been decided that (for a particular type of title, at least) the best way of ensuring and maximizing a return on investment is to include this new delivery method in your distribution plan. Not all of them eschewed theatrical releases, some VOD windows were placed before public exhibition (an increasingly popular move), day and date with public exhibition, or after public exhibition. In most higher profile cases, it was the combination of a limited theatrical window with a concurrent VOD release that did the trick. Most of you don’t have access to a theater showing Melancholia, but you do have an internet router.

Even big studio, non-horror titles are dipping their toes in the water. Universal flirted with releasing Tower Heist as a $60 dollar premium in-home experience before angry theater chains leveraged against it. And Sony – the corporation that invented Blu-ray – is releasing Moneyball as a digital download almost four weeks ahead of their DVD/Blu units. In fact, Sony has tried this with several releases like and has seen a 24% gain in digital sales profit than day-and-date releases from similar films – without a significant erosion in the consumption of their physical discs.

People hate going to the theatre, which has become a very stressful experience. “Do I put up with the talkers or risk getting knifed?”

THE 15 MOST-ANTICIPATED MOVIES OF 2012

Does 2012’s slate look better than 2011? How about these? These (some 2013 titles here)?

FAVORITE LINE FROM A FASCINATING AND FUNNY (NSFW) HOLLYWOOD STORY

“Hey, Lex, hear you went to the Viper Room? Pick up any chicks?” “No, but I got to talk to George C Scott from ‘Hardcore’ about his record collection.”

TOP SEVEN BOX OFFICE WINNERS OF 2011 ARE SEQUELS

We keep complaining about sequels and franchises and remakes, but they make the most money. Even more money than hits such as “Bridesmaids” and “The Help,” which topped off at $170m while the familiar surpassed $200m.

Compare that to 1993 when…

…all 10 of the top performers, including “Jurassic Park,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “The Fugitive,” were freshly conceived films, whether based on an original script, like “Sleepless in Seattle,” or adapted from another medium, like “The Firm.”

What I do think is happening, though, is that what these neverending sequels, prequels, remakes, and reboots do is turn people off in general. Even as we dutifully trudge into “Pirates 4″ hoping to relive the pure pleasure the first one brought, the disappointment and lack of originality affects our impression of the industry in general.

Also, where Hollywood is really hurting is with DVD sales, which means the familiar might sell tickets, but they’re not making up the losses in the home video market. Sure, we’ll see this stuff once, but we’re nowhere near as interested in owning it forever on DVD.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Stayed up past my bedtime and treated myself to a double-feature.

Shaft (1971) — Director Gordon Parks’ Blaxploitation masterpiece offers up one of the greatest opening title sequence’s ever. Richard Roundtree (pure masculine cool) walking his bad ass around 1971 Times Square backed up by Isaac Hayes’ immortal, Academy Award-winning “Theme from Shaft.” Name an actor working today under the age of 50 who could hold the screen like that. Liar, you can’t. An amazing piece of filmmaking thanks to Roundtree’s powerful screen presence and the kind of on-location cinematography that makes you feel as though you’ve actually toured Uptown for a couple of hours. One of those movies I never get tired of and would kill to see on the big screen… in a downtown theatre… in 1971.

The New Centurions (1972) — From early seventies Harlem to early seventies Los Angeles we go. Based on Joseph Wambaugh’s bestseller (the one that put the former LAPD detective on the map), this plays like an extended, R-rated episode of “Adam 12,” but thanks to Richard Fleischer’s sure direction and the presence of George C. Scott, the episodic nature of the tale of a few years in the life of a troubled rookie (Stacy Keach) is pretty rewarding. It’s darker than I remembered, though. Much darker.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

ACTOR/DIRECTOR EDWARD BURNS DISCUSSES SOCIAL MEDIA’S IMPACT ON INDIE FILM

CAN YOU BELIEVE ‘THE KING’S SPEECH’ MADE ALMOST HALF A BILLION DOLLARS WORLDWIDE?

‘THE AVENGERS’ GETS A NEW RUSSIAN TRAILER WITH MORE BRILLIANT FOOTAGE

PARAMOUNT AT BOX-OFFICE PEAK

REMAKES AND REBOOTS: UPCOMING MOVIES YOU’VE SEEN BEFORE

NETFLIX SUBSCRIBERS EXPRESS MORE DISSATISFACTION

ARE THE ‘KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE’ COMING BACK?

HOW HEDY LAMARR INSPIRED ANNE HATHAWAY’S CATWOMAN IN ‘THE DARK KNIGHT RISES’

LOOKING BACK AT THE TOP MOVIE NEWS ITEMS OF 2011

CLINT EASTWOOD MOVIES AND THEIR INVISIBLE VISUAL EFFECTS

15 ANNOYING MOVIE DOLPHINS YOU’D HARPOON IN AN INSTANT

FICTIONAL CHRISTMAS SPECIALS WE WISH WERE REAL

15 CHARLIE CHAPLIN MOVIES YOU CAN WATCH FOR FREE RIGHT NOW

THE SEAN BEAN DEATH REEL (NSFW)

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FILM COMEDY PIONEER MACK SENNETT

A LOOK AT THE TITLE SEQUENCE OF ‘MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000‘

40 THINGS WE LEARNED FROM THE ‘ELF’ COMMENTARY

SCIENCE FICTION AND THE EVILS OF TECHNOLOGY

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CLASSIC PICK FOR FRIDAY,  DECEMBER 30

TCM:

5:00 PM  EST Searchers, The (1956) –  An Indian-hating Civil War veteran tracks down the tribe that slaughtered his family and kidnapped his niece. Dir: John Ford Cast:  John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles. C-119 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format

The greatest Western ever made. The greatest movie ever made. The greatest performance every put on film (John Wayne). My all-time favorite film. My all-time favorite movie memory; watching “The Searchers” via a weak television projector in a small cabin at Goulding’s Lodge after a day of touring Monument Valley.

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Please send comments, suggestions and tips to jnolte@breitbart.com or Twitter @NolteNC.

The LA Times reports a new study by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism uncovered some alarmingly consistent trends in the film industry:

In a survey of the top 100-grossing movies of 2009 — including “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,’ “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” and “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” – researchers found that 32.8% of the 4,342 speaking characters were female and 67.2% were male, a percentage identical to that of the top-grossing movies of 2008 …

.. Behind the camera, the gender inequality is just as dramatic: only 3.6% of the directors and 13.5% of the writers on the top-grossing films of 2009 were female, according to the study.

Movies, says Loder, film critic for Reason.com, are “fresh material to me, in a way that music somehow isn’t. It’s tangible. It’s up on the screen.”

Loder’s movie commentaries – witty, wise and full of admiration on the rare occasions when the stars align to yield a great film – can now be held in your hand thanks to a new collection.

“The Good, the Bad and the God-Awful: 21^st Century Movie Reviews” lets Loder opine on Hollywood’s recent movie releases. Loder slams “Australia,” praises “In Bruges” and puts more journalistic muscle into his take down of Michael Moore’s “Sicko” than most of his peers.

“Some movies are so appalling you wonder what went wrong … who said, ‘this is really good, let’s put it out,’” he says.

“The Good, the Bad and the God-Awful” compiles reviews into themes – like Schlockbusters (expensive flops), The Land That Laughs Forgot (comic duds) and Funtime (hilarious romps). He even dedicates an entire chapter to Nicolas Cage (“one of the great without-a-net highfliers of our time”). Loder may be most fond of Looking for Love, the section dedicated to great films still searching for an appreciative audience – like indie darling “The Brothers Bloom.”

Loder’s prose is prickly when the situation demands it, but he’s not a curmudgeon taking undue pleasure excoriating mediocre films. He also insists he’s a movie reviewer, not a film critic.

The latter group studies film as an art form, something he simply doesn’t have the time to do at this point in his impressive journalism career. Each movie scribe serves a purpose, although he suggests die-hard film fans should read material from each camp.

“If you’re really into movies you want both … you’ll want all the resonance you get from a film critic,” citing Dave Kehr and David Thomson as two personal favorites.

Loder contributes to Reason.com, a Libertarian site which reflects his own political attitudes. Just don’t expect him to interject politics into a cinematic treatise on “Transformers” or “Sherlock Holmes.”

“I try not to look at movies through the lens of politics,” he says, bemoaning how famed film critic Roger Ebert’s recent work too often does just that with predictably left-leaning results. But when the films demand a more thorough examination, like Moore’s aforementioned health care documentary, he won’t hesitate to put the film to a lie detector test.

Pop culture junkies may know Loder best for his lengthy tenure with MTV, but he also served as an editor with Rolling Stone magazine and wrote for Time, Details and Esquire magazines. He’s saddened to see so many movie and music writers heading to the unemployment lines these days, and he realizes they may not be able to make a new name for themselves on the cluttered Internet. Still, the best of the best eventually rise to the top.

“It’s a very difficult time, a transitional time in media,” he says, and he isn’t sure how it will all shake out eventually.

He’s far more certain that nothing he can say or type will dissuade a Twi-Hard from camping out to see the latest “Twilight” feature. But he hopes his prose can have a modest boost for films which could use a little appreciation.

“I try to review movies that aren’t gonna get an national release … maybe [movie reviewers] can help them get one,” he says, citing unsung gems like “The Brothers Bloom,” “Zodiac” and “Sunshine.”

Of the current crop of new films, Loder singles out “Like Crazy,” the buzzed about romance co-starring Felicity Jones.

“It’s so well done and edited, but how many people will see it?” he asks.

He admits it’s more fun to slam an awful movie than praise a neo-classic, but ultimately a movie reviewer’s job is to make suggestions that help the reader juggle schedules accordingly.

“You have to winnow it down somehow … and try not to waste your time on movies that are dreadful,” he says. And he hopes “The Good, the Bad and the God-Awful” can help.

The Web may rule in 2011, but there’s still something potent in having a book in hand to guide your movie selections.

Even the best web-published reviews are “ephemeral … they drift off into the digital ether,” he says.

DIXIE CHICKS’ VH1 STORYTELLERS AVAILABLE NOVEMBER 29

What are Dixie Chicks again?

All I seem to remember are three mouthy narcissists who were so desperate for attention they posed nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly and then had a flop documentary made about them that portrayed the pampered multi-millionaires as victims of their own wildly stupid use of free speech.

Those Dixie Chicks?

Can I get a “whoa whatever”?

BREAKING: ZACHARY QUINTO IS STILL GAY

We have now entered day two of Zachary Quinto being gay. Rumor has it, he will still be gay tomorrow and possibly through the end of the week. Obviously this means that everything he does is more important than it was last week and it is now our duty to ooh and ahh over the profundity of everything He Who Is Above Using Capital Letters says.

Such an inspiration.

And why didn’t someone tell me that being gay suddenly makes everything you do so precious and important–you know, when there was still time for that information to do me some good?

HERESY: ‘TWILIGHT’ STARS JOIN IMMORTALS AT GRAUMAN’S CHINESE THEATRE

“Bloody Disgusting” has this exactly right. Over 80-plus years only around 250 recipients have been honored with immortality at Grauman’s and to have these three–who have done nothing other than star in a popular franchise–join is like having some one-hit wonder enter the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.

I love movies but, man alive, do I hate pop culture.

If the “Twilight” cast had even an ounce of class they would refuse this until they legitimately earned this rare privilege.

‘TRANSFORMERS 4 & 5′ SHOOTING BACK-TO-BACK? JASON STATHAM STARRING?

Jason Statham … now there’s an action star. The whole Shia Le-what’s-his-name craze never made a lick of sense to me.

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

IN WHICH WE CONFESS TO LIKING THE SIBLING ACTOR MORE

SKYPE TO CHALLENGE NETFLIX STREAMING?

BRYAN SINGER’S ‘EXCALIBUR’ REMAKE SHELVED

FOX DEVELOPING ‘ZOMBIELAND’ COMEDY SERIES

A HOLLYWOOD BREAK-UP THAT MATTERS

‘WALKING DEAD’ PREMIERES AT #1 … SMASHES RECORDS.

WILL SMITH’S $85K PER MONTH NYC CONDO WHILE FILMING ‘MEN IN BLACK 3′

‘DARK KNIGHT RISES’ HEADS TO NYC

20 OF HOLLYWOOD’S BEST PUNCHES TO THE FACE

HAPPY 85TH, CHUCK BERRY!

COMIC-CON BABE PHOTO GALLERY

THE INCREDIBLE, INTERCHANGEABLE FILMS OF STEVEN SEAGAL

‘STAR WARS 3D’ IS HAPPENING AND HERE’S THE POSTER TO PROVE IT

JOHNNY DEPP SET HIMSELF ON FIRE

IDEAS FOR ‘DEPARTED’ SEQUEL

SCARLETT JOHANSSON WAS TOO SEXY FOR ‘TATTOO?’

WHY?: ACTORS RECREATE CLASSIC MARTIN SCORSESE SCENES FOR HARPER’S BAZAAR

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Faster (2010): This is a real gem of a B-flick find. Not only is the action superb and the story compelling, but Dwayne Johnson’s performance is outstanding. Who would’ve guessed he had it in him to pull off a dramatic role so convincingly? I’m a believer that acting is all in the eyes. If I see the character and the moment in the actor’s eyes, I believe the performance. This is why I find post-1995 Meryl Streep a laughably bad actress. Her eyes always give away her self-conscious technique.

Yes, what I’m saying here is that The Rock is a better actor than Meryl Streep.

“Faster” also has a very serious and intelligent Christian theme that really comes together in the climax. In fact, I would qualify this as a Christian film. It also reminded me of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Maximum Risk” (1996), another intelligent, low-key but exciting film that deserved a bigger audience and similarly proved that its star — in the hands of the right director — has it in him to pull off an impressive dramatic performance.

With superb support from Billy Bob Thornton and the luscious Carla Gugino, a number of well-defined characters, and a whole new spin on what drives professional assassins, what you have with “Faster” is my favorite kind of movie–a secret that you can’t wait to pass on to others.

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CLASSIC PICK FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 19

TCM:

1:00 AM  Tea And Sympathy (1956) —   A faculty wife risks her marriage to help a troubled teen tormented by his fellow students. Dir: Vincente Minnelli Cast:  Deborah Kerr, John Kerr, Leif Erickson. C-122 mins, TV-PG, CC, Letterbox Format.

A beautifully filmed and acted story as well as a template in how to handle mature themes in a way that need not be shocking or in your face. Modern day Hollywood wouldn’t go near this story. Though it’s not made as clear in the film as it was in the play upon which it’s based, the young man in question is worried he’s gay. And it’s Deborah Kerr who takes those worries away.

Lucky bastard.

Carlos was one of my favorite films of 2010, Olivier Assayas’s cracking chronicle of the career of notorious terrorist Carlos the Jackal is as entertaining as thrillers get, all 339 minutes of it.  Split into three episodes that serve as a whole, Carlos moves along at a brilliant clip, especially given its length.  The only bit where it slows down is towards the very end, which feels like a function of the actual true-story, more so than stretchy writing.

Assayas takes the time needed to flesh out Carlos as a character, doing a brilliant job of depicting the on-the-run lifestyle held by wanted terrorist.  The way Assayas approaches Carlos as a character makes his film the antithesis of Steven Soderbergh’s intellectually dishonest Che, a similarly ambitious film that covers a similar figure (and is also available on Criterion).  Assayas depicts Carlos as a terrible man who does terrible things, but is fully realized on the screen as a human being, as opposed to the filmmaker’s idea of what Carlos should be.  This is a stark contrast to Soderbergh’s Che, in which he depicts the murderer-turned-left-wing folk hero as a wise holy man who can do no wrong, especially in the film’s second part The Guerrilla.

What makes Che intellectually dishonest is that Soderbergh’s approach to the material is not unlike Roberto Rosselini’s approach to recreating history, in that he opts not to dramatize history, but to instead merely depict it happening.  Doing so removes the feeling that the events are being openly manipulated by the director in that there are no sweeping musical cues, there is an absence of style from the camerawork, and the events don’t feel contorted in order to serve a three act structure.  This helps the audience to feel at ease, as though Che is being treated fairly by the filmmakers.  Where the intellectual dishonesty came in was in the way Che was dealt with as a character, he was never seen doing anything morally questionable, and Benicio Del Toro plays with with a piousness that smacks of the sort of idiotic reverence to the subject seen by people who wear the man’s Christ-like image on T-shirts.  Despite the deceptively even-handed approach, these subtle manipulations make it obvious where the filmmakers fall on their subject matter.

Assayas is clearly more interested Carlos as a character, not as an example of an ideal, or as any kind of folk hero.  He sees parts of the story as the stuff cracking thrillers are made of, and treats the material accordingly, also taking the time to us the day-to-day life of an international fugitive in between the tense showdowns and nail-biting hostage situations.  The length may seem intimidating at first, however the film’s three-part structure make it more manageable, and if you want to try before you buy the excellent Criterion edition, the entire thing is available on NetFlix (as is the trimmed down 165 minute theatrical cut).

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

When Michael Bay’s Transformers: Dark of the Moon came out this summer, Bay and the studio were beating that 3D war drum hard in the press.  As we all know, 3D hasn’t exactly been burning up the box office the way Hollywood hoped it would.  Certainly there are many factors to blame, the blue devil himself, James Cameron, will tell you that it’s the glut of movies with ugly retrofitting that were originally shot in 2D.

For those of us living in the real world, the main reason is that audiences simply don’t want to pay more to see a gimmick that essentially adds nothing to the movies at hand, apart from a dimmer picture and some visual distractions akin to attempting to amusing a baby with some jingling car keys.  But Bay insisted people see it in 3D, going so far as to issue a letter to projectionists informing them on how to properly exhibit it.  Bay even trotted out Cameron himself in order to tell everyone how great the 3D was in the movie, and that it’s the best use of it since Avatar.  Hollywood was trying really hard to save 3D, and they were using Transformers as their ace in the hole.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon comes to Blu-ray and DVD this Friday, September 30th, but curiously, there is no 3D Blu-ray edition to be seen.  Being so highly touted in the 3D department, it’s odd that they’re not doing this.  Apparently a future super-cool-wow-headache-inducing edition is in the works, but not much has been said about it.  My guess is they’re going the Jimmy Cameron route of helping to further the ruin of the environment by double-dipping this beast.  If you’re a mark for having the 3D version at home, or if you have to have the release with the most stuff, I’d wait awhile and pass on snagging this.  I realize Hollywood has more riding on 3D in the theater than 3D at home, but at this point, if they’re trying to push it that hard, it makes me wonder what the strategy is.

As for the movie itself, it’s certainly the best of the series, but that’s like saying it’s your favorite member of the Insane Clown Posse.  I will give it this: the final hour of the film is the most breathtaking spectacle Michael Bay has put together, as it far outshines the boring, drawn out desert battle in Transformers 2.  However the film is still full of the materialistic mentality where boys and their toys and gadgets reign supreme, and interchangeable vapid female lead indicates that these toys include women in the minds of the filmmakers.  You can read my full review here.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Other Noteworthy Releases

Ben-Hur: The William Wyler classic starring Charleton Heston is getting the deluxe treatment in a brilliant three-disc Blu-ray set that includes the original silent version among the plethora of extras.

Available on a Blu-ray deluxe set and a DVD set

Mimic Director’s Cut: Mimic was Guillermo Del Toro’s Hollywood debut, however he disowned the final product because the film was taken away from him and recut by the studio.  Here’s he’s presented us with his version of the movie.  I’m not a big Del Toro fan, like Tim Burton he gets lost in his own visual shtick and often forgets the script, but Mimic is the only movie he’s made that didn’t have much going for it.  Depending how thorough the gutting of this movie was, I doubt a new cut can save it, but we’ll see.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

The Phantom Carriage: Victor Sjöström’s silent Swedish ghost story from 1921 comes to Criterion.  Fans of Ingmar Bergman will remember Sjöström as the protagonist in Bergman’s classic film Wild Strawberries.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Go West/Battling Butler: Another treat for silent movie fans, here we get two Buster Keaton films from Kino, remastered on Blu-ray.  Kino has done a fantastic job with their Blu-ray releases of silent films, and their work on Keaton’s films has made for essential purchases for any old-school comedy cinephile.

Available on Blu-ray

Footloose: In preparation for Craig Brewer’s upcoming remake, the original starring Kevin Bacon gets a re-release on Blu-ray and DVD.  People are up-in-arms about a remake of Footloose, as though Brewer is remaking Citizen Kane or The Godfather.  Brewer’s remake has been called purposeful by those who have seen it, as Dennis Quaid’s performance adds layers to the less-nuanced role filled by John Lithgow in the original.  Fans of this movie will be surprised and thrilled by what Brewer does with this material.  Don’t ignore it.

Available on Blu-ray and DVD

Basket Case: How can you not love Frank Henenlotter’s early-eighties exploitation classic?  This heartwarming film about a boy and his murderous, deformed, former-Siamese twin on a killing spree is about as weird and entertaining as low-budget horror gets.

Available on Blu-ray

The Blood Trilogy: A Blu-ray three pack of Herschell Gordon Lewis movies, including Blood Feast, 2000 Maniacs, and Color Me Blood Red.  Gorehounds, go nuts.

Available on Blu-ray

The Godfather of Gore: Speaking of Herschell Gordon Lewis, Something Weird Video is releasing this documentary on the man’s career, so you can know more on the original go-to for gore aficionados.

Available on DVD

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 & 3: A Blu-ray two-pack of Nightmare movies, including the bizarre Freddy’s Revenge, as well as The Dream Warriors, which includes rad special effects and 100% more Dokken.

Available on Blu-ray

Heathers: The eighties dark comedy classic gets a re-release on Blu-ray.

Available on Blu-ray

Married With Children: I bring this up in honor of John Nolte.  This week, you can snag the entire series of Married With Children for $39.99 on Amazon.  That right there is a steal!

Available on DVD

The article originally appeared over at Parcbench

–DVD SALES DOWN 18.3% IN 2011; ITUNES DOMINATES DIGITAL MOVIE SALES–

Interesting Variety article, that for some reason isn’t behind their suicidal paywall.  Bottom line is that even though digital sales are picking up, they only make up a fraction of a market still dominated by physical DVDs — and that market is crashing. People are now renting and doing so through cheap retailers like Netflix and Redbox (as Blockbuster lowers their prices almost daily in order to stay alive).

If Hollywood wants to boost their sales biz, I have three suggestions:

1. Make better movies. The crap coming out now is not the kind of experience anyone wants to relive. Furthermore, the move towards 3D probably isn’t helping. That’s a THEATRE experience, not a living room experience. A huge theatre screen, super-duper theatre sound, and 3D might salvage a lousy movie for some people, but at home it’s just a lousy movie for all people.

2. For the love of all that’s holy, lower your prices — especially on the download side. Why in the world should we pay $15 for the digital download of a movie that we have to store on our own hard drive? Why should we pay that kind of money for an item no one had to manufacture, package, or ship? We might as well rent or buy the disc or wait six weeks and buy it as good as new from the Blockbuster previously-viewed bin.

3. If #2 interests you at all, the next step is to get us used to downloading and away from owning physical DVDs. But — and this is important — we need more hard drive space or a place  on the Web where we can store our collections.

–ANOTHER REASON DVDS AREN’T SELLING: LAZY, INDULGENT, CONFUSING HYPER-EDITING–

Over at IndieWire, Matthias Stork criticizes, “[contemporary blockbusters, particularly action movies, [that] trade visual intelligibility for sensory overload, and the result is a film style marked by excess, exaggeration and overindulgence: chaos cinema.”

As someone who’s been complaining about the shaky-cam set on puree since the damned thing was spawned by Satan, I couldn’t agree more and can’t add much more. However, I will say that this new anti-style of cutting action scenes is another reason why DVD sales are down. In the theatre, the “sensory overload” Stork talks about might make up for the confusion for those young moviegoers who dig the video game experience, but you can’t recreate that overload at home. So why buy the DVD.

Compare Daniel Craig’s “Casino Royale” — which is shot in a more conventional way — to “Quantum of Solace,” which is a complete mess filled with utterly confusing actions scenes that have you reaching for the Dramamine. I own every James Bond, even the bad ones, but purchasing “Quantum” is out of the question. The story is lousy, but certainly no worse than “Never Say Never Again.” But the reason I don’t own it is due to the HORRIBLE editing.

Who wants to relive that?

When it comes to the collapse of DVD sales, the elephant in the room that neither the industry nor the media that covers it wants to point to is the quality of the product.

–MORE PROOF STREAMING IS THE FUTURE–

Let me say it again: People want to watch what they want to watch when they want to watch it. Network and cable television as we know it will be dead in less than five years. The Fox network’s attempt to force people back into the habit of appointment television was obviously going to fail. What we want is to sit down when we want to sit down, scroll a menu, find the latest episode of our favorite show, and press PLAY.

When HBO On Demand started, I abruptly stopped watching regular HBO. Sitting down for the Saturday night premiere was a decades-long ritual but the ability to stream killed that ritual off instantly.

Nope, in five years, other than sporting events, cable and broadcast networks will have to make most of their money off of a monthly subscription service. We don’t want schedules and we don’t want commercials.

It’s a whole new world.

–‘TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON’ TO BE RE-RELEASED IN IMAX THEATERS–

The sickest I’ve ever been was some 20 years ago back when I was living in Milwaukee. Something got into the city water that actually killed some elderly people and while my life was never in danger, I did want to die. In the middle of all this anguish, Errol Flynn’s “Robin Hood” was playing on television — one of my favorite films. Laying there — nauseous, fevered, chilled, and aching to a point where even the wonder of Nyquil had no effect — and watching Errol Flynn woo Olivia De Havilland in glorious Technicolor had a strange psychological effect on me. For fifteen years afterwards, I couldn’t watch “Robin Hood.” The memory of being so ill was so strongly attached to the movie that I just couldn’t do it. My point, and I do have one…

The misery of watching “Transformers 2″ had the exact same effect. Just the thought of seeing it again or any other “Transformers” film is psychologically impossible.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Last of the Mohicans (1992) — The wife and I first moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina in 1993, when Michael Mann’s superb adaptation of the classic James Fenimore Cooper novel was rotating endlessly on cable television. And because the film is shot where we live and captures the wilderness — the terrain, trees, plants, fog, etc. — perfectly, we’ve always associated it with home. In fact, a portion of the film was shot just a few miles from where I’m sitting now.

During our eight-year stay in Los Angeles, homesickness made it impossible to watch even a minute of the film, so last night it was a real treat just to sit back and enjoy the adventures of Hawkeye and Cora once again — this time on glorious Blu-ray.

Man alive, what a soundtrack.

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QUICK HITS

WILL DISNEY’S ‘LONE RANGER’ RIDE ON WITHOUT GORE VERBINSKI?

ROBOT BOXING MOVIES ARE COOL

EXCELLENT ANALYSIS: “10 LESSONS HOLLYWOOD CAN LEARN FROM THIS SUMMER’S MOVIES”

YIKES!

POSTER-A-PALOOZA

THE FAILURES OF NETFLIX: 12,000 TITLES AND NOTHING TO WATCH

“CHRISTMAS STORY”  STAR FINDS DEAD MAN IN HOTEL ROOM

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CLASSIC PICK FOR WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24

FMC:

4:00 pm ET: 100 RIFLES (1969) –Circa 1912, a sheriff (Brown) tracks down an outlaw gun runner (Reynolds) in Mexico and becomes involved with a feud between the local military regime and revolutionaries. Cast: Jim Brown, Raquel Welch, Burt Reynolds, Fernando Lamas, Eric Braeden, Michael Forest, Jerry Goldsmith, Claire Huffaker.

One of those underrated, late 60’s, widescreen Westerns that must have been a blast to watch at the drive-in. Raquel Welch is breathtakingly gorgeous and football great Jim Brown breathtakingly stoic, but it’s Burt Reynolds who steals the show as the  charismatic Mexican revolutionary Brown’s sheriff starts out hunting but ends up joining forces with.

The director is Tom Gries, who also directed the classic “Will Penny” and near-classic (in my humble opinion) “Breakhart Pass.”

The famous sex scene between Brown and Welch was controversial at the time (the whole black/white thing), and the story itself strives for a social conscience, but the decades have worn those elements down to shrug-worthy. Today, you just have the pleasure of a simple story, a ton of star power, and a lot of well-directed action.

Including today’s pick, Welch starred in three outstanding Westerns between 1968 and 1971. “Bandolero” (1968) and “Hannie Caulder (1971) would make for a terrific Sunday afternoon triple-feature along with “100 Rifles.”

–Please send tips/suggestions/requests to jnolte@breitbart.com

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Both this installment and the “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” have made me question my enjoyment of the original. I’ve seen “Transformers” since it arrived in theaters but now that I’ve seen the sequels it spawned, it’s hard to explain how the filmmakers went so wrong in what could have been a fun and exciting series. Both sequels  are overlong affairs, completely devoid of excitement or intrigue.

“Dark of the Moon” begins with a strong action sequence in space showing the battle for Cybertron. With 3D glasses, this battle and several other action sequences are impressive. Reminiscent of the battle sequence from the original “Star Wars,” this scene shows what can be done with the use of strong special effects and 3D.

Soon enough, the story begins rewriting history. Intermixed with clips of actors playing Presidents Nixon and Kennedy, real footage shows the former presidents talk about our nation’s first trip to the moon but the film argues that our goals on the moon were far different than what was stated publicly. Like in “X-Men,” an alternate reality is created using real-life events to supplement the story and in both stories, this alternate history lesson works well. Unfortunately, neither the strong special effects or rewriting history can overcome the story’s shortcomings.

When Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) arrives onscreen, the story goes downhill quickly. Sam is a recent college graduate who, after surviving the events of the first two films,  is searching for a job that is worthy of a man who received a medal from President Obama for saving the planet. Sam is living with his girlfriend, Carly (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley), who is first seen walking up a flight of stairs in her underwear.  That’s all of the character development we get from her; she’s only onscreen to be Sam’s love interest and, inevitably, to find herself in danger.  Surprisingly enough, Megan Fox is missed in this installment. At least, she was able to create a character in the first film.

As usual, the Decepticons are up to no good as they plan to overrule the Earth and Sam and his friends have to unite to stop them. Unfortunately, the plot spends much of its time meandering around with useless story-lines and unnecessary characters so that when the story finally gets moving, it’s hard to get excited. With weak dialogue and a running time of over two and a half hours, “Transformers 3″ could have easily been edited down to a more manageable running time of two hours. Instead, director Michael Bay chooses to fill the film with silly characters and bad dialogue.

At one point, Sam says to his girlfriend “I just want to matter.” In movies like this, none of the characters really matter. It’s all about the special effects and cars fighting against each other. I enjoyed some of the excellent special effects, a few neat cameos and the rewriting history aspect of the film. Unfortunately, everything else feels like a waste.

If Sam really wanted to matter, he wouldn’t be spending his time in a “Transformers” movie.

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Whenever I’m accused of carrying water for conservative-leaning films, my best defense is always “Transformers 2,” which I ranked as number 1,2, and 3 in my list of the five worst films of that year. Love me some Michael Bay for making the Obama administration part of the problem and treating the United States Military with the respect it deserves, but…

And I’m a Michael Bay defender. Other other than the shaky-cam, I didn’t hate the first one, but it’s no exaggeration for me to say that sitting through the sequel was the most purely painful cinema-going experience of my life  … and I’ve seen “Grace is Gone.”

Bay and his star Shia Le-what’s-his-name have both fessed up to the awfulness of part 2 and have a pretty valid excuse for where it all went so wrong, the writer’s strike. So let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and trust they’ve learned from their mistakes.

Hard to judge the three-quel from this trailer but at least the camera doesn’t look like it’s having a seizure. We will know a whole lot more July 1st.

At the end of December 2009, Yahoo compiled a list of the top grossing movies of the year domestically. (Because the list came out in December, “Transformers 2” is featured as the highest grossing movie of the year, rather than “Avatar.”) The Yahoo list featured four sequels, one franchise revival (“Star Trek”), and one James Cameron movie about a planet with blue aliens on it. That latter film, along with “Transformers 2,” will not likely be remembered for its story or its characters, a disappointing realization for moviegoers who want great stories to go along with grand special effects.

“Avatar” may be beloved by some movie critics but few could argue that the story of that movie and its cliched characters and plot are as great as its visual effects. “Transformers 2,”on the other hand, had some good visual effects but its story was boring and many critics hated it, for good reason. It was a really bad film.

Compare those two films to the top two films of 2008: “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man.” At the end of 2008, Yahoo compiled a list of the top ten movies of that year with “The Dark Knight” emerging as the top domestic motion picture of the year. The two top-grossing movies in the United States in 2008 and 2009 all feature a lot of special effects. However, one of the main differences between the top two movies of 2008 and 2009 are the stories (or lack thereof).

Both “Iron Man” and “The Dark Knight” had good stories to go along with their special effects. “Iron Man” was about an unlikely superhero with a lot of personality who made himself into a hero after being held hostage. “The Dark Knight” was about the Caped Crusader fighting against a monstrous villain, played by Academy Award winner Heath Ledger. Both of those films had special effects but those were used to supplement their strong stories, rather than replace them. Along with the special effects, “Iron Man” received recognition for its appealing story and Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in it. Likewise, “The Dark Knight” was known for its great story and Ledger’s grand performance in it.

This is not to say that all of 2009 highest-grossing films lacked good stories. Although I have not seen “Ice Age 3” or “Twilight: New Moon,” I do know that a lot of the top grossing movies on the Yahoo list for 2009 had far better stories than the disappointing “Avatar” or “Transformers 2.” “The Blind Side” had an inspiring story about a family that takes care of a complete stranger and helps him succeed both in sports and in his life.  “The Hangover” had a fun story about a group of guys who wake up in Vegas and then try to figure out what transpired the night before. Lastly, “Up” had a fantastic storyline about a man trying to make up for lost opportunities in life by moving his house to his and his wife’s dream vacation spot.

Each of those movies had good stories and strong characters going for them. “Avatar” and “Transformers 2” did not.

It is no surprise that bad movies ended up of the top ten list of the highest-grossing movies of 2009. Look at “Hancock” as one of the higest grossing movies of 2008. That was an awful movie that did well at the box office. However, 2009 was a year when movies with great special effects proved that they can seriously overcome far better entertainment with stronger stories and better characters.

It is still too early in 2010 to determine if people at the box office are going to prefer mindless entertainment like “Transformers 2,” bad storylines accompanied by great special effects like in “Avatar” or movies that have great stories, strong performances and grand special effects like “The Dark Knight.” I am definitely hoping for the latter as sitting through another movie like  “Transformers 2” sounds like a terrible way to spend part of the new year.