Ed. Note: Please welcome Hunter Duesing to the BH family. For a while now he’s put together a terrific weekly review of new DVD releases for our friends over at Parcbench. My thanks to both for allowing us to syndicate the column here. — J.N. 

I have plenty of nostalgia for Tron, it was a neato movie that seemed to interpret computer and video game culture in a manner that was cutting-edge for the time.  In anticipation of the sequel, I revisited the original, and I was very surprised to find it didn’t quite hold up.  I’m not saying it’s bad movie, but rather, it hasn’t exactly aged well.  The tech jargon that once seemed hip now seems rather quaint.  Technology never slows down, but it seems that movies that dwell in the day’s latest tech culture are always riding a wave that eventually breaks and turns to muck when it washes up on the shore.  Still, when looked at as a tech time capsule, Tron is pretty neat, but my disappointment in revisiting it killed my enthusiasm for catching Tron: Legacy in the theater.  Despite the lukewarm critical reaction, people I trust actually had great things to say about, and given I’ve already taken to Daft Punk’s excellent score, I plan to give it a shot on Blu-ray.  This week, Disney is releasing not only Tron: Legacy on Blu-ray and DVD, but its predecessor as well.  The original film’s lack of availability prior to and during the theatrical run of the sequel was baffling, however the entire Tron experience will be available for all in hi-def, so you can now take a trip down memory lane with the original and enjoy the new film back-to-back at your leisure.

Tron is available on Blu-ray/DVD combo

Tron: Legacy is available on 3D/Blu-ray/DVD combo

Both are available together in a collector’s package

If you’re a super-hardcore Tron fan, then this monstrosity is probably what you’re looking for…

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Hollywood, hear our plea:  Could you make some mainstream movies that don’t suck?  There’s nothing worse than a Christmas season where going to the movies seems about as appealing as sharing a straw with Lindsay Lohan.

Throw us a bone – how about more than just one or two flicks a year not targeted to the demographic that thinks Lady Gaga is a boundary-pushing icon of limitless creative vision?  Maybe a couple that are not focused on shiny supernatural creatures who chat about their feelings and stare longingly into the eyes of dead-eyed starlets acting as the surrogate for the millions of lonely shut-ins who adore them?  Just a few films not aimed squarely at creepy man-children dwelling in their moms’ Kleenex-strewn basements wishing they too could winch their bloated tushes into tights and fight crime just like their cinematic heroes.

How about more than just a handful of movies for men and women who need more than five hands to count out their age, who breathe through their noses, who have lives?  I have some dough – well, at least until the President and his fellow travelers declare me rich too – and I’d like to take my hot wife out once in a while to see a movie.  I used to go a lot, a few times a month.  But it seemed that five years ago there were always at least a few movies that piqued my interest.  Perhaps it’s me – perhaps I’m too demanding, what with my stubborn insistence on interesting stories told in a coherent manner by competent actors.  Or perhaps it’s just that the recent crop of movies is exceptionally crappy.

Let’s address the curmudgeon question here and now – yes, I have occasionally turned my hose on those damn kids when they messed up my lawn, but hobbies aside, the fact is that Hollywood is both leaving money on the table and sacrificing what little artistic credibility it has left by ignoring the normal adult demographic.  It appears that Hollywood has simply thrown in the towel and decided to focus on feeding formulaic moron fodder to a waiting cohort of slack-jawed ninnies eager for the next story about a magical robot or a superhero with issues. (more…)

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Director Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan (December 3rd) is getting good reviews from some reviewers I trust but it’s all so Oscar-baity and bloated with importance, especially the widely publicized and now seemingly obligatory (if you want Academy attention) lesbian love scene between Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. Yeah, they’re both hot (especially Kunis) but wouldn’t a near-kiss as the camera pans away to curtains blowing in the wind save the actresses from having to go through all the awkward discomfort while still accomplishing the same story beat. It’s all so gratuitous, as though the “brave” willingness to write, perform and direct such a scene in and of itself makes you more worthy of an Oscar. I may see the film and feel differently, especially in my pants, but this is Trailer-O-Rama!

Anyway, yet another film about talented, upscale artists and their problems. Like 99.9% of America I can’t relate and am therefore working on summoning a care.

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I Love You, Phillip Morris (December 3rd) has been famously run through the distribution torture mill for some time now and this energetic and funny trailer should help. The opening, which cleverly deceives the unsuspecting into thinking the film is a standard Christmas comedy, has a lot of pep, a few good laughs, but it’s also awfully, uhm, not heterosexual. And haven’t we seen it all before? The whole con man/fast life/rise/fall/redemption thing? It’s like “Casino Jack” but with “gay-gay-gay” guys and Judd Apatow’s wife.  (more…)

1982. Maybe, perhaps, one could go out on a limb and declare it, I dunno, the Best Year Ever for movies. If one were so inclined. There were obvious movies like Rocky III, Poltergeist, and Tron …there are too many great ones to list, and I don´t want to get sidetracked The Thing, Six Pack, First Blood because there’s just not enough space, Friday the 13th: 3D. Let’s just get to the film’s nominated:

Missing: Really good movie, not much re-watchability.

Tootsie: Not one misstep in this bad boy. Works like a clock, seems simple, but all the moving parts have to work perfectly, and they do. Possibly my favorite comedy, sometimes I think it might be the best movie ever.

Gandhi: The Best Picture winner. They threw this one in to make me a cynic. I appreciate it now, but at the time, you couldn’t pay me to see it. In terms of awards, this is the safest movie of the bunch.

The Verdict: Good Lord, what a movie. I almost love it but…

E.T.: When I was a kid, it was my solid choice to win. And I still love it, but… (more…)

Hard to believe the lovely actress Cindy Morgan was once told she belonged behind the camera, not in front of it.

Morgan, who became a pop culture sensation by playing Lacey Underall in “Caddyshack,” started her career in broadcasting. “I ran camera, I ran sound,” Morgan tells Big Hollywood. “But they wouldn’t let me on camera. ’You’ll never get a job,’ they said.

A few years later, she was sharing the screen with Chevy Chase in the 1980 comedy classic.

Morgan’s “Caddyshack” role gave her an early lesson in how Hollywood works, and it wasn’t pretty. The day before her nude scene, a producer called to say a Playboy photographer would be on set to snap pictures which would run in the nudie magazine. (more…)