08.03.09 | Jerry Frebowitz | New Releases This WeekPrint this Post
New DVD and Blu-ray Releases for this week include an eclectic group of films sure to please collectors. Ulysses is back and Screwball Comedies take the spotlight.
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Ulysses [DVD] (1955)
It's high adventure, Homer-style, with Kirk Douglas as the brave adventurer who battles the one-eyed Cyclops, encounters sorceress Circe and ignores the sounds of the Sirens before he returns home to his wife Penelope. Anthony Quinn, Silvana Mangano also star; Ben Hecht and Irwin Shaw worked on the script. Through the years, Ulysses has been available before and now Lions Gate Home Video has taken the helm with a crisp, new transfer.
Race To Witch Mountain [DVD] (2009)
Fun-filled re-imagining of the Disney fave "Escape to Witch Mountain" stars Dwayne Johnson as a Las Vegas taxi driver who encounters a pair of alien children (AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig) with extraordinary powers. Teaming with a UFO expert (Carla Gugino), Johnson must help the kids return to their home planet while being pursued by a shady government agent (Ciaran Hinds). Tom Everett Scott co-stars.
Obsessed [DVD] (2009)
In the spirit of "Fatal Attraction" comes this exciting thriller concerning a successful asset manager who climbs the corporate ladder while also caring for his wife and young son. After a sexy office temp with whom he enjoyed a flirtatious relationship with begins stalking him, he suddenly faces losing everything that he has worked so hard for. Idris Elba, Beyonce Knowles, Ali Larter star. Go get 'er, Beyonce!
Mutant Chronicles [DVD] (2008)
Set in the year 2707, this sci-fi epic based on the popular role-playing game has the four biggest corporations on Earth battling for control of the planet's remaining natural resources. But when an army of ancient mutants emerges from a prison deep within the planet, a brave squad of soldiers must fight them and save mankind from certain doom. Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, John Malkovich star.
The Soloist [DVD] (2009)
An encounter with a homeless man (Jamie Foxx) playing a two-stringed violin on the streets of Los Angeles leads a journalist (Robert Downey, Jr.) to write about the musician, a former Julliard prodigy suffering from schizophrenia. But when Downey reaches out to help the combative Foxx, neither man is prepared for what follows. Based on a true story by L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez.
Life On Mars: Series 1 [DVD] (2006)
Mindbending BBC series follows Manchester-based detective Sam Tyler (John Simm) as he is hit by a car in 2006 and awakens to find himself in 1973. While trying to figure out if he is "mad, in a coma, or back in time," he solves cases and squares off against his politically incorrect commanding officer, Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister). Liz White, Dean Andrews, Marshall Lancaster co-star. All eight episodes from the first season are featured in a four-disc set 7 1/3 hrs. total.
Delgo [DVD] (2008)
In the magical world depicted in this computer-animated adventure, the fragile truce between the turtle-like dwellers living on land and the bat-like residents who call the sky their home arouses the ire of an evil royal (voiced by Anne Bancroft) who aims to destroy the race of creatures on the planet's surface. Will fiery political turmoil undo the peace between both races, or can they stave off destruction together? Co-stars the voices of Freddie Prinze, Jr., Chris Kattan, Jennifer Love Hewitt.
The Mysteries Of Pittsburgh [DVD] (2008)
Based on the best-selling novel by Michael Chabon, this coming-of-age tale concerns a recent college graduate in 1980s Pittsburgh who spends the summer with a beautiful girl and her wild boyfriend. While also dealing with his gangster father, he attempts to make sense of life, love, and relationships. Jon Foster, Peter Sarsgaard, Sienna Miller, Mena Suvari, and Nick Nolte star.
Fragments [DVD] (2008)
After a shocking mass shooting at a Los Angeles diner, survivors cope with the aftermath in differing and dramatic ways. While driving instructor Forest Whitaker heads for the casinos, physician Guy Pearce makes secret assaults on his wife; Kate Beckinsale becomes an inattentive parent; and Dakota Fanning turns to faith after witnessing her father's murder. Moving ensemble film co-stars Embeth Davidtz, Troy Garity. AKA: "Winged Creatures."
Brighton Rock [DVD] (1947)
Top-notch crime drama featuring Richard Attenborough in a tour-de-force performance as a leader of a racetrack gang who marries a pretty waitress he needs for a murder alibi, then plans to get her to kill herself. Carol Marsh and Hermione Baddeley also star in Graham Greene's tale. AKA: "Young Scarface."
Ali Baba Goes To Town [DVD] (1937)
When autograph hunter Al Babson (Eddie Cantor) is injured on the set of a film adaptation of "Arabian Nights," he takes too much pain medication and dreams he's in Baghdad where he's mistaken for Ali Baba. Serving as prime minister to the sultan, Babson orchestrates a political reform that deftly satirizes Roosevelt's New Deal. With Tony Martin, Roland Young, June Lang, John Carradine, Gypsy Rose Lee (billed as Louise Hovick), and Raymond Scott and His Quintet.
Creature From Black Lake [DVD] (1977)
Out in the mysterious swamps of Louisiana, a fearsome bayou beast lies waiting for its next victim. Could it be...you? Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple star in this horror treat.
Trocadero [DVD] (1944)
When their foster father dies, two children suddenly find themselves running his financially troubled nightclub. To try and save the place from bankruptcy, they hire whatever acts they can find, including jazz bands, comedians, and even cartoonist Dave Fleischer. Songs include "Shoo-Shoo Baby," "Roundabout Way," "Bullfrog Jump," and more. With Rosemary Lane, Johnny Downs, Ralph Morgan. They don't make 'em like this anymore - but is that good or bad?
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is finally dipping their feet in the water and trying to gather some of the thunder others studios have previously raised by offering their Columbia Pictures classic films in box sets. Sounds like nothing new but the twist here is that many of these Screwball Comedies (video; reference) are being released for the first time to the home video market. Here are two examples new this week:
Icons Of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 1 [DVD]
A chance park bench meeting between a wealthy but unhappy auto magnate (Herbert Marshall) and an unemployed chef (Jean Arthur) leads the two to pose as a married butler/cook team for a mobster (Leo Carrillo). Marshall shines thanks to tips from his own butler, but trouble arises when Arthur proves to be a disaster in the kitchen, in "If You Could Only Cook" (1935). Then, Arthur has "Too Many Husbands" (1940), playing a young woman who finds herself the object of affection of two men: her current hubby (Melvyn Douglas) and the man (Fred MacMurray) she believed was dead. Rosalind Russell and Janet Blair star as sisters who move from Ohio to New York City to succeed as a writer and stage actress, respectively, coming across a succession of wacky characters in the process, in "My Sister Eileen" (1942). Brian Aherne co-stars. And, Russell stars in the delightful "She Wouldn't Say Yes" (1945), about a fiercely independent psychiatrist with no time for romance until she's charmed by one of her patients, a shell-shocked combat artist (Lee Bowman). Two-disc set.
Icons Of Screwball Comedy, Vol. 2 [DVD]
First, the screwball gem "Theodora Goes Wild" (1936) stars Irene Dunne as the writer of a steamy bestseller who uses a pen name to avoid riling the residents of her small town. Manhattan artist Melvyn Douglas takes a liking to Dunne, joining her at home and posing as a gardener, then in the Big Apple, where he must face his politician father and estranged wife. Next, thrown together by chance, medical school teacher Ray Milland and would-be novelist Loretta Young play at being married, only to find they'd like to try it for real, in the frothy comedy "The Doctor Takes a Wife" (1940). Brian Aherne and Young star in the comedic whodunit "A Night to Remember" (1943), about a mystery writer who tries his hand at romance novels, but gets the sleuthing bug once again when a corpse turns up in his backyard. Finally, "Together Again" (1944) stars Dunne as the mayor of a small Vermont town whose burgeoning romance with a big-city sculptor (Charles Boyer) is threatened by everything from local gossip to Dunne's daughter (Mona Freeman), who thinks Boyer is interested in her. Two-disc set.
For details and availability of this week's new releases, click here:
