This Week on DVD & Blu-ray (03-19-13)

We got ourselves an Oscar-heavy week of releases this week! From Tuesday to Friday, you’ll find three movies, all close to three hours in length, that have received Academy Award nominations recently. They are all very different films, two of them have a built-in audience (“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” & “Les Misérables”,), and the other one (“Zero Dark Thirty”) was unfairly maligned, mostly by people who decided they wouldn’t see it.  “Rust and Bone” is a film that Oscar snubbed, yet it received other nominations for Marion Cottilard’s fine performance.  If I had to list them off, from “Must Watch” to “Take Your Time”, it would look something like this….

The two comedies that I’ve seen that are out this week are considered raunchy, yet not-so-funny. In fact, “This is 40“, starring Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, Megan Fox and Albert Brooks, is borderline annoying and kind of mean-spirited. I saw it when I was 40. The Judd Apatow film didn’t really feel very real or accurate – it just felt like more affluent white people problems. Unfortunately, the most I remember about the movie is that it was a missed opportunity.

“Bachelorette” is the other movie. It premiered at Sundance 2012 before hitting the VOD venue last summer where it scored high on the rental charts. It stars Kirsten Dunst, Isla Fisher and Lizzie Kaplan as long-time friends who get back together as bridesmaids for a friend’s (Rebel Wilson) wedding in New York City. Sounds like “Bridesmaids” but it’s not. It’s more real, mean-spirited yet quite funny.

The real big draw this week are two Criterion releases (surprised?) – they are “Badlands” the first feature-length film from American auteur Terence Malick and “The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp“, the Powell/Pressburger film that’s considered to be the finest British film ever made.  Two highly-influencial films from different countries.

That’s it for this week! Previous reviews are highlighted below. Enjoy the Rundown….

• Angus Buchan’s Ordinary People (DVD) 
• Bachelorette (DVD/Blu-ray)
• Badlands (Criterion Collection) (DVD/Blu-ray)
• The Big Picture (DVD/Blu-ray)
• Dark Feed (DVD)
• Face to Face (2011)
• Fatherland (DVD)
• Ghost Hunters: Season 8, Part 1 (DVD)
• Ghost Storm (DVD)
• Gottfried Helnwein and The Dreaming Child (DVD)
• The Great Magician (DVD/Blu-ray)
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Two-Disc Special Edition) (DVD/Blu-ray)
• The Hunt for Bin Laden (DVD)
• Jersey Shore: The Final Season (DVD)
• The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Criterion Collection) (DVD/Blu-ray)
• Les Misérables (DVD/Blu-ray) – March 22nd!
• Live at Montreux 1991: Miles Davis with Quincy Jones (DVD/Blu-ray)
• My Brother Jonathan (DVD)
• On Approval (1944) (Blu-ray)
• The Other Son (DVD/Blu-ray)
• Quincy, M.E.: Season Five
• Rust and Bone (DVD/Blu-ray)
• Sesame Street: Best of Friends (DVD)
• Shadow People (DVD)
• Strange Frame (DVD)
• This Is 40 (DVD/Blu-ray) – March 22nd!
• Zero Dark Thirty (DVD/Blu-ray)