The Top 5 DVD's for 2/9/10

PICK OF THE WEEK – A Serious Man (DVD/Blu-ray)

 

After winning best picture, and then doing a star-studded black comedy, A Serious Man was a very small film from the Coens, and snuck in and out of theaters. Now that it’s on home video, it’s a best picture nominee. I wonder if having ten slots is like splitting up the Olympics to be every two years. I can’t tell if this will help more films, or if it will ultimately sully the awards. Who would have thought District 9 would be a best picture nominee, but then again no one treats it as a real contender. That said, this year, there’s Christoph Waltz and the four other guys who are going to lose to him, so it’s not like the number of nominees changes one’s ability to narrow the possible winner down to a choice between two or three. This black comedy may have been too Job-like for the mainstream, and Focus didn’t seem to know how to take it mainstream, but the Coens are the Coens. You have to respect.

 

REISSUE - The Running Man (Blu-ray)

 

Like all children of the 80’s, I watched a lot of terrible movies on home video, and often would watch them repeatedly. When it came to Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, I also always knew I could interest my father. So I’ll always have a special place for films like this, that may not have been all that original, or well directed, or particularly good, but damn if it didn’t entertain the crap out of me when I was younger. Oh Arnie, set up for caring about the people, and forced to play in a gladiator game rigged to kill you. It’s hard out there for you, isn’t it? This also has the collar that if you go outside the wrong area your head will explode. Is The Running Man a guilty pleasure? Hell yes, but the best kind, because it’s violent and stupid, but never pretends to be anything else.

 

NEW – Bronson (DVD/Blu-ray)

 

I first saw Tom Hardy in a little film called Star Trek: Nemesis, which a friend nicknamed Emesis. It is a terrible movie and finished off the now useless run of Star Trek Next Gen films. That cast just didn’t segue well into the big screen, and I’m not talking about Riker’s gut. But Hardy obviously had talent, and he walked out of Bronson back on track to be something, after a couple of years of supporting work (cinematically of course). I believe he has it in him, and if he starts appearing in more and more movies, this is the reason why.

 

Reissue– The Phantom (Blu-ray)

 

There’s a bunch of old Paramount titles (like Drop Zone and Hard Rain) that it appears have reverted to Lionsgate. Also coming is The Relic. I’m always sort of amused/interested when catalog titles change hands, but it's a useless curiousity. The Phantom, much like The Shadow, came out a couple years too early for its own good, and didn’t quite work as a straight action movie. I think the problem with both is tone, and just the 1990-ness of it all. Still, I have to say that I enjoy the movie in a warts and all sort of way, because it’s an honest attempt at ripping off Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well, there’s more to it than that, but it’s going for a retro vibe that was just out of place at the time. Billy Zane and the majority of the cast (Treat Williams, James Remar) are trying, and it has Catherine Zeta-Jones right before she broke out, and Kristy Swanson at the end of her “could be a leading lady” run.

 

RETRO – Satan’s Wife (DVD)

 

This is Amazon’s plot description: “Four beautiful young women surrender to the fiendishly charm of Lucifer himself. But their nights of unholy pleasure have a price: they can't have sex with other men, for the Lord of Darkness is a very jealous lover indeed. The otherworldly fruits of these bestial couplings go by the names of Almarisa and Daria. While the former starts to loathe herself as soon as she realizes who her father really is, the latter perversely learns how to enjoy her devilish skills to wreak havoc in the human world. To put an end to her hellish endeavours, a very unlikely exorcist is enlisted.” That+cover = SOLD AMERICAN.