Hey folks, Harry here… with the first column of June this year! This isn’t a great day of releases. And you’ll see that reflected, but there are some jewels. As always the images and titles link to Amazon for more information and if you feel like purchasing the item – a small percentage goes to support the efforts of this column. Thanks, and I hope you enjoy…

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

WEEDS – Season 4

I’d love to tell you that I checked this out. The discs are here, but the latest Fox/MGM & Lionsgate releases don’t seem to want to play in my system, it is updated. So I’m probably going BluRay player shopping later this week. As I’m getting very aggravated. WEEDS has been an outstanding show for the first 3 seasons and I have no reason to believe otherwise on Season 4.

FINAL FANTASY VII: ADVENT CHILDREN Complete (Blu Ray)

Absolutely gorgeous looking imagery, but story wise it makes me yawn too much. That said, turning the sound off, playing like the collected works of QUEEN loudly and man. Fantastic background entertainment with some wow visuals throughout. I’m not a gamer, so I’m not really up on the mythology of the series. The additional scenes are awesome to look at, but it didn’t do much to change my mind about the overall film, but they’re nice to look at!

DEFIANCE

I really hope this isn’t THE PERFORMANCE OF DANIEL CRAIG’s career. It’s nice, but he has been better and I hope he continues to be better. Actually, Live Schreiber was really quite good in this. Everyone is. And it is a fascinating story from WWII that I hadn’t heard and enjoyed seeing told. It is a great story from history. But I feel it is lacking overall. It didn’t leave me completely satisfied as entertainment or drama. It is a bit like RED DAWN structure wise, and I prefer that film. Gorgeous on Blu Ray.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Great actors, Great director… in completely undesirable material. Their performances are solid. The story is told as well as Mendes could tell it, but frankly – there’s no reason for me to ever revisit it. To really reference it in any way in my life – and I really felt these two characters were just miserable to be around. So negative and whiney about everything. I just thought – these are exactly the sorts of people I avoid in my life, why would I want to spend time with them in a theater or home entertainment system?

THE GRADUATE (Blu Ray)

The best release of the week! Flat out brilliant film at every level. Gorgeous to watch and listen to. I watched this as a double bill with REVOLUTIONARY ROAD – and the former really underlined everything about why that film bored the fuck out of me, while this one. A film about infidelity, fucked up relationships and situations can be done brilliantly! With charm, wit, humor, pathos and intelligence. Of course – it really doesn’t get much better than Dustin Hoffman’s performance here. Or the Simon and Garfunkel songs used throughout. Or the Buck Henry script? Mike Nichols’ direction is spot on! And how fucking amazing is Anne Bancroft in every moment of this film? My favorite moment on the film is the somber final shot after the elation and joy – there’s just a look on Ben & Elaine’s faces that tells me that not all is happy in this ending. That they’re nowhere near out of the woods yet. AND I NEVER WANT A SEQUEL!

GLORY (Blu Ray)

There’s something about this film that never really sat just right with me. Don’t get me wrong, I love the vast majority of the film, but I just was never quite happy with the casting of Matthew Broderick. But overall – a brilliant film and the best work of Ed Zwick’s career thus far. Sony didn’t send a preview disc on this, but I fully intend to pick it up today!

AIR FORCE ONE (Blu Ray)

Again – Sony didn’t get this one to me in advance of this column, but I’m a big fan of this ludicrous President as Action Man genre that was going on around the time this film came out. But I don’t care, because it tickled the shit out of me! Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Glenn Close really keep me interested in the lunacy that Andrew Marlowe concocted and Wolfgang Petersen put together for this film! Another purchase for me today!

INSIDE MAN (Blu Ray)

I really love this Spike Lee film! I love the concept of “a perfect crime” where nobody gets hurt, nothing seems to be gone, but some people really score at the detriment of the real white collar bad guys of this world. Clive is impossibly cool here, as is Denzel and Jodie. I love how the story keeps you guessing. I did check out this disc, as I have the HD DVD as well. Image quality is gorgeous and the discs are pretty much identical to my quick examination of features.

ROAD HOUSE (Blu Ray)

I’ve got this disc, but due to it being an MGM title – it isn’t playing on the system. But I’ve heard nothing but good things on the disc so far. And if you don’t know why you need ROAD HOUSE on Blu Ray… just go back to your HIGH SCHOOL THE MUSICAL 3. And let the men enjoy their awesome via the asskickery of Patrick Swayze! I love ROAD HOUSE!!!

THE JETSONS: Season 2, Vol. 1

I remember when suddenly THE JETSONS returned in the mid-eighties with a vengeance, after only surviving a single season on its original run. I’m really quite fond of these 21 episodes from 1985. However, they’re nowhere near as cool as the work from that one amazing season back in 1962! Definite fun for the family!

FLETCH (Blu Ray)

God I love this movie! Chevy Chase was one of my childhood Gods that I loved in comedies that I probably shouldn’t have been seeing, but that I never missed in theaters or on cable. Watching Chevy in this film – you just can’t help but notice how charming he is, how great his timing is and how physically adept he is to making a scene hilarious with seemingly minimal effort. This Blu-Ray is perfect. My only wish is that Chevy could recapture some of this magic. Amazing and a must own! At least to me.

UNE FEMME MARIEE

Infinitely superior to REVOLUTIONARY ROAD in every way. That it’s just 24 hours regarding an exceedingly surprising “wife” I was never bored, never tired of it. But then I love Jean-Luc Godard. Nice to finally have a print of this to take home!

ANACONDA (Blu Ray)

This is a trashy, shitty film. THAT I LOVE TO WATCH! When that fucking snake vomits out Jon Voight – I cry laughing. Jennifer Lopez is pretty terrible in it. Ice Cube is hilarious. The fx are terrible. And it’s all the funnier in 1080p. This is wildly entertaining shit… just like when you hesitate to flush your own Anaconda, because it is grotesquely amazing to ponder. Same thing here! In 1080p! Giggle.

BRUCE ALMIGHTY (Blu Ray)

Now this was a Jim Carrey COMEDY PERFORMANCE, not YES MAN. I’m so annoyed that James Franco didn’t get the proper props on THE TWILIGHT AWARDS the other night. But seriously, I have fun with this comedy, in particular I like some of the more serious turns when the ramifications of what being GOD means – well I like that. And the effects gags are just better than the ‘kinda sequel’ that occurred to the silence of the world. Fun flick.

DIRECT CONTACT

Like Vern, I liked this flick! It is silly as hell – and very much feels like a throwback, but the surprises, although predictable, were still fun! And Dolph is just so much fun to watch in this. But if you read Vern’s full length review – you probably already are primed to check this out!

THE LEGEND OF THE BLOOD CASTLE

The best film on the Elizabeth Bathory story. Do a wikipedia search on her if the name has you scratching your head. This was made back in 1972 in Spain and is an excellent little film with style and hot hot hot Euro women from the era. But the main thing is, this is a wonderful Bathory film. And one that I’m betting not many of you have seen! This release should solve that for those of you that love the Bathory history and legends!

ROLLERBALL (Blu Ray)

This is a really tragically awful film. It seems they’ve gone in and let it become an R-rated film, though there was a time it was PG 13. That difference doesn’t make a lot of difference unfortunately. This is just fucking dreadful. The greatest shame is that this came from John McTiernan – someone that in many ways is the father of the modern action film – so to see that man, reworking the truly great original ROLLERBALL into an impenetrable load of shit. The greatest travesty is what became of the game itself in the film. Once a game I absolute believed could be real, is now a bullshit American Gladiator crapfest with no real sense to any of it at all.

THE SWEET PUSSYCATS

Aha! You may have see Edwige Fenech in HOSTEL 2, but unless you’re a foreign film perv like me, you probably haven’t! It’s sexy and fun stuff – and Edwige is a delight throughout!

Grindhouse Double Feature: PUNK ROCK / PLEASURE PALACE

I have this, but haven’t seen it yet. I like the Grindhouse Double Feature series. And I love the porn from this era as it’s just more genuinely sleazy than anything we have today. They have a pretty good breakdown over at Amazon – I’m intrigued by the music in PUNK ROCK. This should be interesting.

RETARDEAD

Doesn’t that look brilliant? I saw the box and had to share. This may be the most politically incorrect zombie film yet. Have any of you seen this?

That’s it for this first week of June, next week we’ll be looking at GRAN TORINO, the final season of THE SHIELD, the amazing WOODSTOCK Blu Ray Collector’s edition!, THE INTERNATIONAL, PREDATOR 2 (Blu), Jack Lemmon Collection, FIRED UP, FATAL ATTRACTION (Blu), ZANE GREY THEATRE season 1, INDECENT PROPOSAL, PUPPET MASTER box set and not much else… so I’ll probably talk about THIS AIN’T STAR TREK XXX. Cuz it rules!