There are very few genre classics that have yet to come out on Blu-ray but this year, one of those voids is being filled by Warner Home Video, just ahead of the fourth installment in the series. Here are the official details:

Burbank, Calif. February 25, 2013 – Mad Max, the sci-fi franchise that introduced Mel Gibson to the world, will come together for the first time as a Blu-ray collection when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) debuts the Mad Max Trilogy on June 4^th.

The three films – Mad Max (1979), Mad Max Road Warrior (1982) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) – are all set in the near-future in Australia. From the very first film, Oscar® winner George Miller (Happy Feet, 2006) proved a master at creating the gritty, bleak dystopian world and staging the incredible car stunts and crashes in the era when stuntmen, not computers, achieved the effects. All three movies starred Mel Gibson, virtually unknown until after the second film, as Max Rockatansky, a highway cop traveling through the Outback in a society descending into chaos. The films started Gibson on his road to international superstardom, led to his signature Lethal Weapon series, and later two Academy Awards® for his roles as producer and director of Braveheart (1995).

This must-own collection for action fans is available in limited premium tin packaging and makes a perfect gift for Father’s Day. The collection will sell for $49.99 SRP on Blu-ray Disc™. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, which is making its Blu-ray debut, will also be available as a single along with Mad Max Road Warrior. Order due date for all is April 30th.

About The Films

Mad Max (1979)

George Miller’s first entry in the trilogy, Mad Max packs brutal action and insane stunts as it follows the inevitable downfall of relentless cop Max Rockatansky (Gibson) in a world gone mad. Living on the edge of an apocalypse, Max is ready to run far away from it all with his family. But when he experiences an unfortunate encounter with a motorcycle gang and its menacing leader, the Toecutter, his retreat from the madness of the world is now a race to save his family’s life.

Mad Max Road Warrior (1982)

The sequel to Mad Max, Mad Max Road Warrior provides action-packed, “automotive” entertainment, telling the story of a selfish-turned-selfless hero and his efforts to protect a small camp of desert survivors and defend an oil refinery under siege from a ferocious marauding horde that plunders the land for gasoline.

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985)

Mel Gibson returns for his third go-round as the title hero who takes on the barbarians of the post-nuclear future – and this time becomes the savior of a tribe of lost children. Music superstar Tina Turner co-stars as Aunty Entity, a power-mad dominatrix determined to use Max to tighten her stranglehold on Bartertown, where fresh water, clean food and gasoline are worth more than gold.

THE MAD MAX TRILOGY

ON BLU-RAY

Street Date: June 4, 2013

Order Due Date: April 30, 2013

Catalog/UPC #: 1000334058 / 883929266661

Pricing: $49.99 SRP

Mad Max Run Time: 94 minutes; Rated R

The Road Warrior Run Time: 91 minutes; Rated R

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Run Time: 107 minutes; Rated PG-13

BBXX
By Jerry Scott and Rick Kirkman
335 pages, Andrews McMeel Publishing, $35

In the early days of 1990, a brand new comic strip debuted, perfect for parents of young children and universal in its humor. Coming from veteran writer Jerry Scott with art by Rick Kirkman, Baby Blues was a pretty quick hit, still running in hundreds of papers. Now in its 23^rd year, Andrews McMeel recently celebrated the success with the release of BBXX: Baby Blues Decades 1 & 2.

Unlike a lot of strip collections, this comes with extensive commentary from both creators, annotating and riffing on what prompted particularly strips, gags, characters, and visuals. As a result, this becomes an interesting look back at the development and evolution of a strip that went from two parents and an infant to a five-member family. It caught fire quickly, earning the Ruben Award for Best Comic Strip of the Year in 1995.

Looking back, Kirkman’s early art for parents Wanda and Darryl is simple, emphasizing oversized heads for the bodies with exaggerated features, notably noses. He provided more background detail at first and has simplified his work to the point where there are now just suggestions of background detail.

Each generation appears to create its own family strip with the Nuclear Family of post-World War II represented by Hi & Lois and Family Circle while today we really have Zits! and Baby Blues. All four continue to run, the former two out of inertia while the latter two remain relevant with their contemporary humor. Scott and Kirkman are devoted to focusing on what it means to raise children from birth through toddler-hood through the addition of siblings. The strip opened in 1990 with the birth of Zoe while brother Hammie was added in 1995 with Wren arriving in 2002. As a result, the parents have aged very slowly, from 20-somethings wondering “Now what?” to 30-somethings trying to juggle three distinct personalities and overflowing schedules.

Over the course of the nearly 800 strips in this collection, the last of which is from their 19^th year, 2009, you can watch subtle evolutionary changes. Not only in Kirkman’s art but in the gear parents tote around, the technology being used and the children’s fascination with ever grosser objects or fears. The one constant has been their minivan; the same model has been used from the outset. We also get a hilarious breast milk gag that was done to amuse the creators and which was accidentally sent to the editor, who was out that week so it went out to the newspapers. The gag raised nary an objection, much to their surprise. The Los Angeles Times, though, asked for a substitute strip which is reprinted here for the first time.

Hammie was added largely because Scott finally had a child and Kirkman was experiencing the tribulations of having a second child. “There’s a noticeable shift in the strip that began to take place when Hammie arrived. The characters started to become a little more complex, and the situations, broadened.” This is another reason why the strip grew, endured, and remains entertaining after two decades.

Scott notes in Chapter Three, the period when Wren was introduced, as showing the parents had actually learned a few thigns along the way, making new mistakes instead. He noted “as with real parenting, things inevitably even out to a steady DEFCON 3 or 4. At least until middle school.” We can hope they allow the characters to reach that level and see what happens next.

The book contains some great insight into how the strip and its characters were developed with interstitial Scrapbook sections throughout this entertaining collection. The final chapters look at their critics and the creation process so you really get a nicely rounded look at this universal family and their place in the comic strip world.

After years of being vaguely aware that there exists a movie in which Christian Bale is the star and the most ridiculously-named martial art ever, “Gun Kata,” is also a thing, I finally sat down to watch Equilibrium last weekend. (Netflix is responsible for many of my viewing decisions these days, for which I am unashamed. The very minute I saw they’d added this, it went in my queue.) From beginning to end and even after the credits rolled, I found myself saying, “This movie is awesome.”

If by awesome, of course, you mean at times both grandiose and sublimely ridiculous. I may also have been laughing hysterically when I said it. I may have even slapped my knee. I may have then gone to Twitter and posted, “OMG you guys, Equilibrium is the craziest movie. The craziest.” Regardless of all of that probably not being the reaction writer and director Kurt Wimmer was going for, I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Equilibrium is about a post-WWIII future in which some doofus the citizens refer to as “Father” decided that the way to avoid a fourth World War (which it was postulated humanity could not survive) was to eliminate human emotion in the population, and apparently everybody else was just A-OK with that. The movie’s government “eliminates” emotion by a) administering a mind-numbing drug (Prozium) that citizens are required to take at regular intervals; and b) destroying anything remotely artsy or multicolored, and killing those who have tried to keep it because they are guilty of having feelings, which in this film is called a “sense offense.” (I love the way that sounds. “What’s his crime? Sense offense!!!” It’s so dramatic.) The government enforces its will with “Clerics,” who go wherever anyone is, as the Internet would say, “having feels” about something, and, you know, shoots them in the head, efficiently and martial-artsily. (This is where the Gun Kata comes in.)

John Preston (Christian Bale) is the Mary Sue Cleric who is super amazingly good at knowing (one might almost say sensing) when someone is having the feels, and at killing them in various efficient and emotionless ways, and burning art and stuff. There’s also a plot that includes Taye Diggs and is actually supposed to be a driving part of the main storyline, but it pales in comparison to watching Christian Bale a) kill people and burn things in various dramatic ways; and b) manage to somehow get his acting point across while being completely “emotionless.” He’s actually very good at it (and when he finally quirks a tiny smile it’s fantastic). I also suspect this role was superb practice for calm and methodical Batman.

Anyway, actual plot aside, the movie is mostly about what happens when Mr. Mary Sue goes off his meds. Hint: it involves a lot of gratuitous violence. The script has some interesting points it’s trying to make, but they never quite land, and I think it’s because the suspension of disbelief required is just too much. The audience is asked to believe that everyone just acquiesced to this silly “no feelings” rule as the best way to eliminate war; and then the few at the top of the government (who obviously must be having, as the internet says, “all the feels,” while the population gets none, because I doubt they could run the government while on Prozium) use ultraviolent war-like tactics anyway to wipe out anyone who’s still feeling; and so we know the government is corrupt and doesn’t believe its own message; but then we never see any benefit the few government folks who are running the Clerics and everyone else actually get except at one point when we see that the head dude, Dupont, has a nice office (with art!); and, and, and…what exactly is the point being made here? That it’s important to feel things? That art is good? That people will try to repress you using shoddily thin reasoning just for the hell of it? I think it’s trying to say something about free will, but I’m not 100% sure, because the movie never exactly gets wherever it’s trying to go in that regard.

There’s also the fact that none of the people who are supposed to be “not feeling” are that good at it. For instance, Taye Diggs’ character Brandt is a Cleric who keeps saying he’s going to “make his career” with Preston; so he’s ambitious. Which, one would assume, is one of the “feelings” the government would be most keen on eliminating, because ambition can sure cause a lot of war and stuff, eh? Nevertheless, one of the main “unfeeling” characters is practically blazing with ambition throughout the movie. He also shows a tiny bit of (sadistic) humor. Is he off his meds, too? Why would he be? It doesn’t seem to really advance the government’s plans for him to be feeling. It’s a total contradiction. And then there’s Sean Bean’s Cleric, Partridge, who has been on and off his meds and just pretending to be an unfeeling bastard for about two weeks when the movie starts. And William Fichtner’s underground fighter, who is not on meds but forcing himself not to feel so he can help the others who do. And then we find out there are even more characters who somehow suddenly decided to stop their mind-numbing meds and are just pretending. So clearly the Prozium doesn’t work that well, and the government should have fallen long before Superstar Cleric John Preston decided to rebel. It’s all just a little hard to swallow.

But putting all of that aside; oh the fun of this movie! There is a lot to love about it despite the contradictions and leaps in logic, including that it seems to actually be taking itself seriously. (Also that Kurt Wimmer apparently “invented” Gun Kata “in his back yard” Hah!) This is a movie that’s trying to be at least four movies at once – it’s got the serious “dystopian” message; the visual aspect that reminds me at times of an art film (like the scene with Preston at his bedroom window); the “emotional” journey of a lead character; and the amazingly gratuitous violence of a Bruce Willis/Vin Diesel/Jason Statham/insert-other-action-hero-here film, all snuggling up with each other to somehow produce a decently cohesive film.

The dystopian message, while hopelessly muddled, is at least somewhat interesting. Visually, the movie is pretty darned cool. The stark uniforms and buildings; the (hit-you-over-the-head metaphor) contrast of Bale’s black and white outfits; and the way they make the “feeling” underground area a mix of great art and graffiti that contrasts with the colorless overworld are all appealing. Amazingly, Christian Bale’s acting in a movie which for the most part is supposed to be showing people not feeling at all kept me interested, in that kind of “fascinated scientist/trainwreck-watcher way, in what was going to happen next. And the action, while insane, is fun to watch; from Bale taking out a roomful of guards in seconds in a pristine white suit, to the bit where he apparently pushes a button or something and nail-heads suddenly jut from the bottom of two gun barrels so that he can use the guns to more effectively smash guards in the face. (Seriously, who even thinks of that? Or is that an actual real-life thing for some reason?)

Look, I’m not even going to pretend that Equilibrium is a “great” movie, nor that I enjoyed it in the way Wimmer intended. It is ridiculous and violent, with pretensions of grandeur and thinkiness. It’s a little bit Boondock Saints-ish, but with less of a linear point being made, and even more gratuitousness to the violence. It takes itself so seriously that it comes out the other side and becomes slightly cheesy. But the combination of action and attempts at making a grand statement make for a movie that at least kept my attention, and it has the right amount of cheese to make it enjoyable to watch. Despite having only one outright humorous line in the whole film, I laughed a lot. Plus, of course, Christian Bale is smokin’, and we get Sean Bean and William Fichtner acquitting themselves well, too. (If only Oliver Platt had played the government leader Dupont instead of Angus Macfadyen, the casting would have been perfect.) I’m not saying Equilibrium is for everyone; but if you go into the movie for the words “Gun Kata” and “Christian Bale” you probably won’t be disappointed.

So if you’re looking for a movie to watch this week and have streaming Netflix…well, you know what I’d recommend.

Enjoy! And until next time, Servo Lectio!

TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Michael Davis

WEDNESDAY MORNING: Mike Gold