Tagged: DVD

Review: ‘Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection’ on DVD

tom-and-jerry-chuck-jones-collection1-7827852I have to laugh when I watch old [[[Tom and Jerry]]] cartoons. First, of course, because they’re funny. The original series of 114 theatrical cartoons by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Hollywood cartoon studio were produced between 1940 and 1957, seven of them winning the Academy Award for Best Short Subject (Cartoons)…a tie for most awards, one should note for the animation snobs out there, with Walt Disney’s [[[Silly Symphonies]]] animated series. A series of perfectly dreadful and too-often released cartoons followed, produced in Eastern Europe (cheap labor, I would imagine, and worth what they paid for it), produced by Gene Deitch at Rembrandt Films in 1960 before, thank the animation heavens, there came Chuck Jones in 1963.

Which brings us to Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection, hitting stores on Tuesday. Jones was one of the handful of master animators to influence the entire look and feel of the Warner Bros. animated line with his Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, Tweety and Sylvester and countless other cartoons. But after 30 years, the studio closed its animation section and Jones set up his own shop, Sib Tower 12 Productions, with partner Les Goldman. MGM came knocking, and the 34 madcap adventures included in this collection was the result.

The second reason I find to laugh at these, or any classic animated shorts is because of how the reality of these characters clashes with the perception that has grown up around them since the 1950s when they began appearing as Saturday morning children’s programming. These cartoons were not created, originally, as children’s fare. They were, instead, part of a program of entertainment shown to adult movie audiences in a day and age when theaters routinely ran double features and the bill changed twice a week. Before, between and after the movies, however, came a variety of subjects: a newsreel, a short feature (usually humorous), a cartoon, and coming attractions, at the minimum. Look at a World War II era Bugs Bunny cartoon; that was not kid’s stuff!

Because as I watch these cartoons—and they are a lot of fun, have no doubt of that—I’m struck at how mercilessly violent they are. Heavy objects routinely fall and crush their victims (Tom), explosives blow in hand or in the victim’s (Tom’s) mouth, an axe used to chop open a mouse hole chops a victim’s (Tom’s) tail like a chef chops a carrot. The network censors chopped a lot of that material out of the cartoons when they went to TV in the 1960s, and, by the 1980s, the original essence of these little seven minute masterpieces was corrupted beyond redemption, to the point that as the writer of the Tom and Jerry syndicated newspaper strip for Editor’s Syndicate around 1990, I was told Tom could chase Jerry, but if he caught him, he could do him no harm. No hitting, no smashing, no slamming, certainly no chopping of tails. These guys were pals they just chased one another for fun.

Bugs Bunny has suffered a similar fate in the modern world: A friend working on a Bugs Bunny promotional comic book project was told by WB to change a gag because “Bugs would never produce a mallet out of nowhere and whack someone like that!”

But thanks to home video and DVD and the demand of the marketplace for original and uncut material, the truth is coming out. Tom and Jerry is funny and it’s funny because it’s violent. Take away the psychedelic randomness and well-constructed but mean-spirited violence of a situation like Tom and Jerry or the Road Runner and Wiley E. Coyote and all you’re left with is the existential angst of the eternal loser pursuing that well-known definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again in expectation of a different result.

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Review: ‘Defiance’ on DVD

We here at ComicMix write about heroes all the time. They tend to be muscle-bound, wear spandex and appear in the fevered imaginations of writers and artists. In the real world, people are given the title hero when they are bystanders, victims, or their feats are fairly ordinary. As a result, the term has been somewhat watered down and in need of rehabilitation.

The process could have begun last winter when two movies about World War II were released, featuring very different kinds of heroes. Neither Valkyrie nor Defiance made a lot of noise at the box office nor did they ignite a debate over the nature of heroism in times of war. And that’s a shame, really, since in the former, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was a patriot, a German who saw Hitler for the devil he was and risked everything to take him down, paying for it with his life.

[[[Defiance]]] visited a different side of the war, that of the victims, the Jews who rose above their adversity and defied by Nazis by surviving, led by three amazing brothers. Bother films suffered because by the time they were made and released, the country’s mood was too dour to pay attention to serious dramas or care about dated acts of heroism.

Today, though, Defiance comes out on disc and worth a look. Again, an incredible story from the war has been uncovered and brought to the screen. Edward Zwick first began writing this story in 1999, based on Nechama Tec’s [[[Defiance: The Bielski Partisans]]], and finally managed to shoot the story in 2007, starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell as the brothers Bielski. They were your lower class workers in Belarus when the Germans began killing the Jews. To survive, they fled into the forest where they played as boys. Fairly quickly, the scattered refugees in the forest coalesced around these three, who took on the responsibility of caring for them, and more importantly, organizing them to survive the impending winter.

While the film focused entirely on that first formative year, it should be noted they survived in the forest for three years, with over 1200 walking to freedom when the war ended.  The brothers had their differences, with Tuvia (Craig) and Zus (Schreiber) arguing over what to do and Zus eventually leaving to serve with the Russians for a time. But we see how these “street smart” people came to lead a motley crew of intellectuals, peasants, upper class, and just plain folk who needed guidance. We watched as news reached them of now-dead loved ones, including Tuvia and Zus’ wives. In time, people took Forest Wives and Husbands, seeking comfort where they could.

Zwick is no stranger to historical tales ([[[Glory]]]), and brings the same attention to detail and character here. Not only do the brothers evolve over the course of the story, but we watch all the bit players adapt, change, and grow; filling the screen with a sense of life that Bryan Singer’s Valkyrie was devoid of.  The movie is not entirely faithful to history as combat sequences including the climax were added for “Hollywood” concerns but their struggles, especially the harsh winter, ring true.

The film is backed by several special features. The 30 minute Making Of shows the attention to the little things extended to the weapons, costumes, and makeup – all well displayed. Zwick took portraits of some of those who survived and we’re treated to a nice black and white gallery. Children of the Otriad: The Families Speak, though, is the highlight, as the children and grandchildren of the Bielskis talk of their fathers and what they were like after the war. Whereas Asael (Bell) died soon after these events, the two remaining brothers survived and worked side-by-side in the trucking industry here in America for 30 years. We see them as older men in bar mitzvah footage, and it’s hard to see these elders as war heroes but there they were and while Zus still had a spark of life, Tuvia carried a gravity about him. Lilka (Alexa Davalos), the woman who came to marry Tuvia after meeting in the forest, never seems happy in the footage. Her children spoke of her inability to fully enjoy anything, another price exacted by World War II.

Review: ‘[[[Valkyrie]]]’ on DVD

valkyrie-dvd-5151520World War II seems to have generated countless stories about heroism and bravery, stories told for the point of view of the allies and the axis, stories told about life on the homefront and life in the foxhole. As a result, it remains an enduring source of fodder for filmmakers as more and more details come to the surface. Through the 1950s and 1960s, most of the WW II movies were highly fictionalized accounts and by the 1970s war stories were played out, fewer and further between. In the last decade, we’ve had history to sift through and we now know of [[[Schindler’s List]]]. Valkyrie, Bryan Singer’s entry into the pantheon, intended to tell us of the closest a plot to assassinate Hitler came to working.  Presuming you were taught anything about the war in school, you might not even know there were over a dozen attempts to kill the Chancellor of the German Republic.

It’s a story worth telling but it should have been better told. The film was well structured by writers Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and Singer is to be commended for shooting on location, which gave the film a great look. The cast, led by Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp, Bill Nighy and Eddie Izzard, is to-notch with many performers closely resembling their real world counterparts.

All that was missing was giving a damn about any of these players. The script drained each and every character of personality, sapping the energy out of a story that should have been as compelling as the facts. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, credited as the mastermind behind using Hitler’s own Project Valkyrie against him, was actually an outspoken critic of Nazi Germany. He was a brilliant, well-educated man who spoke multiple languages, loved literature and was partial to horses as well as being a family man, raising four children and embarking on his mission while his wife carried their fifth child.

Wish some of that came through beyond perfunctory scenes of him leaving the family to go kill the Führer.  Cruise is restrained but also bland. The others allying himself were also drained of personality so we never understand why everyone revered Ludwig Beck (Stamp), who was actually quite the legendary figure and a reason so many signed up for the July 20 Plot. Instead, Stamp sits around and makes phone calls.

The actual plot is like a [[[Mission: Impossible]]] story with the usual complications but add to this a lack of conviction on the parts of various players, which at first slows and later tips the balance of action on that fateful day in 1944.  It’s fascinating to see the way communications worked back then, and how people had to sit around and wait for the news over the teletype or radio.

In the end, though, we see how the plot failed and what became of the conspirators but by then, their fates leave you unmoved because after nearly two hours you don’t care about any of them.

Instead, you can skip the movie and go the special features on the DVD, now available. There’s the usual Making Of which shows the detail that went into securing the locations and what some of the locale people thought of the production, especially those still alive who recalled that day. But, best of all, is the 42-minute documentary from Kevin Burns that tells a far more compelling story as the children of von Stauffenberg and other conspirators discussed what they remember plus what their lives were like in the years that followed. This made us care and showed an aftermath the film barely acknowledged. The documentary also tells us some 700 people associated with the plot were tried – that’s a much larger scope than implied in the film which would have given the story more impact.

If I were you, I’d rent the disc, skip the film and watch the documentary.

Review: ‘[[[Taken]]]’ on DVD

taken1-3080009No one knew what to make of Taken when it opened in late January and the film garnered largely positive reviews but as the winter dragged on, the Liam Neeson action film took in more and more money. As it hits DVD, the global box office take stands at a robust $220,789,777 and was the feel good movie of the season.

The movie, though, is thoroughly predictable. Liam’s 17-year-old daughter goes to France with a pal and immediately gets kidnapped by a white slavery ring. Former Special Forces (or whatever) Dad flies over and is told he has a mere 96 hours to find her of she vanishes forever. So, we know there will be mayhem, the clock will tick down and he will save her. It’s a modern day Charles Bronson flick. I get that.

The trick is to make the journey an enjoyable one and frankly, it’s so standard that there’s little to be entertained by. Fights, car chases, double-crossing people, been there, seen that.

Neeson is not your first thought as an action star, [[[Star Wars]]]  not withstanding. He’s more the everyman and he wrings your sympathy and you cheer to see him in action, regardless of the predictable outcome.

What would have been a lot more interesting would have been to show us two points of views, not just Liam Neeson’s. The most original thing in the film is the moment he tells her she will in fact be kidnapped. From that point, it would have interesting to see parallel tracks – while Liam Neeson sought his daughter throughout Paris; we also see what Maggie Grace as the daughter had to endure. As it stands, she appears to be the only one who was not drugged, not sold right into street prostitution and by happenstance, the sole virgin capping off an auction for international clientele. That makes her a little too precious and frankly, would have given Grace, a capable actress if too old for the role, something to do other than look terrified or cry.

In fact, other than Neeson, no one is given much of anything to do or so say to round out the story and show us the world Neeson thought he left behind.

Cowritten by Luc Besson ([[[The Professional]]]) and Robert Mark Kamen ([[[The Transporter]]] films), the film felt on autopilot from beginning to end. And with 96 hours to accomplish his task, we’re never given a good sense of when Neeson sleeps, eats, or actually rests. Sure, he’s driven, but he can’t be at his peak for that length of time and the story avoids the issue entirely, a common problem with stories like these. Pierre Morel directs with a nice attention to detail and setting, getting a good, smoldering performance from Neeson but everything else looked pretty much like his Transporter.

The movie comes in the release edition and an extended version that amplified the violence here and there but adds nothing to the story and barely three minutes to running time. The extras are perfunctory with Le “Making Of” featuring everyone gushing over how wonderful everyone else was. The Inside Action: Side by Side Comparisons of six sequences is more interesting.

The stars and crew are all capable of so much more; the overall product is a lackluster affair.

‘Transformers’ and ‘G.I. Joe’ sets coming to DVD

  • News
  • April 13, 2009

Shout! Factory, the happy folks behind, well, lots of DVD collections (I’m fond of Greg The Bunny myself) has signed a multi-year deal with Hasbro to release DVDs of several animated properties based on the toymaker’s product lines, according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Included in the deal are episodes of the 1980s animated Transformers and G.I. Joe TV series , and the direct-to-DVD animated movie My Little Pony: Twinkle Wish Adventure.  The Transformers: The Complete First Season  25th Anniversary Edition releases June 16, 2009.  For those of you about to check your calendars, that is a week before Paramount and DreamWorks release Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on June 24.

According to ICv2, Shout Factory plans to release improved versions of the episodes that were previously released on DVD by Rhino, and to complete the GI Joe run, which was only partially completed by Rhino. The episodes will have remastered video and a new stereo soundtrack created from the original audio.  Extras will include a printable script, rare PSAs, toy commercials, concept art, a limited edition Autobot magnet, and the featurette “Triplechanger:  From Toy to Comic to Screen:  The Origins of the Transformers.”

And of course, we’d be remiss if we didn’t point to the wonderful comics currently coming out from IDW.

Review: ‘The Tudors’ Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD

Henry VIII was a rock star in his day. Anne Boleyn was the fashion plate. Their doings were covered as the pop culture of their day (after all, there wasn’t much else to do). The doings of the Royal Family captivated the English people as much then as it fascinates today. It’s little surprise then that given the politics, power plays, sex, and war that The Tudors had not come to television before Showtime debuted their interpretation in 2007.

With the third season poised to begin on April 5, it’s high time we looked at the first seasons, both now available on DVD from Paramount Home Video.

Today, most people know two things about Henry VIII: he was fat and he had six wives as he sought an heir. A few more would know he formed the Church of England in a major schism with the Pope so he could divorce his first wife and marry the more attractive Anne.

The series pens with Henry when he was young, virile and active. He was a sportsman, a musician, and well-read.  He was also rather randy since, after all, rank hath its privileges. He married Catherine out of obligation not love, although she loved him and remained faithful despite the horrible things done to her in his quest for marital freedom. Season one showed his displeasure with the situation and his growing infatuation with Anne, who wisely didn’t put out until they were married.

Season two followed Anne’s inability to produce a male heir, losing Henry’s attention as his eyes found Jane Seymour. His break from the Church finally occurred and he was left to build his own series of churches.

It’s all fascinating stuff, unless, of course, you know anything about the era then discover the 20 episodes aired to date are rife with anachronisms and inaccuracies. Writer/Creator Michael Hirst defends his choices as saying he was hired to produce entertainment not a documentary and that buys him a fair amount of latitude.

The liberties, though, compress events and change things around. For whatever reason, having seen one Pope in the first season, they bring his successor on stage for the second season, much as Henry seems to go through wives. To make the show work at all, a lot of time compression happens so Henry marries Anne when he’s in his thirties soon after the meet, not nearly a decade later. Perhaps the biggest change, but one that works dramatically was the death of Thomas Cardinal Wolsey.

The historic inaccuracies are lengthy but the show is slick and polished with a large cast that requires paying attention. From sets to performances, you rarely want to take your eyes off the screen.

The performances make the show riveting, starting with Jonathan Rhys Meyers as the volatile, restless Henry. Maria Doyle Kennedy suffers wonderful as poor Catherine while Natalie Dormer is captivating as Anne. Where Catherine was older and less attractive, Anne was colorful, younger and went after what she wanted, which was not only the King’s bed but the power that came with the crown.

Every story needs villains and in his own sly way, Sam Neill steals the first season as Cardinal Wolsey. Additionally, there are the scheming nobles, notably Anne’s father Thomas Boleyn, The Earl of Wiltshire, played by Nick Dunning with cunning.  Interestingly, fathers back then thought nothing of encouraging their daughters to sleep with men if it furthered their family’s fortunes (which was entirely the plot to [[[The Other Boleyn Girl]]], which failed to ignite the screen).

Palace intrigue plays out in each episode as everyone vies to better their situation with the exception of Thomas More (Jeremy Northam) who puts his faith and his word above politics and then suffers for it. And even though Pope Paul III had nothing to do with the events depicted, he’s a welcome anachronism since it gives us the wit of Peter O’Toole, seen all too briefly in the second season.

The two box sets come with their brief extras.  Several episodes have perfunctory commentary and the extras feel rushed.  The first season offers you a look at the production and costume design, the latter of which is well worth watching. You also get a brief glimpse of the contemporary locations where the story was set. On the second season set you have a stronger Tower of London featurette and a weak look at the modern day folk who can trace their lineage to Henry and his legitimate and illegitimate offspring. Both discs are stuffed with sample episodes for Showtime’s other series, an almost desperate cry of “Please watch me” and frankly, several are worth watching but the discs would have benefitted from the very documentary material the show never tried to be.

Before the third season kicks off, you can check out which Tudor you are with a quiz at the show’s website. Me, I qualified as an actor, presuming I was still alive at the advanced age of 50.

Review: ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ on DVD

slumdog-1254985Pop culture is influenced by so many different factors and timing determines what will catch on and endure while other things, quality be damned, wither and die.  A perfect example is the Award-Winning darling of 2008, Slumdog Millionaire.

Based on the 2005 novel by Q & A by Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup, it was optioned for film by British production companies Celador Films and Film4 Productions who hired Simon Beaufoy to adapt it. By the time director Danny Boyle read the script and accepted the assignment, it was 2006. The budget was set at $15 million, meaning the producers needed a partner – enter Warner Independent which gambled $5 million for the right. Shooting began in November 2007 and it spent much of 2008 being screened at festivals starting with Telluride and the Toronto International.  But, a Warner Bros. exec saw the finished product and felt that once you added in prints and marketing, it was not likely to recoup its costs.

A different exec at 20th Century-Fox saw it but saw something different and bought the film from Warners and scheduled it for late in the year. By the time it opened on November 12, the economy tanked and people were in a mixed state of financial panic and political euphoria.  People wanted something to latch on to, something to make them forget the scary real world, at least for two hours.

[[[Slumdog Millionaire]]] was the perfect antidote for what was ailing our psyche. As a result, it has earned, through this past weekend, worldwide revenues of $268,103,477 making it hugely profitable and turning the stars Dev Patel and Freida Pinto into celebrities. Pretty heady stuff.

The movie, coming out on DVD Tuesday, is incredibly moving, exciting, funny, poignant and very predictable. While it was the Feel Good Movie of the Year and therefore swayed voters into giving it many prizes, it is not the greatest film of the year.  In addition to the enjoyable story, it also shined a documentary-style eye on India’s slum life and we watched in gaping fascination. This was not Bollywood or some idealized view of life, but the actual way the majority of the people lived in the heavily populated country. This, more than the story, may be one reason it was so well-received around the world.

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Review: ‘The Odd Couple’ on DVD

You know the music. You know the set-up and you’ve seen it played out in countless variations.  Still, there is nothing like the original.  Paramount’s Centennial Collection continues today with two more classic releases, including Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple.

Based on his box office smash play (which in turn was inspired by his brother’s life), Neil Simon took the story of two mismatched divorced men trying to live together and made a sad state of affairs hilarious.

On Broadway, the inimitable Walter Matthau was matched with Art Carney, fresh from his run with Jackie Gleason, but for the film, Paramount exec Robert Evans went for Jack Lemmon, who played previously with Matthau in [[[The Fortune Cookie]]]. On screen, the two had chemistry in spaces and it was necessary to make this work.  One is a sports writer slob, the other a high-strung metrosexual (long before the word existed) news writer. When Lemmon’s Felix Unger is tossed out of his house, he makes several attempts at suicide before turning up at Oscar Madison’s pigpen apartment during the weekly poker game with the guys.  Madison takes pity on Unger and invites him in.

Over the course of three weeks, Unger spruces up the apartment, saves Madison a ton of money (so he can finally catch up on his alimony), and quickly drives his best friend nuts. And when they try a double date dinner with the Pigeon sisters, you see just how hurt Unger is, something Madison never seems to note until then. It just takes him longer to understand what to do.

The movie has a supporting cast of poker buddies filled out with the late John Fielder and Herb Edelman among the quarter. They show how the circle of friends are shades of Oscar and Felix and why they put up with—and support–one another.

The set pieces are brilliant, with terrific comic timing that remains funny even today. On the other hand, the 1968 movie is based on a 1965 play and completely is self-contained so you have no sense of the changes going through Manhattan and American society. As a result, it has a somewhat dated feel regardless of the fine direction by Gene Saks.

As with the first six releases in the set, the second disc comes with an assortment of original production commentary. Unlike the 1950s offerings, this one feels very thin with several short pieces interviewing the surviving production crew and cast, starting with Saks. Simon is nowhere to be seen.  Matthau and Lemmon’s sons talk about their fathers and what it was like growing up with them.  The shorts celebrate the brilliance of Simon and his script but it still incomplete.  Even though Brad Garrett is on screen talking about his part in the most recent revival, everything in between is ignored.  Not a word about how the concept gave birth to the first great sitcom of the 1970s, with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall taking these great roles and running with them for six seasons. Nothing about subsequent revivals of the play, nothing to show how it has endured.

Also missing were features that linked this disc to the overall centennial celebration which is a disappointment.

Still, the movie makes you laugh out loud and it’s nice to have a pristine edition for repeated viewing.

Review: ‘Quantum of Solace’ on DVD

Having grown up on James Bond movies, I have been conditioned to expect certain lines, images and sounds. As a result, I was curious to see what would survive when the franchise was rebooted with Casino Royale. They played with the martini line but maintained the title theme and gave us a fresh start (although I still think Daniel Craig is too old for Bond at this stage in his career).

The movie was pretty terrific although I noted at the time that the pacing was odd and the entire final third felt like a separate film. So, going into Quantum of Solace, which is released on DVD tomorrow., I wanted to see what they would do next especially since this is the first film that was a direct sequel.

The events from [[[Casino]]] provide Bond’s motivations and colors everything he does in this film. Here’s the first problem with the new film: it does a piss poor job of reminding you what happened in the previous installment. When Mathis is reintroduced, I had forgotten who he was and what his involvement with Bond and Vesper were. Similarly, when Bond says M was wrong about Vesper, I have no recollection what she said in the previous film.

While Bond films are known for their action sequences, this one felt by rote. We had fist fights, a car chase, a boat chase and a plane chase. Ho hum. They were uninvolving thanks to what I call “in your face” editing so things flash by so quickly, you have no real sense of what’s going on. You get impressions based on the glimpses you have in your field of vision. Storytelling is tossed out the window for style but leaves you either confused or frustrated.

The movie is praised for being a taut two hours but I would have dearly enjoyed ten more minutes if characters actually spoke to one another as characters not plot exposition and surface characterization. Also, the movie utterly ignores time. You have no idea how much time has passed from the first scene to the last. We have no idea how Bond changes his clothes so often, when he sleeps, eats and so on. After having no access to money or passports, we next see him in a boat heading to see Mathis. How?

It wasn’t all disappointing.

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Watchmen extra material coming to DVD in March

  • News
  • February 5, 2009

watchmen-black-freighter-7917212Before you scream that Watchmen has been butchered to get it into theaters, do two things:

1. Actually see the film first before you judge, you mook.

2. Take a look at the side projects coming out in March on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Three days before the movie hits theaters, Warner Premiere’s Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on March 3rd from Warner Home Video.

Overseen by “Watchmen” illustrator Dave Gibbons, Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic contains all 12 chapters of “Watchmen,” the most celebrated graphic novel of all time, adding motion, voice and sound to the book’s strikingly drawn panels, spanning everything from the mysterious demise of the Comedian to the crisscrossed destinies of loosely allied superheroes to their fateful impact on the world.  The 12 approximately 30-minute chapters were previously available exclusively as iTunes downloads.

Produced by Watchmen and 300 director Zack Snyder, Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic was colored by John Higgins and narrated by Tom Stechschulte.

The 2-disc standard and Blu-ray sets includes nearly 6 hours of content and both include Movie Cash, good for $7.50 off of a movie ticket for Watchmen beginning on March 6th.  In addition, the Blu-ray disc includes a first look at the theatrical film with an action-packed scene from the movie available exclusively through Warner Bros. BD-Live™. 

Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic will be available in a 2-disc set for $29.98 and a Digital Copy Special Edition Blu-ray set for $34.99.

Then three weeks later, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on March 24th from Warner Home Video.

Tales of the Black Freighter, the story-within-the-story in the acclaimed Watchmen features the voices of Gerard Butler (300) and Jared Harris (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and is directed by Daniel DelPurgatorio and Mike Smith and written by Alex Tse (Watchmen) and Zack Snyder.  Tales of the Black Freighter is produced by Brian McNulty and Karen Mayeda-Vranek.

Tales of the Black Freighter brings to strikingly animated life the graphic novel’s richly layered story-within-a-story.  Within the graphic novel, Tales of the Black Freighter, appears as a comic book read by a young man in New York City while the city is being destroyed.  This daring pirate saga chronicles a sailor’s journey home from being marooned.  During his journey, the young seaman is "forced by the urgency of his mission to shed one inhibition after another" and experience horrible events along the way.  The turbulent events the sailor endures seem to mirror those in the Watchmen’s world.

Hollis Mason’s tell-all autobiography, Under the Hood, chronicles the events in Hollis Mason’s life that led to him to become the masked avenger Nite Owl and discusses how the Minutemen were formed.   It features the original Sally Spectre, the Comedian, Moloch the Mystic, along with Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl.

Under the Hood is directed by Eric Matthies, written by Hans Rodionoff and produced by Eric Matthies and Wesley Coller. Stars Carla Gugino, Matt Frewer, Stephen McHattie and Jeffrey Dean Morgan appear as their characters from the theatrical Watchmen film in this live-action documentary style special.

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood will be available on standard definition disc for $27.95 SRP and Blu-ray disc for $35.99 SRP.

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