Tagged: DVD

A Dummy’s Guide to Greek Heroes

One brave warrior, touched by the gods, must overcome all odds to save mankind from a merciless and powerful tyrant when IMMORTALS comes to Blu-ray and DVD on March 6th from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Directed by visionary filmmaker Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) and written by Charles Parlapanides and Vlas Parlapanides, the home entertainment release is chock-full of must-see bonus features including an alternate beginning, two alternate endings, deleted scenes and an amazing graphic novel, creating the ultimate viewing experience.

From the producers of 300, Mark Canton, Gianni Nunnari, and Relativity’s CEO Ryan Kavanaugh, IMMORTALS explodes off the screen with action-packed battles, mythological adventure and an all-star cast including: Henry Cavill (Superman: Man of Steel), Luke Evans (Robin Hood), Kellan Lutz (Twilight), Isabel Lucas (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen), Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire), Stephen Dorff (Public Enemies), John Hurt (Hellboy) and Mickey Rourke (Iron Man 2). In this epic tale of vengeance and destiny, power-mad King Hyperion (Rourke) threatens to destroy all of humanity on his maniacal quest to obtain the ultimate weapon – the legendary Epirus Bow that gives the power to unleash war on both Heaven and Earth.  But Theseus (Cavill), a heroic young villager chosen by the gods, rises up to stop Hyperion’s brutal rampage.  With supernatural help from the beautiful oracle Phaedra (Pinto), Theseus embraces his destiny and leads a fierce band of warriors in a desperate fight for the future of mankind.

hercules-4046369The story for Immortals centers on the heroism of Theseus, a mortal man chosen by Zeus to lead the fight against the evil King Hyperion.  In celebration of the release of IMMORTALS on 3D Blu-ray Combo Pack, Blu-ray Triple Play and DVD on March 6, we will revisit other heroes in Greek mythology that you may (or may not) be familiar with, including Hercules and Odysseus, among others.

HERCULES

According to Greek mythology, Hercules is the son of the Zeus, the King of all the Gods, and Alcmene, a mortal woman, thereby making him a mortal God.  The goddess Hera, Zeus’ wife, hated Hercules because Hercules’ birth was out of Zeus’ infidelity to her.  Much of Hercules’ adventures have been written about but none as much as the Labors of Hercules, which vary in number depending on the source.  Hercules was sent on these labors by the Oracle of Delphi to make amends over killing his wife and children during a fit of madness sent by Hera.

ODYSSEUS

odysseus-300x405-3914375Odysseus is the Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey and Iliad.  Odysseus was best known for successfully leading the Greeks into victory against the Trojans with his idea of the Trojan Horse, which is depicted in the Iliad.  The Odyssey tells the story of his ten-year journey to get home to Ithaca post the Trojan War to reclaim his place as the rightful king.  The epic describes his adventures, including his encounters with Calypso, the Sirens and the six-headed monster Scylla, amongst others.

OEDIPUS

oedipus-300x298-1533530Oedipus was the Greek king of Thebes, best known for fulfilling a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, bringing disaster to his family and his city.  The myth is the basis of neurologist Sigmund Freud’s theory, the Oedipus complex, which states the desire of a male child’s exclusive love for his mother, thereby stemming jealousy towards the father.

ACHILLES

achilles-300x400-1205173Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War and was a central character in Homer’s Iliad.  He was said to be a great warrior whose only vulnerability physically was his heel, which ultimately lead to his death when his heel was struck by an arrow during battle.  Because of that, the term Achille’s heel has come to mean a person’s primary weakness.

PERSEUS

perseus-300x400-6970584Perseus was a son of Zeus and was known in Greek mythology for the different monsters he defeated, including beheading Medusa, the snake-haired maiden who turned those who looked her in the eyes into stone.  He married Andromeda, a princess who had been punished by Poseidon for her mother’s bragging that her daughter was more beautiful than the Nereids.    Perseus saved her imminent death by rescuing her from a rock that she was chained to as a sacrifice to a sea monster.

REVIEW: A Trio from Hitchcock — “Notorious”, “Spellbound”, and “Rebecca”

rebecca-4630180Alfred Hitchcock is today best known for his work in the 1950s and 1960s, thanks to Universal and Warner Bros. steady stream of restored re-releases on Blu-ray but recently, 20th Century Home Entertainment reminded us that the master director wasn’t exactly idle in the years before. A trio of his 1940s works – Notorious, Spellbound, and Rebecca – are now out on Blu-ray for the first time and it begs a fresh look at his black and white thrillers.

Hitchcock began his stormy relationship with MGM producer David O. Selznick with 1940’s Rebecca, a psychological drama which is noteworthy as the director’s first American film. Adapted from Daphne du Maurier’s bestseller, it featured Laurence Olivier, Joan Fontaine, and Judith Anderson. Being a gothic tale of loss, while gently questioning whether or not Olivier killed his first wife, it was a good fit for Hitchcock, introducing him to the American way of shooting a feature film. Clearly it worked since it went on to win a Best Picture Oscar. (more…)

Primeval Volume Three

primeval_vol3_bd-300x348-1169642Thank goodness the wicked Helen did not bring about the end of mankind and civilization as we knew it. This meant the characters of ITV’s Primeval could come back for a fresh go-round. The show took a breather after the third season ended in 2009 and came back in seven and six episode arcs, making for abbreviated fourth and fifth seasons respectively and they are now available as a combined third volume in either standard DVD or, for the first time, as a Blu-ray option from BBC Video.

I find myself enjoying the series more for the characters than the writing, which either leaves holes as big as the anomalies the heroes deal with or are overly convoluted, leaving me wishing for a happy middle ground.

primeval_s_4_cast-300x205-3423973Season three ended with three of our heroes – Connor Temple (Andrew Lee Potts), Abby Maitland (Hannah Spearritt), and Danny Quinn (Jason Flemyng) – trapped in different eras of the past while life back at the ARC continued, presuming them lost but not dead. Still, the near destruction of reality meant a rethinking of the operation which allowed the creators – Adrian Hodges and Tim Haines – to retool the show a bit, mostly for the better. (more…)

The Muppets Comes to DVD on March 20

If you missed seeing the return of The Muppets in, well, The Muppets, then you get another chance when the movie is released on video this March.

Director James Bobin revealed all the Easter Egg inspirations found throughout the delightful film in an interview and it’s worth a look.

Here’s the press release:

BURBANK, Calif., January 20, 2012 –– One of the year’s best-loved family comedies and among the best reviewed films of 2011, Disney’s The Muppets, starring Jason Segel, Academy Award®-nominee Amy Adams, and favorite celebrity couple Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy — debuts March 20 on Blu-ray™ Combo Pack, DVD, Digital Download and On-Demand formats. A must-own movie the entire family can enjoy, Disney’s The Muppets in-home release includes the DVD and music soundtrack packaged together and also offered as the ultimate Muppets experience, a ‘Wocka-Wocka Value Pack,’ which contains the movie on Blu-ray high definition, DVD and Digital Copy (three discs), plus a download card which allows fans to own all the songs from the film’s hugely popular soundtrack.

Disney’s The Muppets Blu-ray Combo Pack, with its flawless picture and pitch perfect sound, comes with a fantastic slate of bonus content including the laugh out loud “The Longest Blooper Reel Ever Made (In Muppet History––We Think).” The exciting release also includes the hilarious featurette “A Little Screen Test on the Way to the Read Through,” which follows Jason Segel, Kermit, The Great Gonzo, Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy and others as they get ready for the first day of production, and much more fun. (more…)

For Merlin and Arthur, Destiny Calls in Tomorrow’s Merlin

  • News
  • January 19, 2012

It is “The Wicked Day,” indeed, for Merlin, Arthur – and all of Camelot.

It begins with a festive birthday celebration for Prince Arthur … but ends as the destinies of Arthur and the warlock Merlin come clear.  This one enormously fateful day is the backdrop for an all-new episode MERLIN, titled “The Wicked Day,” which premieres Friday, January 20 at 10 p.m. ET/PT only on Syfy.

Written by Howard Overman, creator of the popular British sci-fi series Misfits, and directed by Alice Troughton, “The Wicked Day” is a pivotal episode in the saga of Camelot – and begins with the arrival of a sinister-looking visitor named The Gleeman. (more…)

The Point Radio: HAROLD & KUMAR Do Christmas Wrong


Here’s an interesting holiday recipe – take a popular stoner comedy franchise, toss in some claymation and even a musical number. It’s A VERY HAROLD & KUMAR 3-D CHRISTMAS, destined to burn up DVD shelves after it escapes theaters. We talk to John Cho & Kal Penn about how they’ve changed even if their movie counterparts haven’t. Plus more with Ed GHelms on how THE OFFICE still owes so much to Steve Carrel, and DC breaks even bigger comic sales records in October.

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebookright here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

The Tempest

thetempestbluray-254x300-1479053You have to give Julie Taymor credit. She rarely repeats herself and brings a sense of creative vision to every project, making each effort unique. For every brilliant stage work, The Lion King, there is a creative misfire, Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark. And on screen, she scored a bullseye with Across the Universe and disappointed with The Tempest. The adaptation of William Shakespeare’s final play is now out on DVD from Walt Disney Home Entertainment.

The Bard’s works have been interpreted and reinterpreted since they were first staged at the Globe Theater so it’s no surprise Taymor wanted to bring her own ideas to the script. Her bold move was to turn Duke Prospero into Prospera, the duke’s wife and then cast Dame Helen Mirren. Taymor said at the time that no male actor seemed to fit her idea of the lead so tried a woman for a staged reading and decided the story held up.

Translated to the screen, Prospera, the sorceress, presides over the inhabitants on a small island, dealing with her daughter Miranda’s  (Felicity Jones) romance with Ferdinand (Reeve Carney) while fending off the schemes of Caliban (Djimon Hounsou) and Stephano (Alfred Molina) to do her in. There’s magic galore and Ariel, usually played by a female but here is essayed by Ben Whishaw, is a genuine sprite.

Taymor adapted Shakespeare’s words but they remain familiar ones and she has assembled a fine cast led by Mirren, who is never short of fascinating to watch work. Molina, Hounsou, Chris Cooper and Alan Cumming lend strong support so the overall production should be far more satisfying than it proves to be. There’s a crackle of energy missing from the performances and the CGI effects, which she used so well in Universe, don’t measure up. For a story about magic the effects prove oddly dull and uninspiring.

The pacing moves along but languidly, as if shooting on a Hawaiian island enervated cast and crew.

The movie performed well at festivals before being met with a collective yawn by critics and audiences alike last December making for a poor year end showing for Taymor. The movie plays much the same way on DVD aided by the usually crisp video transfer from Disney and helped tremendously by some terrific audio work.

Students of Shakespeare will want to see this and own the Blu-ray edition which comes with some terrific special features. In addition to Taymor’s perfunctory commentary, there’s a separate track with Virginia Mason Vaughan (Professor of English at Clark University) and Jonathan Bate (Shakespeare Professor at England’s University of Warwick), using their depth of knowledge to informatively discuss the adaptation. It sounds like an English paper read aloud is quite interesting.

Additionally, there’s the one-hour-six-minute Raising the Tempest which covers the production from script to final editing. There’s always something to learn from these but are really for students of film. This one, though, has Brand offering up comedic patter throughout and makes this worthwhile.

You can watch Julie & Cast: Inside the L.A. Rehearsals, a 14 minute look at Brand, Molina and Hounsou getting a handle on their characters under Taymor’s watchful eye. This is a revealing look at the creative process. There’s an additional, more humorous five minute Russell Brand Rehearsal Riff as he improvises answers as Trinculo to Taymor the Interviewer’s questions. The disc is rounded out with Carney’s “Mistress Mine” music video and an assortment of trailers.

Henry’s Crime

No doubt this has happened to you. Despite being voted “Most Nicest Guy” in high school, you’re in your 30s, stuck at dead end job, with no prospects in sight. Suddenly you get life’s wakeup call when you accidentally get involved in a failed bank heist thanks to Fisher Stevens. Then, when you refuse to name the real criminals, despite your pleading wife (Judy Greer) you wind up in jail for your transgression. You lose your wife and want her only to be happy. Then you meet some really offbeat folk that awaken you.

No? Well, that’s what happens to Keanu Reeves in Henry’s Crime, an offbeat and underrated little film that is now out on DVD from 20th Century Home Entertainment. There Keanu sits in prison, still wondering how he got there, when he is befriended by Max (James Caan), a long-term convict who teaches Henry that every man needs a dream and then to make his life about obtaining that dream. Of course, it’s hard to pursue a dream from behind bars. It takes Henry a year, but he gets out and takes those precious first steps towards something, perhaps for the first time in his life, real.

Henry’s dream? To rob the bank again but this time get it right. He recruits Max and his fellow cellmate to use an abandoned bootlegger’s tunnel to reach the bank. To get to the tunnel, though, Henry winds the lead in a theatrical company staging Chekhov’s, The Cherry Orchard. As the scheme develops, life tosses Henry a curveball when he falls in love with his leading lady (Vera Farmiga).

Keanu hasn’t been this charming and funny since the Bill & Ted movies, displaying a fresh side to his persona and a welcome one at that. This movie is more screwball comedy from an earlier era than a real crime drama. Director Malcolm Venville takes things slowly, probably too slowly, a vastly different tempo than you expect from the genre but he coaxes fun performances from his cast.

In other hands, this could have been a stronger film, with sharper performances and a tighter structure but it is still entertaining enough and worth a look. The DVD transfer is clean and the disc comes with no extras.

Bridesmaids

It was inevitable that after numerous guy-centric raunchfests, the women needed their turn to be gross, disgusting, and funny. With Judd Apatow, the current master of the form, aboard, one of the summer’s brightest hits turned out to be the fresh Bridesmaids. Out now on DVD from Universal Home Entertainment, the film comes in two forms: the theatrical release and an unrated version that packs in six more minutes of stuff.

Often, the film felt like it took the guys’ template and followed it so if there was barfing and pooping, then the women had to do it, too. Interestingly, though, despite the numerous sex scenes, there was scarcely any nudity, male or female, which tends to be a must for this genre. Clearly written by women, Wiig and Annie Mumolo, it shows women at their very best and very worst. Unlike the boy-centric offerings, this film lets its scenes play out, giving Wiig and the others a chance to really work each moment.

What this film has over the boys’ fare, is a story with true emotional core even though it is often stretched beyond credulity. Annie (Kristen Wiig) has been having it tough. Her cake business failed and she’s stuck in a dead-end job, with no boyfriend, and is deeply depressed. Despite having a circle of friends, none seem aware of how badly off Annie is. When her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) gets engaged, Annie is asked to be the Maid of Honor and the rest of the film follows her pathetic attempts to plan the festivities while trying to bond with her fellow bridesmaids. All the while, the cattiness that marks female relationships is amplified, notably the rivalry between Annie and the pretty but cold Helen (Rose Byrne).

Annie’s life spirals down and then out of control so she is totally blind to the one good thing to enter her life, a friendly, romantically interested state trooper (Chris O’Dowd). The set pieces such as the failed airplane trip to Las Vegas or the over-the-top bridal shower let the ensemble have free reign and most make the most of it, notably Melissa McCarthy as the rude, crude, overweight and undersexed pal.

Obviously, true love and true friendship will win out in the end and getting there is certainly entertaining but the film is not without its faults. Several of the women are little more than two-dimensional types to round things out without adding much in the way of depth. Everyone’s blindness to Annie’s precarious financial situation is annoying (even if it results in the gross-out moments early on). Still, the bonds between real-life friends Wiig and Rudolph shine through and happily ground the film in a satisfying way.

The leads are well supported by the cast and it’s great to have one more opportunity to see the late, great Jill Clayburgh play Annie’s mother.

The film’s transfer is sharp and having both versions is a nice treat. The rest of the extras consist of the usually hodgepodge of Featurettes. The gag reel is nowhere near as funny as you would expect and the deleted, extended and alternate scenes show the value of having an editor. Noteworthy is a disastrous date between Annie and a guy (Paul Rudd) who gives men a bad name. The commentary from the filmmakers and cast isn’t bad with some interesting insights tossed in. (The Blu-ray, not reviewed, comes with additional features.)

One can hope that this  doesn’t inspire bad knockoffs with women doing even grosser things to one another but does allow filmmakers to take more chances with all-female ensembles and comedies.

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