Blu-ray Buzz – The King Comes to Blu-ray

The king of all movie monsters comes to Blu-ray this week. Superheroes, real life artists, war and other indie fare grace this week’s column as well.

Pick of the Week
King Kong
The original giant ape comes to Blu-ray for the first time. Now I haven’t seen a film from the 1930s presented in 1080p, but what could be a better title to start with? The epic adventure has stop-motion animation and special effects that are still impressive today. How did they make the spears thrown at Kong seem so fluid? Fray Wray as Ann Darrow the woman who charms the savage beast is an iconic figure in cinema do to this one film. Even those who haven’t seen the picture know the imagery of her being carried up the Empire State Building. While Peter Jackson did an amazing job re-imagining the film, nothing can replace the original, which made us care about the monster more than the humans he terrorized.

Buy "King Kong" on Blu-ray Here!

Queue Qualified
Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinsky
While it’s not a purposeful sequel to COCO BEFORE CHANEL, this pretty much picks up where that film left off in dealing with the life of fashion icon Coco Chanel. While this film is more of the straight biopic feel than the Audrey Tautou film, this production deals with how the independent woman dealt with the death of her true love. She got what she wanted. The main thing she wanted for this film’s sake was the married composer Igor Stravinsky. The story follows their affair, while he and his family lived at her country estate. She certainly comes off less like a free spirit and more like a cold… These sexual power plays always seem directed by the men unless it’s a thriller; that’s why this drama is so compelling.

Buy "Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinsky" on DVD Here!

Buy "Chanel Coco & Igor Stravinski" on Blu-ray Here!

Iron Man 2
While it’s not as remarkable as the original, IRON MAN 2 was a fun adventure. Robert Downey Jr. is once again fabulous as Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. In this adventure, everyone wants a piece of the Iron Man suit technology. For Stark, the technology that it keeping him alive, literally, is also killing him. His life begins to spiral out of control and his friends Rhodey (Don Cheadle) and Pepper (Gwyneth Paltrow) have are hard time bringing him back to reality. Meanwhile, mad Russian Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) is working with weaselly weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) to develop his own weapon suit and seek revenge on Stark for what Stark’s father did to his. It’s a really enjoyable franchise thanks to Downey.

Buy "Iron Man 2" on DVD Here!

Buy "Iron Man 2" on Blu-ray Here!

The Thin Red Line
Terrence Malick is a visual poet. He hadn’t directed a film for 20 years prior to making this thoughtful war film. At the center of the story is AWOL soldier Private Witt (James Caviezel), who is given a second chance to fight at Guadalcanal. Malick observes the thoughts and feelings of a large cast of characters as they prepare for, execute and reflect on battle. The impressive cast includes Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Adrien Brody, John Cusack, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, Timothy Blake Nelson, John C. Reilly, John Travolta, Thomas Jane and Nick Stahl. The main theme this film addresses is that each soldier fights his own war. With this title coming to Blu-ray from Criterion, I’m confident it will look amazing.

Buy "The Thin Red Line" on DVD Here!

Buy "The Thin Red Line" on Blu-ray Here!

Buzzed About
Frozen
A trio of skiers gets accidentally stranded out on a ski lift over night. So what are their choices – try to climb down and possibly plummet to their death or stay on the lift overnight and risk freezing to death? Either option sucks. The trailer made the film seem like the solid horror film, OPEN WATER, which found a couple left behind in shark filled waters. I heard mixed things about this one, but the premise seems too interesting to not check out. I find it very ironic that one of the trio is Shawn Ashmore, who played Iceman in the X-MEN films.

Buy "Frozen" on DVD Here!

Buy "Frozen" on Blu-ray Here!

I'm Gonna Explode
This Mexican film played the festival circuit last year before a brief theatrical run in NYC. At the end of the year, it made a good deal of top ten lists, which drew my attention to this film I had heard nothing about before. Story follows Roman (Juan Pablo de Santiago), the son of a conservative politician, whose act in the talent show is to try to hang himself. Maru (Maria Deschamps) is the only person to clap for his awkward performance. In detention they bond and after steal a gun and VW and hit the road. Sounds like the kind of twisted tale I’d like.

Buy "I'm Gonna Explode" on DVD Here!

Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
Criterion has such a great track record of putting out films I can’t believe I never heard of before. From Nagisa Oshima, the director the controversial IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES, this WWII film is set in a Japanese prison camp where the Japanese captain in charge Yonoi (Ryuichi Sakamoto, THE LAST EMPEROR) believes the Allied soldiers are cowards who lack honor for deciding to surrender instead of committing suicide. Interpreter Col. John Lawrence (Tom Conti, DERAILED) tries to explain the Japanese point of view to his fellow captives and is viewed as a traitor. The cast includes David Bowie and Beat Kitano! Sounds like a perfect film to come out now when simply trying to express a terrorist’s POV could get you on a watch list.

Buy "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" on DVD Here!

Buy "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" on Blu-ray Here!

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
I’m disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to see this new DC Direct title ahead of time considering the company’s BATMAN: UNDER THE RED HOOD earlier this year was my pick of the week. This one comes from Lauren Montgomery, who directed the solid animated WONDER WOMAN feature. Now she tackles the origin of Supergirl, as the Kryptonian crashes to Earth and becomes the rope in a tug of war between heroes such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and Darkseid. I hope this title is more like the very good character driven DC Direct titles like GREEN LANTERN: FIRST FLIGHT instead of the previous SUPERMAN/BATMAN release, which focused on action over story.