The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Films

Posts Tagged ‘Blu-Ray’

Ross hosts this episode of the GBUF Podcast, an all reviews show. Today, we review the new releases of: Valentine’s Day, Legion, Edge of Darkness, and The New Daughter.

What did we think these movies did right? What did they get wrong? Why didn’t one of the lead actors in Valentine’s Day wave a shotgun or a handgun around? Get the answers to almost all of these burning questions by listening to the podcast.

Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day follows the lives of several couples in this light-hearted comedy. Their ups and downs in the game of love. All of the stories are inter-connected in a bit of a ham-fisted way, but it still works as a good date movie. The cast is populated with many stars, including: Ashton Kutcher, Bradley Cooper, Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Taylor Lautner, Topher Grace, Queen Latifah, Hector Elizondo, Patrick Dempsey and Jennifer Garner.

John: BAD Mark: GOOD (after I finished) Ross: N/A

Legion

Legion takes place in a diner on the outskirts of Las Vegas. The angel Michael comes down from heaven to protect a pregnant woman and her unborn child, who, no surprise here, is going to be the next saviour of mankind. The other angels don’t like this idea so much, feeling that the time of man is coming to a close and try to speed up the apocalypse by killing the woman and anyone trying to help her. This stars Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Lucas Black, Charles S Dutton, Tyrese Gibson and Kevin Durand.

John: BAD Mark: BAD Ross: UGLY

Edge of Darkness

Mel Gibson stars as Thomas Craven, a homicide detective that loses his daughter to an unknown assailant at his house. Working under the impression that he was the intended target, he is set straight by Jedburgh, a corporate “fixer” played by Ray Winstone. His investigation into his daughter’s life leads him to darker and darker places in his search for justice and revenge.

John: BAD Mark: BAD Ross: BAD

The New Daughter

Kevin Costner plays a father with two children whose wife has recently left him for another man. He and the kids move to an idyllic town in South Carolina. The daughter, played by Pan’s Labyrinth’s Ivana Baquero, starts acting even stranger than a regular teen girl acts, which leads the dad to start investigating the strange mound on his property. This movie went directly to DVD/Blu-Ray.

John: UGLY Mark: UGLY Ross: UGLY

If you’ve seen any of these movies and would like to add your comments, then please feel free to do so right here on the article, or email us at podcast@goodbaduglyfilms.com. You can also leave us a voice mail via Skype. You never know… we might just play your message on one of the podcasts.

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The Good

Good news for geeks on the home video front with two new Blu-Ray announcements. First, those fans disappointed with the CG slickery of the new Clash of the Titans remake and yearning for some old school Ray Harryhausen stop-motion animation will be pleased with Sony’s announced July 6th release of Jason and the Argonauts which will feature…

…a commentary with Peter Jackson and Visual Effects Artist Randall William Cook, a commentary with Ray Harryhausen and Film Historian Tony Dalton, never released interactive photo gallery with original storyboards, interviews with Ray Harryhausen by John Landis, and 2 featurettes (“Ray Harryhausen Chronicles”, “The Harryhausen Legacy”).

-DVDActive

Meanwhile, Shout! Factory has announced a July 27th release of G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero – THE MOVIE Special Collector’s Edition.

BONUS FEATURES AVAILABLE SPECIAL COLLECTORS EDITION:
• Audio commentary with story consultant Buzz Dixon
• The final 8 “Knowing Is Half The Battle” PSAs that were not on the G.I. JOE: A Real American Hero – The Complete Series DVD box set.
• Original Printable Screenplay –this script was written prior to DUKE’s miraculous recovery and, thus, DUKE is dead. The script was not altered from this version on paper, but the audio session had an added line where Duke was going to survive the attack.
• Art gallery
• Blu-ray + DVD Combo Pack Exclusive: Optional 16×9 Widescreen and 4×3 Full Frame Presentations

-Shout! Factory

Also, if you pre-order directly from Shout! Factory, you will get a limited-edition 1GB “Dog Tag” flash drive (USB 2.0) loaded with two G.I. Joe “Silent” comics. Available while supplies last.

The Bad

Weak Openings for the three new films The Back-Up Plan, The Losers, and Disney’s Earth Day Documentary Oceans contributed to a very soft Box Office weekend leading up to next week’s Summer release kick-off. How to Train Your Dragon jumped back into the #1 spot with $15 million, and Date Night maintained it’s #3 spot with $10 million. New comers The Back-Up Plan opened in #2 with $12 million, The Losers at #4 opened at $9.4 million and Oceans at #8 with $6 million. Last Week’s #1, Kick-Ass dropped to #5 with $9.3 million. The up-side to this weak weekend is that Friday’s A Nightmare On Elm Street remake opening will seem all the more impressive.

The Ugly

Here I go, harping on Avatar again…  Avatar’s Earth Day home video release crushed records by moving one and a half million Blu-Ray units its first day, then in 4 days moved that number up to 2.7 million units, killing the Dark Knight’s record of 2.5 million which took 18 months to make. This is great news, yes, for the Studio, for consumers that wanted the movie and for the Blu-Ray format that really needed a shot in the arm – however…

Fans are disappointed with the lack of special features, seeking non-existent Special Editions that we know will not come until before Christmas. To be fair, Avatar is not the first film to strategize its release this way, but it is the biggest film to date, which means this could turn into the biggest Double (or triple) dip  ever and piss of consumers on a larger scale than ever before. This could very well damage the pace of increased Blu-Ray adoption it is creating as customers wise up and start waiting for second wave releases of all titles.

To all studios… we really want your products – but if you continue to sell them to us, one piece at a time, we will stop showing up to purchase them. Home video is a big, big market – but it is not a necessity, we can quit you anytime! (Did that sound convincing? Anyone wanna go to Best Buy and look at disks?)

Good

In what I can only consider inspired casting, it looks like Helen Mirren has signed on for the remake of Arthur. She would be in John Gielgud’s role, except as Arthur’s long-suffering nanny. Russell Brand is set to play Arthur.

How perfect! You’ve got the style and sophistication that Dame Helen Mirren would bring to the role mixed with the raw, comedic talent of Brand. It sounds like a good match.

For those of you who have never seen the original with Dudley Moore and John Gielgud, you should really search it out and give it a view. It’s about a spoiled rich man that falls in love with the hard working, poor, girl-next-door type. Gielgud’s performance as the straight man to Moore’s eccentric millionaire is sheer brilliance.

I can only see good things coming from this pairing of old and new school..

Bad

In a startling move, Platinum Dunes has killed off the proposed sequel to the 2009 reboot of the Friday the 13th franchise. While not an outstanding movie, it was decent reimagining of the source material by Marcus Nispel, the same director that brought us the great Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot back in 2003.

Despite Friday the 13th being a mediocre film, it had an extremely low end budget of 19M, but it pulled in over 91M worldwide (with 65M of that being domestic take). With an amazing return on your investment like that, how could you not keep this up? With several tv series winding up their runs, you’ve got a large supply of young, out of work actors that you can kill in interesting ways.

I, for one, would love to see more Jason Voorhees. C’mon Platinum Dunes, get this back into production!

Ugly

Holy crap! Who would have thought that there would have been so many people willing to just throw their money away?

Avatar’s Earth Day release on DVD and BluRay shattered the previous single day BluRay sales record held by Dark Knight (600k units) with an estimated 1.5 million sales. If you add in the DVD sales, you have almost 4 million units sold on the first day alone.

I wonder how many people either knew or cared that this was a super bare bones offering, with only the movie in 2D and no special features at all. If they were expecting to relive that “awesome” 3D experience that they had in the theatre, then they are in for a rude awakening.

A version with special features should be out in November, with 6 additional minutes of footage, and the 3D version of it won’t be out until some time in 2011.

I’ve been there before, we all have. Been the early adopter of a movie, gadget, etc., only to have a more kick-ass version come along a few months later. For the highest grossing movie of all time, how many times do you think they are going to lead their customers to the well.? Judging from sales alone though, apparently enough people are still drinking the Kool-Aid. Sad.

-Mark

Good

Good news for all you Men in Black fans out there (myself included)… It seems like Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld have all signed on for the third instalment of this fun series. It being the third movie and with the state of the industry today, you know it’s going to be shot in 3D. This is a movie that might genuinely utilize the 3D effects to good purpose. Word is that all they’re waiting on is a script that everyone is happy with. They’re even looking for an early summer release in 2011.

With Sony not having any big tentpole releases in either May or June 2011 as Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 got shelved, it would make sense to get an already established franchise into next summer’s schedule. And even though May 2011 is busy with Marvel’s Thor, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Hangover 2 and Mission Impossible IV, having Will Smith in your movie is as close to a sure bet as any actor in Hollywood.

-Collider

I don’t know. Maybe I’m going to have to get contacts or laser eye surgery so I can start seeing some of these big budget films in 3D. MiB and 3D seem to be a marriage made in heaven and will probably be worth the trouble for me to find a workaround in order to see it.

Bad

Speaking of 3D movies, James Cameron was interviewed by Entertainment Weekly about the upcoming DVD/BluRay releases of Avatar, the box office juggernaut. He confirms that today’s release of Avatar is going to be as bare bones as you can get. Nothing whatsoever in the way of special features or added bonuses.

There’s zero extras! There’s so few extras that you put it in, you push play, and the movie starts. There are no trailers, there’s no bulls— at the beginning that you have to endlessly go through. I have a deal with the studio and it goes like this: Any movie I make that makes over a billion dollars goes out without a bunch of crap trailers for your other movies.

Avatar is the highest-grossing film in history, it got nine Academy Award nominations, why would I want to f— with that? Why would I want to change that? I want to drive a stake in the ground and I want to say, This is the movie we released and you can now own it.

-James Cameron (EW interview)

He then goes on to explain EXACTLY how they are going to “fuck with that”. They’ve identified 6 minutes of extra scenes that are being given the fancy CG treatment and will be added to the proposed RE-RELEASE of Avatar to theatres in August. You should get all of those added minutes and some special features on the NOVEMBER release of the DVD/BluRay. Yeah, a double-dip is planned for just 7 months from now.

When asked if the November release will be in 3D, he said:

Not at this point. We haven’t announced when we’ll be releasing it on 3-D DVD. Our feeling is there just aren’t enough players out there. We don’t want it to come out and be a fart in the frying pan.

So, at least a triple dip from the oh-so-eloquent Cameron. More, if you count the August theatre re-release. Hmmm… maybe this should be UGLY instead of BAD.

Ugly

Word came down yesterday that they’re thinking about doing a movie from the 1960s tv series, I Dream of Jeannie. What are they thinking? It’s too creatively similar to Bewitched and look what happened to that at the box office. It failed to make its budget back domestically by over 20 million bucks!

Yes, there have been some success stories in regards to mining 60s tv shows for box office gold (Star Trek, Get Smart), but the failures more than outweigh them. For example, McHale’s Navy only made back 4.5 million of its estimated 31M budget and My Favorite Martian made barely more than half of its 65M budget back.

Is the world ready for this to be redone on the silver screen, or should we just leave it where it belongs, in our memories?

-Mark

As you might have picked up from the picture, instead of our usual new releases movie reviews, we decided to review some of our favorite DVDs. Now, these aren’t necessarily our favorite movies, but the DVDs are our favorites for one or more reasons, making us come back to them time after time. Listen in to see who brings what to the table and why we think they’re the top of our collections.

Ross

Ross brought in The Legacy Collection from Universal, with Dracula being his favorite in this subset of his collection.

Each set has the movie that made each monster famous, as well as follow-up movies.

Each set has sleeve with a plastic window with graphics on it.

Allen

Allen brought his beloved Alien Quadrilogy collection to discuss. This NINE disk set is as close to a definitive collection of the Alien movies as you’re going to get.

Each movie is presented in both the theatrical version and a Director’s Cut or Special Edition.

Tons and tons of special features round out this package.

John

Ever the rebel, Johnny can’t just pick one movie, he has to go for two.

First up is Weird Al’s UHF. The commentary with Al and his encyclopaedic knowledge of everyone and everything in the movie is impressive.

Kung Pow! Enter the Fist and its commentaries are also why John has this at the top of his DVD list.

Mark

The 5 disc Collector’s Edition Blade Runner set in the numbered brief case is Mark’s favorite set of disk in his collection.

Like the Alien Quadrilogy set of Allen’s, this set was put together by Charles de Lauzirika. His attention to detail and the depths that he goes to make sure that the collection is as complete as possible is incredible. His 3.5 hour documentary, Dangerous Days, on the making of Blade Runner, make this a must-have.

We also list off our second choices in our collections, but you’re going to have to listen in to see what those are.

If you’d like to comment on our movie selections, or like to tell us what your are, please feel free to drop us an email at podcast@goodbaduglyfilms.com or leave a voicemail via Skype.

-Mark

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The Good

IGN spoke to Lucasfilm Director of Fan Relations Steve Sansweet about the Star Wars franchise coming to Blu-Ray, and got the following answer…

“We have been at work for a couple of years working on – I won’t call it the Ultimate Set because we keep finding stuff – but, a very full set of all six movies on Blu-ray with lots of extra material,” Sansweet told IGN. “We’re finding all kinds of scenes from dailies that have never been seen before. Beyond all of those things that you know about… there are some real treasures.”

-IGN

This is great news for fans who want the films on the newest format! The fact that he “won’t call it the Ultimate Set” kinda sucks – it basically means that like the DVD and VHS releases this will be the first of a series of releases with varied features and versions which will drain the wallets of hardcore fans (you can almost certainly expect another release with every anniversary milestone or when the 3D conversions hit the big screen) until a piece-meal collection of all materials can be had and the next format comes along.

The Bad

Kick-Ass avoided an ass kicking this weekend by the Dreamworks 3D animated feature How to Train Your Dragon which nearly reclaimed the #1 spot this weekend by a narrow margin. Kick Ass underperformed with $19.8 million compared with analysts predictions of $26 – $28 million in spite of a great marketing campaign and decent critical consensus. However, much like the fight for #1 between Clash of the Titans and Date Night last week, inflated ticket costs for 3D misrepresents how close things are ($195,367 difference in take) in terms of asses in seats – again, I call for ticket sakes figures rather than dollar figures to determine film rankings as we are seeing a trend of 3D films topping the box office that are not necessarily the film the most people saw.

The Ugly

A 3D movie with the title Big Tits Zombie… need I say more?!?

The Good

One of our Bad Movies We Love is getting some Blu-Ray love with a 15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition of the Verhoeven camp classic Showgirls! The disk will release on June 15th, 2010, and include:

• commentary from Showgirls connoisseur David Schmader
• a trivia track
• Pole Dancing: Finding Your Inner Stripper featurette
• Lap Dance Tutorial Featuring the World-Famous Girls of Scores
• A Showgirls Diary

Hellooo Amazon!

The Bad

Universal is putting $65million behind Seth MacFarlane and his big screen project Ted, a live action/CG film about a man and his Teddy Bear!

MacFarlane will work the film around his exhausting duties supervising the animated Fox shows Family Guy, The Cleveland Show and American Dad!, and providing a majority of the voices. Fox and MacFarlane have long wanted to make a Family Guy theatrical feature, but Ted will come first.

-Deadline

Man! This could go either way. I love Family Guy (though it is getting a little tired after eight seasons), but I can not stand American Dad or The Cleveland Show. I really like MacFarlane in interviews as well – this guy has a very quick wit, but it just doesn’t always translate. I will be sitting on the fence on this one and optimistically hoping for Seth’s best.

The Ugly

If you listen to the podcast at all, you know that we have with us every week the usually silent 5th host, and while he doesn’t speak, he can be heard lapping up water, crunching kibble or teabagging Ross’ jacket – That’s right, I’m talking about Mark Reznor, my dog. I preface with this because what I am about to say does not come from a hatred of Dogs…

But why does Marmaduke gotta be an asshole?

For some reason Fox has decided to run with a “Marmaduke’s an Asshole” campaign for the up coming Marmaduke movie. First he is a Mini Cooper drivin’, sunglass wearing asshole; then a surfer asshole, again with the shades. I am tempted to start a pool on whether or not the next poster will have him in a Hawaiian shirt with some kind of tropical drink, or lei around his neck. I am generally a sucker for this kinda movie – but Marmaduke! Dude! You’re being an asshole!

Good

Despite the trailer showing a little too much of the movie, The Kids Are All Right looks like it’s going to be a fun movie to watch. It stars Julianne Moore and Annette Bening as a lesbian couple that, years ago, decided to have kids thanks to some donated sperm. It’s now over 18 years later and the biological father, Mark Ruffalo, come back into the picture.

Kids premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and was a quite the hit. Distribution rights were purchased by Focus Features for $4.8 million, a record high for the festival. It has already secured a solid July 7, 2010 US release date and looks to be the go-to feel good movie of the summer. Looking forward to its counter-programming against the mindless explosions and senseless violence (which I also like) of the summer’s other features.

Bad

One of my favorite comics of all time is Preacher, written by Garth Ennis with beautiful painted covers by Glenn Fabry. What’s not to like about this series? It’s got a pissed-off preacher, his hitwoman girlfriend and an Irish vampire trying to find God so they can kick his ass. Throw in gratuitous, graphic violence and you’ve got gold. When I got rid of most of my comic collection (quite the pain to move), I pretty much only kept my Preacher comics. The first time I heard that they were considering making a movie about it, was back in 1996 when I first moved to British Columbia, with Ben Affleck potentially in the titular role.

I know that HBO has been trying to get a TV series into production as well, but it looks like the movie version has been dealt another blow. An interview on Collider.com with producer Neal Moritz spills the beans on what’s going on.

We now have a terrific script that John August wrote. We were originally talking with Sam Mendes about doing the movie. Sam Mendes is going to go off and do the Bond movie, so there’s another director that we’re talking to right now.

-Neal Moritz

Now why do I have this in BAD if this looks like it might actually be happening? Because I’ve been sold that line before. Until I see the trailer and there’s an actual release date, this will remain vapor.

Ugly

Looks like there’s yet another set back for I Love You Phillip Morris. After being well-received at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, it’s been a tough road. After failing to find a distributor, most likely due to the gay themes, it was re-edited and was finally picked up by Consolidated Pictures Group.

The film, starring Jim Carrey as a conman who falls in love with his cellmate in prison, Ewan McGregor. After pushing the release date from February 14, to March 26, then to April 30, Consolidated has decided to cancel that.

Now a spokeswoman for the film confirms that the movie has been delayed again and in fact won’t be coming out at the end of the month. She adds that there is no release date scheduled at this time.

-LA Times

Take a look at the trailer… you’ll see that it’s been sanitized for your viewing pleasure compared to the European version.

The crazy thing is that I Love You Phillip Morris has already been released overseas. I have no doubt that we’ll be able to get uncut European versions of the DVD/Blu Ray before this movie sees a release to the silver screen here in North America.

-Mark

The Good

The director of one of my favorite films just got a series greenlit on AMC. According to Variety, Frank Darabont will be directing The Walking Dead. Based on a comic book of the same name written by Robert Kirkman, it follows a group of survivors of the (inevitable) zombie apocalypse as they search for a safe place to live.

Both the director, Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile) and the producer, Gale Anne Hurd (Terminator 1-3, Hulk, Aeon Flux), have a lot of experience in bringing printed works to life on the big screen. I can’t wait to see what they do with the undead on the small screen.

"This is not about zombies popping out of closets," Stillerman said. "This is a story about survival, and the dynamics of what happens when a group is forced to survive under these circumstances. The world (in ‘Walking Dead’) is portrayed in a smart, sophisticated way."

-Joel Stillerman, Senior VP of Programming, AMC

I can hardly wait.

The Bad

In what I hope is an April Fool’s joke, Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Paramount is bringing Baywatch to the big screen. Why? I was never a fan of the original TV series, despite it having The Hoff. I just can’t see how this is going to translate to the big screen and keep fans captivated for 90 minutes. I have a couple of questions here:

• Just how many times do people have to nearly drown at a beach for them to label it unsafe?
• Who is the target audience? All those guys that secretly watched it at home? Good luck getting them to admit their shame and heading to the theatre.
• Is The Hoff going to be in it? Pam Anderson? Insert Jiggly Actress Name here?

insiders place the “Baywatch” adaptation in the context of a TV revamp like “Charlie’s Angels” rather than “Starsky and Hutch,” which indicates that female-driven action is also on the menu

-The Hollywood Reporter

After abysmally failing at the box office, I predict this will have a life in DVD/Blu Ray rentals.

The Ugly

When I read that they were going to bring back Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I was a bit conflicted. I’d love to revisit the characters again, but with how the original ended, it seemed a bit unlikely that they’d be doing a sequel and a remake is out of the question. Wow, was I wrong. Not only are they doing a sequel, but the Sundance Kid isn’t even going to be in it. How in hell did Butch escape from the Bolivian army? Bah! This is one of those iconic movies that probably shouldn’t be touched. They’ve already made the prequel for it, so they can’t even go there.

Mateo Gil, the writer of Vanilla Sky, is attached as the director. As he’s directed exclusively Spanish films thus far, this will be his first foray into the North American film market… Responsible for an iconic figure like Butch Cassidy… Yeah. I’m all filled with confidence.

-Mark

The Good

Universal has announced the home video release of the under-performing The Wolfman for June 1st, 2010. While the film underwhelms me completely, the twist in this new release is the inclusion of the original The Wolf Man on the Blu-Ray with the theatrical and directors cut of the Remake. This is certainly not unprecedented, recently Fox did the same with the remake release of The Day The Earth Stood Still.

The less cynical part of me feels that this is the studios paying some respect to the libraries they are raping for a quick buck, but even better, it is exposing the new audiences the remakes which i think is awesome! Giving audiences an opportunity to educate and familiarize themselves with the source material is a win for everyone – this also makes the originals more accessible and doesn’t leave them and their legacies behind and leave the remakes the sole representatives for the titles for the current generation. This should be compulsory for all remakes!

The Bad

Staying with the remake talk,it has been reported that Anna Faris has been linked to the Remake of 1980’s Private Benjamin. This would be the second casting story of Goldie Hawn movies being remade in as many weeks, as last week we mentioned the casting of Jennifer Lopez in the Overboard remake.

I have really mixed feelings about this. First – why the hell is there a remake happening to Private Benjamin before there is even a decent DVD available for the original. The last I went shopping for it there is a sad no-frills full-frame edition of it available on its own, or bundled as a double feature with Protocol – neither of which is very appealing. Gimme a tricked out, special edition Blu-Ray of this comedy classic before a remake eclipses any market demand for it.

However; If they are going to remake this I am very glad they are pursuing someone with comparable comic chops as Anna Faris does to Goldie Hawn. This casting is dead-on, and if the remake does materialize, I really hope they secure Faris for it.

The Ugly

Welcome to the direct to video club Mr Costner. Well, almost. His new film The New Daughter was dropped into a couple theatres without any kind of marketing behind it what-so-ever and of course quickly disappeared. Seriously, so few screens and so little promotion the box office isn’t even indexed at Box Office Mojo or The Numbers! So little promotion that only now has a trailer materialized for it! After it has been announced for home video release (May 18th, 2010)!

It is just sad that someone who had as much clout as Costner did through the 80s and into the 90s, and who only now, so late in his career, has become interesting, falls onto the discard pile. I was not a fan of his earlier works, and if you told me that this would be his fate even ten years ago, i would have taken a twisted pleasure in it. But after films like The Upside of Anger, and Mr Brooks, Costner is now someone I want to watch, but obviously Studios do not ¦¬(