"The Godfather" is coming to Blu-ray

Here's an offer no owner of a hi-def TV set can refuse: Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather trilogy, which recently underwent a frame-by-frame restoration, is coming to Blu-ray on Sept. 23.

The films are also being issued on a five-disc DVD set, although the four-disc Blu-ray box will contain a slew of exclusive extras, all of them in HD. The DVD set will cost $73, while the Blu-ray will set you back $120. Small price to pay for two of the greatest films ever made (and one superfluous sequel).

A big fat box of Sopranos

Just in time for my birthday on November 11 (Sara, I'm talking to you), HBO Video is releasing a giant box set of 28 DVDs containing all five seasons of The Sopranos.

The box, which will clock in at a whopping 10 pounds, will also include 3 CDs of soundtrack music from the show, as well as two more DVDs containing all-new bonus material, such as panel discussions with the cast and crew, various Sopranos spoofs and deleted scenes - including, for the first time anywhere, the actual last five minutes from the series finale which accidentally got lopped off when the episode first aired. OK, not really.

How much will it cost? $400. Bada-BING.

In an interview with USA Today to promote the set, Sopranos creator David Chase laid to rest the rumors of a spin-off movie - and in the process, confirmed that Tony really did get whacked at the end of the show.

"I'm not anxious to do one; I'm not looking to do one," Chase says. ... The finale "makes it problematic to continue the story; I'm not interested in going forward."

Problematic - as in "Tony's dead." Case closed.

Where did all those unsold HD-DVDs end up, anyway?

Apparently, a slew of them were shipped to the warehouses of inetvideo.com. The Internet retailer is running a ridiculous closeout sale on HD DVDs starting at $3.99 per disc. Not all the discs are priced that cheap, but there's a ton of good stuff for $6 and $7, too. I just ordered four titles I had always meant to get and my total was less than the price of a single Blu-ray. Obsolete technology occasionally has its perks.

James Bond is coming to Blu-ray

MGM has announced the October 21 release of six 007 titles on Blu-ray. The titles, which are getting frame-by-frame restorations and will be accompanied by a slew of extras, are Dr No, Thunderball, Live or Let Die, From Russia With Love, Die Another Day and For Your Eyes Only.

The titles are scheduled to coincide with the theatrical release of the 22nd James Bond thriller, Quantum of Solace, on November 7. There is hope, too, that the other 14 Bond films will be issued on Blu-ray in the spring of 2009, when Quantum hits regular DVD. Those ought to sell a few Playstations.

Clint Eastwood talks Dirty Harry

Here's a great interview with Clint Eastwood (who turned 78 on Saturday) about the new Dirty Harry DVD and Blu-ray box sets, which hit stores yesterday.

I would have loved to write about them myself, but my review screeners must have gotten lost in the mail (ahem). Instead, I had to sit through this crap for my DVD column running Friday.

A couple of Clint quotes from the piece:

"All the movies you make, all these roles you take, and there are certain ones that people really hold on to. Harry is the one I hear about the most from the people on the street."

"People are disappointed when they walk up to me and ask to see the gun and I tell them that, well, I don't really carry guns."

"There was a lot made about the politics of [Dirty Harry] and what my politics were -- imagined and real. A lot of people thought I was a renegade. Everyone drew these things into it. Maybe they were there. Maybe they were reading stuff into it that wasn't there. It's a role. That's the fun of being an actor, being something you weren't."

Fatten up that Blu-ray collection

Amazon has proclaimed June 2-6 Hi-Def Week and they're running great deals on pricey Blu-ray box sets. A different title set will be available every day at a deep discount, along with a "Lightning Pick" that will be posted at 9 a.m. and available in limited supply. Go here to check out today's titles.

In honor of the sale, I'm posting a list of some Blu-ray titles heading to store shelves this year. This is not an all-inclusive list, but more of a list of the ones I'm interested in. Go here for a complete schedule of everything coming out in the weeks ahead. Also, if you're a fan of B-grade horror and exploitation pictures, check out some cool titles coming here.

The format appears to be gathering momentum, which means 20th Century Fox should be releasing the Alien Quadrilogy in hi-def any day now. This would make me very happy.

JUNE 10

Natural Born Killers (wish it was the uncut version)

JUNE 17

Men in Black

JUNE 24

Persepolis

The Spiderwick Chronicles

JULY 1

Gangs of New York

In the Line of Fire

Point Break

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JULY 8

Batman Begins

The Ruins

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JULY 15

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

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JULY 29

Dark City: Director's Cut

Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle

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AUGUST 5

Starship Troopers

AUGUST 12

The Doors

AUGUST 19

Nixon: Director's Cut

AUGUST 26

The Nightmare Before Christmas

Pale Rider

SEPTEMBER 2

Transformers

SEPTEMBER 9

Cool Hand Luke

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SEPTEMBER 16

Beetlejuice

SEPTEMBER 26

Risky Business

SEPTEMBER 30

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

NOVEMBER 4

The Shawshank Redemption

 

Coming soon on Blu-ray disc - maybe

The Digital Bits reports 20th Century Fox and MGM are mulling over which catalog titles to release on the Blu-ray format this year. Among the films being discussed: Fargo, The French Connection (woo-hoo!), the original Planet of the Apes, Young Frankenstein, the X-Men trilogy and, um, Super Troopers.

Dear Fox executives: Instead of the towering comedy classic known as Super Troopers, which won't be any funnier just because it's in high-def, may I humbly suggest you release this instead? Please? I guarantee you it will sell a lot more copies. That's a promise.

Best Buy cares about HD DVD owners, too

It's not just Circuit City helping HD DVD owners make the leap to Blu-ray land. Electronics chain Best Buy has set aside a whopping $10 million in order to mail a $50 gift card to every customer who bought an HD DVD player in one of their stores before Feb. 23. The chain is also allowing customers to trade in their HD DVD players via BestBuyTradeIn.com.

Curiously, now that the format war is over, Blu-ray players aren't dropping in price as quickly as they were before. In fact, they're actually getting MORE expensive. Imagine that!

"Before the Rain" finally coming to DVD

I've been waiting for Milcho Manchevski's Balkan war drama Before the Rain to come out on DVD since I first saw it at the Miami Film Festival in 1995, when it became my favorite film of that year. My four-star review is no longer available online, but former New Times film critic Todd Anthony recommended it to his readers based on my excited babblings when I ran into him coming out of the press screening at the AMC Omni Theaters. Here's a clip from his astute non-review:

One such film was Before the Rain, the much-talked-about debut of Macedonian (part of the former Yugoslavia) writer-director Milcho Manchevski. A scheduling mixup (probably my fault) prevented me from viewing this Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film. Before the Rain falls into three sections: In "Words" a young monk who has taken a vow of silence in a twelfth-century Macedonian monastery must choose between his commitment to God and the love of a mysterious young woman; in "Faces" a London photo editor likewise must choose between two men: her estranged husband and a passionate, wildly quixotic war photographer; in "Pictures" the photographer returns to the civil war-ravaged Macedonian village of his birth.

Unfortunately I arrived at the the theater just in time to greet Miami Herald film critic Rene Rodriguez on his way out. Last year Rene and I were in near-unanimous agreement on the merits of the festival's films, so I feel relatively safe in recommending this film on the basis of the little scamp's eyes being wide as saucers as he told me what an amazing spectacle I just had missed.

I interviewed Manchevski for The Herald that year and expected him to become a major-league player, since Before the Rain was one of those rare debuts that felt like the introduction of a major talent. But the Macedonian filmmaker has directed only two films in the ensuing 13 years - Dust (2001) and Shadows (2007) - along with an episode from the first season of HBO's The Wire.

Manchevski has also directed a slew of short films and music videos (including the memorable clip for Arrested Development's Tennessee), but no other feature films. He was hired by Warner Bros. to direct Three Kings, and 20th Century Fox wanted him to make Ravenous for them, but he left both projects over creative differences with the studios.

I walked out of Dust, an insufferably pretentious and pointlessly violent western, during a screening at the Toronto Film Festival. I haven't seen Shadows, but the reviews have not been kind and it hasn't been picked up for distribution in the U.S.

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It is beginning to look like Manchevski is a one-hit wonder, but at least we'll finally be able to savor that hit on DVD. Universal Pictures, which owned the U.S. distribution rights, issued it on VHS but never bothered to release it on disc, even though the movie was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

But the awesome folks at the Criterion Collection have once again stepped in and rescued another great film from oblivion. The label will release Before the Rain this June, accompanied by a commentary track from Manchevski and a few other supplements. I've only seen the film once and can't wait to watch it again to see if it is as good as I remember.

ADDENDUM: Turns out Manchevski archived my original review on his website. Click here to check it out. That line about him "never making another movie again" now seems strangely prescient.

"Dirty Harry" is coming to Blu-ray

All five of Clint Eastwood's fascist popular crime-dramas featuring the badge-wielding vigilante Harry Callahan are coming on HD-DVD and Blu-ray on June 3, armed with loads of extras.

The five movies - Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact (aka The One Where He Says "Go Ahead, Make My Day") and The Dead Pool - will only be available as part of a lavish box set that includes a bonus sixth disc containing the previously-available documentary Clint Eastwood: Out of the Shadows.

Each film will be accompanied by commentary tracks, retrospective featurettes, trailers and the usual goodies. Dirty Harry will also be available as a standalone disc, packaged inside a book-type casing that Warner Bros. is going to be using on several of its classic-title releases this year.

The box set will also includes lots of useless neat Dirty Harry trinkets, such as a fake wallet with police badge. No word on how much this puppy will cost, but I'm getting one. Here's a shot of the contents of the box set.

(Some) Blu-ray discs just got a lot cheaper

In a move I hope other studios will emulate, 20th Century Fox has just permanently slashed the prices of a truckload of its catalog titles from $40 to $30. This means you can find them at online retailers for $15-$20.

Among the newly reduced titles are: The Fly (an excellent, excellent disc), Speed, Edward Scissorhands, The Devil Wears Prada, Cast Away and 28 Days Later. Click here for a complete list.

Trade in your HD DVD player for Blu-ray at Circuit City

Gizmodo reports that Circuit City is doing a very cool thing for consumers who purchased an HD DVD player within the last 90 days and allowing them to trade it in for full credit towards the purchase of a Blu-ray machine, or even just a gift card. The electronics chain is not advertising this deal, so it might be a good idea to call ahead and make sure your store is participating in the offer.

Now when are the studios going to allow us to trade in our HD DVD coasters movies for Blu-ray versions?

Falling on their swords

The Toshiba Corporation's chief executive, Atsutoshi Nishida, sat down with the Wall Street Journal to talk about the company's swift decision to pull the plug on the HD DVD format after the Jan. 4 defection of Warner Bros. to the Blu-ray camp.

Nishida said he didn't think they "stood a chance after Warner left us because it meant HD DVD would have just 20% to 30% of software market share. One has to take calculated risks in business, but it's also important to switch gears immediately if you think your decision was wrong. We were doing this to win, and if we weren't going to win then we had to pull out, especially since consumers were already asking for a single standard."

Nishida also said they took a little time reaching their decision in order to "consider all the ramifications and consequences of pulling out, such as how it would affect consumers and us."

No word on what the company concluded the effect on consumers would be, other than leaving people who had bought an HD DVD player thoroughly screwed.

Meanwhile, Paramount Pictures has canceled the previously announced HD DVD releases of Bee Movie, Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood, two of which I was really looking forward to (can you guess which two?). Universal Pictures has followed suit and stated that Atonement, which is due out on March 18, will be the last HD DVD the company ever releases.

It is ironic that Warner Bros., the studio that killed HD DVD by going Blu-exclusive, will be the last studio left releasing films on the dead format. The studio is following up on its promise to issue titles through the end of May, which means you'll still be able to pick up I Am Legend, Bonnie and Clyde and Twister in red cases, among others.

Even though I have a Blu-ray player, I'm going to pick up all of the above on HD DVD, just for nostalgia's sake. Then again, I was one of those people who kept buying laserdiscs even after DVD was introduced. I love obsolete media!

Tilting at windmills

A Save HD-DVD! Petition has gone up in hopes of getting Warner Bros. to rescind their decision to go Blu-ray exclusive. The number of signatures is growing by the minute, but now that New Line Cinema and HBO have followed their parent company's lead and gone Blu-only as well, it is highly unlikely - OK, impossible - that the petition will have any effect.

The two remaining studios supporting HD-DVD, Paramount and Universal, are rumored to be in negotiations to announce Blu-ray support practically any moment now. In other words, visit the cool HD-DVD website while you still can, since it's probably not going to exist much longer.

A quicker than expected death for HD-DVD?

According to the Financial Times, Paramount Pictures is poised to follow Warner Bros.' lead and abandon HD-DVD for its rival Blu-ray. Although Paramount stopped releasing titles earlier this year on Blu-ray in exchange for 150 million in a deal with the HD-DVD camp, there was apparently an escape clause in the contract that gave the studio an out if Warner went blue.

Paramount's defection would only speed up what already seems inevitable, since with only two studios on its current roster (Paramount and Universal), HD-DVD can't possibly hope to stay in the game.

Blu-ray wins the format war

Now that Warner Bros. will be dumping HD-DVD and releasing their titles exclusively on Blu-ray, the end is near for the high-def war that has been raging between the two formats since 2006.

With only two major studios left in its corner (Universal and Paramount) versus Blu-ray's four (Warner, Disney, Sony and Fox), it would seem HD-DVD's days are numbered. Rumors are swirling that the Blu-ray Association paid Warner a whopping $500 million to join their side.

More details are bound to emerge from the Consumer Electronics Showcase conference beginning tomorrow in Las Vegas. Ironically, the HD-DVD camp has canceled a pre-show press conference scheduled for tonight where some insiders say they planned to announce Warner was giving their format exclusivity.

Regardless of whether or not the studio was bought off at the last minute, the killing blow has been delivered.

"Pirates" done right

If you've watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on Blu-ray disc, you might have felt something was a little off - like Orlando Bloom's head being missing in certain scenes, or shots that focused on Johnny Depp's feet when they should have focused on his face.

The Walt Disney Co. has acknowledged that the transfer on the disc was accidentally misframed. Even better, they're doing something about it. Just call 1-800-723-4763 and Disney will mail you a replacement disc free of charge. You'll need to have your copy of the film in your hands, since they will ask you to read them certain numbers off the disc. If you're phone-phobic, or if you get a busy signal, you can do it online here.

It's very cool - and highly unusual - for a company of Disney's size to take care of a screw-up so quickly and easily. Now if only they had a program where they could magically turn the two Pirates sequels into good movies...

Forecast: Icy

I love Ang Lee's The Ice Storm and have always wished it would get a proper DVD release that would give the movie the respect it deserves. The only one available, which has cluttered store cutout bins everywhere for years, is rather anemic (OK, pathetic).

The tony folks at the Criterion Collection - the best publishers of special edition DVDs in the known universe - apparently agree, since they have announced a two-disc set of the film for March. The set will feature a new transfer of the movie, audio commentary with Lee and producer James Schamus, deleted scenes and retrospective interviews with the cast members, although not Tobey Maguire. Guess Spider-Man was just too busy.

Holiday shopping starts today

For those who have been contemplating whether or not to plunge into the ongoing high-def war between the rival HD-DVD and Blu-ray formats, here's something that might help ease your doubt: This Friday, Wal-Mart is going to be selling the Toshiba HD-A2 player for a measly $98. That's right: $98.

The sale is unadvertised, but it's definitely happening. Trust me when I say until you've seen 2001: A Space Odyssey in HD, you haven't seen it at all (unless you're lucky enough to have seen it at the theater, of course).

Kubrick, uncensored

Warner Brothers is finally going to release Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut in an unrated (i.e. uncensored) version in the U.S., after having released it in pretty much every other country in the world.

A two-disc special edition DVD of Kubrick's final film, which was not universally adored but I loved, will hit stores on Oct. 23, along with new editions of 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket and The Shining.

The discs, which will also be available on HD-DVD and Blu-ray, will feature a slew of brand new supplements, such as an audio commentary by Malcolm McDowell on Clockwork. If you're a Kubrick fan, I don't have to tell you how exciting all this is.

Getting it right

Warner Bros. and Ridley Scott are working on a definitive DVD release of Blade Runner that will gather all the different cuts of the movie that have sprouted up over the years: The original theatrical version with the voiceover narration ("I had had a bellyful of killing"); the slightly more violent European edition (previously available on home video in the U.S. exclusively on the long out-of-print Criterion laserdisc); and the 1992 director's cut that does away with the narration and the pasted-on "happy ending" (in which Harrison Ford and Sean Young run away together, using footage originally shot by Stanley Kubrick for The Shining).

Now comes word, though, that the DVD may contain one more, never-before-seen version of Blade Runner. Actress Joanna Cassidy, who played the replicant Zhora in the film, has posted an item on her personal website stating she has just finished "re-shooting her scenes" from the movie for the upcoming DVD.

Sounds like Scott, a notorious re-tinkerer, may be doing more to Blade Runner than giving it a spit-and-polish. The DVD has no firm release date yet, but the finished product will be yet more motivation to pony up for one of those newfangled HD-DVD players.

Viewing log

Friday Apr. 27

Smokin' Aces (2007): Probably felt loud and endless in the theater, but at home, not so much.

 

"Payback" redux

The essential difference between the Mel Gibson vehicle Payback released to theaters in 1999 and the version found on the Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut DVD (Paramount, $20, HD-DVD and Blu-ray $30) can be summed up thusly: In the new version, they shoot the dog.

It is a sign of just how misguided Hollywood studio logic can be that despite Payback's ridiculously high body count and cartoonish approach to violence, one of the sticking points that led first-time director Brian Helgeland to walk away from the film - which was extensively altered, and not for the better, after his departure - was the insistence by executives that a scene of a dog being shot (off-camera) simply had to go.

It was that sort of inane decision - along with the inclusion of a new third act and hammy voiceover narration designed to make Gibson's anti-hero more sympathetic - that made Payback seem so generic and forgettable during its original release.

Helgeland's version, which is presented here for the first time, is shorter, tighter and infinitely more memorable, sporting a wickedly cynical sense of humor and a mean, unsparing attitude that are a much better fit for Donald E. Westlake's source novel (the same book, by the way, that inspired John Boorman's cooler-than-cool tough-guy noir Point Blank).

The DVD, which includes extensive interviews with Helgeland and Gibson about the recutting of the film, is a fascinating, uncommonly candid study of how Hollywood studios, in their attempts to make movies more audience-friendly (i.e. commercial), often end up draining what would have made the films memorable in the first place: Their spirit and originality.

Viewing log

Monday Apr. 23

Payback: Straight Up - The Director's Cut (2007)

Wednesday, Apr. 26

Tears of the Black Tiger (2000): Made in Thailand, this visually sumptuous western/romance/revenge drama/parody/splatter flick is, simply put, the darndest thing I ever saw.

* The Godfather (1972): Little-known bit of trivia: The horse's head was real.

We're number 8!

In their latest issue, Moviemaker magazine publishes its annual list of the top 10 American cities to live, work and make movies. Miami, which ranked number 7 on last year's list, returns this year only one notch lower. It could have been a lot worse: Los Angeles, for example, didn't even make the cut.

"With over 240 feature films produced in 2006, it is the hard work of the Miami-Dade Mayor's Office of Film and Entertainment (which is comprised of three local film offices) and a large independent moviemaking community that really make South Florida shine."

Speaking of Miami's moviemaking community, the documentary Cocaine Cowboys, which was produced and directed by homeboys Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, is out on DVD and definitely bears watching, especially if you're a local. You'll never think of the Miami skyline the same way again.

Viewing log:

Monday Feb. 12

The Lives of Others (2006): As much as I love Pan's Labyrinth, I wouldn't be totally upset (or surprised) if this German thriller ran off with the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It's that good. Opens here on Feb. 23.

F--- (2006: Rambling and inconsequential documentary about the origins, uses and social significance of the dreaded F-word is also extremely entertaining and jampacked with useless but fun information. For example: Robert Altman's M*A*S*H was the first movie in which the word was uttered (it was used as an adjective). The first known appearance of the word in print was in the poem Flen Flyys, written in 1475. The average episode of HBO's Deadwood contains 69.3 uses of the word. And Pat Boone never says it, preferring instead to say his last name, as in "Oh, Boone!"