Weekly Picks

Blu-ray Picks for the Week of Dec. 16

By brenden ⋅ December 15, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

Pick Criterion Blu-rays like Chungking Express This Week

This is the week I’ve been waiting for all year - the week Criterion comes to Blu-ray! I have to admit that combing through the listings to find my picks was an added challenge with Chungking Express and Bottle Rocket staring back at me from my screen. My retina seem to only register that beautiful Criterion ‘C’, leaving the rest of the crowd a fuzzy, out of focus mess. As usual, all titles and images are clickable and will zap you over to the corresponding Amazon page which will provide you with a lot more detail about the title and the opportunity to purchase it. In doing so, you’ll be helping to support the ongoing existence of The Blu-ray Blog and this Picks column in particular. Scroll down and enjoy!

WEEK OF DECEMBER 16TH

CRITERION RELEASES

I’ve owned and loved the initial Criterion edition of this film for years. Famous for Robert Krasker’s expressionist photography, Orson Welles’s performance as the mysterious Harry Lime and a fantastic zither score by Anton Karas, Carol Reed’s 1949 noir The Third Man is adapted by Graham Greene from his novel of the same name. This release is from the same HD master as the previously available DVD but provides greatly enhanced resolution and over 3 times the bitrate. Highest possible recommendation.

You either love or hate this film. There’s little in between with The Man Who Fell To Earth in my experience. It’s Nicholas Roeg at his absolute best working from Paul Mayersberg’s adaptation of Walter Trevis’s novel. Whew…quite a mouthful. Fantastic photography, David Bowie’s first acting gig (and one he knocks out of the park!) and some incredibly beautiful still, quiet moments add up to make this one of my favourite films of all time. Like the Third Man, this disc is minted from the previously available DVDs HD transfer and carries over all the extras. One notable exemption is the absence of Trevis’ novel, packed in the box with the DVD edition.

I’ve still never had the pleasure of watching Chungking Express. I can’t tell you how pleased I am that my first experience with it will be on Blu-ray. From what I understand, Wong Kar Wai’s breakout hit won’t play as your Blu-ray demo disc but features a stunning high-def upgrade to all previously available editions nonetheless.

While Wes Anderson made his name with Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, his debut came in the form of Bottle Rocket, a little gem that gave indie-Hollywood not only one of it’s most original filmmakers, but the fantastic brothers Wilson. Like Chungking, I’ve been waiting years to check this movie out. I’m excited to see it for the first time on Criterion Blu-ray.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Grindhouse comes to Blu-ray sans trailers in two seperate, full length editions of Death Proof and Planet Terror. Both beautifully rendered in 1080p, Rodriguez‘ and Tarantino’s B-Movie epics might be lacking in the extras found in the massive Japanese box-set but still happen to be worth every penny for video and audio quality.

The Coen Brothers opt for a deliberate shift of style from their award winning No Country For Old Men to this weeks Blu-ray release of Burn After Reading. An absurdist take on paranoid thrillers like Enemy of the State or the Bourne films, Burn winds it’s characters up tightly in a wickedly convoluted CIA-centric plot. The disc looks and sounds great and features a smattering of extras.

Sean Penn’s masterful take on the 1996 non-fiction book of the same name by Jon Krakauer about the adventures of Christopher McCandless, a man seeking freedom from the shackles of materialism, played here by Speed Racer, Emile Hirsch in what Roger Ebert called a “hypnotic performance”. Sporting an incredible transfer and reference quality audio, Into the Wild is an easy recommendation this week.

Mamma Mia. People really like this. Reviews online give high marks to the transfer here. There appear to be a bunch of extras on the disc. I’ll never watch this. I especially don’t ever want to see personal heroes, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgård humiliated by Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of Abba in the “Becoming A Singer” featurette, as the actors struggle to learn how to sing the seventies disco hits. Urgh…

IMPORT WATCH

One of the best films ever made. No, really. Michael Caine stars in his first turn as the anti-Bond british spy, Harry Palmer in Sidney J. Furie’s 1965 adaptation of the Len Deighton novel, The Ipcress File. No word yet on whether this all-region British Blu-ray bests the old DVD in quality and extras but I’m shelling out to Amazon right now for the pleasure of discovering.

Eureka! brings us this region-free British Blu-ray (the studio’s first!) release of Jonnie To’s Hong Kong hit, Mad Detective as part of their excellent Masters of Cinema collection. This film was a bona-fide box-office success despite it’s Category III rating (18+) and went on to win a nomination for the Golden Lion at Venice, multiple prizes at the Asian Film Awards 2008, and the Best Screenplay prize at the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards 2008.

Another all region UK release, Artificial Eye brings us this brilliant transfer of Michael Haneke’s incredible HD Cam-shot, Cachè (AKA Hidden). Note: While the feature is available to players anywhere in the world, the extras, a Haneke interview and making of doc will not play on Region A players. Still worth the import, in my opinion.

Prachya Pinkaew, director of Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector) returns with another martial arts opus, Chocolate. Buy the all region import now or wait for the domestic release on February 10th. Either way, don’t miss out on this amazingly violent story of an autistic girl who learns to fight by watching TV and studying her Muay Thai practicing neighbours.

NEXT WEEK:

Eagle Eye, Resident Evil: Degeneration, The Duchess, Ricky Gervais in Ghost Town, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and MORE!!!

Tags: Criterion, Weekly Picks