What a tough week! On first glance, it didn’t seem to me that there was a whole lot hitting the shops but then, when I began to assemble the TOP 5 list, I quickly discovered otherwise. There’s some great stuff here, including a couple of films that my girlfriend has claimed are the best movies she’s seen all year and a whole lot of amazing catalogue releases including the first ever North American Hammer Films release in HD!

1. THE A-TEAM

I had no choice but to rank The A-Team tv-to-cinema adaptation as the number one Blu-ray release this week, as my girlfriend claims it’s the best film of the year. Honestly, we saw it in the theatre several months ago and I thought it was fun and far more coherent than I expected it to be. The performances are strong (Liam Neeson doing his best grizzled George Peppard with Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley following up their spotlight gigs in The Hangover and District 9 respectively) if not a bit tongue in cheek and the action is way over-the-top fun. It’s ok! But my girlfriend couldn’t stop raving about it. And my nephew couldn’t stop raving about it. So, there must be something there. Of any of the new Blu-ray discs out this week, The A-team is most likely the best bet to entertain a wide audience.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

• The Devil’s in the Details: Inside the Action with Joe Carnahan
• Never-Before-Seen Deleted Scenes
• Gag Reel
• Plan of Attack
• Character Chronicles
• Visual Effects Commentary with Visual Effects Supervisor James E. Price
• BD-Live

AMAZON: $22.99

2. TRUE GRIT

Hot on the heels of the Coen brothers’ remake comes Paramount‘s high-def debut of the Henry Hathaway original True Grit. What an amazing film! Not only does it feature John Wayne in one of his final performances (and what a performance it is!) but the film can also boast great early turns by Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall! The Blu-ray contains all the same features as the previously issued DVD (excellent commentary track and handful of featurettes) but is technically a step-up. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound track is dialogue and center heavy but opens wide for the rich, robust Elmer Bernstein soundtrack while the 1.85:1 presentation seems to be the most film-accurate on home video to date, exhibiting greater detail, more accurate colour and just a hint of film grain. My guess is that the studio used an slightly older HD master and could bump the detail up a hair with a fresh one but I doubt we’ll be seeing another release of this duster anytime soon so fans need to rush out and grab this one up while they can!

AMAZON: $17.99

3. THE BLACK PIRATE

I can’t even believe that in 2010 we’ve seen such amazing silent era films as Metropolis, The General and Battleship Potemkin released on Blu-ray! I feel a bit spoiled, to be honest. And today sees the addition of another silent great to the roster – Douglas Fairbanks‘ fun, two-strip technicolor The Black Pirate is out on Blu-ray, thanks to the great folks at Kino. The disc is a revelation, looking so much better than you’d expect and offering the choice of the original 1926 Mortimer Wilson orchestral score in Linear PCM 2.0 or a DD 2.0 Lee Erwin organ score. Kino has really knocked it out of the park here! And the the disc just gets better, as it includes a wealth of quality special features including a very informative commentary track from film historian Rudy Behlmer, a b&w “Talkie” version of the film and heaps of outtakes and stills. Highly recommended!

AMAZON: $25.99

4. THE TOWN

Ben Affleck sure is making a lot of effort not to suck lately. He must’ve gotten tired of churning out duds like Daredevil and Gigli and instead, now seems to be putting forth a serious effort to deliver some decent films onto the cinemascape! The Town is his second dramatic crime-thriller following the 2007 Gone Baby Gone. The Blu-ray disc features two cuts of the film – the 125-minute theatrical cut and 153-minute extended version – both crammed onto one disc without seamless branching (there are little to no noticeable quality issues despite the low-bandwidth video encodes.) They offer significant differences and are both worth watching, along with Affleck’s commentary track, which dissects the additions. The hearty DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 brings the love and may bust-up your glassware with all it’s punchy gusto. Muscular audio design and dynamic range will leave you breathless.

AMAZON: $24.99

5. THE OTHER GUYS

My review copy of The Other Guys arrived last week. As the credits were rolling my girlfriend announced that this was the best film she had seen all year. I reminded her that she had previously claimed that The A-team was the film of the year. She offered up a “hrmpht” and asked to see the gag reel.

This is a real return to form for the team that brought you Anchorman. Will Ferrel and all his cohorts (too many brilliant comedians to name here) are in top form, improving their way through a mostly incoherent buddy-cops-versus-evil-businessmen plot. The laughs don’t stop when the film is over as the special features, of which there are a multitude, act as an extension of the films gags, offering up hours of deleted scenes and cut-loose improv comedy. After watching all the ad-libbing on the set I’ve got to wonder if the shooting script wasn’t maybe just a loose outline.

AMAZON: $22.99

6. VAMPIRE CIRCUS

Yeah, I know. It’s another six-disc Top 5 list this week. But I just can’t let the post publish without talking about Vampire Circus! I haven’t seen the Blu-ray disc yet so I can’t speak to the quality of Synapse Films‘ work yet but I’m just so damned happy that somebody is manning up and releasing a Hammer film in high-def! This bad boy really looks fantastic on the surface, packed with special features including an all new documentary on the making of the film. I’m sincerely hoping for the best with this disc and praying, if it’s up to snuff, that you’ll all go out and buy a copy. Maybe then the studios will see that there’s an audience for these films in HD. Here’s hoping that the classic Dracula and Frankenstein films make their way onto Blu by this time next year!

AMAZON: $20.49

NEW THIS WEEK ON 3D BLU-RAY:

AMAZON: $31.99 , $29.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
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