1. FORBIDDEN PLANET

Ten years before Star Trek would revolutionize space-man storytelling on the boob-tube and more than twenty-years before George Lucas‘ swashbuckling laser-sword saga took movie-goers by storm, Fred McLeod Wilcox‘s Cinemascope epic, Forbidden Planet hit the big screen and changed the face of celluloid science-fiction forever.

A modern genre-bending re-telling of Shakespeare‘s The Tempest, Forbidden Planet is a unique film to have been released during the b-movie era of the 50s. It takes its premise quite seriously, presenting the story of the crew of the lost space craft, Bellerephon and the team who are sent to recover them. Leslie Nielsen, most well known for his comic roles, leads a cast that features heavyweights such as Anne Francis, the incredible Walter Pidgeon and, the most famous member of the cast, Robby the Robot!

The wonderful cinematography is well represented in this detailed and vibrant high-def presentation. It really looks much better than you’d expect a film of its age to, with a nice veneer of film grain and bold, quite accurate colours. And the DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack is slouch either. While not quite up to today’s bombastic standards, the audio presents a solid, pleasant sonic experience, highlighting Louis and Bebe Barron‘s classic electronic score, which has most likely never sounded better!

Special Features:

• Deleted scenes and lost footage
• 2 Robby the Robot guest appearances
  • The Invisible Boy feature film
  • The Thin Man TV series episode Robot Client
• The Watch the Skies! Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us TCM documentary
• 2 featurettes
  • Amazing! Exploring the Far Reaches of Forbidden Planet
  • Robby the Robot: Engineering a Sci-Fi Icon
• Excerpts from The MGM Parade TV series
• Theatrical trailers of Forbidden Planet and The Invisible Boy

Amazon: $17.49

2. STARDUST

I’m still bowled over by how much I truly loved Stardust. What a fantastic film on a really great Blu-ray disc. Do yourself a favour and grab yourself up a copy as soon as you can!

Read my full review here: Stardust Blu-ray Disc Review

Amazon: $19.99

3. THE PLAYER

I can’t wait to get my copy of Robert Altman‘s The Player. The famous director is certainly responsible for his fair share of classic films (M*A*S*H, Nashville and Gosford Park among them) but this is the film that really stands out for me. I love just about everything about it but I think, for me, it’s all about Tim Robbins‘ incredible performance as Hollywood producer Griffin Mill. I’ve never found it as easy to sympathize with a sleaze-bag murderer as I have with Mill. For all of his greasy, evil deeds I just want things to work out for the guy. I guess that’s Robbins’ charm getting to me, huh?

UPDATE: I’ve watched the Blu-ray and can report that it is a welcome upgrade from the previously available DVD but not by leaps and bounds. While colours are more accurate, the image is generally soft despite the increase in detail. The excellent special features have thankfully made the transition to this new Blu-ray edition.

Special Features:

• Commentary by director Robert Altman and writer Michael Tolkin
• Additional scenes

• Featurette: One-on-One with Robert Altman
• Theatrical trailer

Amazon: $18.99

4. IN COLD BLOOD

Forget about the real-life events this story is based upon. Forget about the famous Truman Capote book of the same name. Hell, you can even forget about the brilliant performances here by creepy Robert Blake and Scott Wilson as killers Perry Smith and “Dick” Hickock. All you need to know about Richard Brooks‘ 1967 adaptation of In Cold Blood is that this is some of cinematographer Conrad Hall‘s absolute best work and outside of seeing it projected on the big screen from a 35mm print, this Blu-ray disc is your best chance of appreciating it as it was meant to be seen.

Amazon: $14.99

5. POLTERGEIST

The first and best of the Poltergeist series of films is co-written by Steven Spielberg and directed by Texas Chainsaw Massacre auteur Tobe Hooper. It’s well worth a look for anyone who likes a good scare or a good, classic 80s film doing its best to serve up a good scare. I haven’t seen the Blu-ray yet but I’m crossing my fingers, hoping that WHV will deliver a solid, detailed transfer.

Amazon: $18.99

WARNER HOME VIDEO SCI-FI ON BLU-RAY: Mars Attacks!, Lost in Space, THX 1138 (The George Lucas Director’s Cut), A Scanner Darkly, Matrix Reloaded

All right, Warner…what’s the deal?! Counting this weeks number one pick, Forbidden Planet and the first-time-single release of Matrix Reloaded, WHV is busting my wallet with a whopping six catalogue sci-fi titles new to store shelves this week. And a lot of them are pretty great! I’m most excited to get my hands on the THX 1138 disc to see how Lucas’ restoration looks in high-def. Also, I’m a closet Mars Attacks! fan. Honestly, I think it’s one of the better Tim Burton films.

Amazon: $18.99, $15.99, $19.99, $15.99, $18.99

TV SEASONS ON BLU-RAY: Smallville: The Complete Ninth Season, Supernatural: The Complete Fifth Season, Chuck: The Complete Third Season, The Office: Season Six

Amazon: $46.99, $45.99, $45.99, $37.99

ALSO AVAILABLE ON BLU-RAY THIS WEEK
Clicking an image will take you to Amazon.com where you can learn more about and purchase the Blu-ray disc:

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I’ve been waiting three years to see Stardust. After missing my chance to catch it in the theatre, I held out for an eventual release of the film on Blu-ray – a release I was beginning to feel might never come to pass. After all this time, years spent avoiding the film on DVD, HD-DVD and cable, I’ve finally been able to see Stardust on Blu-ray. And let me tell you, it was worth the wait!

Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake, Kick-Ass) has crafted in Stardust a nearly perfect fairy tale film. I sat through the two-hour runtime beaming, a smile on my face from beginning to end. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this wonderful! Vaughn, the director, co-writer and man chiefly responsible for bringing the film to the big-screen, did not bestow an easy task upon himself, when he agreed to adapt Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess‘ illustrated novel to film. As is par for the course in Gaiman’s imaginative work, there are a myriad of scenes and characters in the original story that would inevitably prove far too complex, outlandish or expensive to film. And with a structure crafted to take advantage of prose, Vaughn had to almost re-imagine the film from the ground up to make it work on celluloid. These are generally not the hallmarks of a well devised production.

But for all the challenges of moving this tale of the world of fairy from the page to the screen, Stardust doesn’t seem to have suffered in the slightest. It’s a time-honoured tale of a boy on a quest to win the hand of the girl he loves, and in doing so, unwittingly undertaking the journey that will lead him to become a man. Sounds kind of pedestrian on the surface – like a run-of-the-mill fairy tale, or hero’s quest. But what makes this story and this film truly special is the combination of Gaiman’s unique voice – the way he’s able to take a familiar mythical pattern or archetype and breathe new, fresh life into them – with Vaughn’s elastic filmmaking style – a style that allows brilliant comic actors like Ricky Gervais, Rupert Everett and Robert DeNiro (no seriously, he’s hilarious in this!) to improvise and have fun onscreen. Along with wonderful performances from Michelle Pfeiffer as a nasty old witch, Peter O’Toole (!!!) as the dying King, the ever-lovely Claire Danes as a fallen star and Charlie Cox as the hero-to-be, Tristan Thorn, Stardust is a tour-de-force of incredible talent and fantastic, whimsical storytelling of a sort that modern Hollywood offers up far too rarely.

Stardust arrives on Blu-ray sporting a pleasant, filmic high-def image that’s not likely to blow you away. There are moments where the picture becomes a tad soft or too noisy for my liking, but overall there’s enough detail and colour fidelity to please. Blacks are solid, film grain is present and there doesn’t appear to be any overall defects in the print. The DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless audio track is less than impressive out of the gate but roars to life as the film kicks into high gear! The music is well represented (though, sadly, I didn’t care for the compositions themselves – the low-point of the film for this reviewer) and sound effects are lively and accurate through all channels. Without having having seen or heard previous incarnations of the film on home video, I think I can safely say that the Blu-ray edition of Stardust presents a vast improvement over its previously available HD-DVD counterpart, which sported a mere Dolby Digital 5.1 lossy audio track.

The Stardust Blu-ray is also a worthy upgrade for the inclusion of additional special features! Along with the deleted scenes, bloopers and trailer present on the HD-DVD, you’ll get a pleasant, informative but slightly slow-ish commentary from Vaughn and co-writer Jane Goldman and a collection of amazing featurettes that, together add up to one nearly-one-hour-long documentary on the film. My big gripe about the package is that these little slices of documentary are clearly chapters of a whole (there are credits that roll at the end of the last sequence which confirm as much) but the menu fails to provide a “Play All” option! It’s not the end of the world but it is aggravating to me, as I would prefer to sit back and watch the whole piece from beginning to end without having to ride the remote.

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I’ve been waiting for Stardust to be released on Blu-ray for what seems like an age. I was so upset to have missed out on seeing it in the cinema but dead set against picking it up on home video at the time it was initially released. You see, it was only released on DVD and HD-DVD. And, though I had yet to purchase my PS3, I knew it was in the cards for me. I was already a Blu-ray guy, way back then. So, it’s with great relief to me that Paramount has finally given in and announced the impending release of Matthew Vaughn‘s adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess‘ Stardust. It better live up to all my pent up expectations…or else!

STARDUST
(September 7, 2010 – MSRP $29.99)
Video: 2.39:1 1080p
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

Special Features:

• Commentary by Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman
• Crossing the Wall: The Making of Stardust (in HD)
• Nothing Is True…
• Deleted scenes
• Blooper reel
• Theatrical trailer (in HD)

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Coraline creeps through the portal to home video

Now, this is exactly the Blu-ray news that’ll get me out of bed early on a Thursday morning. Henry Selick‘s brilliant stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman‘s Coraline is making it’s way to Blu-ray, with both 2-D and 3-D formats available on the same disc! This is fantastic! Coraline is the first film I ever had the pleasure to see in 3-D in the theatre and I have to say, I was so taken aback by the effect that I barely noticed the film itself for the first 15-20 minutes or so. After the technical be-dazzlement wore thin, I sat stunned, wholly taken in by the content alone. This was not only a fantastic film but an incredible theatrical experience for me. One I can’t wait to replicate in my home theatre.

(WARNING: SCIENCE ZONE AHEAD) But while details of the process used to bring 3-D to the Coraline Blu-ray are nowhere to be found at this early date we can safely assume that the four included pair of glasses will be of the old-school anaglyph (red/blue) variety as opposed to the more effective polarized lenses used in theaters. To bring this experience home, I would need to own a projector that will show the film at 72fps, a push-pull electro-optical modulator called a ZScreen in front of the lens, switching polarization and a special cinema screen to minimize depolarization and to reflect back as much light as possible to counter polarization losses. Sigh. With all the gadgets involved and the ridiculous expense attached I don’t see high quality 3-D happening in living rooms anytime soon for those of us not named Bill Gates. Until the time when a new technology succeeds and becomes an affordable solution for the home, we’ll have to settle for the same cheap alternative used on The Creature from the Black Lagoon over half a century ago. (NOTE: END OF SCIENCE ZONE)

With or without 3-D, the film is a triumph of animation and of story. And the Blu-ray disc looks set to please as well:

CORALINE
(July 21, 2009, MSRP $39.98)
2-D and 3-D Versions Included
4 Pairs of 3-D Glasses Included
Video: 1.85:1 1080p VC-1
Audio: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio

Special Features Include:

• Feature commentary with director Henry Selick and composer Bruno Coulais (on 2-D and 3-D versions)
• Deleted scenes
• The Making of ‘Coraline’
• Voicing the Characters
• Creepy Coraline
• D-Box
• U-Control (on 2-D version only):

◦ Picture-in-picture
◦ Tours and voice sessions
◦ Animatic picture-in-picture

• BD Live:

◦ My Scenes Sharing
◦ The World According to Henry

• Digital copy of 2-D version (expires July 31, 2010)

Link to details of Coraline Collector’s Edition DVD: www.nbcuniversalstore.com

To learn more about Coraline visit this excellent blog: EVIL BUTTONS
Review at FPS Magazine: Coraline Review

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