RoosterFlix DVD Picks for October 21st

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The Incredible Hulk (Three-Disc Special Edition) (2008)
dir. Louis Leterrier

I GUESS this was better than Ang Lee's version (which I happen to like quite a bit), but both movies lack a decent villain. They kind of set up The Leader for the sequel, but I'm not sure how well he would translate to the big screen. Ed Norton was good as usual, everyone else was OK. It's always cool to see Hulk smash, but ultimately I didn't really give a shit.

Product Decsription:
A more accessible and less heavy-handed movie than Ang Lee's 2003 Hulk, Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk is a purely popcorn love affair with Marvel's raging, green superhero, as well as the old television series starring Bill Bixby as Dr. David Banner and Lou Ferrigno as the beast within him. Edward Norton takes up where Eric Bana left off in Lee's version, playing Bruce (that's the character's original name) Banner, a haunted scientist always on the move. Trying to eliminate the effects of a military experiment that turns him into the Hulk whenever his emotions get the better of him, Banner is hiding out in Brazil at the film's beginning. Working in a bottling plant and communicating via email with an unidentified professor who thinks he can help, Banner goes postal when General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross and a small army turn up to grab him. Intent on developing whatever causes Banner's metamorphoses into a weapon, Ross brings along a quietly d! eranged soldier named Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), who wants Ross to turn him into a supersoldier who can take on the Hulk. The adventure spreads to the U.S., where Banner hooks up with his old lover (and Ross' daughter), Betty (Liv Tyler), and where the Hulk takes on several armed assaults, including one in a pretty unusual location: a college campus. The film's action is impressive, though the computer-generated creature is disappointingly cartoonish, and a second monster turning up late in the movie looks even cheesier. Norton is largely wasted in the film--he's essentially a bridge between sequences where he disappears and the Hulk rampages around. As good an actor as he is, Norton doesn't have the charisma here to carry those scenes in which one waits impatiently for the real show to begin.

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The Incredible Hulk: The Complete Series (1978-1982)
dir. n/a

After watching the two Hulk movies, I'm not sure that anyone who has never seen the TV series could ever sit and watch more than 10-15 minutes of it. It's nostalgic, but that's about it.

Product Decsription:
The Incredible Hulk DVD is a collection of 14 DVDs in a 3 box set. all in 100% in chronological order from the pilot to the finale. This special Incredible Hulk DVD collection also includes custom artwork and episode guides so you can find your favorite episode at anytime!

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Knight Rider: The Complete Series (1982-1986)
dir. n/a

The packaging kicks ass, but much like the Hulk series, this show hasn't aged too well.

Product Decsription:
Shift into high gear as all four seasons and 84 action-packed episodes of Knight Rider come together for the first time in one amazing collection! David Hasselhoff is back as charismatic crimefighter Michael Knight, the driver of the world’s most dynamic, high-tech talking car, K.I.T.T. As this brave duo take on criminals, crooks and those eager to exploit K.I.T.T.’s impressive technology for their own evil purposes, you’ll be blown away by their explosive adventures that set the standard for all TV action series to come. With 24 discs tricked out with an impressive array of bonus features, it’s one complete DVD trip you can’t afford to miss!

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Missing - Criterion Collection (1982)
dir. Costa-Gavras

I haven't seen anything by Costa-Gavras, although I've been meaning to watch this movie as well as "Z" forever. I guess this one'll be first. It won the Palme D'Or at Cannes and Best Screenplay at the Oscars.

Product Decsription:
Missing is political filmmaker extraordinaire Costa-Gavras's compelling, controversial dramatization of the search for American journalist Charles Horman, who mysteriously disappeared during the 1973 coup in Chile. Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek give magnetic, emotionally commanding performances as Horman's father and wife, who are led by U.S. embassy and consulate officials through a series of bureaucratic dead-ends before eventually uncovering the terrifying facts about Charles's fate and disillusioning truths about their government. Written and directed with clarity and conscience, the Academy Award winning Missing is a testament to Costa-Gavras's daring.

DVD Features:
New, restored high-definition digital transfer
Video interviews with Costa-Gavras, Joyce Horman (wife of Charles Horman), producers Edward and Mildred Lewis and Sean Daniel, and Thomas Hauser, author of Missing, the film's source
Interviews from the 1982 Cannes Film Festival with Costa-Gavras, Jack Lemmon, Ed Horman (father of Charles), and Joyce Horman
New video essay with Peter Kornbluh, author of The Pinochet File, examining declassified documents concerning the 1973 military coup in Chile and the case of Charles Horman
Video highlights from the 2002 Charles Horman Truth Project event honoring the twentieth anniversary of Missing, with actors Sissy Spacek, John Shea, and Melanie Mayron
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Michael Wood, an interview with Costa-Gavras, the U.S. State Department's official response to Missing, and an open letter from Horman family friend Terry Simon
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Eclipse Series 13: Kenji Mizoguchi's Fallen Women (Osaka Elegy / Sisters of the Gion / Women of the Night / Street of Shame)
dir. Kenji Mizoguchi

One of the best directors of all time, and not just out of Japan. Out of everyone. Everything of Mizoguchi's I've seen has been at least nearly a masterpiece (Ugetsu being his crowning achievement), so I can't wait to check this set out.

Product Decsription:
Over the course of a three-decade, more than eighty film career, master cineaste Kenji Mizoguchi (Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff) would return again and again to one abiding theme: the plight of women in male-dominated Japanese society. In these four lacerating works of socially conscious melodrama two prewar (Osaka Elegy, Sisters of the Gion), two postwar (Women of the Night, Street of Shame) Mizoguchi introduces an array of compelling female protagonists, crushed or resilient, who are economically and spiritually deprived by their nation's customs and traditions. With Mizoguchi's visual daring and eloquence, these films are as cinematically thrilling as they are politically rousing.

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The Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Complete Series (1964-1968)
dir. n/a

Product Decsription:
It was the height of the Cold War, a time when most Americans had only the vaguest understanding of international espionage. Then, in 1964, the televised spy genre exploded on the screen in the U.S. and around the world when the groundbreaking series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. pulled the covers off of the spy game in what became must-watch television for the next four years on NBC. Here is The Man From U.N.C.L.E.: The Complete Series, beautifully packaged in a 60's style high tech attach‚ case, complete with all episodes along with hours of viewing extras.

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The Strangers (2008)
dir. Bryan Bertino

Product Decsription:
A lean, briskly paced and exceptionally creepy thriller, The Strangers earns its scares the old-fashioned way: through atmosphere, sound design, and a simple yet undeniably upsetting central premise that allows for maximum tension throughout its running time. Attractive young lovers Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are already having a bad day--she's turned down his marriage proposal--before a knock on the door in the middle of the night announces a full-fledged siege on their remote vacation home by a trio of masked assailants. The film's first third delivers the most consistent shivers as the visitors make their presence and intentions known to Tyler; the second half grows more frantic and bloody before a gruesome finale that may leave viewers either rattled to their core or bothered by its empty nihilism. Speedman is fine as the downtrodden male lead (who's seen tucking into a carton of ice cream after being rejected), but it's Tyler who impresses the most by shouldering the lion's share of the terror. First-time writer/director Bryan Bertino impresses by forsaking the current passion for over-the-top violence (save for the finale) in favor of more traditional means of generating fear, and if his project borrows heavily from other films, most notably the French chiller Them (which shares its "inspired by a true story" origin) and Michael Haneke's Funny Games, at least he's taking from the best. The sound design is among the many technical standouts, and the unsettling score by tomandandy (The Hills Have Eyes) pleasantly evokes Ennio Morricone's fuzztone-heavy work for Dario Argento in the early '70s. On a completely unrelated note, LP fanatics should appreciate how both the film's heroes and villains share an affinity for folk and country music on vinyl.

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Casino Royale (40th Anniversary Edition) (1967)
dir. Val Guest, Ken Hughes, John Huston, Joseph McGrath, Robert Parrish, Richard Talmadge

Product Decsription:
John Huston was only one of five directors on this expensive, all-star 1967 spoof of Ian Fleming's 007 lore. David Niven is the aging Sir James Bond, called out of retirement to take on the organized threat of SMERSH and pass on the secret-agent mantle to his idiot son (Woody Allen). An amazing cast (Orson Welles, Peter Sellers, Deborah Kerr, etc.) is wonderful to look at, but the film is not as funny as it should be, and the romping starts to look mannered after awhile. The musical score by Burt Bacharach, however, is a keeper. --Tom Keogh

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Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)
dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien

Product Decsription:
Inspired by Albert Lamorisse's classic 1956 Academy Award®-Winning short*, Flight of the Red Balloon is the latest masterwork from director Hou Hsiao Hsien (Three Times, Millennium Mambo). Expanding on the key elements of Lamorisse's short - a young boy, a red balloon and Paris - Hou weaves the tale of a boy, Simon (Simon Iteanu) dealing with the increased fragility of his loving yet preoccupied mother, Suzanne (Academy Award® - Winner Juliette Binoche** of The English Patient, Caché). When a Taiwanese film student, Song (Fang Song), is hired to help care for Simon, a unique extended family is formed - utterly dependent on each other yet lost in separate dreams mirrored by a delicate, shiny red balloon.

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Looney Tunes: Golden Collection, Vol. 6 (2008)
dir. n/a

The last of the Looney Tunes sets. I REALLY need to get all these.

Product Decsription:
Here comes the highly-anticipated sixth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, the studio's largest Looney Tunes compilation of animated shorts to date. Fans won't want to miss this golden opportunity to own over 60 classic, fully re-mastered and restored cartoons, presented in their original un-edited format. Most of the shorts in the collection have never been available on DVD before.

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Mondays in the Sun (2002)
dir. Fernando Leon de Aranoa

Product Decsription:
Oscar(r) winner JAVIER BARDEM dominates this insightful and heartbreaking drama that captured five of Spain's prestigious Goya Award s including Best Film and Best Actor. Directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa, the powerful story follows five unemployed shipyard workers on the coast of Spain. Led by the cocky Santa (BARDEM), a lonely former ladies' man, the men may be down on their luck but still manage to encourage each other to search for work, love and the strength to hope for better days.

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Gunnin' for That #1 Spot (Special 2 Disc Set) (2008)
dir. Adam Yauch

Product Decsription:
GUNNIN FOR THAT #1 SPOT (Two Disc Set) Easily the best movie of its kind since Steve James' Hoop Dreams. -Scott Weinberg, Cinematical On the corner of 155th and Frederick Douglas Boulevard in Harlem lies Rucker Park. By appearances, the concrete pavement, anchored on one side by its run down slab bleachers, is no different than any other basketball court in the city, but this is the place where nicknames are indelibly branded, and legends are born. On September 1, 2006, the top 24 high school basketball players in the nation stepped out on this court, that once saw the likes of Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Dr. J to compete in the first annual Elite 24 all-star game. GUNNIN FOR THAT #1 SPOT follows eight of these players as they prepare to showcase their skills at the most legendary playground in the world. Features a Platinum Level Soundtrack Presented in 5.1 SRD with tracks by Jay-Z, Ludacris, Kool and the Gang, Nas, M.I.A, The Meters, The Beastie Boys, The Staple Singers, Public Enemy and more.

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Sold Out: A Threevening With Kevin Smith (2008)
dir. Zak Knutson, Joey Figueroa

I never saw the second one, but the first one is very entertaining.

Product Decsription:
Kevin Smith -- America's coolest geek philosopher and director of Clerks I & II and Zack and Miri Make a Porno -- is back: celebrating his 37th birthday in a hilarious take-no-prisoners performance in front of a packed hometown crowd. Join the fun as Smith reveals the hysterical true stories behind the making of Clerks II and Live Free or Die Hard, the inside scoop on Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and Jason Mewes... plus Weird Doggy Love and The Jury Duty from Hemorrhoid Hell. Sold Out: A Threevening with Kevin Smith has 3x the raunch, 3x the hilarity, and 3x the charm!

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Trailer Park of Terror (2008)
dir. Steven Goldmann

Thumbs Up for rednecksploitation.

Product Decsription:
Six troubled high school students and their chaperone are returning from a retreat when their bus crashes, stranding them in the middle of trailer park hell - literally. Without warning, hillbilly zombies looking for fun begin slaughtering the teens in gruesome fashion. With a rockin' Southern-fried soundtrack, top-notch special effects and a devilish sense of humor, Trailer Park of Terror (based on the Imperium comic book series) is nasty fun for the hardcore horror fan.

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