Here at Inside Pulse Movies, we compile all the best deals for DVD and Blu-ray releases, as well as report on some that are so good they’re criminal. Disclaimer: Inside Pulse is an Amazon affiliate (therefore we make a small percentage of every sale). So just know that every dollar earned helps run the site.
But first the coming attractions.
Quite a diverse line-up of new releases this week. We begin with a TV series that is about to begin its second season on the FX network. Justified is a program that I regarded as the best new show of 2010 when discussing the year in movies and TV with the rest of the staff of Inside Pulse Movies. The show is based on a character created by legendary author Elmore Leonard. If you’ve ever seen Jackie Brown, Out of Sight or Get Shorty, then you are familiar with his work. Timothy Olyphant plays the southern-bred federal lawman Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, a character that dispenses justice in a rather archaic manner, oftentimes against protocol. Based on Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole,” though he also appears in the novels Pronto and Riding the Rap, Givens is reassigned to the state of Kentucky – specifically the district that encompasses his hometown of Harlan County – as the result of shooting a Miami fugitive while working in South Florida. While he felt the shooting was “justified” his bosses in the U.S. Marshals Service don’t necessarily agree.
In a TV landscape consisting of one to many police procedurals, Justified is a breath of fresh air. The first season plays like a procedural with Givens involving himself in cases that include a missing art collection, playing hostage negotiator and tangling with ex-cons, but has a continuing storyline that involves Givens and the Crowders, a drug-trafficking family with a loose cannon in Boyd Crowder (The Shield‘s Walton Goggins). Killer extra: “Meet the Marshals: A conversation with Charlie Almanza,” technical consultant on the series and who has served as an Assistant Chief U.S. Deputy Marshal.
Turning our attention away from the small screen to the big screen is a pair of thrillers, one of which got hardly any play. Buried is a thriller that most audiences will hate and the reason is simple: it takes place in one location. Now if it was a place of considerable size like a house or Nakatomi Plaza, this would be a non-issue. But the entire story takes place in a coffin. Even with Ryan Reynolds as the star, Buried only played on a grand total of 107 screens in the United States after expansion. The film was Rodrigo Cortés’ American debut and he makes the most of it, utilizing numerous camera tricks to make it work. From a false top allowing us to see Ryan Reynolds from above to wide angles to see the entire length of the coffin, the visuals astound in HD. If you are looking for a thriller that defies convention, definitely check this one out. The Blu-ray release doesn’t offer much in the way of extras (only a single featurette), but it does come with a copy of it on DVD, I guess to lend out to those who are skeptical about its premise.
The other thriller is one that looked like crap from the word go, Takers. But, as it turns out, the movie isn’t horrible as the trailers and the worst Photoshop poster ever created lead us to believe. Is it worthy of Top 10 acclaim like Armond White suggests – absolutely not. It does manage to be a pretty entertaining thriller even with Hayden Christensen, Paul Walker and T.I. in the cast. Thankfully, Idris Elba has street cred from The Wire to balance things out. Early on this looked like a Heat wannabe, as it has a low-rent feel, but not the talent both in front and behind the camera to match it. Covering familiar ground with a one-last-score plot, Takers doesn’t break new ground, but it is much better than I or even Scott (who reviewed it back in August) expected. Plus it has one of the best foot chases in a motion picture in quite a while. Not an outright purchase, but it is a fun flick to pass a few hours. Not much in the way of extras, but the Blu-ray has two exclusives: one is a making-of and the other is a behind-the-scenes look at the stunts.
The best in catalog titles this week goes to The Criterion Collection who has delivered two Samuel Fuller classics, The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor, both of which make their debuts on Blu-ray (and replace previous CC DVDs). My introduction to Fuller came as a result of watching a bit of The Big Red One on television. Then I saw its “reconstruction,” and what was a 113-minute WWII B-movie became a 162-minute WWII B-movie. The filmmaker may not be mentioned in the same breath with some of the revered greats like Hitchcock or Kurosawa, but Fuller’s specialty was in low-genre films that were controversial and involved characters on the fringe of society. Shock Corridor involves a reporter who voluntarily commits himself to a Cuckoo’s Nest, while The Naked Kiss features a prostitute attempting to change her life by working in a pediatric ward.
Fuller’s directing style is both energetic and simplistic, which isn’t at all surprising since it mimicked his pulp writing sensibilities. An emphasis on marginalized characters had a great influence on directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, both of whom have made great films centered on nefarious types (Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction as examples).
With Criterion you expect and receive quality releases. The Naked Kiss may not be brimming with new material, but it isn’t a “naked,” menus-as-its-only-extra release either. Besides a new transfer, we get a new interview with star Constance Towers, some TV interviews with Fuller and a pull-out booklet with illustrations by Daniel Cloves (“Ghost World”) and excerpts from Fuller’s autobiography. Shock Corridor‘s best extra is a 55-minute doc “The Typewriter, the Rifle and the Movie Camera” about Fuller.
This week’s ads are pretty depressing for deals but BEST BUY has a good one this week. Justified is selling for $20 on DVD and $25 on Blu-ray. What makes it good is that they come packaged with episode 1 of its second season. That makes it a definite purchase for those who don’t want to wait a few weeks for the season premiere.
Zilch – unless you really desire getting the Freakonomics DVD ($18) bundled with the the paperback book.
The online retailer continues to bring its A-game in terms of sales. Not only does it routinely match the sale prices of Best Buy and Target weekly, it offers a number of titles considerably less than you’ll find in stores. See for yourself below.
DVD:
The Blind Side – $5.49
Sherlock Holmes – $6.99
The Social Network (2 Discs) – $12.99
Easy A – $12.99
Archer: Season 1 – $13.49
The Cleveland Show – $13.99
Blu-ray:
Magnolia – $9.49
The Neverending Story – $9.49
Atonement – $9.99
The Dark Knight – $9.99
L.A. Confidential – $9.99
Cool Hand Luke – $9.99
The New World – $10.49
Boogie Nights – $12.99
Moulin Rouge! – $14.99
Easy A – $16.99
The Social Network (2 Discs) – $16.99
Scott Pilgrim with the World (BD+DVD) – $19.99
Justified: The Complete First Season – $21.99
The Pillars of the Earth – $32.99 (Amazon’s Deal of the Week)
On tap for next week: Red, Client 9, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.
