New Blu-Ray Releases: 'Venom', '2001', 'The Predator', 'Starman', 'True Stories'

Venom seemed like a terrible idea. A Spider-Man spin-off without Spider-Man? How could that work? And yet, the film cleaned up at the box office. Audiences flocked to see Tom Hardy bring Eddie Brock and his symbiote alter ego to life, even though critics trashed it. So is Venom a hidden gem? A good movie critics just didn't understand? Absolutely not! Venom is a mess. The direction from Ruben Fleischer is rather pedestrian – I dare you to name one memorable or impressive shot from this film – and the script, by Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, and Kelly Marcel, is downright laughable. And yet...Venom is worth watching. I don't mean in the "so bad it's good" sense, either. No, Venom is worth seeing simply to behold whatever the hell it is Tom Hardy is doing here. Hardy plays pushy journalist Eddie Brock, who goes from the top of the world to the bottom of the garbage heap when asks serious questions of genius inventor/Elon Musk stand-in  Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). Eddie's probing costs him his job, and his fiance, played by Michelle Williams, who is here strictly to cash a paycheck. Eddie becomes a total loser, and then happens to be infected with an alien ooze known as a symbiote. This turns him into Venom, a giant gooey monster with a immense, slimy tongue. And then there's a bunch of crap about Eddie and Venom trying to save the world – but really, that doesn't matter. What matters is Hardy's absolutely gonzo performance. The actor is all-in here, playing Eddie as a twitchy, jabbering maniac. There's a scene where Hardy gets so hot he climbs into a lobster tank to cool down – and this entire scene was Hardy's idea. I didn't like Venom as a film, but I loved watching Hardy lose himself in his role.

Special Features to Note:There are a few deleted and extended scenes included on this Blu, but the only one worth note is an extended version of the film's post-credit scene, in which Woody Harrelson shows up wearing a Little Orphan Annie wig, playing Cletus Kasady. This character eventually becomes Carnage – something that's underlined by Cletus saying, "When I get out of here...there's going to be carnage!!" Did I mention the script is awful? In any case, this extended version has Eddie and Cletus talking a bit more, and gives Harrelson more to do. So if you were hoping for even more moments of that glorious wig, you're in luck. From Symbiote to Screen tracks the character's origins in the comic books. "It's this super dark version of a superhero!" says Ruben Fleischer, calling the character a mixture of horror, action and comedy. Fleischer's mention of how dark Venom is sets off a pattern – almost every featurette includes at least one person mentioning how dark Venom is. There's an entire faturette about how Venom isn't "all good", but an anti-hero. "It's an alchemy of two very different beings!" says Tom Hardy. There's constant talk about how dark the character is. And Kevin Smith shows up to call Venom "The Wolverine of Spider-Man villains," whatever that means. Designing Venom focuses on the look on Venom in the movie. Yet again, people call Venom "dark" and "bad ass" over and over. Fleischer says they wanted the design of the character to honor the comics, and I'd say they mostly did that. And of course, there's lots of talk about Venom's glorious tongue.

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I first saw The Predator, Shane Black's reboot/sequel of the sci-fi franchise about everyone's favorite dreadlock-wearing alien, at a Midnight Madness screening at the Toronto International Film Festival. While I wouldn't say I loved the film, I did have fun, especially in that atmosphere. Now The Predator is on Blu-ray, and let me say, watching it at home instead of with a wild Midnight Madness crowd isn't as enjoyable. To be clear: The Predator isn't awful. But the plotting is a wonky, some of the jokes fall flat, and the film's ending is a mess. But in between all that is a fun, funny sci-fi comedy. Yes, comedy is the key word here – Shane Black plays up the humor, big time. The film focuses on a team of military rejects going up against a Predator. As you might expect, the Predator kills lots of people. Boyd Holbrook is a bit dull as the lead character, but Olivia Munn is quite good as a scientist who gets roped in with the men. And Sterling K. Brown steals the entire movie as a government agent interested in capturing the Predator. If you're a fan of Black's work, you'll likely get a kick out of The Predator. But I don't think people will look back at this movie as fondly as the look back at the original.

Special Features to Note:A Touch of Black goes behind the scenes with Shane Black, the man who has the distinction of appearing in the first Predator, only to go on to helm an eventualy sequel. Black talks a bit about how he ended up in the first Predator – he was brought on to write jokes, and they figured putting him in the movie would keep him on-set for screenplay touch-ups. But Black didn't want to do that – he just wanted to act in the film. Which lead to his character being killed by the Predator first.When it came time to make the new Predator, the producers "tested" Black's involvement on Facebook with a mock-up poster, and the poster got a huge response. That's certainly one way to lock down your director, I guess. 

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Talking Heads frontman David Byrne directed only one movie in his career: the quirky, unique 1986 comedy True Stories. The film is a series of vignettes that follow Byrne around the fictional town of Virgil, Texas. There, he introduces us to all sorts of oddballs, most notably a clean room technician looking for love, played by a young John Goodman. Even though this is Byrne's only directorial effort, you can see how ahead of his time he was here. In True Stories, you can see the roots of the films of Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, and more. Blending offbeat scenes with strange musical numbers, True Stories is an absolute delight. I only wish Byrne had made a few more films like this, but the fact that this is his one and only movie makes it extra special.

Special Features to Note: A lengthy (just over an hour long) making-of featurette takes you through nearly ever step of the film, from conception to execution. Byrne reveals that he loved directing, because he got to build a world – which is more than he gets to do when writing a song. He goes on to note that he didn't start True Stories off with an actual story. Instead, he created several drawings – essentially storyboards – and tacked them up to a wall. Then he would invite cinematographers over to look at the drawings, and ask their opinions on them. Byrne didn't want to tie his different narratives together – he wanted them to mostly stand on their own. To get this just right, he reached out to Joan Tewkesbury, writer of Robert Altman's Nashville, which also features several different storylines. Twekesbury didn't want to write a script for him, but she did give him some advice. Specifically, she told Byrne that he didn't need a narrative connection for his stories – he needed an emotional connection. Byrne took it from there, co-writing the script with Stephen Tobolowsky and Beth Henley.

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