New Blu-Ray Releases: 'Ready Player One', 'In The Mouth Of Madness', 'Rampage', 'Breaking In', 'Pyewacket', 'Dark Crimes'

In my theatrical review, I called Ready Player One the worst film of Steven Spielberg's career. Based on the comments section, that opinion didn't go over so well! So did I get it wrong? Is Ready Player One a secret masterpiece that just went over my head? I don't think so. But maybe I was a little too hard on the film. Maybe.

To be clear: Spielberg is making the best of a bad situation. I know people hold Ernest Cline's pop culture manifesto Ready Player One in the highest regard, but to me, it reads like a series of winking references run through a generic dystopian sci-fi story generator. It's an episode of VH1's I Love the 80s blended with Demolition Man. Spielberg takes that material and crafts it into...something. There are technical wonders in Ready Player One, but they're so persistent and constant that they become overwhelming. It gets to the point where all the world building up on the screen becomes a blur, and we're left wondering just what the hell is going on here.

Yet buried beneath all of this is the story of a creator coming to terms with his creations. This, I think, is what Spielberg is most interested in. Not the story of Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), boring virtual reality aficionado. No, what Spielberg would really like to focus on is the story of James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the man who created the virtual world known as the OASIS. By the end of the film, the ghost of Halliday appears and seems to be overwhelmed at the idea of his fictional worlds being hoisted into holy status by obsessive fans. Perhaps this is Spielberg reckoning with his career. Looking back at the pop culture landscape he created and wondering, "Was it all worth it?"

Or maybe I'm reading too much into things, and this is just a big dumb movie about '80s references.

Special Features to Note:

The Ready Player One Blu-ray comes loaded with over 90 minutes (good lord!) of special features.

The '80's: You're The Inspiration: Hey, remember the '80s? So does this featurette, which is all about how '80s pop culture inspired Ernest Cline so much. In this video, Cline says the '80s were highly influential on him because that's when he started noticing pop culture, and as a result, he would later pen Ready Player One. Of course, Cline was inspired by the work of Spielberg and his company Amblin, only to later have Spielberg adapt the book into a film. Full circle, and all that. Game Changer: Cracking the Code: This is the best feature, because it opens with a shot of Spielberg walking his dog. But seriously, folks: this featurette is 57 minutes long, so...buckle up. This is a full-blown Making Of doc, from conception of the book all the way up through the making of movie. Here, Spielberg says it's one of the hardest movies he ever made, because he couldn't just go off with a crew a shoot, he had to create an entire world.Effects for a Brave New World: A chronicle of the many, many special effects that occupy virtually every frame of the film. Spielberg says he didn't want the OASIS to look like a "cartoon", and I'm sorry to break it to one of my all-time favorite filmmakers, but he failed. The OASIS does look like a cartoon. The most fascinating element here is the revelation that he effects artists created the entire world of the film in VR, and then gave Spielberg a VR headset. This enabled the director to walk on a virtual "set" and design his shots for the film. Ernie & Tye's Excellent Adventure has Cline and Sheridan in Cline's home in Austin, right before the film premiere at SXSW. Cline talks about how when the book was published in 2010 his whole life changed, with studios trying to buy the book rights; talks about the origins of the film. The segment ends with Sheridan quizzing Cline on various pop culture screen shots. It's amusing enough.

There are also featurettes on sound design and the film's soundtrack.

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When I first learned of Rampage, I assumed it would be a fun, goofy movie where Dwayne Johnson does battle with giant monsters. Then I watched the movie. Here's a question: why is Rampage so painfully serious? The tone of this flick is extremely sober and stone-faced, and boy does that not work.

A film based on an arcade game about big monsters fucking up buildings should, in theory, but fun. Instead, Rampage takes all of this stuff very, very seriously, and it hinders the film. Sure, eventually, monsters start wrecking stuff, and I suppose it's vaguely entertaining. But for the bulk of the film, Rampage is bogged down by a dour, dark tone that really does not work with the subject matter. Johnson is one of the most charismatic performers of our time. If only he'd pick better projects. Here, Johnson plays a primatologist who has to deal with genetically engineered beasties. A science experiment gone wrong turns Johnson's best buddy George, a silverback gorilla, into a giant killing machine. You can guess what happens next. Or you can just watch the much more enjoyable Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle instead.

Special Features to Note:Among the Rampage special features, we have: Not Just a Game Anymore, which explores the history of the Rampage arcade game, and how it became a movie. Are you ready to learn the shocking truth about how this happened? Here goes: Warner Bros. owned the rights to the arcade game. There, that's it. Dwayne Johnson says he used to skip school to play the game, so this was a bit of a passion project for him. In the end, it's so weird to see footage of the game, which is very pixelated and simple, and really nothing like the movie itself. The filmmakers say they ran through several plot ideas, including one that was more true to the game. But the fact of the matter is there's not much story in the Rampage game – it's literally just a bunch of monsters smashing buildings. As a result, a new story had to be crafted. Trio of Destruction focuses on special effects powerhouse Weta creating the monsters for the movie. The filmmakers wanted to keep things "grounded in reality", or at least as grounded as a movie about giant monsters can be, and Weta worked with that. Again, I think this is a mistake. This is the type of movie the demands you stray from reality instead of trying to be grounded. But hey, what do I know. Bringing George to Life is a genuinely fascinating look at how movement coordinator Terry Notary taught actor Jason Liles how to become George the gorilla for motion capture. Notary is acclaimed for this sort of thing, and it's engrossing to watch him train Liles in the fine art of becoming a gorilla. 

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IFC Midnight puts out a lot of low-budget horror films. And a lot of them are quite bad. But every now and then, they strike gold. Pyewacket falls into the latter category. This haunting, emotional indie chiller from Adam MacDonald is essentially Lady Bird reimagined as a horror film. Leah (Nicole Muñoz, who is something of a revelation here, giving an emotionally charged, wholly believable performance) is at odds with her mother (Laurie Holden) following the death of her father. Mother and daughter have to relocate to a new house, and after a particularly bad fight, Leah – who is heavily into the occult, along with her gothed-out friends at school – decides to perform a ritual to get rid of her mother once and for all. At first, it looks like the ritual has failed, and Leah immediately feels regretful and tries to patch things up with her mother. But as Pyewacket progresses, it becomes apparent that the ritual did not fail, and bad, demonic things are afoot. Writer-director MacDonald does a remarkable job blending familial drama with bone-chilling horror, resulting in one of the most promising indie horror films of the year.

Special Features to Note:

There aren't a whole lot of features here. In fact, there's only one – a brief making-of featurette that has interviews with the cast and crew. I wish I could say there's a wealth of info here, but there really isn't. Still, it's clear from this featurette that MacDonald took this film very seriously, and worked hard to make the best horror movie he could. He succeeded. Pyewacket is a creepy flick that lingers with you long after it ends, and even though it's short on special features, it is absolutely worth owning.

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