This Week in DVD & Blu-ray: Surrogates, Whip It, Saw VI, This Is It, and More

Posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 by Adam Quigley

This Week in DVD & Blu-ray is a column that compiles all the latest info regarding new DVD and Blu-ray releases, sales, and exclusive deals from stores including Target, Best Buy and Fry’s.

SURROGATES
It’s bad, no question. But bad doesn’t necessarily mean unwatchable. At a scant 88 minutes, Surrogates doesn’t linger on a single idea long enough to be boring. Swap out “boring” with “interesting”, and the same point stands. There was undeniably potential here for a vastly better film, one which more creatively explores this world and more thoughtfully examines the many questions that Surrogates only touches on before rushing to hit the next derivative action movie beat. If you’re willing to accept that the movie isn’t going to do that, it should suffice as cheesily enjoyable formula trash. Hopefully you liked I, Robot, because it’s pretty much the same movie.
Available on Blu-ray? Yes.
Notable Extras: DVD – A commentary with director Jonathan Mostow. Blu-ray – Includes everything on the DVD, as well as 2 featurettes (“A More Perfect You: The Science of Surrogates”, “Breaking the Frame: A Graphic Novel Comes to Life”), and 4 deleted scenes.

Read More »

Comments

Wild Things, Crazy Heart, Lovely Bones and Bright Star All Being Given Hard Time By the Academy

Posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 by Brendon Connelly

Griping about the arbitration of those Oscar folk at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seems to be a rather popular sport, and one in full season right now. For some reason, the most frequent complaints seem to revolve around the terms of admission to the music categories.

You may recall the hubbub when Johnny Greenwood’s music for There Will Be Blood was denied eligibility, or when the song Falling Slowly from Once was challenged. The song was ultimately allowed to compete after AMPAS deemed it had been initially conceived for the film despite appearing elsewhere before the film was completed. This year’s victims would appear to be Karen O, T Bone Burnett and Brian Eno. What do all of these people have in common? They’re from the world of pop music, not specifically film composition. Surely somebody will cry “Prejudice!”?

Of course, it’s not that simple because the scores for the latest Harry Potter, The Blind Side, Bruno and Funny People have also been scratched off the list this year – though I suppose the involvement of sometime pop musician Jason Scwhartzman in the Funny People score wouldn’t go unnoticed.

Read More »

Comments