Limited and VOD Releases: Zookeeper and Others are Having a Wild Time

March 31st, 2017

It’s one of those weeks. There are a number of films earning good reviews, and some are earning great reviews. However, none of them are earning loud enough buzz to suggest they will escape the art house circuit. Worse still, there are many like The Blackcoat’s Daughter that are opening simultaneously on Video on Demand, which will all but kill their box office chances. More...

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for August 9th, 2011

August 9th, 2011

This week's list is highly frustrating for two reasons. Firstly, while there's a pretty big list of first-run releases, many of which had some pre-release buzz, almost none of them matched expectations. Secondly, my internet access kept cutting out, so it took till 4:30 a.m. to get this done, and by the end I was swearing nearly constantly. (Even 15 minutes of the Smooth Jazz Nyan Cat wasn't enough to calm my nerves.) Moving on... There were two main contenders for Pick of the Week, Paul on Blu-ray and Stargate: Atlantis: Complete Series Megaset on Blu-ray. In the end I went with the latter, partially because the screener for the former hasn't shown up yet. More...

Featured Blu-ray Review: Donnie Darko (10th Anniversary Edition)

August 4th, 2011

Writer / director Richard Kelly was only 26 years old when he made Donnie Darko. That still amazes me. The film earned excellent reviews, but never found an audience during its short limited release. A few years later, the film was re-released as a Director's Cut, which only did marginally better at the box office. On the other hand, the film has had a much more lucrative run on the home market. Ten years after the film's initial release, it is coming out on a anniversary edition Blu-ray, but is it worth the upgrade? More...

DVD and Blu-ray Releases for July 26th, 2011

July 25th, 2011

Summer time at the box office is amazing. From the first weekend in May until sometime in August, there is usually an average of one $100 million dollar movie released per week. This year will have at least three months in a row with at least one $100 million film. On the home market, on the other hand, summer time is crappy. This year has been particularly tiresome, as the spring wasn't a fun time at the box office. The biggest release this week is Source Code, which was only a midlevel hit. To be fair, it is one of the best-reviewed wide releases of the year. On the other hand, neither the DVD nor the Blu-ray are exactly overloaded with extras. More...