New Release Tuesday! (9/4/12)

"Who's Going To Believe A Talking Head?"

It's a pretty good week for DVDs.  One childhood Must Buy and a bunch of solid purchases with no Rents or Avoids.  After a Summer of so-so releases it's nice to have a week for my bankroll to seriously suffer.  First things first, the life-changer film that set a 13 year old Brad on a lifelong obsession with the horror genre...

MUST BUY DVD OF THE WEEK!

Re-Animator (BLU):  Like a lot of kids, I discovered Horror through the novels of Stephen King.  And through Stephen King I discovered HP Lovecraft.  And through HP Lovecraft I discovered the gooey gore of Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator.  Sure, it's a terrible adaptation of Lovecraft's original short story but it still managed to become a masterpiece of comic terror.  Jeffery Combs' Herbert West is one of the great cinematic Mad Scientists, but he's also such a dang lovable bastard.  And he completely takes over the film.  What starts off as Bruce Abbott's movie quickly turns into Combs' franchise.  Cannot wait to see Godon's neon slime in high definition.

BUY!

Safe:  Going into the theater I was fairly sure that this latest Jason Statham flick was going to be another bland-okay flick like The Mechanic or Blitz, but thankfully Safe is a tough-as-nails, definitely R-Rated crime drama that allows Statham to seriously crack some heads.  Sure, sure, sure, I'm not teaming it up with Crank 2 or anything (what can you possibly pair with that madness?) but it sits on top of the Jason Statham cannon.  Plus, James Hong still rocks.

Fringe - Season 4:  I'm one of the jerk-hole bastards that let this show get cancelled.  I've only watched this show on DVD and never contributed to its dwindling ratings.  Bummer.  Cuz Fringe is one of the all time great Sci-Fi sagas.  Sure, it took about a season and a half to really get going but somewhere towards the end of Season 2 we got a gloriously comic-booky epic of monsters, madmen, and alternate realities.  Of course, when dealing with Mirror, Mirror plots and oddball grotesques you're absolutely going to alienate the mass TV public.  So be it.  We're get five seasons of this show, and us fans should be more than happy with that...even the fans who came late to the game like myself.

Megaforce:  I've never seen Megaforce.  It was always one of those VHS boxes I saw on the shelf, but never rented.  And then regretted that erroneous decision ever since the bygone days of Video Library.  Barry Bostwick in the future, directed by the man behind Cannonball Run!?!?  Oh hell yeah!  Check out this trailer and tell me you're not stoked - "The Good Guys Always Win, Even In The 80s!"

Bored To Death - Season 3:  Another show I was too late to save.  The Wife & I came to the weird and troubled world of Jason Schwartzman's P.I. thanks to Mister Matt's overzealous enthusiasm, and I learned once again that I should never doubt his words.  Bored To Death is Ted Danson's greatest achievement; he's such a sad sack loser but also fantastically cool in that college professor kinda way.  And Zach Galifanakis proves that he's more than just a dumb dolt of a Hangover sidekick.

--Brad