Perhaps the most interesting release this week—at least in terms of the business of DVD retailing—is The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, which is coming out in a bare-bone single-disc DVD edition from Paramount and, simultaneously, a features-packed double-disc DVD edition and Blu-ray edition from The Criterion Collection. Even if (like your humble DVD Release List correspondent) you found Benjamin Button more trite and creepy than rich and poignant, it should be worthwhile to plow through the three hours of behind-the-scenes materials that director David Fincher and his production team have provided to Criterion.
This is also an interesting week for micro-indie films, top-lined by last year’s acclaimed girl-and-her-dog-and-her-economic-woes movie Wendy & Lucy. Also worth exploring: Azazel Jacobs’ Momma’s Man, about a young family man who returns home to New York on business and discovers he doesn’t ever want to leave his parent’s house again; and Profit Motive And The Whispering Wind, John Gianvito’s poetic essay-film that combines still shots of historical markers and headstones with shots of trees swaying. And for those into indie-horror, check out Maurice Devereaux’s clever, scary End Of The Line, about a Christian cult that decides to exacerbate the coming apocalypse by going on a kill-spree in the Toronto subway.
Finally, there’s quite a bit of cult TV hitting the shelves this week, including a big collection of cartoons featuring the prototypical Japanese giant robot, Gigantor, and two classic Britcoms: the surreal mid-‘70s midlife crisis comedy The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin and the hip, contemporary romantic comedy Gavin & Stacey. Your mileage may vary, but around the DVD Release List household, we frequently quote our favorite G&S line: “He died whilst faking his own death.”
Big
20th Century Fox Blu-ray, $34.98
Bleak House
BBC Warner, $39.98; Blu-ray, $49.99
Boston Legal: Season Five
20th Century Fox, $49.98
Chandni Chowk To China
Warner, $27.98
Crusoe: The Complete Series
Universal, $29.98
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Paramount/Criterion, $29.98/$34.98; Blu-ray, $39.99
Dog Soldiers
First Look Blu-ray, $19.98
Enchanted April
Miramax, $29.99
End Of The Line
Critical Mass, $24.98
The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin: The Complete Series
E1, $59.98
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Paramount Blu-ray, $29.99
Flirting With Forty
Sony, $24.96
Gavin & Stacey: Season One
BBC Warner, $24.98
Gene Roddenbery’s Earth – Final Conflict: Season One
Universal, $39.98
Gigantor: The Collection Vol. 1
Koch, $39.98
Grease
Paramount Blu-ray, $29.99
A Grin Without A Cat
Icarus, $29.98
Incendiary
Thinkfilm, $27.98; Blu-ray, $35.98
It Could Happen To You
Sony Blu-ray, $28.95
Jake And The Fatman: Second Season
Paramount, $36.98
Just Another Love Story
Koch, $26.98
Last Chance Harvey
Anchor Bay, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.98
The Last Templar
Genius Products, $19.95
Lipstick Jungle: Season Two
Universal, $29.98
A Little Princess (1987)
Koch, $19.98
Look
Starz/Anchor Bay, $26.97
Love Takes Wing
20th Century Fox, $22.98
Momma’s Man
Kino, $29.95
Mythbusters: Collection Four
Discovery, $19.98
October Road: The Complete Second Season
Touchstone/Buena Vista, $34.99
The Old Curiosity Shop
BBC Warner, $19.98
Profit Motive And The Whispering Wind
Watchmaker, $17.98
Roxanne
Sony Blu-ray, $28.95
Saturday Night Fever
Paramount Blu-ray, $29.99
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: American Musicals (The Band Wagon/Meet Me In St. Louis/Singin’ In The Rain/Easter Parade)
Warner, $27.92
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Best Picture Winners (Casablanca/Gigi/An American In Paris/Mrs. Miniver)
Warner, $27.92
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Broadway Musicals (Show Boat/Annie Get Your Gun/Kiss Me Kate/Seven Brides For Seven Brothers)
Warner, $27.92
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: John Wayne Westerns (The Cowboys/Fort Apache/Rio Bravo/The Searchers)
Warner, $27.92
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: Western Adventures (The Wild Bunch/McCabe & Mrs. Miller/Jeremiah Johnson/The Train Robbers)
Warner, $27.92
TCM Greatest Classic Films Collection: WWII – Battlefront Europe (Kelly’s Heroes/Where Eagles Dare/The Dirty Dozen/Battleground)
Warner, $27.92
That Girl: Season Five
Shout! Factory, $39.99
Under The Bombs
Film Movement, $24.95
Wendy And Lucy
Oscilloscope, $29.95