THE WEEK OF JANUARY 12th, 2010

THE HURT LOCKER
d. Kathryn Bigelow
Summit Entertainment

Special Features

• Audio commentary by director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal
• A Hurt Locker: Behind the Scenes featurette
• Image gallery

When I first saw The Hurt Locker, the buzz was rather low. Sure, there was still some buzz from the usual internet sites. I felt as though I went into it fresh. The difference is that I saw it with a few veterans from the current conflict. Listening to their praise for a movie that shows it for what it is minus the usual liberal agenda bullshit was kind of amazing. Hell, they didn’t even care that the chick who directed Blue Steel helmed it. Most of them never saw Blue Steel, but there were some K-19 fans in attendance. Needless to say, it made an impression. That and Jeremy Renner should be Hawkeye.

MOON
c. Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey

Special Features

Moon is a wacky story about Sam and Gerty. These two are on the dark side of the moon harvesting space junk for the benefit of the Earth. One day, Sam sees something that he shouldn’t have seen. Gerty tries to keep him calm, but hi-jinks ensue. Laughs for the entire family are what you’ll get with this flick. It’s like Silent Running minus all those gimpy robots.

THE SIMPSONS: THE COMPLETE TWENTIETH SEASON
c. Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Nancy Cartwright, Julie Kavner, Yeardley Smith and others

Special Features

• “The Twentieth Anniversary Special Sneak Peak by Morgan Spurlock”

The Simpsons: The Complete Twentieth Season is a milestone for one of the longest running American television shows. It’s fashionable for the e-jackasses to slam the show and call it warmed over dick. They can also talk about how most of the truly creative staff took off for better shows. Then, how Futurama split what was left and kept the show in the lurch. Hell, they can even talk about how this release is nothing more than the first chance for a Blu-Ray dip. If that wasn’t enough, they could bring up the tired forced promotion for the show’s twenieth anniversary. But, you get a look at tonight’s Morgan Spurlock documentary.

8 1/2 (CRITERION COLLECTION)
d. Federico Fellini
c. Bruno Agostini, Claudia Cardinale, Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimee

Special Features

Did you see Nine? If you did, do you want to see something better? The original Fellini work still stands as a film that the film elite and the common viewer can agree upon. Mixing Catholic guilt with heaping amounts of sexuality, we find a compelling at a man who can’t tow the line. The lead wants to make an amazing movie, but can’t get past all the shit in his head. The only way Nine could’ve topped this is if Penelope Cruz took a mushroom bruise from Daniel Day-Lewis.

NOT COMING SOON TO YOUR HOME THEATER

1. Warner Brothers sits on Netflix for a month.
   

via Business Week

Netflix Inc., the largest mail-order movie-rental
service, reached a new movie licensing agreement with Time Warner
Inc.’s Warner Bros., giving the studio 28 days to sell new releases
before customers can check out DVDs.

Netflix, based in Los Gatos, California, gets new
releases from Warner after the 28-day window, as well as expanded
access to catalog titles for rental and online viewing, the companies
said today in a statement. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

The agreement can be a model for deals with studios
facing a drop in DVD sales, Netflix said. By agreeing to the sale-only
window, the company gets lower prices for DVDs and has more to spend on
material that can be streamed digitally to computers, Web-connected TVs
and game consoles, the company said.

“It can be a good deal for Netflix in terms of
product costs coming down,” said Todd Greenwald, an analyst with Signal
Hill Capital Group in Baltimore, who rates the stock “hold” and doesn’t
own it. “Is it a good deal for Netflix subscribers? Probably not.”

Netflix rose $1.81, or 3.5 percent, to $53.32 at 4
p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. Time Warner, also
the owner of HBO and CNN, lost 7 cents to $29.02 on the New York Stock
Exchange.

New releases account for 30 percent of Netflix
rentals and have “never been core to our value proposition with
consumers,” Ted Sarandos, chief content officer, said today in an
interview. “With those savings we are investing in the expansion of
streaming content, which is very important to the long-term interest of
a Netflix subscriber and to our company.”

THE CRITERION COMPLETION PROJECT (140 out of 495)

The
Chewer
Nation has been having fun with the little monthly challenges I’ve
thrown down. I’ve got a new one that just might take us through the end
of 2009. What I want us all to do is to review The Criterion
Collection. But, there’s a catch. The number of words you can use will
be determined by the spine number.

Due to length, click on the titles to access the spine specific reviews.

1 – 100.  The First Hundred
101. Cries and Whispers
102. The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoise
103. The Lady Eve
104. Double Suicide
105. Spartacus
106. Coup de Torchon
107. Mona Lisa
108. The Rock
109. The Scarlet Empress
110. Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday
111. Mon Oncle
112. Playtime
113. Big Deal on Madonna Street
114. My Man Godfrey
115. Rififi
116. The Hidden Fortress
117. Diary of a Chambermaid
118. Sullivan’s Travels
121. Billy Liar
123. Grey Gardens
133. The Vanishing
135. Rebecca
139. Wild Strawberries
140. 8 1/2
147. In the Mood for Love
151. Traffic
153. General Idi Amin Dada
157. The Royal Tenenbaums
175. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
177. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum
186. Stolen Kisses
187. Bed and Board
188. Love on the Run
189. The White Sheik
191. Jubilee
198. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
199. Schizopolis
247. Videodrome
267. Kagemusha
281. Jules and Jim

and so on and so on.

Post your Criterion reviews on the CHUD message board.

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NEW RELEASES

*Blu-Ray prices are in BOLD BLUE

Fame                                                                            $16.99   $24.99
I Can Do Bad All By Myself                                         $15.99  $24.99
Post Grad                                                                     $19.99  $26.99

Halloween 2                                                                 $17.99   $24.99
The Simpsons Season 20                                              $28.99  $38.99
The Brothers Bloom                                                     $14.99   $19.99
The Hurt Locker                                                           $17.99   $24.99

DVD SALE!

$4.99

Fracture
The Black Dahlia
Balls of Fury
Blade: Trinity
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps
Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
In Good Company
Mr. Woodcock
Training Day
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Beerfest
Heat
Miami Vice: Unrated

TV on DVD SALE

• Lost: Season 5                      $19.99   $34.99
• Lost: Seasons 1-4                  $19.99 each

Blu-Ray Sale!

$12.99

Sunshine Cleaning
Righteous Kill
Last Chance Harvey

$9.99

Deliverance
Gothika
Any Given Sunday

$19.99

Wanted
American Gangster
Drag Me to Hell
The Kingdom
Role Models
Mamma Mia
State of Play

$14.99

Ghost Rider
Clerks 2
Lucky Number Slevin
Death Proof
King Arthur
Zach and Miri Make a Porno
Dogma