THE WEEK OF MAY 4th 2010

GROUP EDITED by: TROY ANDERSON

DVD/BR SECTION by: Troy Anderson

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
Director: Steven Spielberg
Paramount/Dreamworks

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Special Features

  • Featurettes


Saving Private Ryan comes to Blu-Ray for the first time. Well, it’s here. The special features include some updated featurettes and a lot of material cobbled together over the past few DVD releases. All of which was seemingly upgraded to HD. The battle scenes hold together, but the grime and dirt in the transfer seems weird at 1080. However, the Omaha Beach landing and the sticky bomb sequence are the definition of reference quality audio. I get to hear tons of Blu-Rays a month, but this disc sports the best audio presentation on any Blu-Ray released thus far.

NINE
d. Rob Marshall

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Special Features

  • Take a look behind the curtain of Nine, meet the glamorous women , see the dazzling sets and costumes.
    Commentary with Director Rob Marshall and Producer John DeLuca
    8 featurettes
    3 music videos

Nine makes me under the concept of epic fail. Taking a popular Broadway show based on an international classic and turning it into this is a failure. What is this film if it isn’t anything more than a director truly not grasping the material. Whether it’s Chicago or Memoirs of a Geisha, Rob Marshall has proven that he’s a Point A to B guy. If the studio tells him to throw in some Oscar bait original songs, he’ll make it work. If he needs to deal with cast changes, he can do that. But, what he can’t do is make the action onscreen compelling. Things happen and people are left to absorb it. This is the death of dynamic cinema.

HAMLET (2009)
d. Gregory Doran

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  • Commentary by Gregory Doran, Sebastian Grant, and Chris Seager

  • The Making of Hamlet



Hamlet has been done to death. But, David Tennant makes the role his own as he plays against the powerful Claudius. Patrick Stewart is no slouch either, as he plays the ghost of Hamlet’s father and the evil uncle. What makes this release stand out for me is how it’s such a clear shot across the bow regarding Tennant. The guy is huge in England, yet he remains on the periphery in America. Hopefully, more Americans will see him in this and realize that he’s a superstar in the making.

NO TIME FOR SERGEANTS
c. Andy Griffith, Nick Adams, Murray Hamilton and Don Knotts

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Special Features

  • Nothing