How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
June 24, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
PICK OF THE WEEK
Futurama: The Beast With a Billion Backs
What a little success story Matt Groening's Futurama has turned into. Like Family Guy, it holds the title as yet another smart, animated sitcom cancelled by Fox. Although unlike Family Guy, a red-faced Fox didn't revive the series for another go on its famed Sunday night comedy block. But that's where Comedy Central steps in. The cable net struck a deal with the Futurama team for a 16-episode fifth season, created through four straight-to-DVD movies that are later neatly sliced into four episodes a piece for television. Picking up where Bender's Big Score left off, The Beast With a Billion Backs, which marks round two of this first-of-its-kind experiment, focuses on a planet-sized monster that comes to Earth via a giant tear in the universe. The being takes control of everyone on Earth, becomes Pope of the tentacle religion and forces humanity to completely evacuate Earth to make room for the planet's newest inheritors: robots. Guest voices include Brittany Murphy, David Cross, Stephen Hawking and the voice of Homer Simpson, Don Castellaneta.
Disc includes: Commentary By Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West and others; Futurama: The Lost Adventure (a full length movie for the Futurama video game); audio commentary By Matt Groening, David X. Cohen, Billy West and others; Meet Yivo! featurette; A Brief History Of Deathball featurette; 3D Models With Animator Discussion; storyboards; bloopers; deleted scenes; Futurama: Bender's Game (sneak peek at the next DVD movie).
The Spiderwick Chronicles (Special Edition)
Similar to The Chronicles of Narnia, The Spiderwick Chronicles is a series of short children's books that caught the eye of Hollywood execs who decided to cash in on its literary success by adapted the franchise to screen. However, unlike the fat cats at Walden Media who thought it best to separate C.S. Lewis' impossibly brief stories into separate film chapters, Paramount Pictures broke Hollywood tradition when it decently combined all five Spiderwick entries – each ranging anywhere between 108 and 160 pages a piece – into one epic film. With an admirable cast featuring the likes of Mary-Louise Parker, Freddy Highmore, Martin Short, Nick Nolte and Seth Rogen, The Spiderwick Chronicles is based on the adventures of the Grace children – twins Simon and Jared, and older sister Mallory – who discover a world of faeries they never knew existed from an abandoned field guide they happen upon after moving into the Spiderwick Estate with their mother. What Seth Rogen was doing in a film like this is anyone's guess.
Disc includes: Spiderwick: It's All True featurette, It's A Spiderwick World featurette, Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide featurette, Spiderwick: Meet the Clan featurette, Making Spiderwick featurette, The Magic of Spiderwick featurette, A Final Word of Advice featurette, deleted scenes, Nickelodeon TV spots, trailers.
10,000 B.C.
Director Roland Emmerich is on a roll, more or less, in the category of big budget blockbusters. Following Universal Soldier and Stargate in the early '90s, Emmerich was behind the camera for 1996's Independence Day, 1998's Godzilla, 2000's The Patriot, 2004's The Day After Tomorrow and now 10,000 B.C., released earlier this year. Though lambasted by critics -- just 9% of 'em liked it on Rotten Tomatoes -- the prehistoric era "period piece" did decent business at the box office, accumulating $94 million Stateside, and close to $270 million total when factoring in worldwide figures. Featuring a cast with virtually no star power, 10,000 B.C. is about a young mammoth hunter, D'Leh, who leads a group of hunters in pursuit of warlords who captured members of D'Leh's tribe, including his Evolet. After the expected strong DVD sales for this title, Emmerich is back to work on another big film: 2012, an apocalyptic thriller starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet.
Disc includes: Extended ending, deleted scenes.
Early Edition: The First Season
A decade before Kyle Chandler won hearts (and a small, cult-like legion of fans) by portraying head coach Eric Taylor in NBC's Friday Night Lights, the actor starred in a completely different kind of series – and perhaps in front of completely different eyeballs, considering that CBS doesn't exactly draw in hordes of the young folk. The show was Early Edition, a deafly quiet drama that hardly pulled down high ratings, nor entered somewhere – anywhere, really – in pop culture's conscious. (Maybe its archaic Saturday night time slot had something to do with it). Set in Chicago, the series was about a man, Gary Hobson, who does whatever he can to prevent terrible events from occurring in the city. He goes about this task by reading over the next day's Chicago Sun-Times newspaper that mysteriously shows up on his doorstep before it is officially published to the public. The series was cancelled by CBS in 2000 after a four-season run.
Disc includes: Bare bones.
Persepolis
Step aside Pixar and DreamWorks, because there's a new animator in town: Perseprod. Last year, Sony Picture Classics released Persepolis to critical acclaim, and picked up Cannes' Jury Prize and an Academy Award nom for Best Animated Feature, too. Based on director Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel of the same name, Persepolis is a coming-of-age story of a young girl who grows up under the Iranian Revolution. During that time period, her family's hopes are dashed and their liberties are limited as Islamic fundamentalists steadily leverage more power and control. In the style of the original graphic novels, the film is black and white, while scenes in the present are in color.
Disc includes: English version of the film featuring the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Sean Penn, Catherine Deneuve, Gena Rowlands and Iggy Pop; The Hidden Side of Persepolis featurette; Behind the Scenes of Persepolis featurette; audio commentary by Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud and Chiara Mastoianni; animated scene comparisons; 2007 Cannes Film Festival Press Conference Q&A with cast and crew.
The Hammer
Taking the lead from Sylvester Stallone's latest entry in the Rocky series, The Hammer finds Man Show alum Adam Corolla in a similar position as Rocky when his character, Jerry Ferro, dons the gloves one last time, even if he's viewed as a washed out boxer way past his prime. The film, set in Los Angeles, features Corolla as an unsatisfied construction worker and boxing instructor who begins a quest for Olympic gold after a successful fight with a young pro. The Hammer opened very small – just $97,000 on 20 screens – about two months ago, and earned the Audience Favourite Award at February's Victoria Film Festival.
Disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes, outtakes.
June 24, 2008
Alchemy: The Science of Magic
Alien Encounters
All The Presidents' Wives
Anna Karenina
The Beast (Extended Edition)
Before The Rain (Criterion Collection)
The Big Easy: The Complete First Season
Bonneville (Widescreen)
Buckle Brothers
Captain Kidd
Careless (Widescreen)
Cartoon Mega Pack (Set)
Catching Out: A Film About Trainhopping & Living
Charlie Bartlett
The Chilling
Criss Angel Mindfreak: Best of Seasons 1 & 2
The Crucifixion
Dark Heart (Widescreen)
Definitely, Maybe
Demons Among Us
Desert of Blood
Dick Tracy Returns
Dick Tracy: RKO Classic Collection (Set)
Dido & Aeneas
Dogfights: The Complete Season 2
Don't Call Me Bugsy
Draniac
Elvis: Up Close & Personal
The Eye 3 (Widescreen)
Fast Jets
Finishing the Game (Widescreen)
Firestorm
First Mothers
Flash Gordon: Journey to Greatness
Frankenstein 80
The Free Will
The Furies (Criterion Collection)
Giselle
Goodbye Uncle Tom
Heart of the Beholder
Hell to Pay
Hell's Ground (Widescreen)
Heroes
House of Fury
Howard Goodall's Big Bang
I Bet You
Ice Road Truckers: On & Off The Ice
In Bruges
The Killer's Moon
Little Humpbacked Horse
Man Of A Thousand Faces
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
The Night Stalker
Nobody Loves Alice
Offensive Behaviour
The Oscar Wilde Collection
Over Alaska
Read You Like A Book
Secret of the Sword
Sid Caesar: After 40 Years
Simon: King of the Witches
Sleeping Beauty
Solo Sunny
Step Into Liquid
The Tattooist
Telling Lies
The True Story of Hannibal
The Vice: The Complete Second Season
The Young Caruso