How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
April 13, 2010
Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: A Nightmare on Elm Street and Apollo 13 go Blu-ray, Philip Seymour hijacks a boat and NBC Universal attempts to make more money from the Olympics.
Pick of the Week
For people who don't sleep well at night because they're afraid a psycho killer will kill them once they shut their eyes: A Nightmare On Elm Street [Blu-ray]
It was only a matter of time before all three famous horror icons from yesteryear underwent the reboot treatment. Michael Myers was first, thanks to Rob Zombie's re-imagining of Halloween in 2007. It performed so well domestically -- $58.3 million – that Dimension released a sequel. Two years later, Friday the 13th (with Jason Voorhees) stormed the box office over a Friday the 13th weekend in February. It collected a franchise-best $19.3 million on opening day, and ended with $40.6 million for the weekend – good enough for the largest three-day tally for any horror film ever.
Up next is Freddy Kreuger and his popular A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Of the three villains, he's the one I know the least about. While I've seen just about every Halloween movie and a good number of Friday the 13th films, I can't say the same about A Nightmare on Elm Street. Come to think of it, I've only seen the 1984 original. (You know, the one with Johnny Depp before he was Johnny Depp: Superstar).
Before New Line Cinema releases its Elm Street reboot on April 30th, do yourself a favor and check out the franchise's first movie from writer-director Wes Craven. It's now available in Blu-ray, fool!
Disc includes: Ready Freddy Focus Points, audio commentary, alternate endings, three featurettes, Interactive Trivia Track
For people who want to know what School of Rock would have been like if Philip Seymour Hoffman had been in it, not Jack Black: Pirate Radio
Based on its trailer and the little I had read about it, Pirate Radio always seemed to me like it was an adult version of School of Rock. No, it has nothing to do with plot. I speak more of their lead characters. In both, you've got leading men who are extremely obsessed with rock music and will do whatever possible to not only run with their passion, but deliver it to mass audiences. They're also a bit crazed in the head, which is always ripe for comedy.
For School of Rock's Dewey Finn, this meant posing as a substitute teacher to at first earn a little cash and then take advantage of his students' extremely skilled musical abilities for a battle of the bands competition. For Pirate Radio's The Count, this meant broadcasting an illegal rock ‘n roll radio station on a boat in the water after the music genre is banned from terrestrial radio by English government in the 1960s.
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