How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
April 20, 2010
Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP’s look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Avatar slims down for television, Tom Cruise goes on the run and Jeff Bridges delights country audiences.
Pick of the Week
For people who didn’t know that upsetting a bunch of blue people would have so many repercussions: Avatar (available Thursday)
What more is there to say about a movie that approximately everyone in America has seen? I mean really, the movie made a disgusting amount of money at the box office. And I don’t use the term lightly; Avatar literally made more money than any movie ever. To date, the James Cameron pic has earned $745.1 million in the States. With worldwide receipts included, Avatar has amassed $2.71 billion. Unadjusted for inflation, Avatar has a $143 million lead over its nearest Stateside competitor, Titanic. Worldwide, the difference between the two is a staggering $870 million. Think of it this way: Internationally, Avatar = Titanic + The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Yowza.
Visually, Avatar is unlike anything we’ve seen before. It’s sparkly and beautiful, and is the only 3-D release I’ve seen that was worth the extra green at the ticket counter. Its story, though, felt familiar. Many critics drew comparisons between it and Dances with Wolves. Strangely, those same critics failed to see the similarities that Avatar shares with Pocahontas. A friend of mine once said to me that Avatar is “Pocahontas on the moon.” As much as I dug the movie, that’s still the best four-word film review for Avatar I’ve heard.
What I can’t wrap my head around is the fact that the Avatar Blu-ray/DVD includes no special features of any kind. No deleted scenes, no alternate endings, no audio commentary, no trailers. Nothing. According to Reuters, a special edition disc will be released later in the year, with a 3-D version to follow in 2011. Yet in the interim, we have one sad disc being released on Earth Day.
Disc includes: None!
For people who think Tom Cruise is in need of a new pair of eyes: Minority Report [Blu-ray]
One of my favorite movies of the 2000s gets released on Blu-ray today. It’s Minority Report, directed by Steven Spielberg and loosely based on the Philip K. Dick short story, The Minority Report. Set primarily in the nation’s capital in 2054, Minority Report revolves around a specialized police department that arrests criminals who have yet to actually commit their crimes. The department relies on the intelligence gathered from three psychics – called precogs – who see others’ misdeeds before they take place. All is good in the world until Precrime officer John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is accused of murder by the precogs.
Much like Tom Hanks in Forest Gump, Tom Cruise in Minority Report does an incredible amount of running. I don’t blame him for it though; he’s evading police. His character also tools around in a sexy, futuristic Lexus. Eight years later and I still remember the make of the vehicle. In my opinion, a company would have to be crazy to regret joining forces with Spielberg. The people at Hershey are probably still getting a kick out of the promotion they received in E.T. after Mars declined to have M&Ms appear in the movie on account of E.T. being too ugly.
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