Movies You Might Not Know Are Coming: August DVDs
As most of us geeks know, Wednesday is comic book day and Tuesday is new DVD day. The problem is, most of the places we go to buy our DVDs (for those of us law abiding citizens who aren’t pirating them) really only carry the most mainstream of the mainstream. Since the creation of DVD (and now Blu-ray) we have been waiting for some of our favorites to come out in new & better formats. August will be bringing us such movie releases as Kick-Ass, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Death at a Funeral & Marmaduke, but here are some of the DVD releases you probably DON’T know about.
AUGUST 3 Piranha, Blood Simple, The Breakfast Club & Escape from New York will all be released on Blu-ray (finally); while Roger Corman’s gore & rape fest Humanoids from the Deep will be getting released on both Blu-ray AND DVD. However my love of Jim Henson is well documented, so I’m most excited for the release of Henson’s Place: The Man Behind the Muppets. This 52 minute long documentary covering the life history of Henson contains interviews with his wife Jane as well as puppeteers like Frank Oz among many others.
AUGUST 10 At long last Vacation & European Vacation will be available on blu-ray. Also getting released in blu-ray will be astronaut documentary In the Shadow of the Moon. Appearing in both formats will be a new remastered version of the award-winning documentary Crumb, which covers the life and history of risque & sometimes-offensive cartoon artist R. Crumb. Getting DVD releases only will be the 70’s horror film Horror High; but my pick of the week is the complete series of the cult classic Max Headroom TV show. I’m hoping that the infamous “Chicago hacking of 1987” is a bonus feature.
AUGUST 17 Insane Clown Posse’s feature film debut Big Money Hustlas‘ sequel Big Money Rustlas will be released on DVD. I don’t know much about the movie but it has ICP dressed as cowboys on the cover and it carries the delightful tag-line “The Good, The Bad… The Outrageous” so you know it’s going to be memorable to say the least. However the pick of the week without a doubt is the long awaited sequel to The Lost Skeleton of Cadavera simply titled The Lost Skeleton Returns Again. In this sequel the gang goes into the jungle, characters who died in the first film return (sort of) and of course that dastardly skeleton is at it again, if you’re not familiar with the original, you might as well pick it up and have a nice double-feature with some friends
AUGUST 24 The original Indie comedy Withnail & I will be getting a blu-ray release side by side with Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi cult classic Time Bandits. However the “Pissing Matt Kelly off” DVD release of the week is the Flight of the Conchords complete series. After buying BOTH seasons on DVD and being let down by the complete lack of bonus features, this $40 box-set contains a documentary, outtakes, deleted scenes, Commercials for Dave’s Pawn shop and never before released 30 minute special titled “Flight of the Conchords: One Night Stand”. Looks like I may have to sell my copies now. WTFuck.
AUGUST 31 1973’s Flesh Eater & 2008’s 70’s throwback gore fest Dead Eyes Open are both getting their DVD releases, which were a long time coming. Even longer time coming is the release of the 60’s TV series Thriller getting released on DVD; the first time it’s been made available in any format. But the pick for the week is the release of the Evil Dead blu-ray. While not Sam Raimi most loved movie, as far as I’m concerned this is his most visually pleasing film. This might well be my new number one reason to finally get a blu-ray player.
