Here's next Tuesday, the 19th of June's DVD column - featuring a few special surprises of content and my further explorations in the HD DVD world. I had a special guest arrive at my geek lovenest this week and you'll be hearing more about that in the upcoming weeks. As always - the titles and the art links to the corresponding AMAZON page, where you can find out more on the title, order it or just use this list as you explore via services like NetFlix. It's really up to you. That said, the Criterion titles are the most tantalizing this week. Here ya go...

BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA

Of the Walden produced fantasy films thus far, this has been my favorite. Gabor Csupo, the director, did a wonderful job of keeping the fantasy, exactly that… fantasy. The playfulness of a child’s mind when running in the forest, when a leap can make you feel in your mind as though you are soaring. It also addresses the heartache of childhood and the unacceptance of one’s dreams. This was a wonderful children’s film. The two lead children are great… and anytime you have Zooey Deschanel on screen, it’s a good thing. Disney does a good job with the extras – commentary and documentary look at the making of it all.

PICKET FENCES – SEASON 1

I loved the first season of this show dearly. I loved Tom Skerrit and Kathy Baker. And the character of Douglas Wambaugh… what a character. There were so many great characters and great stories in this season and I’m kinda surprised it has taken this long to come out. It’ll be nice to see if it was as good as I remembered.

IF… (Criterion Collection)

YES! I can finally retire my PAL VHS copy that I got from a fan years ago. IF… has come to DVD and not just that, but to Criterion. It is my feeling, that this film should be shown and discussed in every high school in the United States. The feelings and the emotions and the fear and the anger… this film is just brilliant. Criterion has knocked themselves out by bringing us an amazing edition of this film. You have a commentary by film historian David Robinson with Malcolm McDowell commenting on one of his finest roles ever. The extras are to be discovered. This is THE release of the week!

PINKY AND THE BRAIN, VOL 3

With RATATOUILLE coming out soon, it’s a great time to honor the first and second mouse that set out to conquer the human world, NARF! That’s right… Pinky and the Brain. Remy just wants to conquer a human kitchen, these two rodents are out to conquer the world – and who is to say they shouldn’t be running the world – actually, who is to say they’re not running Bush right now and that they have already succeeded in running the world of humans to the edge of annihilation! Well here we go with 22 episodes of their animated adventures that haven’t seen hide nor hair of our DVD collections. Enjoy!

LUCILLE BALL FILM COLLECTION ( DANCE GIRL DANCE / THE BIG STREET / DU BARRY WAS A LADY / CRITIC’S CHOICE / MAME )

Lucille Ball was more than just the comic genius that was Lucy. And this collection underlines that. For one – you get films of hers that pre-date that landmark show – and films that feature her alongside the likes of Gene Kelly, Maureen O’Hara, Red Skelton and more. Of these – my fave is DU BARRY WAS A LADY, if only because I’m Gene Kelly’s bitch. I just absolutely love everything he has ever done. Gene handles the dancing and is assisted wonderfully by Lucille in the comedy. This is a wonderful set!

SWEET MOVIE (Criterion Collection)

There are times where I’m humbled by Criterion. This title and the next – I simply have never heard of, nor have I seen. But the great thing about Criterion is that I have found, over the years – it is a great label to just place yourself in their hands, because they’ll guide you through the obscure and the scary and the bizarre – and at the end of the DVD, you’ll look at their little Criterion symbol and whisper, “Thank You!” – or you may well scream it. I have never seen a Dusan Makavejev film – and now I have two to look at. Here’s the product description… sounds amazing:

“Pushing his themes of sexual liberation to their boiling point, Yugoslavian art-house provocateur Dusan Makavejev followed his international sensation WR: Mysteries of the Organism with this full-throated shriek in the face of bourgeois complacency and movie watching. Sweet Movie tackles the limits of personal and political freedom with kaleidoscopic feverishness, shuttling viewers from a gynecological beauty pageant to a grotesque food orgy with scatological, taboo-shattering glee. With its lewd abandon and sketch-comedy perversity, Sweet Movie became both a cult staple and an exemplar of the envelope pushing of 1970s cinema.”

WR: MYSTERIES OF THE ORGANISM (Criterion Collection)

Here’s the other Dusan Makavejev film I was talking of above. This one is X-rated – and I’ve no clue what that means in this film’s case – but it was banned, and that’s reason enough to buy it. Here’s it’s description:

“ What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of Communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Duan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision WR: Mysteries of the Organism begins as an investigation of the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation. Banned upon its release in the director’s homeland, the art-house smash WR is both whimsical and bold in its blending of politics and sexuality.”

THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK

One of the great early Pacino 70’s performances. If you ever wondered why Pacino was cast as Michael in THE GODFATHER, look no further than this amazing performance in THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK. In fact, this is where it all began for Al. I wish somebody out there would write material like this for Al again. And I’d love to see Pacino get as emotionally raw and honest as he does in this just breath-takingly brilliant turn. LONG in the wait for this film. If you want a great double feature – watch this and the above, IF… together you see the early birth of two of the greatest talents in the seventies.

THE 36TH CHAMBER OF SHAOLIN

Like the New York Times says – it’s widely considered to be the greatest kung-fu flick of all time. This helps answer why Gordon Liu had two parts in KILL BILL. I saw this film at age 6 going on 7 at the State theater here in Austin and man… Lit my imagination up. I worshipped Gordon Liu, even if I did know Bruce Lee could whup his ass. The Weinstein Company is going out of their way to do a damn good job bringing these classic Shaw Brother films out nicely. If you’ve never seen it, it is time.

THE SECRET OF NIMH ( 2-Disc Family Fun Edition )

Seems somebody was listening to Cartuna in his tribute to THE SECRET OF NIMH and finally woke up and realized that this film desperately needed a decent release on DVD. I love this film. Have a great cel set-up from it signed by Bluth and have long loved the movie. I hate the bare-bones edition that was released, but I had it, because it was absolutely necessary to edumacate my nephew with. It’s still my favorite rat movie, though Brad Bird’s RATATOUILLE is awfully fucking great, it just didn’t hit me at age 10 like this one did. That is a whole lotta love to climb.

THE ONE-ARMED SWORDSMAN

Directed by the Shaw Movie God… CHANG CHEH! This is one of the most influential martial arts films ever made – and I dearly love it. It helped to create that mythical martial arts landscape for me and so many others. When Tsui Hark did his version with THE BLADE – my mind went numb from pleasure, but it’s nice to see this title and these other classic Shaw Brother titles getting a proper US release.

KING BOXER ( aka FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH)

You know… as I look at these Shaw Classics hitting, I just dream of seeing them in the 1080 glory of high def. Please put these out soon! I have only ever known this title as FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH. I love that title. KING BOXER is an ok title, but FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH is a title that threatens your nut-sack it’s so cool. The three kung fu titles listed here, are literally 3 of the greatest classic era martial arts films ever made. Perfect party films.

HONOR AMONG THIEVES

If you don’t understand the innate coolness of Alain Delon and Charles Bronson teaming up for a late 60’s French thriller… then you’re just a lost soul. This movie is AWESOME! Late 60’s French thrillers are some of the most satisfying films of all time – having these two great all-cap MEN starring together in their prime is a blessing we all absolutely deserve. I wouldn’t spoil a single thing about this great fucking film, but I will tell you this. If you consider yourself a fucking man, if you have ever wanted a real man… this is the fucking movie… man!

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT ( Special Edition )

This is just one of those films that absolutely made a lot of fucking sense when you were 15. You look at it today and things begin to unfurl, I mean… what would happen if a teenager built a nuclear device? And if the government knew it? And knew where he was? And had a sniper with him actually in his sites for a killshot? The story is complete and udder bullmilk. That said, I wish we lived in this particular world. Sure – it’s a rip-off of the basic paranoid thriller teen escapism that was brilliantly done with WARGAMES – but John Lithgow as the horny scientist guy… he kicks ass. And well, I love the geeks at the science fair. This is the double-dip on the title, mainly because the first version out-sold their expectations and they’ve decided to slap some extras on here. Well, that’s cool. If you haven’t picked it up yet, you should. It’s a fun film, if impractical.

Harry’s Further Exploration of existing HD DVD titles…

This week I had a chance to meet with a fellow by the name of Kevin Collins – he’s kinda like the Moses of HD DVD and yes he does work for the most evil corporation that I’ve ever known… Microsoft. You know me. My household has 4 Apple computers, two iPods and well… After my wedding and after the trip Yoko and I are taking, I’ll be getting a newer Apple Laptop. And yes, I know Apple supports Blu-Ray… but then, nobody is perfect.

Heh.

Anyway – this Kevin Collins guy has a card that is in Japanese and English – and his title is “Director – HD DVD EVANGELISM” Anyway – apparently he’d been alerted to my recent columns by the various powers that be and decided to come to Austin to show me, “the true potential of the HD DVD medium.” And certainly, he came to reinforce my recent conversion to the Hi Def medium.

He brought with him every single title… foreign and domestic – that has ever been put on to HD DVD. Not only that, but pretty much every title that’s being released for the next 3 months. Killing Kevin Collins did enter my mind. It would have been so easy – and Quint was here to help me make a deep grave in the backyard… or to haul his body off to the marshes… wherever those are.

Sadly, I didn’t kill Kevin – nor did I steal his amazing books of HD. What I did do was spend about 7 hours with him – going through disc after disc. I think we easily sampled over a hundred different titles.

My fave?

300

The upcoming HD DVD for 300 – which will have this amazing extra feature that has Zach talking you through the making of the entire film, but with a screen that’s showing you all the actual footage shot by the camera that actually captured it. So you can see – exactly what he and the artists behind the film did. For example – how many guys were actually pushed off that cliff… how many horses actually charged at them. Where the physical sets end and the virtual sets begin. Now this is a title that will hit BLU-RAY and HD DVD, but this feature won’t be on the BLU RAY version because – the BLU-RAY machines were not designed with this feature in mind, whereas Warner and oddly, Disney did work with the HD DVD folks to create a player that could take advantage of some pretty crazy features that can happen as the film is playing, to take you beyond just a commentary.

Now Kevin also has every single BLU-RAY disc ever made too. And didn’t spend a lot of time talking trash about it. In fact, to a large degree we agreed that the “format war” is most likely going to take a back seat to the Dual Format players – which when and if they get cheap enough, should render a decision as being mute.

The only jabs he made at BLU RAY had to do with Sony’s discs which apparently seem addicted to MPEG2 as the encoding format – rather than the other codecs that are apparently superior – but I have to admit… without a BLU RAY player and a side by side demo, I feel I can’t really comment on the reality of that situation. BTW – after my new Apple – I’ll probably pick up a BLU RAY player, so I can actually enter the BR vs HD debate.

I will say this though. Approximately 45 minutes after the Demo at my place was done, Quint ordered his Toshiba HD-A2 – so Kevin did a helluva job selling the format. That said – let’s take a look at the 3 existing titles that I’ve written up this week in HD DVD…

CHILDREN OF MEN

This was one of the first titles where I really began to explore some of the extra capabilities that are on HD DVD. Universal seems to kinda be leading the way as far as this goes. There’s this thing called U-Control which gives you the ability to access special features that can play as you are actually watching the film – so you can see them in context to the movie, which I have to say… at first sounded annoying, but then in playing with this I discovered a real joy. You see… as you watch the film these various symbols pop up – stuff like INFO, COMMERCIALS, PICTURE IN PICTURE. Now INFO is like… well… you know all that stuff in the background during CHILDREN OF MEN – like the newspapers, protest signs, etc? Well you can highlight and enlarge all that stuff… and can actually go so far as to read the stuff. With the COMMERCIALS – you click on it – and the commercials you see and the film things on the various screens, billboards, etc. You can see the whole ad play out. These are hysterical. Then there’s the PICTURE IN PICTURE features and what I love about these is that they have to do with the scenes as they’re being shot. So you want to see how they shot that cool car sequence, the making of will play out as you watch the scene. So you can watch the end effect as you see how it is done, rather then going back to rewatch the scene after you saw the special feature. To me… this is super cool. Of course, this disc also has the regular features as well, but this is just a whole ton of extra content that you usually see on CRITERION editions. Really sweet.

Then there’s just the movie which is absolutely one of the best films of 2006. Blew me away! And still blows me away. The beauty of the film and the attention to detail is just awesome. It’s a gorgeous disc and really shows off the features that are unique to this format.

SPARTACUS

Ok – here’s an HD DVD title that I wish was overseen by Criterion. The Criterion version of SPARTACUS is a real fan’s edition of this film. You see… there’s no denying that the picture and sound on the HD DVD version is vastly superior. Jaw-droppeningly gorgeous – but where’s the special features? Criterion’s edition is loaded, here… not much of anything. This is aggravating. I think that what we really need to see from the studios in terms of their catalogue titles are tons more special features… in particular the sort of special features that take place during the film, like with CHILDREN OF MEN. Give us behind the scenes, whenever you can. Interviews and recollections that you can access as the film goes on. Have Michael Douglas sit down with his father and talk about Spartacus… giving us Kurt’s photos from the making of the film to pop up as they talk about the film. C’mon… spoil us!

That said, it is the most beautiful transfer I’ve seen thus far on the title.

GOODFELLAS

GOODFELLAS has never been my favorite Scorsese film, but with the Sopranos coming to an end this past Sunday, I had to pick this up and last Friday I had a HD-DVD party and we screened GOODFELLAS to celebrate the passing of Tony. To me, this really is like the pilot for the SOPRANOS, but for me… better than what I saw from the series, albeit, I’ve only watched about a dozen episodes.

One of the things I love about HD is the ability to see the original film grain that the films had. The result is something that no longer looks video. Throughout the screening, friends were pointing out details in the clothing and the sharpness of focus throughout. And one friend just couldn’t stop commenting on how it looked like film. Me…. I couldn’t help but notice the tackiness of the décor throughout. Picking up on the period details and damn that meal they cooked looked soooo yummy.

This disc has a lot of extras, but I don’t think anything that wasn’t on that nice DVD they put out, but we do have a better transfer of image and sound. Personally, I can’t wait for CASINO, my FEAR & LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS HD has me licking my lips in anticipation of Scorsese’s big Vegas pic!