Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a quick look at two upcoming DVD releases. THE MIST hits on DVD this very day and SWEENEY TODD hits next Tuesday. Both have single disc edition and two-disc special editions. Of course, the single disc editions on both are worthless, and the two-discers are the ones to opt for.

I was very close to the production of THE MIST, having spent Seven full days on the set, given amazing freedom to report back what I saw by director Frank Darabont. As a result, I didn’t really feel comfortable reviewing it. I made note of my opinion, but I never did a full fledged review.

I’ve seen the film four times now, twice in the theater and twice on DVD, and my opinion of the flick is a good one, with some small reservations. I would dearly love to see Darabont’s $60 million version of this story. I think he made the best sub-$20 million version of this tale that he could. I like the acting across the board, I like how he translated the story and I even like the SHIELDish technique he used to shoot it. It created a unique identity.

The effects aren’t as bad as people make them out to be. The tentacles get the worst of it and it’s probably the one effect in the movie I’m most disappointed by because I saw how cool the KNB practical tentacles looked on set. However, CafeFX’s work on the birds, the bugs and the spiders is fantastic. Especially the bug. I don’t know why, but that little goofy lookin’ fucker really made me smile.

I’d love to have seen Darabont use his Kubrickian SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION filmmaking style for this story, but that wasn’t the reality of the budget. I understand that. What that did was force Darabont to put his fingerprints all over other aspects of the filmmaking instead of the visual, most notably a focus on his script and the acting.

The biggest draw for the 2-disc DVD release of THE MIST is the alternate black and white version on the second disc. It’s cool, definitely. And it greatly helps some of the shoddier effects work integrate better. Some sequences look overly bright, though, like when you put a black and white filter on a color picture or video. Some sequences make it obvious it wasn’t lit for black and white, but those are honestly not the majority. Most of the film looks really awesome in black and white, lit perfectly. The pharmacy attack scene specifically look great.

Here’s what you get on the disc:

- A commentary by Frank Darabont with some help by his producer, Denise Huth. Darabont focuses on how he crafted the film on a budget, sharing tales, cuts and keeps. He discusses the original opening that he decided to cut as they were filming that gave us a true origin to the mist as well as his history with the project.

- Some deleted scenes, with optional commentary. There’s more of Carmody preaching and a few more character building bits and pieces.

- Making ofs, including a great one on the amazing and talented Drew Struzan. Struzan’s poster work in incredible and they talk a lot about his process and what his job entails. The rest are traditional making ofs, a broad Making of the Movie segment, a doc that focuses on the night attack with the bugs and birds, one that focuses on the creature effects and how they pulled them off and then one doc focusing totally on the digital work by CafeFX.

There’s lots of stuff on here. I wouldn’t have minded a little more focus on Stephen King talking about the writing and inspiration of the story or an audio option of having the 3-D Stereo reading of the original story. That said, the discs are packed. Two different versions of the film, commentary, and probably a good hour and a half of documentary material.

If you’re a fan of the film, you’re not going to get cheated… unless they come out with the Blu-Ray in 2 months.

This one comes out April Fool’s Day. In fact, I have an interview in the works this week with Timothy Spall about this release. That’ll be a fun one.

I’m quite a fan of this movie. Harry saw it early and when I asked about it, not having really known the musical play, so unsure about what I’d think of the flick, he told me it was Tim Burton’s best since ED WOOD. And I agreed with him.

This movie is all about style and fun. I am a little gay for a good musical, so Stephen Sondheim’s music was a great surprise as were the actors’ performances. I’ve had the soundtrack in pretty heavy rotation on iTunes since it came out and I’ve already found the DVD is getting a lot of play since I received it. It’s one of those great background DVDs… the music is there and then if you want to pause and watch some gore or Alan Rickman chew some scenery or Sacha Baron Cohen ham it up, well it’s all there.

The two disc set has a lot of behind the scenes stuff on it and some tangential docs about the history of the legend of Sweeney Todd. I wasn’t aware of this, but apparently there’s some controversy over whether or not Todd actually existed. Some believe he did, others are sure he was just a product of the Penny Dreadfuls of 19th Century London.

There’s a documentary that focuses completely on that, the history of Todd as he relates to the Penny Dreadfuls and an exploration of a possible real truth to the myth.

There’s also a doc that focuses on Sondheim and how he came to write the music and spearhead the musical that became popular in the ‘70s.

You also get a ton of making of docs chronicling everything from Depp convincing Richard Zanuck he can sing (he actually says he never sings… not even in the shower and this was his biggest fear when considering the project) to Helena Bonham Carter talking her husband into casting her (he said he would, but only if she took singing lessons and could carry a tune, which she couldn’t, apparently, before hiring a singing coach) to the creation of the neck slice appliances to the propman making the razors to creating the streets of London, etc.

All the bases are covered, but I would have loved a commentary track with Burton, Depp, Carter and Sondheim. As it stands there are no commentaries on the disc, but probably close to three hours of extra features. My favorite was, oddly, the Unscripted Q&A back and forth between Depp and Burton they did for Moviefone. Really funny and more informative than you’d expect from one of those promotional sit-downs.

This is definitely a winner. Again, the only problem is that HD-DVD is dead so we get no High Def version of this one for a bit. Transfer looks great, but I’m sure the eventual (but currenly unannounced) Blu-Ray will look spectacular.

That’s it for DVDs. Tons more stories in the works. I’m a busy seaman! Keep an eye out, squirts!

-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com