Get ready for the 82nd annual Academy Awards by brushing up on your best picture nominees, many of which are already on DVD!

Avatar - Not on DVD yet, and no release date. This one’s still tearing it up at the box office, so we wouldn’t expect to see it on DVD until April at the earliest.

The Blind Side - Just announced for March 23rd.

District 9 - On DVD.

An Education - No DVD date yet, but based on its theatrical release date, we’re going to bet this will be a mid-March DVD, too.

The Hurt Locker - On DVD.

Inglourious Basterds - On DVD.

Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire - Just announced for March 9th.

A Serious Man - On DVD next week (February 9th).

Up - On DVD.

Up in the Air - No release date yet, but we’re betting mid-March for this one, too.

Two films enter, one film leave! Or both films leave! Together!

Dead Alive

If you weren’t familiar with Peter Jackson before that whole Lord of the Rings stuff, then check out this classic gem which clearly influenced The Mighty Hollywood Powers to put him in charge of a massive three-picture multi-million dollar franchise.

It starts off innocently enough; a trip to Strange Foreignland to bring back an evil rat monkey for a zoo in New Zealand, a comely Spanish girl falls in love with a fuddling mama’s boy because her crazy-eyed gypsy grandma says so, and OH MY GOD PEOPLE ARE EATING THEIR OWN EARS.

Better known as Braindead anywhere else but the ‘States, Dead Alive is easily one of the most goriest, silliest, straight-up insane comedy horrors to ever be created on a modest budget. There are things that simply defy conventional imagination, like fat-cheeked zombie babies riding around in split heads, kung-fu priests with no patience for leather-clad ruffians, and the importance of reading labels on suspicious jars of poison.

Jackson is someone who understands the importance of “the big finish,” and boy oh boy does he give it in spades here. There’s nothing wrong with your screen; that red-orange tinge you’re seeing is the mass amount of PEOPLE STUFF left over from the climax. Not since Evil Dead 2 has a movie had so many satisfyingly ridiculous blood & guts moments while still keeping its captive audience laughing and screaming at the same time.

Society

This movie is bad. It’s so bad that the ending is catapulted to levels of extreme awesomeness nary achieved in the history of terribly amazing horror films.

Director Brian Yuzna, based known from the Re-Animator films, has a habit of making half-assed political and social statements in his silly scare-fests, and in his first major feature he jumped straight to the high class. In this Beverly Hills community, Bill, a young guy in a well-to-do family who’s at the top of his game before he’s even hit college, is starting to suspect there’s something weird and sinister going on with his family. Why it took him nearly two decades to notice that sometimes his sister’s head is facing the wrong side or that there are people in the neighborhood who like to eat hair, we will never know.

While there’s a a simple set up for a weird secret society murder plot going on, and an uncomfortable romance between the star and his flexible wannabe-girlfriend, it’s told in such a campy way with some of the worst acting ever that it is incredibly entertaining to just make fun of. You’ll be MST3King your way up until the last 15 or so minutes when everything, to put it lightly, goes bat-shit crazy.

Like Dead Alive, Society is a movie you watch with a group of friends. It’s better with alcohol but, really, don’t overdo it because your stomach might not be able to handle itself during the shunting. And that’s all I’ll say on the subject. The subject of the shunting.

Sweet jeebus, the shunting!

 

 

A collection of 12 superb films from the 1920’s and 30’s, only one of which (”Sunrise”) has been released before on DVD, “Murnau, Borzage and Fox” highlights the works of two influential silent-film (and early sound) directors, F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage, when they were both working for the Fox Film Corporation.

Murnau started his directing career in Germany (”Nosferatu,” “The Last Laugh”) before moving to America in the mid ’20’s and being signed by Fox. Included here are his first American film, “Sunrise” (1927) and his third, “City Girl” (1930) (Murnau’s second film for Fox, “4 Devils,” is now lost).

Borzage began his directing career in 1915, but his most critically acclaimed films weren’t made until the late 1920’s. Visually influenced by Murnau, Borzage found success with his romantic and sentimental films, including “7th Heaven” (1927) and “Bad Girl” (1931), both of which won Oscars for Best Director.

The films included in the collection are as follows:

 

7th Heaven

(1927, Borzage) Winner of three Academy Awards including Best Director, Frank Borzage’s inspiring romantic tale of love and courage is a true cinematic masterpiece. Starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.

 

 

 

 

 (1932, Borzage) After Tomorrow - No matter how responsible they are, a young couple’s pending marriage plans are destroyed by their self-serving families.

(1932, Borzage) Young America - In this compelling film starring Spencer Tracy, two teenage boys break the law to try to help one of the boys’ grandmothers.

 

 

 

Bad Girl

(1931, Borzage) In this winner of two Oscars (Best Director for Borzage and Best Writing/Adaptation) - a touching drama set during the depression - a poor young couple must marry when she becomes pregnant.

 

 

 

 

City Girl

(1930, Murnau) Murnau’s third and final film at Fox. A farm boy comes home married to a city gal while his father does everything he can to end the marriage.

 

 

 

 

Lazybones

(1925, Borzage) Director Frank Borzage spins a “strongly sentimental” (Motion Picture News) “tale of universally unfulfilled desire” (Pacific Film Archive) in a small town where a self-sacrificing hero’s desires are overshadowed by his obligations.

 

 

 

 

Liliom

(1930, Borzage) This gorgeously mounted story - later remade as the musical Carousel - follows Liliom, a poor, but cocky man who turns to thieving to support his new family. But when a holdup turns disastrous and Liliom loses his life, he is allowed to return to Earth years later in an attempt to set things right.

 

 

 

Lucky Star

(1929, Borzage) The incomparable and “uncanny skill of Borzage, and the marvelous appeal of the Gaynor-Farrell combination” (Film Daily) makes this sentimental love story a “timeless” (New Yorker) classic.

 

 

 

 

Song O’ My Heart

(1930, Borzage) In this “flawlessly” (The New York Times) recorded feature loosely based on his own life, “John McCormack’s famous tenor voice is reproduced so naturally and so pleasingly” (Film Daily). (Full sound version, and music and effects version)

 

 

 

Street Angel

(1928, Borzage) First ever Academy Award-winning actress Janet Gaynor plays Angela, in “a simple, but pathetically beautiful love tale” (Film Daily) that unfolds in the picturesque landscape of Naples, Italy.

 

 

 

 

Sunrise

(1927, Murnau) Winner of the first and only Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Picture, legendary German filmmaker F.W. Murnau’s first American feature is considered by many, “one of the greatest silent films ever made” (L.A. City Beat).

 

 

 

 

They Had to See Paris

(1929, Borzage) Will Rogers “gets all the laughs” (Variety) in his “first talking picture” (The New York Times) about an all-American guy who strikes it rich and reluctantly heads to Paris to marry off his daughter to a nobleman.

 

 

 

 

Murnau, Borzage and Fox

When William Fox brought German Expressionist F.W. Murnau to Fox, a period of artistic freedom and experimentation began. Murnau’s techniques were studied by Fox’s roster of directors, including John Ford, Raoul Walsh and most notably, Frank Borzage. This documentary celebrates the legacy of remarkable movies made for Fox by the two most important directors of their time.

Believe it or not, the Videology staff doesn’t always agree on everything. For example, not everyone is with me when I say that Evil Dead 2 is one of the most important films of our time, that She’s the Man is just as good as Mean Girls, or the fact that Titanic would be loads better if it had more zombies and werewolves. However, most of us all seem to agree that The Fall is a fantastic, beautiful, heart-wrenching, expertly crafted story.

Filmed over a sporadic four year period, Tarsem (he of the not-so-good the Cell and a memorable REM music video) piggybacked his various commercial jobs to go all over the world and shoot glorious fantasy scenes set in the mind of an incredible little girl with a broken arm and a gap tooth. The Fall is basically a storybook, including the actual telling, not unlike The Princess Bride but more fickle. Because this is a story being made up as the movie itself moves forward and in fact the young actress herself influenced the characters and events shown.

The fantasy starts in a very cliche manner, about a band of adventurers out for revenge. Each had their own story, from the Italian demolitions man, Luigi, to the lover of all things living, Charles Darwin (yeah, I know), to the main character, the ever-shifting Red Bandit. They travel to blue cities and butterfly islands and guarded citadels, encountering a menagerie of other characters that are never quite safe from the girl Alexandria’s personal taste and whims.

Yet it’s not just the tale that seems to get everyone, but the telling of it. Lee Pace of Pushing Daisies fame is a hauntingly tragic figure and his own story is told so carefully, through whispers and insinuations, that the viewers piece it together using (gasp) their own brains instead of having it spelled out for them. And what can be said of Catinca Untaru, the little girl driving this strange ship? She’s absolutely incredible. Part of this is due to Tarsem’s unorthodox directing style for her scenes, yet there’s definitely something special there. Even if you don’t dig the fantasy elements, the girl is the true crux of the film, which makes it go leaps and bounds over what I was expecting in the theater.

Through the entire showing, I was very much enthralled. However, it wasn’t until the very end that I thought, “yes, holy crap, this is something incredibly special.” And there aren’t even any zombies or man-eating bears. But there is an adorable monkey, so bonus points for that.

New Jersery Star-Ledger television critic Alan Sepinwall has a nice review of the Mad Men Season 1 DVD set that is out today. I can’t recommend this show highly enough.

New Releases:

• Be Kind Rewind - Jack Black and Mos Def pretend they know what it’s like to work at a video store (also on Blu-ray!)
• Californication: Season 1 - David Duchovny wants to believe he’s a playa
• Caramel - Lives and loves at a Beirut beauty salon
• Chaos Theory - A dramedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Emily Mortimer
• Fool’s Gold - Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson search for hidden treasure in their bathing suits (also on Blu-ray!)
• Jericho: Season 2 - After nuclear bombs take out a bunch of American cities, a small town in Kansas tries to survive
• Just Add Water - Jonah Hill, Justin Long, and Nip/Tuck’s Dylan Walsh star in this quirky comedy about small town life.
• Rails and Ties - Clint Eastwood’s daughter Alison Eastwood directs this depressing drama. Stars Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden
• Under the Same Moon - A young boy crosses the Mexican border to be reunited with his mother
• Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins - Martin Lawrence is the proverbial fish out of water

New Editions:

• Classe Tous Risques - Sixties French Noir (Criterion Collection)