After several weeks in a row without any major theatrical releases two Oscar hopefuls debut on DVD this week along with the Blu-ray bow of the first installment of the “rebuild” of the anime powerhouse Neon Genesis Evangelion, a direct-to-DVD remake of a classic Japanese film, and a very sensitive movie from North Africa set in 1942 during the German occupation of Tunisia.

 

Theatrical Releases

 

Two of the contenders for “Best Picture” are due out on DVD just two days after the Oscar ceremony.  Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air (Paramount, “R” $29.98, BD $39.99) probably won’t win “Best Picture” and George Clooney will likely miss out on “Best Actor,” but this sharp, funny and disturbing film is clearly the best American movie of 2009.  The unsettling saga of a corporate hachetman who revels in the impermanence of life by spending 322 days a year on the road, Up in the Air has a poignancy that comes from the director’s decision to use actual unemployed white collar workers in many scenes and from Clooney’s subtle performance that adds real emotional weight to the film’s twist ending.  A cynical slice-of-life comedy/treagedy with a delightfully downbeat ending, Up in the Air is the only one of the ten films nominated for “Best Picture” that has any relevance or resonance with the economic conditions of our current “great recession,” which likely means it doesn’t have a prayer of winning.

 

Lee Daniel’s Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire (Lionsgate “R,” $29.95, BD $39.99) is certainly the hardest hitting, most uncompromising of the ten nominated films.  The eponymous teenage heroine of this fearless film is illiterate, morbidly obese, and pregnant (by her father) for the second time.  First time movie actor Gabourey Sibide gives an incredibly powerful performance as Precious, while Mo’nique deservedly won “Best Supporting Actress” for her scorching portrayal of an odious and vengeful mother. This no-holds-barred portrait of the lower depths of America’s urban underclass is both scorching and sympathetic.  The film earned an impressive $48 million at the box office and buoyed by several Oscars including “Best Adapted Screenplay,” it should do well on DVD.

 

The other theatrical releases due out on DVD this week are considerably less interesting.  Planet 51 (Sony, “PG,” $28.96, BD $39.95), is a one-trick pony of an animated feature in which all the humor comes from a simple reversal—the little green aliens who live like 1950s Americans on Planet 51, react like 50s UFO fanatics when a human astronaut appears.  Equally vapid is Old Dogs (Buena Vista, “PG,” $29.99, BD $44.99), a family comedy about two aging bachelors played by Robin Williams and John Travolta, who suddenly have to take care of twin seven-year-olds.  Critics, who hated the film (only 6% positive on Rotten Tomatoes), loathed the over-the-top acting of the leads, but audiences, realizing that the film does have some real laughs, pushed the film’s domestic total to nearly $50 million.

 

Can Hollywood create a “cult” film or does it only happen by accident?  Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (Sony, "R" $27.96, BD $34.98), the sequel to Troy Duffy’s 2000 Boondock Saints, would indicate that perhaps it isn’t all that easy to recapture the “cult film” magic.  The egomaniacal Duffy, whose meteoric career was the subject of the documentary film Overnight, basically blew a major opportunity with his abrasive behavior, but he did get the original Boondock Saints made, though it brought in only $30,000 in its theatrical run.  A triumph of style over substance, its loosely plotted sequence of gratuitously violent action scenes earned the original Boondock Saints over $50 million on DVD.  Nearly a decade in the making, the sequel fared even worse with critics (22% positive versus 44% for the original), but far better at the box office where it earned $10 million.  The question is, will it be able to replicate the original’s potent performance on DVD?

 

Critics were more positive about Cyrus Nowrasteh’s Stoning of Soraya M (Lionsgate “R,” $27.95, BD $39.99) with 54% approving of the saga of the stoning of an innocent woman in an Iranian village, which is based on a true story related by the Franco-Iranian journalist Freidoune Sahebjam’s 1994 book.

 

Anime

 

The top anime release this week is Neon Genesis Evangelion Movie 1.11 You Are [Not] Alone (Funimation, “Rated 13+,” $29.98, BD $34.98), the first in a series of anime feature films that “rebuild” the seminal Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series of the 1990s.  This first film covers the first six episodes of the TV series with relatively few changes.  Funimation has previously released the 1.01 version of this film in November.  The 1.11 version includes about three additional minutes of footage and brightens up the color scheme in a few places.  The biggest improvement is that it is now available on Blu-ray and it looks fantastic and sounds great thanks to Dolby True 6.1HD English and Japanese tracks.  The NGE Version 1.11 Blu-ray has become the bestselling BD release in Japan so far.  Hardcore fans of this groundbreaking mecha series will have to have the Evangelion “Rebuild” movies in the high def Blu-ray format, which shows off the animation to spectacular effect.

 

Also due out from Funimation this week is Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple Season 2 Part 1 (“PG-13,” 325 min. $39.98), the third of four sets containing the 50-episode martial arts high school comedy anime produced by TMS and based on the manga series by Syun Matsuena.  The eponymous hero of the series is a high school freshman, a 70-pound weakling who becomes an excellent fighter thanks to his hard work and training at the Ryozanpaku Dojo.

 

Sentai Filmworks also has a key release out this week, You Are Under Arrest: Full Throttle Collection 1 (“13+,” 300 min. $39.98), the most recent anime release based on the female cop duo created by manga-ka Kosuke Fujishima.  Natsumi and Miyuki, the comely cops from the Bokuto Police Precinct, returned to TV screens in Japan in this 23-episode series in 2007 after a six-year absence.  As the title suggests, the beautiful girls in blue haven’t calmed down a bit, and this series features wall-to-wall action leavened with a fair amount of comedy.

 

The sole single-disc TV anime release this week is Naruto Shippuden Vol. 7 (Viz Media, “13+” 100 min. $24.92), while the best bargain release is Media Blasters’ Gaogaigar Season Two LiteBox (600 min., $29.99), which includes the second half of the classic, 49-episode 1990s mecha anime series from Sunrise.

 

TV on DVD

 

There are a number of TV series debuting on DVD this week including Matt Houston: The First Season (Paramount, 1,171 min. $49.98), the ABC detective series that aired from 1982 to 1985 and featured Lee Horsley as a rich oilman who worked as a P.I. in his abundant free time.  Another mid-1980s series bowing this week is Scarecrow and Mrs. King (Warner Home Video, 966 min. $39.98), which starred Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner and provided a light-hearted romantic take on the espionage genre.

 

The short-lived (14 episodes) 1980 detective series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (Mill Creek Entertainment 720 min. $14.98) is also debuting this week, though, because of a rights dispute, the pilot episode from this saga of disparate detectives played by Ben Vereen and Jeff Goldblum is not included in this 13-episode collection.

 

Ben Vereen also plays a key role as the boss of the two detectives in the first season of Silk Stalkings (Mill Creek, 720 min., $14.98), which appeared on CBS in the early 1990s as part of the network’s “Crimetime After Primetime” programming package before ending up as cable series on USA.  Sergeants Chris Lorenzo (Rob Estes) and Rita Lee Lance (Mitzi Kapture) solved sex crimes among the rich of Palm Beach in this long-running (176 episodes) series developed by Stephen J. Cannell.

 

Dalziel and Pascoe (BBC Video 350 min. $34.98), which makes its North American bow this week, is the U.K. version of the “odd couple” detective pairing, in this case Andy Dalziel is the rough and ready veteran Detective Superintendent, who eventually learns to appreciate Peter Pascoe, his new younger, college-educated colleague.

 

Fans of the 1987-1990 crime series Wiseguy, which starred Ken Wahl as an undercover FBI agent who infiltrated the mob, will be happy to learn that Mill Creek is releasing Wiseguy: The Collector’s Edition (1400 min. $44.98), a mammoth 13-disc collection which contains 68 of the show’s 75 episodes.  Unlike most of the crime dramas of that era, which featured stand-alone episodes, Wiseguy’s narratives were in the form of multi-episode story arcs.

 

Also out this week is Tremors: The Complete Series (Universal, 557 min., $29.98), which includes all 13 episodes of the 2003 Sci-Fi Channel science fiction series (spun-off from the Tremors movies) about a small Nevada town where the residents had to fight off voracious subterranean worm-like creatures known as “Graboids.”

 

Continuing series releases include the kids’ animated show Charlie and Lola, Vol.10: Can’t Stop the Hiccupping (BBC, 99 min. $14.98), Hannah Montana, Vol.6: Miley Says Goodbye (Disney, 134 min. $19.99), the witness protection program crime drama In Plain Sight: Season 2 (Universal, 639 min. $39.98), the stolid Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete 7th Season (Paramount, 1081, $49.99), and the excellent 1950s TV western series starring Steve McQueen, Wanted: Dead or Alive Season 2 (Mill Creek, 720 min. $14.98).  Another Mill Creek bargain out this week (though it has been previously released) is The Commish: Season 1 (720 min. $14.98).

 

Documentaries

 

Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story (Starz, “R” $29.98) reveals quite a bit about the controversial documentary filmmaker including the roots of his left-leaning beliefs in the “social justice” teachings of the Post Vatican II Catholic Church.  In Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore examines the growing gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. and the financial shenanigans behind the housing debacle and the near financial collapse, which was averted only by a $700 billion bailout from the Federal government.  Ironically the populist right (Tea Partiers) now opposes the aid to the financial industry nearly as vociferously as the populist left.  Moore presents the left wing critique of the bailout quite effectively by documenting the financial ties between the banks and key lawmakers, and delivers a series of withering attacks on the high-powered financial sector in scenes in which neither financial industry figures nor academics can explain the exotic financial devices (credit default swaps, derivatives) that fueled the financial collapse.

 

Foreign Films

 

Set in German occupied Tunisia in 1942, The Wedding Song (Strand Releasing, Unrated, $27.98) centers on the relationship of two girls, one Arab and one Jewish.  Directed by Karin Albou, this 2008 film is a sensitive portrait of friendship under duress that also delineates the powerlessness of its young female characters in their respective traditional societies.

 

Martial arts fans will enjoy The Sonny Chiba Collection (Mill Creek, Not Rated, $14.98), which includes four films, G.I. Samurai (aka Time Slip), Ninja Wars (aka Black Magic Wars), Legend of the Eight Samurai, and Resurrection of the Golden Wolf.

 

Direct to DVD

 

Dog lovers looking for a family film could do a lot worse than Hachi: A Dog’s Story (Sony, “G” $24.96, BD $34.95) a 2009 American remake of the fact-based 1987 Japanese film Hachiko Monogatari.  Directed by the talented Lasse Hallstrom, the remake features a stellar cast led by Richard Gere and Joan Allen.  Sony released the film to theaters in Japan in 2009, but not in the U.S.