With DVD releases still in the Q1 doldrums, it’s the “TV on DVD” category that provides the juice this week with the release of the ultimate UFO conspiracy show of the the 1990s as well as Justified, one of the best, but least publicized of contemporary cable series. While there are no blockbusters, there are quite a few movie releases and the best features Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern) in tour de force performance.

 

 

This week’s top TV on DVD release is Dark Skies: The Declassified Complete Series (Shout Factory, 900 min., $44.99), which contains all 20 episodes of the UFO conspiracy theory/alternate history series that aired in 1996. With the success of the conspiracy-tinged X-Files on Fox, NBC gave the greenlight to Dark Skies, an ambitious saga about a secret alien invasion by “the Hive” who secretly landed in Roswell, New Mexico on July 2nd, 1947.   The Dark Skies team of John Loengard (Eric Close) and Kimberly Sayers (Megan Ward) gradually expose a government cover-up of both the invasion and the ways in which the aliens have manipulated the public chronicle of events in America (“History is a lie,” was one of the show’s prominent taglines). The first season, which unfortunately was the only one that got made, shows how the aliens manipulated events of the 1960s. Subsequent seasons were to deal with the following decades, and the excellent Shout Factory box set includes a “never-before-seen proposal for Season 2,” as well as the international pilot, a great documentary about the making of the series with lots of input from producer/creators Bryce Zabel and Brent Friedman. Dark Skies is an ingenious alternate history science fiction series that partakes heavily in the anti-government conspiracy zeitgeist of the 1990s.

 

The other new release with strong appeal to fans of genre TV is Justified: Season 1 (Sony, 572 min.,$39.95, BD $49.95), which stars Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood, Damages) as Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens in a taut modern noir crime series based on a character created by Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight, 3:10 to Yuma). Justified, which airs on the FX cable network, is often overlooked in discussions of the excellence of the latest crop of cable shows, but, with its core dynamic of Givens’ 19th Century western hero attitudes in conflict with 21st Century police procedures, it’s as good as any of them including Boardwalk Empire.

 

Continuing series out this week include the Johnny Depp-starring young cops series 21 Jump Street: The Complete 4th Season (Mill Creek, $14.98), the primetime soaper Dallas: The Complete 14th and Final Season (Warner Bros, $39.98), the underrated detective series Simon & Simon, which is available in an inexpensive Best of Season 2 release (Mill Creek, $9.98), an equally inexpensive re-release of the thirtysomething: Season 1, Vol.1 (Mill Creek, 478 min., $9.98), plus the single-disc animated The Garfield Show: All You Need is Love & Pasta (Vivendi, 72 min., $14.9), and the rube-friendly comedy Hey Vern, It’s Ernest: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 293 min., $9.98).

 

Another 1990s series out this week is California Dreams: Season Four (Shout Factory, $24.99), which collects the final 15 episodes of the Saturday morning teen sitcom about a multi-ethnic group of teens and their rock-and-roll band that aired on NBC from 1992-1996. Created by the same group responsible for Saved By the Bell, California Dreams tackled teen social problems (drugs, divorced parents, dating) with all the eager earnestness that its Saturday morning timeslot required.

 

The top U.K. release is Merlin: The Complete Second Season (BBC, 571 min., $49.98), a stirring version of the classic Arthurian fantasy that was definitely influenced by Smallville and which has received plenty of American exposure (first on NBC and then on Syfy). The other two notable U.K. shows due on Tuesday are the long-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine: Vintage 1987 (BBC, 299 min. $34.98), and the cold case police procedural Waking the Dead: The Complete 5th Season (BBC, 690 min., $39.98).

 

 

There are all sorts of heist films ranging from gritty (The Town) to the ridiculously stylish (The Thomas Crown Affair). Takers (Sony, “PG-13,” $28.95, BD $34.95), which features an absurdly good-looking band of robbers (Paul Walker, Chris Brown, Idris Elba, Jan Hernandez, Hayden Christiansen) all dressed in slick suits, is much closer in style to the latter than the former. Takers doesn’t lack for action, but watching it one gets the strange feeling that the producers, in trying to broaden the audience base for the film with lots of eye candy for females, have created the first “bishonen” (beautiful boys) caper flick.

 

Much more interesting, though not recommended for the claustrophobic, is Buried (Lionsgate, “R,” BD/Combo $29.95), which stars Ryan Reynolds a man who wakes up in a coffin, six feet underground, with just a lighter and a cell phone. Spanish director Rodrigo Cortes accepts a Hitchcock-like challenge (Lifeboat) and keeps the camera focused on Reynolds for 90 minutes (no flashbacks, no cross-cutting, no depicting the people he is talking with). Cortes manages to triumph over the limitations of the cramped setting and create a suspenseful drama that managed to score an 85% positive rating with review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Another film the critics loved (84% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) is the British crime drama Down Terrace (Magnolia Entertainment, “R,” $26.98, BD $29.98), which mixes dysfunctional family dynamics (father and son ex-cons) with a traditional crime drama while leavening the proceedings with plenty of nasty black humor.

 

An even better crime film from overseas is Animal Kingdom (Sony, “R,” $28.95, BD $34.95), a bleak look at a Melbourne crime family of sociopaths led by a matriarch who makes Ma Barker look like Mother Theresa. Relentless and often depressing Animal Kingdom is an art house sort of crime drama that relies on mood and a heavy dose of relentless fatalism to achieve its considerable effect.

 

The French film Army of Crime (Lorber, Not Rated, $29.98, BD $34.98) is a historically-based drama about the French resistance to the Nazis during World War II. Unlike Tarantino’s ridiculously ahistorical Inglorious Basterds, Army of Crime’s complex drama is rooted in reality and relies on suspense and moral complexity rather than on relentless action.

 

Robert Young’s Eichman (Entertainment One, Not Rated, $24.98) is also based on the historical record and it tells an important story about one of the prime technocrats behind the Holocaust. Hannah Arendt correctly characterized the Nazi death camp functionaries with her telling phrase, “the banality of evil,” and Young’s film to its credit manages to convey that concept very well. Unfortunately the burden of history tends to overwhelm this film, which comes to life only sporadically in spite of a strong performance by Thomas Kretschmann in the title role.

 

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s initial directorial effort Jack Goes Boating never quite overcomes its stage play origins, though it does feature superb performances, especially from the hugely talented Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone).

 

 

The top new release in this category is Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom Part 1 (Funimation, “17+,” 325 min., $64.98), which contains the first half of a 26-episode series that was produced by Bee Train and aired in Japan in 2009. Phantom is based on a visual novel Phantom of Inferno that was previously released here by Hirameki in 2003 and also inspired a couple of anime OVAs that were previously released by Media Blasters. The new Bee Train series is a much fuller, more elaborate version of the saga of two highly trained assassins (Ein and Swei) who are working for a sophisticated criminal organization that is attempting to control the American underworld. Those who enjoy the “girls with guns” assassin series like Gunslinger Girl should also like Phantom, though only one of two principal killers is a girl. Funimation has been streaming Phantom (with just the Japanese soundtrack) on the Internet, but the DVD version includes an excellent English language track. Funimation is also releasing the second half of the series, Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom Part 2 (Funimation, “17+,” 325 min., $64.98) this week so that fans will be able to obtain the entire series on disc.

 

Also new to North America this week is the Kampfer: Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “13+,” 325 min. $49.98). Based on a series of light novels by Toshihiko Tsukiji, Kampfer is a gender-bending, martial arts-themed romantic harem comedy about a young guy who is mysteriously transposed into a female warrior, a transformation that creates all sorts of comic and romantic possibilities. The 12-episode Kampfer series, which was produced by Nomad and aired in Japan in 2009, is presented here with its original Japanese soundtrack and English subtitles.

 

Another release of new material is My Otome 0 Sifr (Bandai, “13+,” 84 min., 24.98), an OVA prequel to the My Otome anime series.   Produced by Sunrise in 2008 and directed by Hisayuki Hirokazu, who provided the character designs for the original My Otome Series, the O.S.ifr OVA focuses on the origins of Lena Sayers and Sifr Fran.

 

This week’s one re-release anything but a bargain set. Read or Die: The Complete Blu-ray Box (Aniplex USA, “13+,” 740 min., $199.98) contains both the Read or Die OVAs (originally released here by Manga Entertainment) and the R.O.D. TV series, which was put out by Geneon. While the Blu-ray visual treatment is nice (and the shows are presented in their original 4:3 ration), and the packaging is great, it is debatable whether the BD version represents enough of an upgrade to justify the expense. What isn’t in doubt, however, is the fact that both Read or Die anime productions, which are based on the light novels by Hideyuki Kurata, are exceeding clever and thoroughly entertaining “takes” on the superhero genre featuring heroines whose superpowers all involve their ability to control paper. Each of these series illustrates the kind of mind-expanding power of anime at its best, and it’s great to see them together and fully accessible again

 

 

Economists Steven Levitt and Stephen Dunbar elevated “out of the box thinking” considerably with their highly readable bestseller Freakonomics. Now six different documentary directors have joined forces to bring various elements of Freakonomics to the screen with predictably haphazard results. For viewers who haven’t read the book, the Freakonomics film (Magnolia Entertainment, “PG-13,” $26.98, BD $29.98) should serve as an introduction to some very astute insights into the vagaries of contemporary American society.