The high profile title hitting the home entertainment market this week is Transformers: Dark of the Moon, the second-highest grossing film of the year so far worldwide, but there are other releases of interest including a new Trigun anime movie, high quality editions of a couple of classic American TV series, the Blu-ray debut of the top Biblical epic of the 1950s, and the latest collection of New Tricks, one of the best UK series of the past decade.

 

 

The biggest seller of this week will undoubtedly be Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Paramount, “PG-13,” $29.98, BD $39.98, BD/Combo $44.99), Michael Bay’s third robot-themed hyperactive exercise in summer action film excess.  Due to the writer’s strike and Paramount’s desperate need for a summer blockbuster in 2009, the second Transformers movie, Revenge of the Fallen, was absolute rubbish.  Dark of the Moon represents a considerable improvement over the second film in the series.  Its narrative is more coherent and the numerous and lengthy action set pieces (like the half-hour battle that takes out half of the city of Chicago) are well set-up and Bay actually makes occasional use of longer takes that clarify the identities of the participants in the film’s titanic CGI battles.  Though it’s not a film for everyone, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, which has earned a mammoth $1.1 billion worldwide, should please those action movie fans who enjoyed the first film in the series. Interestingly, fewer Americans saw Dark of the Moon than either of the other two Transformers movies, but it earned the most money because of its popularity overseas where it amassed almost 70% of its total. Also interesting is the fact that Paramount has not yet announced the release of a Blu-ray 3-D edition of the film.  3-D was an important contributor to Dark of the Moon’s huge grosses.  Does this mean that 3-D TV is pretty much of a total bust (sales of 3-D capable TV sets have been slow), or will Paramount create a 3-D BD exclusive edition of Dark of the Moon for some major retailer during the height of the holiday season?

 

 

It’s a mixed bag of TV releases this week, but there are some interesting animated TV offerings including The Cleveland Show: The Complete Season 2 (Fox, 462 min., $39.98), the irreverent cartoon sitcom from the producers of The Family Guy. Season 2 of The Cleveland Show includes guest appearance from Kanye West, the cast of Glee, and Justin Timberlake (as a singing booger).  Other animated releases include, the Cartoon Network series that began as a popular Web video, Adventure Time With Finn and Jake: My Two Favorite People (Warner Bros., 150 min., $14.97), the musical animated Disney Junior show Jake and the Never Land Pirates: Season 1, Part 1 (Disney, 160 min., $19.99), the new supposedly “improved” CGI version of Warner Bros. vintage cartoon characters, The Looney Tunes Show, Season 1 Vol.1 (Warner Bros, 100 min., $14.98), and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo: 4 Kid Favorites (Warner Bros,. 100 min., $14.98).

 

Continuing series out this week include the forensics-themed procedurals, C.S.I.: The Complete 11th Season (Paramount, $72.99), C.S.I. Miami: The Complete 9th Season (Paramount, $64.99), C.S.I. New York” The Complete 7th Season (Paramount, $84.99), the popular sitcom How I Met Your Mother: Season Six (Fox, $39.98), the sexy HBO series Hung: The Complete Season 2 (HBO, $39.98, BD $49.99), Law and Order: Special Victims Unit-The 12th Year (Universal, $59.98), and the realistic middle class sitcom The Middle: The Complete 2nd Season (Warner Bros. $44.98).

 

Fans of vintage cop shows can’t do much better than Kojak: Season 2 (Shout Factory, 1200 min., $44.99), a deluxe six-disc box set which contains all 25 episodes from 1974-75 featuring Lieutenant Theo Kojak, the lollipop-licking, bullet-headed, big city detective played with verve and style by Telly Savalas.  Although these episodes are 35 years old, they look just fine in this excellently produced set, with completely re-mastered video that shows off the gritty 1970s photography to great advantage.  The Abby Mann-produced Kojak set a new standard for realism in American police procedurals with hard-hitting “ripped-from-the-headlines” stories and solid performances from a core cast that included the underrated Kevin Dobson as well as Savalas.

 

Vintage television lovers will also enjoy The Monkees: Season 1 (Eagle Rock, 980 min., $69.98), and The Monkees: Season 2 (Eagle Rock, 650 min., $69.98).  The two releases include all 58 episodes of the musical sitcom that was inspired by the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night.  It aired on NBC from September of 1966 to March of 1968 and introduced a number of innovative new wave film techniques to TV as well as a lot of catchy pop songs.

 

The best U.K. offering this week is a very good one indeed—New Tricks: Season Five (Acorn Media, 479 min., $39.99).  Amanda Redman stars as Lieutenant Sandra Pullman who leads the London Metropolitan Police Service’s Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad (UCOS), which consists of three formerly retired cops who, not without a certain amount of complaining, manage to adapt to modern police science and techniques and solve a number of ingenious mysteries.  With its blend of comedy and powerful personal storylines, New Tricks is a “Matlock for intellectuals,” a series that rarely fails to please thanks to clever scripts and strong performances from its principals and supporting players.  The emphasis in Season Five is on drama more than comedy as Jack (James Bolam), disgusted with the system, goes AWOL after a clever defense attorney gets the man who killed his wife acquitted, and, after years of sobriety, Brian (Alun Armstrong) succumbs to the lure of alcohol once again.

 

Also out this week is the groundbreaking series Queer as Folk: The Original UK Series—The Complete Collection (Acorn Media, 342 min., $49.99).  Created by Russell T. Davies, the man responsible for the successful revival of Doctor Who, Queer as Folk follows the stories of three gay men living in the gay section of Manchester.

 

Also due this week is The Hour: The Complete Series (BBC, 360 min., $34.98, BD $39.98), a mini-series set in the 1950s that provides a behind-the-scenes look at the attempt by the BBC to create a hour-long news show, and as long we are discussing TV series from overseas it should be noted that the French/German co-production Carlos (Criterion, 339 min. $49.95, BD $49.95).  The 2-disc set includes the full miniseries directed by Oliver Assayas that chronicles the career of the well known terrorist Carlos the Jackal.

 

 

The top anime release of the week is Trigun: Badlands Rumble (Funimation, “14+,” 120 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), an anime movie produced by Madhouse and based on the Trigun manga written by Yasuhiro Nightow.  Thanks to exposure on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, the original Trigun TV anime became one of the most popular series in North America. Nightow’s unlikely hero Vash the Stampede returns in this feature film, which received a limited theatrical release in the U.S. Fans of the original Trigun series will love this story in which the pacifist hero with the oversize pistol has to go up against the ferocious outlaw Gasback and his gang of ruthless desperados.  Once again those who have Blu-ray players should pay the extra tariff since this feature film, which debuted in Japan in 2010, looks and sounds so good in the high-def format.

 

The other prime release of new material this week is Mardock Scramble: The First Compression (Sentai Filmworks, “17+,” 69 min., $29.98), an anime movie produced by GoHands and based on the cyberpunk science fiction novels by Tow Ubukata (published here by Viz Media, Kodansha USA is publishing the manga adaptation).

 

Also new this week is Squid Girl Part 1 (Media Blasters, 150 min., $24.99), which contains the first six episodes of a 12-episode anime series from 2010 produced by Diomedea and based on the comedy manga series by Masahiro Anbe about a “Squid Girl” who decides to conquer humanity because of what people have done to the oceans.

 

Re-priced anime releases this week include Corpse Princess Complete Series (Funimation, “17+,” 600 min., $69.98).  The 26-episode series had been previously released in two parts, each of which had an MSRP of $59.98. Another bargain release is Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple Season 1 Complete Set (Funimation, “13+,” 600 min., $49.98), which includes 26 episodes of the martial arts comedy/romance.  Also due this week is One Piece Collection 2 (Funimation, “14+,” 650 min., $34.98), which includes episodes 27-53 of the rollicking pirate anime at a great price. The final bargain release is a Blu-ray, Yu-Yu Hakusho Season 3 BD Complete (Funimation, “13+,” 620 min., $44.98), which continues the release of the classic anime series that has been completely re-mastered for hi-def.

 

The Ben-Hur 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Editon Blu-ray (Warner Bros., “G,” $64.99) includes the completely restored and re-mastered edition of William Wyler’s 1959 sword and sandal epic that won a record 11 Academy Awards. Meticulously restored from the original 65mm camera negative and re-mastered in full 1080p HD, this is likely to be the definitive version for a long time to come.  Extras include a new documentary “Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey" that includes the iconic actor’s home movies, plus the 1925 silent version, which is an excellent film in its own right. Yes this three hour and forty-five minute epic tends toward the bloated, but there is no denying the power of its set pieces, especially the famous chariot race that was famously staged by the brilliant stunt director Yakima Canutt.

 

It’s hard to find a bigger bargain than the Ma & Pa Kettle Complete Comedy Collection (Universal, 5 Discs, $19.99), which includes all ten movies featuring Majorie Main and Percy Kilbride as the loveable yokels who provided the 1940s and 50s equivalent of redneck humor. Main and Kilbride first appeared in The Egg and I, a 1947 A-list comedy starring Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, but they soon graduated to their own Ma & Pa Kettle series of adventures, which focused on gritty Ma’s resourcefulness and feckless Pa’s sloth in a series of adventures that managed to include their huge brood of hillbilly ragamuffins, whose antics usually helped both create and resolve the movies’ conflicts.