Theatrical films Kick-Ass and Diary of a Wimpy Kid lead the DVD charge this week, though the final season of the Heroes TV series is also a good bet and there are lots of excellent options in the “Classic Films” category including an underrated Tim Burton-produced movie, one of the most beautiful Technicolor films ever made, and a true Roger Corman cult classic on Blu-ray for the first time, as well as an Elvis concert documentary that fans of the king will have to acquire.  All in all this is one of the best weeks of the summer for DVD and (now more than ever) Blu-ray releases.

 

Theatrical Films

 

Both Kick-Ass (Lionsgate, “R,” $29.95, BD Combo $39.99) and Diary of a Wimpy Kid spurred sales of relevant graphic novels when they were released theatrically, and they have a chance to do so again this month when they appear on DVD.  The sales effect will also likely be renewed when the sequels to both films arrive over the next few years.  In particular Kick-Ass has all the makings of a “cult” film.  Produced independently by director Matthew Vaughn (who is now doing X-Men: First Class) with financial backing from Brad Pitt among others, Kick-Ass is an uncompromising adaptation of the comic book series by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. about a rabid comic book fan who orders a green wet suit and then attempts to become a superhero. 

 

Kick-Ass, which reportedly cost just $30 million to make, has earned nearly $100 million worldwide, and at $48 million domestically, it is the #2 superhero comedy of all time, trailing only The Incredibles. While most of the critics (75% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) loved the film’s black comedy and original approach to the genre, some like Roger Ebert were troubled by the film’s tendency to revel in the very ultra-violence it was supposed to be satirizing. 

 

Nic Cage turns in one of his best supporting performances ever as “Big Daddy,” but it’s Chloe Moretz as the 11-year-old “Hit Girl,” who in spite of her youth and diminutive size, swears like a sailor and is a far more effective “superhero” than the film’s eponymous hero, who really steals the show.  By the way, it’s now officially "a Blu-ray world" for collectors.  The regular DVD edition of Kick-Ass only contains a feature about the film’s comic book origins and commentary from Matthew Vaughn.  The Blu-ray has all that (plus a regular DVD disc of the film), but also includes a great 4-part documentary on the making of the movie that anyone really interested in this film will have to see.

 

Chloe Moretz also turns in a solid performance in Diary of Wimpy Kid (Fox, “PG,” $29.98, BD $39.99), which is based on Jeff Kinney’s hugely popular series of quasi-graphic novels/faux diaries of an awkward pre-teen facing the horrors of middle school.  Produced for just $15 million, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie earned nearly $64 million domestically (and almost nothing overseas).  Unfortunately Fox apparently stuck with its bare bones budgeting approach when it came to the DVD release, which doesn’t have a surfeit of extras, but the Blu-ray does include a regular DVD along with the nearly useless “digital” copy of the film.  The film itself does use Kinney’s stick figure drawings effectively, and its humor hits home with its target demographic of middle school kids.

 

Easily the best movie among the theatrical releases this week is Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer (Summit Entertainment, “PG-13,” $26.99, BD/Combo $40.99), a literate, intelligent thriller with strong performances from Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, and Olivia Williams.  McGregor is a writer who accepts a lucrative assignment to ghost write the autobiography of a Tony Blair-like ex-Prime Minister (Brosnan), only to discover that his subject’s too cozy relationship with an American President might just lead to a war crimes trial.  But things are rarely as they seem in this carefully constructed old school thriller in which tension builds through every scene and sequence. 

 

TV on DVD

 

The top TV release this week is clearly Heroes: Season 4 (Universal, $59.98, BD $79.98), the final season (though not necessarily the final word since a Heroes movie remains a possibility) of the primetime superhero series created by Tim Kring.  A huge hit in its first season in which it averaged 14.3 million viewers an episode, Heroes was one of the shows that was hit hardest by the writer’s strike, which sapped the series’ momentum almost completely in its second season.  After struggling during its third year on the air, in the 18-episode fourth season, which was titled Redemption, the team behind the series reverted to the character-driven storytelling of its first year.  It may have been too late to save the series’ ratings, but the well-produced Season 4 episodes make for solid viewing, particularly if watched in close proximity so the intersecting narrative lines are more apparent. Serial drama has had its ups and downs on the small screen, but in at least two out of its four seasons, Heroes demonstrated that it can be done to great effect on weekly television.

 

The best U.K. releases this week are documentaries starting with Monarchy: The Complete Series (Acorn Media, 776 min., $79.99), an extremely interesting history of English royalty from the Saxons to Queen Victoria.  Historian David Starkey’s key recurring theme is the tension between monarchy’s authoritarian proclivities and the English tradition of rule by consent of the governed.  As an overview of England’s “peculiar institution,” it’s hard to imagine a better series than the 16-episode Monarchy.  This series is highly recommended for anyone interested in English history and institutions or for anyone who hopes to get on Jeopardy.

 

Days That Shook the World: The Complete Series (BBC Video, 1831 min., $59.98) uses archival footage, eye-witness accounts and dramatic reconstructions to chronicle the key events of modern times such as the moon landings, the liberation of Nelson Mandela, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the first nuclear reaction, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King. 

 

Lytton’s Diary: The Complete Collection (Acorn Media, 597 min, $59.99) also revolves around the news, though this 12-episode series is a drama about a Fleet Street columnist (played by Peter Bowles), who does more than just report gossip and rumors.  This 1985 series takes the viewer inside the world of British journalism with its intense rivalries between competing papers.  Lytton has a team of young reporters working with him, and the show often delves into Woodward and Bernstein territory as the columnist and his crew tenaciously pursue seemingly innocuous leads to get to the heart of the real story.

 

Other TV on DVD releases this week include Hawaii Five-O: The Ninth Season (Paramount, 1181 min., $49.99) a 6-disc collection including all 24 episodes from the ninth season of the long-running series that is about to be reborn on CBS this fall, plus Saturday Night Live: The Best of Will Ferrell Vol.3 (Universal, 90 min., $19.98), and The Real Ghostbusters Vol.3 (Time-Life, 740 min., $39.98), a 5-disc collection of the animated series that spawned 2 comic books and a popular toy line.

 

Classics Debuting on Blu-ray

 

The Tim Burton-produced, Henry Selick-directed James and the Giant Peach (Disney, “PG,” BD Combo Pack $$39.99) is a 1996 musical adaptation of the 1961 novel by Roald Dahl that mixes live action and stop-motion animation and manages to capture Dahl's often delightfully macabre sensibility.  With great music and songs by Randy Newman this is an underrated film that deserves to make it to “cult” status, and this new digitally-restored version is just the vehicle to get it there.  The extras are OK particularly those featuring Randy Newman, but the film’s the thing here and this Blu-ray is without doubt the definitive version.

 

Albert Lewin’s Pandora and the Flying Dutchmen (Kino, $29.95, BD $34.95) features the suave James Mason and the ravishing Ava Gardner at the height of her considerable screen presence and beauty.  Lewin was an English professor at the University of Missouri before he became Irving Thalberg’s assistant at MGM. Starting in 1942 with an adaptation of Maugham’s The Moon and Sixpence about a Gauguin-like artist, Lewin directed a quartet of movies that mixed literary and artistic aspirations that were rare in American movies including the finest version yet of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) and the best American adaptation of Maupassant, The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947). 

 

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman was Lewin’s first film in color and the Technicolor photography of the superb Spanish locations by Jack Cardiff is truly outstanding, as fine as his work in Black Narcissus, which won an Academy Award or The Red Shoes, which means this is one of the most gorgeous three-strip Technicolor films ever shot.  The Kino DVD features a beautifully restored (by the George Eastman House) version of the film, which simply sparkles on Blu-ray.  Pandora is a strange film indeed with its literary elements (what other American film quotes Matthew Arnold & Omar Khayyam?), its exotic Spanish locations, and its overarching romantic fantasy.  They certainly don’t make them like this anymore.

 

They also don’t make them like Piranha (Shout Factory, “R,” $19.99, BD $26.97) the 1978 Roger Corman-produced cult classic.   Though a 3-D version is due this year, it is hard to imagine that it will have the charm of the 1978 send-up of Jaws, which is based on a wonderfully subversive screenplay by John Sayles, who used the success of this film and its sequel to jumpstart his extraordinary career.  Joe Dante (Gremlins) directed the film, which has an excellent cast “for a B Movie” that includes Bradford Dillman, Kevin McCarthy, Keenan Wynn, Barbara Steele, Heather Menzies, and Corman stalwart Dick Miller (Bucket of Blood).  This edition is the first time that the film has appeared on Blu-ray, and the new anamorphic transfer looks fantastic.  Both the Blu-ray and the regular edition contain lots of cool extras including a new “Making of Piranha” featurette.  This is a cult classic that horror movie fans will have to have.

 

Anime

 

The big release in this category is Naruto Shippuden Box Set 3 (Viz Media, “13+,” 325 min., $49.99, Limited Edition $69.99), which collects thirteen more episodes of the popular anime adaptation of Masashi Kissimoto’s hugely popular ninja saga.  The Naruto Shippuden anime series continues to get excellent exposure on the Disney XD cable channel. 

 

Also out this week is a new edition of a 1998 anime series.  Lost Universe: The Complete Collection (Right Stuf/Nozomi Entertainment, “PG-13,” 650 min. $39.99) includes all 26-episodes of the anime based on a series of science fiction/fantasy light novels by Hajime Kanzaka, the creator of Slayers.  Takashi Watanabe, who directed many of the Slayers anime series, also helmed the Lost Universe anime, which was previously released here in the U.S. by ADV.

 

Other re-priced sets of previously released material include Kodocha Season 1 Complete Set (Funimation, “13+,” 600 min., $29.98), Kodocha Season 2 Complete Set (Funimation, “13+,” 650 min., $29.98), and the Princess Resurrection Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “16+,” 650 min., $59.98), which collects the two previously released Princess Resurrection 13-episode sets that were released at $39.98 each.

 

Documentaries

 

Elvis on Tour (Warner Bros., “G,” $19.98, BD $34.99) is a new version of the Golden Globe-winning documentary of Elvis’ 1972 tour.  The follow-up to Elvis: The Way It Is, which documented his Las Vegas performances, Elvis on Tour features the same great band including guitarist James Burton.  The Blu-ray version presents the 25 musical numbers in DTS-HD master audio 5.1 surround sound for the first time—something that Elvis fans will really appreciate along with the in-between-the-numbers montages of Elvis’ early appearances and movies that were supervised by Martin Scorsese.  The Blu-ray edition also comes with 40 pages of photographs that Elvis fans will love.

 

Foreign Films

 

Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet (Sony, "R," $27.96, BD $38.96) is the unsettling saga of the transformation of basically gentle kid of Arab descent into a murderous member of the Corsican mafia thanks to a six-year stretch in a French prison.  As the French say, “Everyone has their reasons,” and this unsparing look at the making of a criminal provides the viewer with equal amounts of understanding and sadness.