DVDs this Week (07/20/10)…

Updated on July 20, 2010 By Ken Begg 25 Comments

Not much for TV stuff this week.  The first season of the Brit show Being Human, about vampire, werewolf and ghost roommates, is now available.  I think this is being remade for American TV, for what that’s worth.

Also out from over the pond is Look Around You, a parody series of educational films.  This played on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network, if I’m not mistaken, although it’s live action.

Plus, I’m sure we’ll all be buying Jersey Shore: First Season Uncensored.  And hey, Matlock S5 is out.

Now the good stuff.  Two big packages of cheesy, sleazy ‘80s sci-fi, courtesy of Roger Corman.  Indeed, they represent two/thirds of his “Alien rip-off” trilogy, along with Inseminoid.  Raving reviews indicate these 2-discs sets are pack with goodies.  Those interested can check here and here.  Both are available on DVD or Blu-Ray.

Those who prefer their ‘80s exploitation with a Continental twist may wish to check out the French assassin flick The Professional, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Did I mention the Gamera vs. Barugon is now out on a sweet DVD?  If so, it doesn’t hurt to mention it again.  Four more Gamera movies in widescreen, including vs. Gyaos, are due out in a pair of double bill DVDs in September.

Hockey fans, especially in Chicago, may want to buy the NHL Stanley Cup Champions 2009-2010 DVD.  Three hours of nostalgia for Hawks fans, considering the team has already been dismembered.

Criterion brings us (I assume) beefened-up releases of the art house classics The Red Shoes by Michael Powell and Black Narcissus.  Both are also available on Blu-Ray.

Among the DTV horrors this weed is 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams, which I assume is a sequel to the Robert Englund-starring remake of Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 2000 Maniacs.  It’s a strange world we live in.

Remember The Losers?  It was this year’s updating of The A-Team that wasn’t actually called The A-Team?  It’s out on disc already.

Remember Cop Out?  The awful looking buddy cop comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.  Yeah, they were kind of hoping you wouldn’t.

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  • BeckoningChasm

    I just saw The Professional and really enjoyed it–part of it is the weirdest “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” ever. I’m guessing the new release is Blue Ray or something like that. Luc Besson rules!

    The Alien quadrilogy is due for Blue Ray in mid-October, according to Amazon.

    And I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t think I will ever be a kaiju fan. Oh well.

  • JazzyJ

    At the Movies just talked about the Criterion Collection releases, and they say that both are absolute revelations as far as completely restoring the colors of the originals.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    BC–BLASPHEMER!!! FOUL HERETIC!!!

    Nah, it’s cool.

    Are they going to rerelease vs. Barugon on one of those double bills? I don’t want to repurchase it now if that’s the case.

    I haven’t seen either of those Corman movies (or Inseminoid, come to think of it), and now I can! Yay! I think.

  • fish eye no mikof

    I just saw The Professional and really enjoyed it–part of it is the weirdest “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” ever. I’m guessing the new release is Blue Ray or something like that. Luc Besson rules!

    The movie described above isn’t the same one you’re thinking of. It’s another film with that name, made in 1981. Given that that’s same year Natalie Portman was born, I’m guessing she’s not in this one… (-:

  • Not-So-Great Cthulhu

    The one thing I can say about Galaxy of Terror is that it’s the only time I’ve seen a woman molested to death by a giant worm.

  • Rev — No, the four remaining movies are vs. Gyaos/ Viras and vs. Guiran / Jigar. Barugon and the original are standalones.

    I’m a little surprised they didn’t make Gyaos a standalone, especially given how it ties into the modern trilogy. Maybe they just didn’t think Viras would sell as a single.

  • BeckoningChasm

    “Inseminoid” aka “Horror Planet” has to be one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen, and not in a good way. Every single character is an out-and-out idiot to the Nth degree. I was going to write up a review for Jabootu.com but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

    (You could, and perhaps still can, see it instantly on Netflix.)

  • Ah yes. Gamera vs. Barugon. One of the most depressing Kaiju movies ever made. And probably the best of the early Gameras.

    Which, sadly, isn’t saying much. The bar ain’t that high, and the more I watch them the more I wonder how much my childhood love of them wasn’t sugar based.

    Still, if I can swing it, I’m going for a full set. Which probably says too much about me…

  • Rock Baker

    My brother picked up the Gamera movies while he was at G-fest. I haven’t watched them, but Amazon was apparently wrong about there being a dub track on the disks. I was told the picture was nice, however. Now if only someone would take the War of the Monsters dub and lay that over the Japanese print. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be close. More so if they could work the AIP credits into it.

    I haven’t seen any of Corman’s ‘Alien’ movies either. I used to see the video boxes at the rental place when I was a kid. When I got older I figured they were all the same movie, Creepozoids, which I did eventually see. (Ugh! It was awful!)

  • GalaxyJane

    I was rather fond of Being Human, probably not enough to buy it, but certainly enough to be looking forward to the second season. Nice to see the vampires actually being bad guys again for a change. I particularly like the ghost, whose ability to interact with the real world is wholly dependent on her self-image at a given time. She does get a crowning moment of badass or two by the end.

    I am sure that any American version will be the usual soulless abortion we Yanks manage to pull off nearly every time we decide we need our “own” version of a popular Brit show. I figure we’ll crank up the violent porn sex to 11 (ala the abysmal “True Blood”) while making sure that we strip away any charm that made the original worthwhile.

  • To be fair, Creepazoids wasn’t a Corman film, it was a David DeCoteau flick, and rented by most as another opportunity to see Linnea Quigley nekked.

  • sandra

    I don’t recall any movie called The Professional starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, but I saw one of that name starring Jean Reno. It wasn’t cheesy. It was rather odd, in that it was set in New York, and filmed in English, but with a totally European sensibility. The Natalie Portman character was sexualized in a way a kid of that age would never be in an American movie. I was half expecting something sexual to happen between her and Reno, but thankfully, it didn’t.

  • John Campbell

    I fail to see how “The Losers” is quote “this year’s re-imagining of the A-Team” as it’s based on a Marvel comic book series. We watched “The Losers” last night and it’s a great movie.

    I would consider the tv show “Leverage” far closer to being this year’s (and prior) “re-imagining of The A-Team”.

  • I know it’s based on a comic (DC; not Marvel), but the commercials featured a covert group of weapons experts falsely accused of a crime and now operating on the run from the government. Sounds like the A-Team to me, but maybe that’s less true of the movie than of the commercials.

    I haven’t seen Leverage, so I couldn’t say.

  • John Campbell

    I stand corrected and humbled before the mighty Jabootu!

    I swear it said Marvel in the intro montage. I’ll double check that.

    I agree the trailer taken alone does have the scent of “The A-Team” about it.

    And I just realized the leader of both groups is referred to as “Colonel” by their respective team members!

    I guess there is more than a whiff of the A-Team here!

    Mind you no one ever died on the A-Team regardless of the amount of heavy and light automatic weapon fire hurled about. Or the explosions. Or in the vehicles disabled by said gunfire and explosions.

    That must mean that everyone on the A-Team were Terminators! How else could they be so accurate and destructive and not kill anyone! Damn you SkyNet!

    Sorry. Didn’t get much sleep last night…

    =D

    I admittedly haven’t read the Andy Diggle “The Losers” series, but for a comic book to movie adaptation it’s very well done.

  • Rock Baker

    I’ve never read the Losers, but I was under the impression that they were a group in one of DC’s WW2 titles. The pictures of the movie show a contemporary group that does more resemble the A Team than Easy Company.

  • John Campbell

    There was version done under DC’s Vertigo labal by Andy Diggle that featured an elite 5 man military squad doing black ops for CIA. I guess it’s supposed to be a modern take on the original you are talking about. (All hail the moghty google!)

    They need to do a movie version of Sgt. Rock.

    Ken – Leverage features Timothy Hutton and his band of ex-criminals turned good guys helping the down trodden. I guess Leverage is a hybrid of A-Team and The Equalizer.

  • Rock Baker

    They’ve been trying to get a Sgt. Rock picture off the ground for, what is it now, 20 years or so? Scripts have been submitted ranging from earnest war epics to sci-fi space operas. Sgt. Rock was always supposed to be a realistic treatment of war and the heroes who served. At this point in time, I’m not sure Hollywood has the guts to make THAT movie. One hopes, but one also remembers Jonah Hex.

    On another note, I just read about a movie due out soon on DVD and I was wondering if you guys knew anything about it. House of the Wolf Man (2009) stars Ron Chaney (Lon’s grandson) and looks to be a recreation of the old 40s Universal monster rally pictures. I don’t know if its more straight or spoof, but it looks really good on a technical level. The trailer I saw had no dialog from the film, so I don’t know if this is another Young Frankenstein or Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, or if it will be a real movie. I hope they go the straight route. Anyone?

  • Is Leverage the show with Timothy Hutton? I wish he was still playing Archie Goodwin, but I might have to check that out.

  • Yeah, I posted the House of the Wolf Man trailer a while ago. It does indeed look very cool. I’d love for that to be out for Halloween this year.

  • Rock Baker

    Acording to Monster Island News, House of the Wolf Man will be out Sept 28th. Not since Black Dynamite have I been so eager to see a new movie hit the shelves!

  • Rock Baker

    I couldn’t find where you posted the trailer (which I atribute to my general lack of knowledge of internet resources, not your site), but I can let that slide if there wasn’t some handy info posted with it. I’m not too keen on doing a google search because I’d hate to run across something that might blow the ending for me. I avoided anything that went into too much detail about Black Dynamite, for instance. (Still found out more than I wanted. Not sure how I feel about you-know-who being the villian, even after three viewings.)

  • John Campbell

    Yes sir, that is Leverage. We’re watching one now and it has John Schneider as a villainous owner of a record company in Memphis. John does like to challenge himself…

  • Jim

    Leverage also has more than a little Oceans Eleven to it, with a ridiculous scam run every week. The patter between the characters, along with the show’s sense of style, are what keep me coming back.

  • The Rev. D.D.

    Ken–You’re probably right about Viras. I know I wouldn’t buy it if I wasn’t a completist. Putting Gyaos with it eases the pain. Plus I can finally see the generally ill-regarded Jiger, and also get the insanely goofy and violent Gui9ron as well.

    Anyway, now I can go out and replace my old Sci-Fi Channel recording of Barugon with a nice new DVD.

    As for Creepazoids, I would advise anyone reading this to pass on it unless you want to see the pretty nifty critter (and that plus Linnea isn’t really enough of a reason in hindsight). There’s not nearly enough critter (who naturally doesn’t look anything like the painting on the cover but is still cool), or nearly enough interesting…well, anything really; and if you want naked Linnea Quigley, why not watch Return of the Living Dead, where you get much more Linnea and one of the best zombie movies of all time in the bargain?