My dvd pick for this week is In Bruges.

It stars Colin Farrell as a hit man on the lam in (you guessed it) Bruges. Brendan Gleeson plays his partner in crime and all around mentor. And Ralph Fiennes plays the boss who has quite the twisted sense of morality. The tag line says it all: “Shoot First, Sight see later”. I would akin it to a darker toned After Hours crossed with Grosse Pointe Blank. It’s sorta the action-comedy for the existentialist.

Other notable dvds (which are already in the netflix queue) out today are The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlie Bartlett, and Persepolis.

I had the luck (or was it misfortune) to see Jumper last week on my airplane ride home. It wasn’t terrible by any means. The plot fascinated me for the first 45 minutes as the movie exposes how Hayden Christensen’s character discovers his spatial defying power.

But then came Rachel Bilson riding up with that mediocre love story in her pocket. And that’s right about the time I fell asleep. She gets kidnapped yadda yadda by evil, so he must save the day. I woke up just in time for Samuel L. to receive his comeuppance.

It was a short and sweet story that didn’t really blow anyone’s minds. They didn’t really explain where his power came. But the effects helped the director (Doug Liman) build a moderate amount of suspense. At the very least, I was rooting for the main character to come out on top.

A nice airplane or trapped in a confined spaced action movie to rock you to sleep. Overall, grade B-, strictly rental. If your a Hayden completist, buy it for no more than $5.99.

A Short Circuit special edition dvd was released today.

It stars the loveable Jonny 5, Ally Sheedy, Steve Guttenberg, and Fisher Stevens.

Ah, how I love Fisher Stevens character in that movie (remember him playing an quasi-Indian guy?). Why did they kill you off on “Lost” so quickly? Clearly, they must have forgotten that you do accents.

I guarantee that if you watch this clip, you’ll understand why the world desperately needs a special edition tribute to Jonny #5.

(source: Pop Candy)

DVD Beaver is a great resource on dvd releases. They know about releases for all countries and formats way before these dvds are released.

And in typical fashion, they told me first that Criterion is finally releasing some titles this fall on Blu-Ray.
Here’s a list of the films:
The Third Man
Bottle Rocket
Chungking Express
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Last Emperor
El Norte
The 400 Blows
Gimme Shelter
The Complete Monterey Pop
Contempt
Walkabout
For All Mankind
The Wages of Fear

I’m most excited about The Man Who Fell to Earth, which I think will benefit greatly from the Blu-Ray enhanced features.

This might be the final straw for my old dvd player, cos Criterion dvds in HD is definitely a good reason to upgrade to Blu-Ray.

I’m probably the only one excited about The Golden Compass dvd release from yesterday. I’m a sucker for fantasy movies, but seriously the fantastical world of the movie intrigued me.

Since the movie ends abruptly, it enticed me to read all three books. In my opinion, a movie that encourages book sales can’t be all bad, right? And it did after all win an Oscar for best special effects. The effects of the daemons were superb as was the rendering of the compass itself. Everything looked vibrant and pretty realistic.

Pajiba’s Phillip Stephens said it had all “the essentials: great, complex characters and a fully realized world are in fine form.” I completely agree and gonna hope against hope that they make the sequels, especially since The Subtle Knife has a much stronger story than The Golden Compass novel.