It was over three years in the planning.  Quality of the finished product and the ability to provide finished goods to consumers in a timely manner — at a fair price — were the prime considerations in Warner Home Video’s launch of the Warner Archive program (warnerarchive.com).  It is a breakthrough that film collectors have been praying for!

Using the MOD manufacturing process — a hybrid between replication technologies used by the studios for their DVD releases and the common DVD-R discs that are burned by computer users (among others) — Warner Home Video launched a 150 buy-on-demand catalog last week that includes 137 film vault treasures, plus an additional 13 films from the silent era.

According to studio sources there are plans in the works to release as many as 20 new titles each month, with the goal to have close to 300 films available by the end of the year at the Warner Archive retail site.  

With the retail environment in transition from brick and mortar as the primary selling environment to online shopping as the consumer’s first choice for package media products, it was only a matter of time before the studios would turn to an inventory-control system that would allow them to dig deeper into their film vaults.  

Manufacturing thousands of DVDs and shipping them to retail for consumers to ferret-out is not an efficient process, nor is building inventories of deep-catalog product offerings for online sales.  Consumers can be fickle in what they want — trying to guess the correct numbers for a traditional DVD replication run is nothing more than a crap shoot when you are dealing with vintage theatrical catalog offerings.

The online pirates — who range from frustrated film buffs to highly-organized criminal enterprises — have worked to the detriment of copyright holders with a business model that begins with a consumer order, which is then “burned” to a DVD-R disc and then fulfilled on a one-by-one basis.  No inventory required — and quality be damned.  

And in many cases these online solicitations are nothing more than “honey pots” designed to capture credit card numbers from unsuspecting consumers.

The outcome is bad product delivered to frustrated consumers and a whopping big loss of revenue for the underlying rights’ holders.  

The Warner Archive solution goes a long ways in deflating the money-grabbing incentive enjoyed by the online DVD pirates — consumers given a choice between a quality-produced film collectible from a legitimate source and all of the shady alternatives makes the collecting process a no-brainer.

The MOD system being employed by Warner Home Video protects them with anti-piracy encryption and a final manufactured product that is indistinguishable from commercially-replicated DVDs.  This was the key to the process — you can’t put the Warner Home Video name on an inferior product, especially a DVD-R disc with no manufacturing standards and no copy protections.  It would be a recipe for disaster.

It is just a matter of time before the other studios — who also have deep theatrical catalog holdings — follow Warner Home Video’s lead.  Sony Pictures Home Entertainment announced a similar program about this time last year that would make use of the HP manufacturing process, but nothing came of it.  

It is not a simple thing to do.  The quality masters need to be in place, otherwise it is a garbage-in, garbage-out proposition — it is a sad history for the Hollywood Studios in terms of their management of film assets for deep catalog.  So much of the early history of film is damaged or missing.

As for the theatrical catalog treasures unleashed in this first group of 137-films, there is enough here to keep collector’s busy for quite awhile as they check-off their MIA wants.

There are a baker’s dozen showcasing the talents of screen legend Joan Crawford, including the early 1927 silent film, Spring Fever.  Among the theatrical treasures starring Crawford — often teamed with Clark Cable — are Possessed (1931), Forsaking All Others (1934), Mannequin (1937) and The Woman is Dangerous (1952).

And speaking of Clark Gable, in addition to the six films in which he is paired with Joan Crawford (including the aforementioned Possessed and Foresaking All Others), the Warner Archive selections include nine other Clark Gable films, for a total of 15.  Lana Turner is teamed with Gable in Honky Tonk (1941), Somewhere I’ll Find You (1942) and Homecoming (1948), plus you can enjoy Too Hot to Handle (1938, teamed with Myrna Loy), and Norma Shearer with Gable in both Idiot’s Delight (1939) and Strange Interlude (1932).

And then there’s Cary Grant!   Six films, including Mr. Lucky (1943), Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) and Dream Wife (1953).

And there are all of those guilty pleasures seeded in the mix.  How about director Robert Altman’s Countdown (1968, with future Godfather co-stars James Caan and Robert Duvall), Western filmmaker Budd Boetticher’s Westbound (1959, Randolph Scott and Virginia Mayo), writer/director Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969, also teaming Caan with Duvall) and director John Frankenheimer’s All Fall Down (1962, starring Warren Beatty, Angela Lansbury, Eva Marie Saint and Karl Malden).

There’s more … lot’s more!   Five silent films starring Greta Garbo — The Temptress (1926), Love (1927), Single Standard (1929), Wild Orchids (1929) and The Kiss (1929) — and Westerns, including El Condor (1970, starring Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef), The Command (1954, Guy Madison and James Whitmore) and Wichita (1955, Joel McCrea and Vera Miles).
A complete listing can be found at the Warner Archive site — warnerarchive.com.

New York’s AdoraPet, LLC, with sales and distribution expertise provided by Channel Sources (203-775-6464; channelsources.com), will release the kid-pleasing Puppies DVD on May 12.  Five tail-wagging pups — Watson, Bela, Oliver, Dart, and Raleigh — will have the little ones mesmerized as the little pups frolic and play to relaxing music.

The DVD features a repeat function, there are ten segments to select from and best of all, there’s no barking!  Bonus goodies on the DVD include a get-to-know section for each of the canine pint-size stars and information on the various puppy breeds starring in the DVD.

Creepy hitchhikers (or the ones who give them rides) are a staple of Hollywood slasher films.   So when you hear the titled of Nashville-based 11 Visions Apr. 14 DVD debut of The Hitchhiking Movie, it is only natural that images of shallow graves and drolling inbreds on back country highways spring to mind.  It’s a Pavlov dog response sort of thing ... only bad things can happen out there on “the road.”

That’s what documentary filmmakers Ryan Jeanes and Phillip Hullquist were warned about from their friends.   Undaunted by warnings of being stabbed and murdered, the pair set out to document a one-week cross country hitchhiking trip — New York City to Los Angeles.  Could they do it, film it, and survive a freestyle hitchhiking trip from coast to coast in just one week?

The Hitchhiking Movie (being self-distributed at this point — hitchhikingmovie.com, or visit the parent website at 11visions.com) details the experiences they had on the road as 23 complete strangers (without a Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers in the group) gave them the adventure of a lifetime.

Bonus features on the DVD include commentary and bonus scenes.

Warner Home Video, using the MOD manufacturing process, added 15 additional film vault treasures to its Warner Archive buy-on-demand DVD library this past week.  The focus on collector’s affections on this go-round is screen legend Katharine Hepburn — six of her films are included: The Little Minister, Spitfire, Break of Hearts, A Woman Rebels, Quality Street and Christopher Strong.

Also getting a look-see is Lucille Ball in Having a Wonderful Time, Joy of Living and Meet the People, and Western icon Randolph Scott also has three, including Return of the Bad Men.

The Criterion Collection has made a name for itself by singling out films for special consideration.  It’s a brand.  The studios do just as a good job with their special editions, and there are plenty of examples where other independent labels take the time and spend the money to deliver products film buffs and collectors covet.  But Criterion has made a science out of marketing their brand identity.

So when news arrived this week that the May selections were ready to be announced it is something that you take note of if you are a fan of movies as an art form.  And sure enough Criterion delivers the goods on May 19 with the DVD debut of director Peter Yates’ summer of 1973 film release of The Friends of Eddie Coyle, starring Robert Mitchum as Eddie.

He’s a low-on-the-ladder hood.  The kind of guy you see taking up space as a hired hand in The Godfather (which came out the year before) — sometimes list in the credits as simply Hood #3.  Nameless.  Except here.  Eddie is flesh and bone, and has feelings … and bleeds.

Yates delivers a subtle examination of life on the streets.  Survival.  Honor among thieves (to a point).  And the fine art of making a deal.  Mitchum was never better — hound dog and laconic.  The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a long-overdue gem.  Thank you Criterion.

Bonus goodies include commentary from twice-nominated Best Director Peter Yates (Breaking Away, The Dresser) and a booklet featuring a new essay by film critic Kent Jones.

Also on the release calendar from Criterion during the month of May is a four-film collection from the company's "Eclipse" label showcasing the work of Hungarian-born British filmmaker Alexander Korda.  Included in the mix are his Best Picture-nomineee, The Private Life of Henry VIII, plus The Rise of Catherine the Great, The Private Life of Don Juan and  Rembrandt.  Street date is May 12.

Rounding out the selections for May are director John Huston's 1980 film, Wise Blood, and Pigs, Pimps & Prostitutes: 3 Films by Shohei Imamura, which features Pigs and Battleships, The Insect Woman and Intentions of Murder (in Japanese with English titles)

Polychrome Pictures, with sales and distribution support provided by Vivendi Entertainment, will release director Bradley Wigor’s black comedy Unconscious on May 5.

In the spirit of a good Hitchcock tale, the MacGuffin here takes the form of an unconscious burn victim who could be one of six different missing men.  Each of these  have “interested” parties who trail in and out of the ICU with an agenda as to why they think the patient is someone they know … and what they think needs to be done about his status, including finishing him off!

It’s up to bumbling detectives Rice (Adam LeFevre) and Flynn (John Speredakos) to sort it, but fast food stops tend to slow things down.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to visit the Louvre Museum in Paris and walked the seeming endless hallway to the room housing Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, you discovered two things.  It’s smaller than expected and snapping a digital photo has to be taken from the side, otherwise you get a blow-back from the flash.  

Pascal Cotte, French engineer and founder of Lumiere Technology, did not have such a problem.  In October of 2007 he was granted access to the painting and photographed with a unique process that he developed that yielded a resolution of 240 million pixels, or eight times higher than any professional camera available today.

On Mar. 31 Microcinema’s BlackChair DVD label will release documentary filmmaker Caroline Cocciardi’s Mona Lisa Revealed: Secrets of the Painting.  

Cotte, in his examination of the painting, discovered 25 incredible things that art historians over the centuries did not know, including lace on her dress, a change in the position of the left index and middle finger and Mona Lisa had eyebrows.

The DVD explores Cotte’s techniques for delving beneath the layers of varnish and there is a bonus nugget that covers all 25 hidden secrets, plus one more revealed for the first time on the DVD.

New York City-based Arts Alliance America has changed its moniker to Virgil Films & Entertainment.  

The company announced this week that The Donna Reed Show: The Complete Second Season  — a four-disc set featuring 37 episodes from the 1959/1960 season — will be ready for retail delivery on May 5.     

Already in the pipeline is the Apr. 7 DVD debut  of director Richard Ledes’ The Caller, starring Best Actor nominee Frank Langella (for Frost/Nixon, see separate announcement story) as a corporate whistle-blower who has signed his own death warrant by his actions.

Well Go U.S.A. will bring director Sean Tretta’s The Death Factory: Bloodletting, a lurid tale of a web-based stuff operation that showcases the online butchery of innocent victims, to DVD this coming Apr. 14.   The “Gorehouse” ghoulies have assembled for a live “bloodletting” — they are deviants that defy description — but they are in for a shock as one of their own  members has an agenda that does not quite fit in with their plans.   In a word: Gruesome!

Bonus features on the DVD release from Well Go U.S.A. include commentary from director Sean Tretta (Death of a Ghost Hunter) and a behind-the-scenes production featuette.

For those in the mood for some sword and sandal action, Retromedia, with sales and distribution expertise provided by the Infinity Entertainment Group, has something special ready for genre-fans on Mar. 31.   Strongman Steve Forest stars in director Alfonso Brescia’s 1964 Roman-era epic Magnificent Gladiator, which is being presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio, in Italian and with English subtitles.

Teamed with Magnificent Gladiator is Italian filmmaker Guido Malatesta’s 1964 film starring Swiss-born Roland Carey as Darius in the Roman-intrigue action epic, Revolt of the Barbarians.

Zeitgeist Films will release documentary filmmaker Gonzalo Arijon’s revisiting of the famed October 13, 1972 Andes plane crash that carried “The Old Christians” rugby team from Montevideo, Uruguay, Stranded: I’ve Come from a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains, on Apr. 28.   The ARR is 186 days, and the domestic arthouse run generated $85,776 in ticket sales.

Of the 45 passengers on board, only 16 survived, and they did so by eating the flesh of the dead (as documented in the 1993 film release of Alive).  The bulk of Arijon’s film centers on interviews with the survivors (now in their 50s).  Bonus here is a 52-minute behind-the-scenes featurette.

It is becoming increasingly clear that Jim Carrey has a niche.  When he deviates from the broad “concept” comedies — that the critics usually slam, but the audiences love — he bombs at the box office.  But when he is in the “sweet spot,” it’s Katy bar the door.  

Such is the case with Yes Man, which Warner Home Video has slated for a DVD debut on Apr. 7 as a two-SKU product offering — with or without a Digital Copy download option.
The ARR is a relatively quick 109 days and the box office take was a very nice $96.3 million.

The knee-jerk here  — when you first see the trailer — is that this will end up being Liar Liar Part Two.  Ballpark, yes, but Yes Man does have a certain rhythm of its own.  Once the dreary loan officer Carl (Jim Carrey’s character) falls under the spell of self-help charlatan Terrence Bundley (play just right by Terence Stamp), and his “yes” to everything message, all that follows is predictable.

And that is precisely why the film works.  After all, Abbott and Costello made a career of telegraphing the punch line well in advance of Costello getting creamed (usually, but not always Costello).  So even though Carrey is flying solo here, we can see the disaster that awaits every time he walks into a “yes” situation.

Zooey Deschanel (Almost Famous, The Happening) is cast as Allison, Carl’s love interest (as a direct result of his “new attitude”).  And to everyone’s delight she holds her own in the face of Carrey’s manic madness — funny and beautiful at the same time.  Not that a woman can’t be both beautiful and funny, but too often the femmes in Jim Carrey films end up being furniture.

Bonus features, in addition to the Digital Copy option (premium is six bucks), appear to be limited to a gag reel and a half-dozen production featurettes.  No commentary option from either director Peyton Reed (The Break-Up, Bring It On) or actor Jim Carrey appears to be in the cards for Yes Man.

In other release news this week from Warner Home Video, director Don Siegel’s 1977 Cold War “sleeper cell” thriller, Telefon, starring Charles Bronson, Lee Remick and Donald Pleasence, will be released as a single-disc (DVD-14), double-feature presentation (co-billed with the previously released St. Ives).

This is a lost gem that has Bronson as a KGB agent out to stop a rogue agent (a creepy Pleasence, how else would you have him?) who is awakening one-by-one 51 long-dormant “sleeper” agents when he recites a line from Robert Frost’s poem, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Street date for the Telefon/St. Ives double-feature is May 19.
 

20th Century-Fox Home Entertainment serves up a one-two punch of DVD blockbusters on consecutive street-date Tuesdays with the debut of Marley and Me on Mar. 31 and The Day the Earth Stood Still hitting retail on Apr. 7.

It could be just a coincidence.  Good timing?  Smart script selection?  No one really thinks, “Oh it’s a Jennifer Aniston film, let’s go see it.”  Do they?  

Are there long lines in the cold of winter (or in the heat of summer) because the latest Jennifer Aniston film is opening?   It’s not like it’s a Martin Scorsese flick with all of the auteur theorists suddenly descending on their local art houses on opening night.   It’s just Jennifer Aniston.  Tabloid princess.

But damned if her films of late just seem to sparkle.  Good lord, she was just one the cast members from Friends — you know, a TV actress with a pretty face.  How many of them have done anything worthwhile since the TV series ended (Ross is doing animated voices, that’s something)?

Marley and Me, where she teams with Owen Wilson, is a comedy based on a book by John Grogan (the Owen Wilson character in the film) about a mischievous bargain-basement dog named Marley. You’ll laugh and don’t be surprised if you find the “Old Yeller” ending requiring a handful of Kleenex to mop up after yourself.

It’s sitcom stuff, but it works.  How about “working” to the tune of $140.5 million in domestic ticket sales?  When you get those kind of numbers at the box office it means that the film works, period.  Word of mouth can kill anything in a heartbeat, so this tells you that people that saw it were chattering “I loved it, I loved it, I loved it” to their friends.  ARR is 96 days.

Fox has packaged this as a two-SKU offering — with Digital Copy or without (the premium is five dollars).  In addition to the Digital Copy option, other bonus goodies on the Marley and Me: Bad Boy Edition include 19 deleted scenes with commentary from director David Frankel (back-to-back hits — his previous film being The Devil Wears Prada) — it doesn’t look like he’s doing a feature commentary for this one.

Other bonus goodies include five production featurettes and a gag reel.

One week later, Apr. 7, director Scott Derrickson’s hyper-CGI remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still will arrive at retail as a two-SKU product offering — again, with or without a Digital Copy download option (premium is also five bucks).

The ARR comes in at 116 days and the box office haul was right at $79 million.

I guess it is OK to do a remake of a classic film.  Mixed feelings among the purists for sure.  Would you remake Gone with the Wind?  Would you bother to try and top Casablanca?   The Day the Earth Stood Still, directed by Robert Wise way back in 1951, seemed like a good idea ... maybe.

To be fair, this up-dated version starts out nice enough with Keanu Reeves delivering a somewhat sinister interpretation of Michael Rennie’s out-of-this-world Klaatu.  When he talks (coupled with his matter-of-fact mannerisms) you get the feeling that the fate of the planet does hang in the balance.  

So where did the film go wrong?   $79 million is nice, and that type of box office does point to a nice after-market on DVD and Blu-ray, but it’s not $200 or $300 million.   

The decision by filmmaker Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) and his crew to muddle this fable with loads of CGI and end-of-world destruction pretty much brought the film to its knees.  And Gort?  The great robot Gort is nothing more than a CGI monster — a planet-destroying bomb.  Please.  Just say no to the voices.

We were dumbstuck to discover that our government has spent billions on a super secret laboratory that is all equipped to handle a giant-sized robot, even though the boys at work there had no idea what form the subject of their inquiries might take.  

Dumbstruck?  Well, maybe not, there’a lot of that government spending going around these days — maybe they were just lucky.

Bonus features (in addition to the aforemention Digital Copy option) include a DVD copy of the original The Day the Earth Stood Still (which seems a little odd to include the far superior original film with this new interpretation), plus writer David Scarpa provides commentary (his only other script to date was The Last Castle).  There are also a quartet of featurettes — including one titled “Re-Imagining “The Day”” — storyboards and deleted scenes.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has laid down a carpet of kidvid, TV and catalog reworks for delivery during April and May — a good sign that news about a couple of the studio’s hit theatrical releases (Bedtime Stories and Doubt) will follow shortly.

Getting right to it, the Coen Brothers’ Best Picture-winner for 2007, No Country for Old Men will get a three-disc “Collector’s Edition” rework on Apr. 7.  Included in this set is a Digital Copy download option, plus a ton of newly-created bonus goodies — plus holdovers from the original release (“The Making of No Country for Old Men,” “Working with the Coens” and “The Diary of a Sheriff”).

New material includes a featurette titled “Josh Brolin’s Unauthorized Behind-the-Scenes,” and a Q&A session that features Joel and Ethan Coen.  There are also a series of interviews with Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin, plus footage of the two at an instore promotion.

Also getting a special edition rework is director John Dahl’s 1998 film, Rounders: 10th Anniversary Edition.   This will be a double-disc release on Apr. 14.

Included on the DVD are two separate commentary options — one with director John Dahl (Joy Ride, The Great Raid), co-writers David Levien and Brian Koppelman (the pair also teamed for Runaway Jury and Ocean’s Thirteen) and actor Ed Norton, and a second one featuring professional poker players and their insights on the card action.

 
There are also deleted scenes, an alternate ending, card tips, and an interactive “Head’s Up Texas Hold Em” game.

Also on the theatrical front is the May 5 DVD release of director Mike Newell’s star-studded 1992 film (making its domestic bow — previously only available in overseas market), Enchanted April.  Nominated for three Oscars — Peter Barnes for Best Adapted Screenplay, Joan Plowright for Best Support Actress and Sheena Napier for Best Costume Design — this cinema adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s “behind-the-wars” novel is a delight to watch just for the interplay between the English dames on holiday — especially the acting turns of Plowright and Miranda Richardson.

Filmmaker Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) provides commentary.
Shifting to the kidvid release front, the studio closes out the month of March with four product SKUs on the 31st — Baby Einstein: World Music, Schoolhouse Rock! Earth and Handy Manny: Manny’s Green Team, with the slightly older girls looking forward to Hannah Montana: Keeping It Real (a five episode set).

Elsewhere on the calendar are My Friends Tigger & Pooh: Tigger, Pooh and a Musical Too, which will be ready for retail on Apr. 7.   The hit cable series Imagination Movers: Warehouse Mouse Edition (a four episode collection) debuts on May 5, as does the next installment in the popular Mickey Mouse Clubhouse: Mickey’s Big Splash.

For older kids — particularly boys — Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has a two-SKU, double-disc promotion ready on Apr. 28 titled Marvel Comic Book Collection: X-Men Volume 1 and Marvel Comic Book Collection: X-Men Volume 2.

Well Go U.S.A. has nabbed writer/director Drew Barnhardt stylish homage to ‘80s slasher flicks, Murder Loves Killers Too, for DVD release in the domestic market.  They are giving this one a long lead to get the word out — street date is not until June 16.

Filmed on location in the Big Bear Lake area of Southern California, we get a narration heads-up to start the film that years ago a group of kids were just out for a good time in the local mountains.  They had fun and then were slaughtered … one … by … one!

Skip ahead to the present day and sure enough a quintet of teens (also known in the genre as “fresh victims”) are on the same road, headed to the same area of the woods … and yes, they plan on having one heck of a good time. 

 
Stop!  You’ve seen it before, right?   Sure, but Drew Barnhardt has seen’em all too and he knows what he likes.  What works.  What is stale.  And in the case of Murder Loves Killers Too, he has managed to make a seemingly routine slasher flick seem fresh.  

At the core of it is the performance of Stevie (aka: Big Stevie), played by newcomer Allen Andrews.  He’s not from the Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers school of slashers.  Nothing supernatural about him.   He’s just a guy who likes to stun, torture and then kill his victims.  

You wouldn’t give him a second thought if you passed him on the street — nothing scary here.   And then wham!  Out cold!

Our boy Stevie is also something of a neat freak.  He straightens up after himself …. you just can’t have the furniture all disarrayed when you are on a killing spree.  And he has a sweet little fetish too (take note, he is a serial killer) that plays into his latest tirade and why one of the teens, Aggie (Christine Haeberman) is left for last.

Bonus features include a bevy of production featurettes, including one titled “Music to Murder By: Scoring Murder Loves Killers Too” and another one that gives us insight into Stevie, “Creating a Killer.”  Filmmaker Drew Barnhardt also explains the odd nature of the title of the film in the featurette “Title Madness.”

On Apr. 28 Shout! Factory will release Johnny Got His Gun on DVD — legitimately!  

Back in 1971 the two-time Oscar-winner for best writing, Dalton Trumbo, elected to adapt his own 1939 National Book Award-winner, Johnny Got His Gun, for the screen.  He recruited a solid cast that included Timothy Bottoms as Joe Bonham, Donald Sutherland as the Christ figure (who, back then, didn’t have to dress for the part) and Jason Robards as the grievously wounded young soldier’s ghostly father.  

The all-but-forgotten Diane Varsi (best known as Allison from the 1957 film, Peyton Place) was also to be counted among the cast members in a pivotal role in Trumbo’s production.

This is yet another one of those films that made the rounds of the repertory cinemas back in the 1970s and then more or less dropped out of sight.  The only way that collectors could own the film was to track down old VHS copies, or through gray market imports.  

Or worst-yet, through bootlegged versions provided by the always-eager web pirates with their hideous DVD-R releases.  That nonsense ends on Apr. 28.

Dalton Trumbo was the most famous of the blacklisted Hollywood Ten.  An avowed communist — he never disputed the fact of his political leanings — who found himself being hauled in front of Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunt tribunal, where he refused to testify.  As a result of his silence he was sent to prison for eleven months.  

Once released he left for Mexico where he would write over 30 screenplays while in exile, including Roman Holiday, The Brave One and Spartacus.   Eventually he would return to the United States and his screen credits would be recognized as his, instead of the willing “fronts” who put their names to them.

Johnny Got His Gun is a curious piece of art.  As a book it was written before his political troubles and self-imposed exile, and it is the only film that Trumbo himself directed. 

Despite being an anti-war story, as the film unspools you soon find that the politics fade into the background as the narrative focuses more on the plight of Joe Bonham and the angelic nurse (Diane Varsi) who discovers his heart-wrenching secret.

No word on bonus features, if any, but the DVD release certainly stands on its own merits.

Also on the April release calendar from Shout! Factory are four TV-on-DVD SKUs.  The parade of TV-on-DVD hits begins with the Apr. 7 six-disc debut of The Paper Chase: Season One.

This is followed on Apr. 14 by Malcolm & Eddie: Season OneRhoda: Season One and on Apr. 21.

The month ends with the Apr. 28 arrival of Spin City: The Complete Second Season (a four-disc set).

Magnolia Home Entertainment scores the distinction of having the first 2009 theatrical release to reach DVD.  On Apr. 7 director Oliver Blackburn’s terror-on-a-yacht thriller, Donkey Punch, will arrive as a two-SKU product offering — rated and unrated versions (an additional five minutes of footage).

The ARR is a zippy 74 days, and the box office take for the film’s critic-exposure showcase was just $8,372.

 
Donkey Punch has to be the dumbest title of the year for a film … easily replacing Warner Home Video’s Feb. 17 Raw Feed production of Alien Raiders.  The title — which is slang for a certain sex act — tells you nothing about the film, which as it turns out is a pretty decent little thriller.  

And that might help to explain why it failed to generate much theatrical interest in the U.K. during its push there.  Although once you have a Brit film like Eden Lake to compete with, there is a certain standard that audiences come to expect when they head off to the local multiplex for a few screams and horror chills.

This carping aside about stupid titles, Donkey Punch plays like fun and games in a creepy mansion (only the action has been transferred to a sleek yacht) where one of the guests gets killed and those in charge decide to cover up the crime … oh yes, and logic dictates that this cover-up should include the witnesses!

It will be "died-and-gone-to-heaven week" for film fans, especially for those who are in the auteur camp on May 26.  Warner Home Video has announced that five not-on-DVD films, including one of the “60 Wishes” candidates, will be released for collectors to own under the “Directors’ Showcase: Take Four” promotional banner.

It all depends on one’s taste, but it can easily be argued that director Michelangelo Antonioni 1970 film, Zabriskie Point, is the leader of this director-focused promotion.  Despite being a failure at the box office, it has certainly been a favorite of pirates hawking god-awful DVD-R versions on the web and back in the day it was a staple at repertory theatres — often double-billed with Blow-Up.

Maybe it was the drugs back then.  Maybe it was because it was so weird.  Or, as some might say, “symbolic.”  But, by any standard Zabriskie Point is not a particularly good bit of movie-making.  Let’s just put it this way, it’s no Easy Rider.

That doesn’t diminish for one moment its place in the history of cinema and to now have a legitimate DVD version available for collectors — in general — and cinefiles and students of film — in particular — to own is welcome news indeed.

You can only imagine Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio executives in their private screening room on the Culver City lot back in early 1970 getting their first look at Daria Halprin and Mark Frechette frolicking in the desert.  “What the f#*$ is this?”

Neither went on to do anything meaningful in film after this, with Frechette turning to bank robbery as a second career.  He died in prison five years after making his film debut in Zabriskie Point.

Also included in this sweeter-then-sweet quintet of films is director Hal Ashby’s 1982 buddy film, Lookin’ To Get Out: Director’s Cut, which was a Lorimar production, released theatrically by Paramount and then all but forgotten.

Despite solid performances from Jon Voight and Burt Young, the film was cut poorly, not well-received by the critics and died at the box office.  Warner Home Video, with the cooperation of the UCLA film archives and the help of Jon Voight (who co-wrote), has unearthed a director’s cut of the film that Ashby donated to the university prior to his death.  

It clocks in at an additional 15 minutes, which may help to smooth out some of the rough edges.  The film is also worth a look just to catch a glimpse of seven year-old Angelina Jolie Voight in her screen debut as the daughter of call girl Ann-Margret.

As a bonus nugget on the DVD release of Lookin’ To Get Out: Director’s Cut there is a newly-prepared interview session with actors Jon Voight, Burt Young and Ann-Margret.

Also getting a “director’s cut” DVD launch is filmmaker Hugh Hudson’s 1985 Revolutionary War drama starring Al Pacino, Nastassja Kinski and Donald Sutherland, Revolution: Revisited.   

Hudson scored Oscar gold with Chariots of Fire in 1981 and then returned with one of the most faithful screen interpretations of writer Edgar Rice Burroughs’ legendary Tarzan saga, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes in 1984.  With these two back-to-back films on his resume, the anticipation was up there that Revolution would be something special as one of the Christmas event films in 1985.  

Sadly, it didn’t live up to expectations.  Hudson has “revisited” the film with the help of star Al Pacino.  

He’s cut the film’s running time from 126 minutes down to 115, reordered the presentation and Al Pacino — as Stanley Kubrick did with his 1975 release of Barry Lyndon —provides a newly-created narrative voice-over.

From some purists there will be grousing about the studio not including the original theatrical cut here.  If Hudson and Pacino are willing to put in all of this time and effort to make a better presentation of the film, perhaps the zealots should hold off on the comments until they have had a chance to watch the new cut.  Perhaps this is the way the film was meant to be seen in the first place — hindsight, as they say, is always 20/20.

Also included in the DVD release of Revolution: Revisited is a new introduction teaming Hugh Hudson with Al Pacino.

The other two auteur film offerings are from John Boorman (nominated Best Director for both Deliverance and Hope and Glory) and David Cronenberg.  The former finds his 1995 thriller, Beyond Rangoon, getting a domestic DVD debut, while the latter will see his story of sexual obsession (and self-deception), M. Butterfly, finally being made available in this U.S. market (legitimately).

Both of these films have a couple of things in common.  First, by box office standards, they were not well-received commercially.  

Second, at their core they both showcase terrific performances — in Beyond Rangoon Patricia Arquette shines as the tourist who walks away from her hotel in the middle of a coup and has to fight for survival, while Jeremy Irons delivers yet another knock-out acting turn as the French diplomat in love with the “ideal woman,” a Peking Opera star (played by John Lone).

In other release news from Warner Home Video there are two film vault releases coming to DVD on May 19, and there’s a Raw Feed direct-to-retail sci-fi thriller that is worthy of fan attention set for delivery on Feb. 17 (see below).

Getting a DVD debut with a new 16 by 9 transfer is director Sam Wanamaker’s 1971 Western, Catlow, starring Yul Brynner and Richard Crenna as outlaw and lawman respectively.  Also returning to DVD from Warner Home Video on May 19 is filmmaker Tom Laughlin’s 1971 landmark film, Billy Jack.   

Minneapolis-based Mill Creek Entertainment, the home of the “instant library” on DVD, has announced an eight-strong selection of new multi-disc SKUs that are set for delivery to retailers on Mar. 31.  There is also a 100-film compilation set slated for release on the same date that combines two 50-film “instant library” collections (more on that in a bit).

Beginning with the 50-film “instant library” collections, on tap for the end of March is The Way West, a library of 50 Western films spread over 12 discs and priced at just $29.98 (that’s before discounts at retail).   Genre fans looking to build their own libraries can add to their collections for just 60 cents per film!

Included in the mix are films from such Western silver screen legends as Ken Maynard (four films in the set: Alias: The Bad Man (1931), Between Fighting Men (1932), Honor of the Range (1934) and Whistlin’ Dan (1932)) and Tom Tyler (also with four films: Brothers of the West (1937), Deadwood Pass (1933), Lost Ranch (1937) and When a Man Rides Alone (1933)).

Plus Mill Creek has included ten films — count’em, pardner — starring Western screen icon Bob Steele — Arizona Gunfighter (1937), Border Phantom (1937), Cavalry (1936), Gun Lords of Stirrup Basin (1937), Hidden Valley (1932), Law of the West (1932), No Man’s Range (1935), Northwest Trail (1945), Rider of the Law (1935) and Texas Buddies (1932).

Consumers can also purchase The Way West 50-film collection as part of 100-film, 24-disc configuration titled Guns of the West.  This colossal set includes the aforementioned The Way West packaged along with the previously released 50-film set titled Frontier Justice (released in March of 2008 and counts among its film selections 16 films starring Roy Rogers and four showcasing the talents of Gene Autry).  SRP is $44.98, which drops the per film cost to collectors to just 45 cents each.

Also on the Western front is the 20-film collection titled Billy the Kid: Outlaw Films from the Golden Age of Westerns.   This four-disc set features 20 films starring Buster Crabbe, including 11 films from his popular Producers Releasing Corporation “Billy the Kid” series (1941-1943) and nine more from his “Billy Carson” series that followed (1943-1946) at the famed poverty row studio.
 
And any Western home entertainment library wouldn’t be complete without the early frontier adventures of John Wayne.  Mill Creek has the “instant library” titled John Wayne: The Ultimate Collection ready on Mar. 31 for just that purpose.

Included in this four disc set are 22 of his B-Westerns produced at Monogram and Republic during the 1930s, plus Angel and the Badman (1947) and McLintock! (1963).  As a bonus, Mill Creek has also included the documentary feature-length film, The American West of John Ford and 80 minutes worth of theatrical trailers for films starring the Duke.

Mill Creek has two TV-on-DVD sets on the Mar. 31 schedule — Adventures of Robin Hood: The Complete Third Season (a four-disc package containing 39 episodes) and Gun Justice (a four disc set showcasing 50 Western TV episodes).  Both SKUs are priced at just $14.98 each.

On the comedy front, The Laff Zone is a two-disc compilation showcasing the stand-up talents of dozens of well-known comedians.  The roster of talent includes routines from Tim Allen, Ray Romano and Louie CK … just to name a few from this eight hour laughfest.

For more information on adding these new DVD releases to your retail mix, visit Mill Creek Entertainment’s web site at millcreekent.com, or call 866-410-9000.

Smithsonian Networks, with sales and distribution expertise provided by the Infinity Entertainment Group, will bring three unique DVD SKUs to retail during the month of March.

For aviation enthusiasts no trip to Washington D.C. is complete without a visit to the National Air and Space Museum.  The DVD release on Mar. 17 titled America’s Hangar takes the viewer on a guided tour of the massive facility — the world’s most visited museum.

One week later, Mar. 24, Smithsonian Networks returns with Critter Quest!, a three-episode “backyard safari” with Peter Schriemer as your host.  Episodes in this collection include “Creepy Crawlers Everywhere” (a look at the click beetle, a walking stick, a jumping spider and a tree frog), “Season of Change” (a look at foraging, hibernating and migrating) and “The Wild Side of D.C.” (no, not the nightlife in Georgetown, but a look at critters that call the area their home).

Also heading to retail on Mar. 24 is a four-part look at world cultures.  The DVD being released is titled Light at the Edge of the World, which takes the armchair traveler to such remote places as Peru, Polynesia, the Arctic and the Himalayas to examine unique (and vanishing) cultures.

Universal Studios Home Entertainment will bring director Sam Fell’s (with Robert Stevenhagen co-directing) follow-up to Flushed Away, the Christmas-season animated adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s award-winning children’s books, The Tale of Despereaux, to DVD on Apr. 07.  

The ARR comes in at 109 days, and multiplex ticket sales for the film’s domestic run were a bright $49.9 million.

Although the big-eared Despereaux is the hero of the story (voiced by Matthew Broderick), this is no simple tale (or is that tail?) about the little mouse’s adventures.  We also have the interplay of the rats — especially Roscuro (Dustin Hoffman) and Botticelli (Ciarán Hinds) — and humans, including Princess Pea (Emma Watson) and the very unhappy Miggery Sow (Tracey Ullman).

It does get a bit complicated — or perhaps “busy” is a better word — for the very young, but that’s only a minor distraction in this well-rendered animated fable.

Bonus features on the DVD release include two production featurettes, an interactive map of the Kingdom of Dor, and two games — “Despereaux's Quest” and “Build-A-Boldo.”

Documentary filmmaker Steven Greenstreet, who won critical praise for his 2005 film, This Divided State, will have his latest work, Killer at Large, released by disinformation (disinfo.com) on DVD this coming Mar. 31.  Ryko will be handling the sales and distribution efforts.

Greenstreet’s Killer at Large focuses on the “epidemic” of obesity in the United States and the long-term consequences (health, economic, etc.) associated with a significant portion of the population literally eating themselves to death.  Bonus features on the DVD include filmmaker commentary, deleted scenes and Congressional testimony by Chevy Chase.

It is always something of a celebration when news arrives that one of the “Hollywood” studios has propped open the doors to its film vaults for new-to-DVD debuts.  Since 2004 the studios have (collectively speaking) released fewer and fewer of these golden treasures — as measured in both SKU counts and the actual number of films released (see grid below).

Theatrical Catalog is defined as pre-1997 English-language films that received a theatrical break of at least one week in the domestic market.  Everything released in the same manner after Jan. 1, 1997 (the launch year of DVD) is defined as New Theatrical — this definition of what is catalog and what is new allows for the measurement of the time in days (Asset Rollover Rate) that it takes for a film to make the transition from its initial theatrical debut until its subsequent release on DVD.

The latest ray of light is from Universal Studios Home Entertainment on Apr. 7.  On that date collectors, film buffs and film historians can add to their DVD libraries some nitrate treasures when they pick up the six-film SKU titled Pre-Code Hollywood Collection - Universal Backlot Series.  

It should be noted that Warner Home Video has the third installment in its own Pre-Code series of films, Forbidden Hollywood, Collection Three: William Wellman at Warner Bros., ready for retail two weeks earlier on Mar. 24.  

Also of note, it is an interesting choice for a promotional banner — “Universal Backlot Series” — that the studio has selected for this set of vintage films.  The six Pre-Code classics included in this collection were all produced by Paramount and not at Universal. 

 
Back in 1957 MCA purchased the pre-1948 Paramount film library for $50 million and the six films showcased in this collection were part of that deal.  From time to time these bad-idea asset sales happen, with Ted Turner’s picking of Kirk Kirkorian’s pocket in 1986 being the most notorious of the group.

This aside, the six films included in the collection (in chronological order) tip off with The Cheat (1931), directed by George Abbott (better known for his screenplays, including an Oscar nomination for his script for and his Broadway play, All Quiet on the Western FrontDamn Yankees!).  Tallulah Bankhead stars as a married woman with a bit of a gambling problem and ends up in debt to a sadistic playboy (Irving Pichel) who likes to brand his conquests.

From 1932 there are a pair of early Cary Grant films, Hot Saturday, a romantic comedy teaming him with Randolph Scott and Nancy Carroll (nominated for Best Actress in the 1930 film, The Devil’s Holiday, losing out to Norma Shearer for her performance in The Divorcee) and Merrily We Go to Hell, with Sylvia Sidney and Fredric March at the top of the ticket.

Shifting to 1933 we have the tearjerker, Torch Singer, starring Claudette Colbert as a successful singer and radio star who gave up her child for adoption years earlier and now yearns to be reunited with her.  

The final two entries are both from 1934, Murder at the Vanities, a fast-paced musical — with a murder or two thrown in between fancy stage numbers — that teams Kitty Carlisle and Jack Oakie, with music provided by Duke Ellington (and you have to look quick, but that’s Lucille Ball and Ann Sheridan as chorus girls), and Search for Beauty, one of the last of Pre-Code films that centers around a bait-and-switch scheme that lures young beauties to Hollywood — Ida Lupino, Buster Crabbe, Robert Armstrong and Toby Wing star.

Bonus goodies include a featurette titled “Forbidden Film: The Production Code Era” and a reproduction of the “Production Code,” which was popularly known as the Hays Code.

Paramount Home Entertainment has filled in the second half of the month of March with six additional DVD SKUs, including two new editions in the studio’s premium “Centennial Collection” series.

Arriving on Mar. 24 are director Gene Saks’ 1968 film adaptation of the Neil Simon Broadway play, The Odd Couple: Centennial Collection, and Alfred Hitchcock’s delightful 1955 film, To Catch a Thief: Centennial Collection.

Teaming Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as mismatched roomies, this double-disc special edition of The Odd Couple includes a newly created feature commentary from Charlie Matthau and Chris Lemmon, plus the companion disc has five new production featurettes including “Inside The Odd Couple” and "Memories from the Set.”

Master filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock’s 1955 jewel (as time has proven), To Catch a Thief, teamed debonair Cary Grant (his third of four films with Hitchcock — Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946) and North by Northwest (1959)) with Grace Kelly (the last of three pairing with Hitchcock — Dial M for Murder and Rear Window, both in 1954).  

Grant is The Cat, a reformed jewel thief enjoying life on the French Riviera, while Grace Kelly is of wealth and on vacation with her widowed mother (played by Jessie Royce Landis), who (as the plot requires) is loaded with jewels.  Between romantic interludes with Grace Kelly (love those fireworks), Grant must ferret-out the wannabe cat burglar (a sleek one to be sure) who is using his old style to frame him.

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Bonus features on this double-disc release include a new film commentary from USC Professor and Hitchcock historian Dr. Drew Casper, plus there are three new production featurettes on the companion disc, as well as four returning featurettes from previous renditions.

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Also on the Mar. 24 release docket are the Emmy-winning biopic, A Woman Called Golda (starring Ingrid Bergman in her final acting performance as Golda Meir), the star-studded mini-series from 1984 based on the Sidney Sheldon novel, Master of the Game and the Emmy-nominated comedy series, Andy Richter Controls The Universe: The Complete Series (features all 19 episodes from seasons one and two).

Lastly, Mar. 31 marks the arrival of The Fugitive: Season Two, Volume Two (a four-disc set).

One of the characters in director Eric Colley’s G.P.S.: The Movie says early on, “The middle of nowhere is where bad things happen to you.”  The DVD from Fireshoe, with sales and distribution support provided by Channel Sources, will street on Mar. 31.

 
She pretty much nails the geocaching camping adventure (filmed in the Gig Harbor area of Washington) that seven college friends take off on, especially when their first geocache site turns out to be a mini-coffin with pictures of a woman begging for help.  Bonus features include commentary from Colley and a half-dozen production featurettes.

Arts Alliance America has tabbed Apr. 7 for the domestic DVD debut of director Richard Ledes’ The Caller.  A brief theatrical run is planned in February to raise critical awareness.

The timing could not be better for Arts Alliance.  The film’s star, Frank Langella, just received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance in as Richard Nixon in filmmaker Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon.

Harken back to Robert Altman’s 1973 film, The Long Goodbye, with Elliott Gould as Philip Marlowe.  Now imagine the same character some thirty years later — shop worn and beaten down.

 
Gould plays Frank Turlotte, a former New York detective turned gumshoe who gets a mysterious phone call (hence the title) offering him a peeper job at several times his going rate.  It’s a simple gig, just follow corporate big shot Jimmy Stevens around.

 
What we know in this neo-noir corporate thriller — and in time Frank will discover as well — is that the mysterious voice on the other end of the phone is Jimmy (played by Frank Langella), a high-powered executive in an international energy conglomerate (think: Enron) who is letting key clients know that the books are not exactly on the up-and-up.  

He knows he’s signed his life away with the financial disclosures, so what’s with the cat-and-mouse game with the broken down flatfoot?   Ah ha, the game’s afoot ... there is more going on than meets the eye!

Bonus features on the DVD release include video interviews with filmmaker Richard Ledes and actors Elliott Gould and Frank Langella.

Actor-turned-director Carl T. Evans will see his JFK assassination conspiracy thriller, Frame of Mind, released on DVD this coming Feb. 24 by La Crosse, Wisconsin-based Echo Bridge Home Entertainment.

Not only does Evans handle the direction, but he also stars as a David Secca, a New Jersey detective who discovers a scrap of film that appears to show a second shooter on the grassy knoll on that fateful day of November 22, 1963.  To autheticate his find he seeks out Prof. Steve Lynde (Chris Noth — as Mr. Big in both the film and TV series, Sex and the City, but perhaps best known as Detective Mike Logan on Law and Order), who has his doubts until it becomes clear that the two have in their possession something that has been covered up for over four decades … and could be their death warrant as well!

Also on the DVD release calendar from Echo Bridge is the Mar. 17 four-disc set of Degrassi - The Next Generation: Season 7.

There are things that you can safely predict in 2009.  The words Clinton and controversy will remain interchangeable, the Cubs will break their fan’s hearts yet again, and there will be long lines at midnight on Friday, Mar. 20, the first day of spring.

The lines won’t be forming at exotic places like Stonehenge or Chitza Nitza, but at key retail outlets that remain open as Friday ends and Saturday begins.  The lines will consist mainly of young women eager to get their hands the Summit Entertainment double-disc DVD release of director Catherine Hardwicke’s blockbuster film adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s novel, Twilight.

The ARR works out to 120 days and ticket sales generated at theatres from coast to coast current stands at $181.4 million.

Saturday as a street date is an odd day for the release.  With that said, Summit can pretty much pick any day of the week it desires to release this first in a series of Edward and Bella romance/vampire adventures (fans are already making plans for the next installment, New Moon, which debuts theatrically of this year on Nov. 20).

One other thing that is likely to occur, independent rentailers will complain about having to stand in line Saturday morning at their local Wal-Mart or Best Buy to purchase their rental copies — forget the madhouse of Friday midnight as that will certainly be a one-per-customer affair.

Meyer’s series of allegorical romance novels about a high school teen named Bella (Kristen Stewart — Into the Wild, Cold Creek Manor and as Jodie Foster’s daughter in Panic Room), who meets and becomes the object of forbidden desire from her new classmate named Edward (Robert Pattinson — as Cedric in the Harry Potter films), turned almost overnight into a publishing and film franchise.  Fans simply could not get enough of the two and the dangers they face in dancing around the forbidden fruit — the vampire aspect substituting nicely for teen themes of high school angst, social class and sex.

Magnolia has the Swedish-language import, Let the Right One In, slated for a DVD bow on Mar. 10.  The protagonist in that vampire tale, Eli, is a pre-pubescent school kid who will remain 12 years-old as long as she is a vampire.  There are plenty of problems with social interaction with that sort of body limitation as time passes.

For Edward, sexual maturity is not an issue.  In fact, it’s his curse as the allure of Bella (she gives off a certain scent — call it pheromones, if you wish) is driving him crazy.  He wants her.  She wants him.   It’s a case of high school romance on steroids.

This is an “event” film on DVD.  It not only establishes at least a three-film franchise, but it also puts Summit Entertainment into the big time with a monster theatrical hit.

The bonus features on the double-disc product offering include commentary from director Cartherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown), who is joined by stars Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, plus there five “extended” scenes, five deleted scenes, a trio of music videos and a seven-part production documentary.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment has tabbed Mar. 24 as the DVD debut date for a two-SKU offering of the animated smash hit, Bolt.  Consumers can select their copy of Bolt with or without a Digital Copy download option — premium is just three dollars.

ARR comes in at 123 days and the box office take for the film’s domestic run was a very nice $111.8 million.

It’s always nice when rookie filmmakers score theatrical hits in the $100 million range — it’s rare, but it happens.  Such is the case with co-directors Bryon Howard and Chris Williams (he also co-wrote with Dan Fogelman), who team here for their first feature-length film.  Based on the success of this initial outing, we can expect to see their names in the credits of future products.

The question is, do actors take on the persona of their on-screen characters?  Lee Strasberg is credited with developing “The Method” approach to acting, and that’s exactly the school that out super-hero Bolt (voiced by John Travolta) finds himself in.  He’s the star of a hit TV series and has been convinced by his handlers that he has all the super powers attributed to him on screen.

That’s the set-up — every week he rescues Penny (voiced by Miley Cyrus) by using his incredible speed, smarts and cunning.  But before you can say road trip, little Bolt finds himself packed up (accidentally) and shipped off on a cross country trip New York City.  Talk about a fish out of water!

During his boxed-up-imprisonment he looses his magical powers (“The Method” wears off without constant reinforcement … and special effects), and soon finds himself on the streets of Manhattan with little knowledge about survival and the real animal world.  

Stop right there, this is a kid’s film, so he’s not devoured by New York City sewer rats, run over by a cab or recruited into a fight club against his will.  Instead, he hooks up with a street-savvy cat named Mittens (voiced by Susie Essman — best known to her fans Susie Greene from the Curb Your Enthusiasm TV series), who shows him the ropes and eventually the two meet a crazed hamster named Rhino (voiced by Mark Walton), who knows exactly who Bolt is from watching his weekly adventures on TV.

Once the initial shock for Bolt wears off, the film becomes a sweet road trip movie (let’s get Bolt back to Hollywood) that unites the misfit trio in sort of a musketeer trio who overcome the burdens of their pasts and any obstacles they encounter on their cross-country trek.  Nothing too intense for the kiddies and Rhino the hamster provides plenty of laughs for all.

Bonus features — in addition to the aforementioned Digital Copy download — include the short film titled “Super Rhino,” plus there are three production featurettes and a music video teaming Miley Cyrus with John Travolta that is titled “I Thought I Lost You.”

The first blush results for new-to-DVD releases for the full year just ended pointed to a SKU output decline of 10.2 percent when compared to 2007 product output levels. In 2008 there were 11,954 new DVD releases, as compared to 13,306 for 2007.

This marks the third consecutive year of DVD title decline — 2007 was 5.5 percent behind 2006, and 2006 dipped 0.5 percent below the record release year of 2005.

It would not come as a surprise if the 10.2 percent decline moderated to under ten percent in the next couple of months as additional “below the radar” releases — especially in the Foreign Language, Music and Special Interest categories — are found and posted to the various product databases.

This may come as something of a surprise to some readers, but not all companies in the business of releasing DVD (and now Blu-ray) have a handle on marketing their products. It may come as a shock, but independent and niche suppliers are actually in competition for the same consumer dollars that the studios are trying to grab with their higher profile theatrical and TV-on-DVD products — and they have all the advantages of PR, marketing and sales behind their release loads.

As we approach 12 full years of DVD release activity (in March of this year), it is still something of a mystery that certain suppliers don’t seem to have the basics in place. How difficult is it to have cover art and a brief description of what you are trying to sell posted at the various online retail sites (from Amazon on down)?

Most of the Special Interest, Foreign Language, Documentaries, etc., simply are not going to get any exposure at retail venues. Space is limited and growing smaller and the number of retail outlets selling DVD and Blu-ray products has shrunk in recent years. The only chance that most of these independent suppliers have to connect with consumers is at their own websites and at those online retailers who specialize in hawking DVD and Blu-ray products.

Venting about incompetent supplier activity aside, it should be noted that the year-over-year SKU counts exclude certain DVD release activities (stupidity is not counted among the exclusions).

Not included in the annual comparisons are adult releases (that’s a whole different market), audio-only, gray market imports (NSTC set to region zero and you are good to go, even if you don’t have the rights in this market), DVD-R releases (the golden domain of piracy — if you can’t afford to do it right, then get out of the market … you are just taking up space) and multiple uses of the same underlying SKU (it’s a poor marketeer that can’t sell the same DVD title in multiple ways — twin packs, on-pack promotions, box sets, etc.).

While overall DVD release activity was down by double-digits for the first time in 2008, there were some bright spots and even the areas that bleed red were, for the most part, not high revenue producers.

For example, Direct-To-DVD, Feature Films (which serve the entertainment needs of genre-fans and the rental market for the most part), New Theatrical releases and TV-on-DVD, Multiple Disc sets were all in positive territory on a year-over-year basis. The TV-on-DVD product group was up an impressive 17.2 percent, which translated to an 100 SKUs reaching the market in 2008 (682 versus 582 in 2007).

49 percent of the shortfall in overall release activity for the year can be traced directly to the Special Interest category, which on a SKU output basis is an underperformer in terms of revenue activity. This category shed 689 SKUs on a year-over-year basis, and that translates to a shortfall of 16.3 percent.

The Children’s Non-Feature category was off 17 percent, Music slipped ten percent and Foreign Language Feature Films fell by 10.6 from 2007 to 2008. But the biggest nosebleed, especially in terms of consumer interest, was the Theatrical Catalog group (pre-1997 films), which posted a year-over-year SKU decline of 22.8 percent.

Part of this shortfall can be traced to the trend of releasing multiple-film sets and the sharp drop in single-disc PD releases.

A couple of observations before closing the book on 2008. The DEG revenue numbers — reported out in last week’s edition of the DVD Release Report — seem to confirm that DVD release activity is a leading indicator of sales activity.

And, it should also be note that as the “Hollywood Studios” have curtailed their new-to-DVD release activity over the past couple of years, the overall market has followed (see grid page 24). It would be interesting to see an effort (collectively speaking) on the part of the studios to increase SKU counts in the kidvid and film vault areas to see if there is a corresponding boost in industry revenues.

Tulsa-based VCI Entertainment announced an exciting array of new-to-DVD releases that consumers and collector’s can salivate over on Mar. 31.

Topping the three-SKU package is the film noir double feature being released under the company’s promotion banner of Classic Film Noir, Vol. 3.  Teamed here are director Anthony Mann’s 1949 mixed-genre classic, Reign of Terror, with director Bernard Vorhaus’ 1948 film, The Amazing Mr. X — both films feature the work of Oscar-winning Cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris).

Anthony Mann is noted among film buffs, historians and critics as a filmmaker who was comfortable and competent with a wide range of genres that included film noirT-Men, He Walked By Night), Westerns (The Furies, Winchester ’73, The Naked Spur) and big-budget epics (El Cid).   (

The post-war production of Reign of Terror is something of an odd duck in that Mann cleverly blended the in-vogue trappings of film noir with an action-laced costume drama.   Richard Basehart, who scored critical praise in Mann’s He Walked by Night the previous year, stars as the French Revolutionist Robespierre whose evil knows no bounds, with Robert Cummings as undercover adversary.

The second half of the twin bill is more in the spirit of the Val Lewton films produced at RKO during the period than an out-and-out film noir entry.  This is The Amazing Mr. X, the under-appreciated work of filmmaker Bernard Vorhaus.

Turhan Bay (Sudan, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves) is Alexis, a charlatan who has set his sights on the young widow Christine (Lynn Bari — The Falcon Takes Over, The Bridge of San Luis Rey).

Both films have been restored by VCI Entertainment, and both feature commentary options — film restoration consultant Jay Fenton provides commentary on The Amazing Mr. X and actress Arlene Dahl is joined by film historian Alan Rode for the commentary on the DVD release of Reign of Terror.

Also heading to DVD on Mar. 10 is an English-dubbed version of I Love You Rosa, and the six-film/double-disc collection being released as Darn Good Westerns, Volume 1.  

This latter six-pack set includes Hellgate (starring Sterling Hayden and Joan Leslie), Panhandle (teaming Rod Cameron with Cathy Downs), Fangs of the Wild (featuring Charles Chaplin Jr.’s first film role), Train to Tombstone (a Don “Red” Berry Western mystery that he co-wrote), Operation Haylift (based on the cattle rescue efforts of the legendary 1949 blizzard) and Wildfire (Sterling Holloway, Eddie Dean and Bob Steele in a rare “Cinecolor” Western).

Water Bearer Films announced its first two DVD product offerings for 2009 this past week — both of which street on Mar. 10 — and they are both festival favorites with an international flair.

First up is Israeli filmmaker Lior Shamriz’s Japan Japan, which follows the fish-out-water lifestyle adventures of Imri (Imri Kahn, who also starred in Shamriz’s 2006 short film Ho! Khutz Nora), a 20ish farm boy who has settled in Tel Aviv without a plan and without any apparent skills or motivation.

 
His roommate is nuts, his job at a party supply store is meaningless, but his discovery of Japanese internet porn has given him a vague purpose of making this a source for his salvation.  But letting go of “what you know” and the culture that has ingrained that into you can be difficult.

Shamriz (Saturn Returns) uses a blend of camera and filmmaking styles, along with a certain sense of cinéma vérité, to both tell Imri’s story and to express to his audience the confused state of mind that his young protagonist currently exhibits.

Water Bearer will present Japan Japan in Hebrew with English subtitles, plus as bonus the DVD will contain deleted scenes.

Also making a domestic DVD debut is Rémi Lange’s 2008 film release of Devoteé.   Part documentary, part heartfelt drama, Devoteé is the story Hervé Chenais, a gay man with a unique physical condition … he was born without arms or legs, just truncated stumps.

Building relationships can be difficult even under the best of conditions, but in Hervé’s case it can be a near-impossible quest.  Entering his life is a young man who is the opposite of him physically — in short, a “hunk.”  But is Guillaume a soul mate, or does he have disabilities of his own?

Rémi Lange (The Path to Love) tackles a difficult subject and in the process creates a mesmerizing film.  The DVD will be presented in French with English titles.

MGM Home Entertainment, with sales and distribution support from 20th Century-Fox, will release the latest edition to the 007/James Bond film franchise, Quantum of Solace, on Mar. 24 as two-SKU DVD product offering.

The ARR chimes in at 130 days and ticket sales echoed the approval of Daniel Craig returning as the iconic 007 to the tune of $167.5 million.

Following close on the finale of Casino Royale, Bond finds himself tracking down those responsible for Vesper’s death and a whole lot more.  His methods also get him placed on double secret probation by M (once again played by Dame Judi Dench).

Here’s the conundrum for Bond fans.  Who doesn’t love Daniel Craig as James Bond?  He brings and energy and certain level of old-school ruthlessness to the character that has been missing in recent outings.

But, there is this sense that the franchise is being placed on steroids — “updated,” if you will — to please the 15 year-old male audience.  Relentless, mindless action and violence has pushed the more subtle aspects of the 007/Bond persona aside.

There is no solving the riddle, especially when the domestic gross chimes in at $167.5 million.  You can expect more of the same going forward.  The only question that should be on the table is … when will the next installment in the series be released theatrically?

As for Quantum of Solace, just enjoy the ride, it’s not one of the best 007/Bond entries in the long-running series.  But it is entertaining and quickly-paced.  All we can say is that eventually Bond ends up focusing on the international intrigues of Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), with the final showdown taking place at an obvious set-piece in the deserts of Bolivia.  Oh please!

There are six production featurettes included with the double-disc SKU, including an extended one titled “Bond on Location.”  This collector’s version also showcases the music video from Jack White and Alicia Keys, “Another Way to Die,” which is the only bonus included on the single-disc edition.

Uniontown, Ohio’s Tempe Video will bring director/producer Geno McGahee’s X Posse Productions’ release of The Rise of the Scarecrows to DVD on May 5.   Following the success of Evil Awakening (released by Tempe last August), genre filmmaker McGahee turned his focus on a reworking of the 1988 horror flick, Scarecrows. The result is The Rise of the Scarecrows a mirco-horror scarefest about “things” buried in the nearby woods that just won’t stay buried!

Bonus features include commentary from filmmaker Geno McGahee and trailers for both Evil and AwakeningThe Rise of the Scarecrows.