Hellboy II on Blu-ray

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, inspired by Mike Mignola's comics and graphic novels, arrives today on DVD and Blu-ray. The film is one of my favorites from this year. The fabulous Ron Perlman returns as the big-hearted and big-fisted red demon working for a secret paranormal government agency. This time out he's trying to announce himself to the world while he fights Prince Nuada (a beautifully tragic Luke Goss) from the underground elf world. Once again filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro creates a vivid fantasy world where we feel the greatest connection to the monsters and creatures.

The Blu-ray edition captures the elegant production design and fantastical fairy world with gorgeous clarity. The bonus disc features some great behind the scenes footage. As a fan of action I loved seeing how the fights and stunts were choreographed. Since Del Toro wanted to avoid CGI whenever possible this meant that many of the actors and stuntmen had to engage in fights wearing more than a hundred pounds of costuming or standing a top stilts. The on-set footage of Brian Steele as Mr. Wink is truly impressive. Del Toro, like Terry Gilliam, is a delight to watch on the set. He takes such pleasure in the tiniest of production details and seems like a kid just given enough money to buy all the toys he wants.

The Blu-ray disc offers interactive features but I needed my fifteen-year-old son and his Playstation to try and figure out how to access them. The "U-Control" feature allows you to access additional information - concept art (like the image above), the director's notebook, set visits - as you watch the film. That's a nice idea but make sure you watch the film on its own first and enjoy it fully before delving into any of these extras. There is also a commentary track by the always enthusiastic and engaging Del Toro. All in all a fine disc to add to your collection. If you are a real Del Toro fan you might want to try and track down the three-disc collector's edition that comes with a director's notebook and Golden Army statue.

Schoolhouse Rock!: Election Collection

Perfectly timed for the presidential election is the Limited Edition Election Collection of Schoolhouse Rock! on DVD (coming out on September 23). Schoolhouse Rock! was a series of short animated musical educational fillers that aired during Saturday morning children's programming on ABC in the 1970s and 1980s. They were fun and educational and had a way of sticking in your head so you remembered the information. In this Election Collection, you get instruction on how a bill becomes law (see video above), on taxes, on the electoral college and more. Simple and effective, this DVD could help educate voters, and maybe even some of the people running for office. This limited edition comes with a special new to DVD song called Presidential Minute (with two different endings) and an election tracking kit. Whether you have kids or not, this DVD provides entertainment and information.

The Nightmare Before Christmas Digitally Remastered for DVD and BluRay

The Nightmare Before Christmas gets a digital makeover for a new DVD and BluRay Collector's Edition (Disney)

Tim Burton, the darkly demented and wickedly inspired creator of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, began his career in the unlikely setting of Walt Disney's bright and sunny G rated studios. And their improbable alliance continued when Disney's Touchstone Pictures produced the animated adaptation of Tim Burton's children's book The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993. Once again, Burton displayed a delightfully sick and twisted perspective that's not often seen in adult films let alone children's pictures. This past Tuesday, Walt Disney Home Entertainment re-issued The Nightmare Before Christmas in a digitally restored version for DVD and BluRay.

Prison Break Season 3 on DVD and Blu-Ray Today

Watch this exclusive KPBS clip from the DVD.

Generally speaking I don't watch too much TV. The reason being that I need to see so many movies that I don't often have time. Plus if I get hooked on a show, I hate not being certain that I can watch each week. (I don't have TiVo or even a VHS recorder so I can't record shows to watch later.) So what this means is that if I do catch up a TV show, it is usually on DVD. My friend has been hooked on Fox's Prison Break since it's debut in 2005. Of course her main attraction to the show was lead actor Wentworth Miller whom she described as "hot, oh yeah, hot." When I heard the premise of the show -- involving a man breaking into prison in order to break his innocent brother out -- I thought how can they possibly sustain that for more than a couple shows? Well they have sustained it, and to considerable acclaim.

Season three comes out on DVD today and season four launches on September 1 on Fox. Season three promises "New Prison. New Break." This time, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller of The Human Stain) finds himself wrongly incarcerated in a Panamanian prison where the conditions are so bad that even the wardens have pulled out, leaving the prisoners in charge. I came into the show cold, not having seen a single earlier episode, and within a few minutes, it was pretty easy to pick up on the narrative. Nothing wildly innovative here but the show provides tensely cut episodes and solid acting, most notably from Miller, the ever fascinating William Fichtner, and Robert Knepper  (see the KPBS exclusive clip of him discussing his character of T-bag from the bonus features). I'm also highlighting the clip below featuring director Karen Gaviola because I like the fact she's a woman directing a male-centered action drama. It's always nice to point out that gender boundaries are far less of an issue now than they used to be... at least I hope that's the case. But we still could use more diversity behind the scenes.

Hey Dude, It’s Harold and Kumar on DVD and Blu Ray

John Cho and Kal Penn as the new Bob Hope and Bing Crosby? Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo comes out on DVD/Blu Ray this week. (Warner Brothers)

At the Harold and Kumar panel at Comic-Con this past Sunday, someone asked if they could be a stoner version of Hope and Crosby creating a whole new set of Road pictures for the new millennium. And I have to admit that thought crossed my mind too. As wacky as that sounds, it's kind of accurate because like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, Harold and Kumar are buddies with an appealing chemistry and marked set of differences, and they keep hitting the road for comic adventures. I have to confess I took something of a slacker approach to covering the last H&K road pic, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay when it opened theatrically back in April. Instead, I made one of the teen critics hustle to get his review up in time for the film's opening. But if there's any film where such slacker behavior might be acceptable, Harold and Kumar would be it. So dudes, here's my belated review of what is now the DVD/Blu Ray release of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo. (By the way, check out video highlights of their Comic-Con panel --and see how unlike Kumar Kal Penn is -- at the KPBS Comic-Con blog)

Spaced on DVD - FINALLY!

The brilliant cast of the Brit-com Spaced, now on DVD in the US (BBC Warner)

If you only buy one DVD this year make it Spaced. Seriously, it's funny. Very funny. This show will not only make you laugh, it will get better with each viewing as you pick up on more and more of the pop culture references. This1999 Brit-com brought together actor/writer Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright, the comic geniuses behind Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. But the U.S. DVD release of their show was held up in production limbo for years due to music-rights issues (every show is crammed with musical quotes). The U.S. DVD box set comes out July 22 (that' today people!). In the show Pegg and Jessica Stevenson (now Hynes) star as Tim and Daisy, twenty-somethings who meet by chance and decide to pose as a "professional couple" to rent an apartment. He's an aspiring comic book artist who's just been dumped, and she's a writer looking for any excuse not to write. Each episode is loaded with riffs and homages to movies and TV shows. The references range from discussion of which minor Star Wars character the entire trilogy hangs on to simply framing a shot like Woody Allen.

Pegg told me the "series was about people living their lives through pop culture. Their lives were mirroring movies and TV shows. Whereas now Edgar and I are making movies so it's no longer about mirroring, it's no longer about people living their life through pop culture, we are making pop culture. So you can see the beginnings of what we're interested in in Spaced, and possibly evidence of what we might do in the future."

So far, everything they've done has been brilliant. Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Jessica Hynes will all be at Comic-Con on Friday July 25 for a panel and a screening of fan fav episodes. "Cocked locked and ready to rock!"

Check out ourKPBS Comic-Con Blog where you can find videos, recommendations, and live coverage of the Con... and hopefully some video of Simon, Jessica and Edgar...

Batman: The Movie on Blu-Ray

Adam West in Batman: The Movie (20th Century Fox) and Christian Bale in the upcoming The Dark Knight (Warner Brothers)

With the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, just around the corner, I wanted to highlight the new Fox Home Entertainment Blu-Ray release of the 1966 Batman: The Movie with Adam West and Burt Ward as the Dynamic Duo and a quartet of villains played by Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin and Lee Meriwether. Adam West is the Batman I grew up with and I remember having a Batman TV show pillow that I would snuggle up with to watch every episode. Same Bat time, same Bat channel, without fail. The movie, I later discovered, was actually conceived as the pilot for the TV series but ABC had trouble in their primetime lineup and debuted the TV series early. So the film came out between seasons one and two of the TV show. The vibrant new film transfer of Batman: The Movie boasts an explosion of eye-popping colors that scream 1960s pop art. The film, like the TV series, has a definite cheese factor but both are still wildly entertaining today. Watching the movie the other night made me feel like a kid again and reminded me how much fun Batman was.

For those who grew up with Tim Burton's Batman (1989) or the more recent Christopher Nolan-directed Batman Begins (2005), the old Adam West Batman may strike you as silly. But if you don't realize where Batman came from, you can't fully appreciate how far he's come. What was intriguing about the movie and TV show was the way it packaged conservative values - law and order - in a hip, pop package that made it seem cool. You also had Hollywood veterans like Cesar Romero and Burgess Meredith chewing up the scenery with absolute glee. Their audacious performances worked because Adam West gave them such a straight hero to play off of. In some of the bonus feature interviews, people compare West to William Shatner in the way both used low vocal tones and over enunciation to create an oddly stiff but earnest character. West is also compared to the dry Jack Webb of Dragnet. Meanwhile, Robin is described as a straight man to a straight man and miraculous for managing "astonished enthusiasm" at all times. And not to be outdone in the somber delivery of wacky lines, Neil Hamilton gets an award as Comissioner Gordon who gets to say such lines as "status report on known super villains at large" or "the sum of the angles of that rectangle are too monstrous to contemplate."

The Sword in the Stone: 45th Anniversary DVD

The once and future king... The Sword in the Stone (Walt Disney)

Although Disney tends to incur more wrath than praise from me these days, I have always had fond memories of its animated film The Sword in the Stone (1963). I think it was the last animated film from the studio that I fully embraced. I had always been interested in the legend of King Arthur so the film was immediately appealing to me as a child. Today (June 17) a new 45th anniversary DVD and Blu Ray Disc come out and they are well worth picking up. Artist, writer and longtime Disney employee Bill Peet found inspiration for the film in the 1938 T.H. White novel The Once and Future King. White's book provided all the necessary ingredients for a classic children's tale - a young hero, knights, magic, and the stuff of legends. Peet could have stayed a little truer to White's book to deliver a richer tale, but Peet's adaptation is appealing nonetheless.

The story focuses on Arthur before he becomes king, when he was a scrawny lad known only as Wart. As the story begins, England is without a king, and is living in a dark age. The prophecy promises that whoever can pull a sword that has been embedded in an anvil will become the next king. But so far no one has been able to do it. Then along comes Wart, and Merlin, a magician, senses that he is destined for greatness. So Merlin takes it upon himself to educate the boy and his lessons make up much of the film.

I know that people have complained about the animation style of The Sword in the Stone, and while it may not be as lush as such early Disney films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarves or Fantasia, it has a charm all its own. Earlier Disney animated features were made either by multiple directors or by a team of sequence directors working under a supervising director but The Sword in the Stone was helmed by one man, veteran animator Wolfgang Reitherman (one of Disney's famed "Nine Old Men"). The animation style of this 1963 feature reveals some of the cost-cutting techniques that were now being implemented after the 1959 Sleeping Beauty failed to deliver the kind of box office returns the studio was hoping for. The characters in The Sword in the Stone are rather angular and there's not a lot of detail in the frame, plus Merlin is animated in a more comic manner than one might have liked for this great wizard -- yet despite all this, I enjoy the film and the character of young Wart. I love the way Wart is allowed to be such a kid but not in a smartalecky or cute way. He's curious, a bit goofy, a good but sometimes reluctant student, and visually his youthfulness is emphasized by clothes that leave the lad swimming in the excess space. But the clothes that are too big also foreshadow what Wart will eventually grow up to be, a King.

I've never been a fan of the musical interludes in the Disney films (live action or animated) but at least the songs here are minimal and not too annoying. You can, if you choose, watch with the lyrics on screen -- if you feel the need to sing-a-long. Surprisingly, a bonus feature about the song-writing brothers Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman proves quite interesting. Their discussion of how they approached writing the songs and the inclusion of two songs that were cut from the final film is well worth checking out. One of the deleted songs is called Magic Key and has Merlin explaining how knowledge is the key, now there's a lesson people could still learn from.

Most of the other bonus features are unimpressive. A gallery of sketches and concept art is enjoyable to scan through but the "All-New Merlin's Magical Academy Game" is pretty lame as it tries to be fun, educational and not to labor intensive for the studio to have produced. There are a pair of shorts included: the so-so Knight for a Day with Goofy and the delightful Brave Little Tailor with Mickey facing a giant (I love the sign at the beginning that warns "Giant at large").

The Sword in the Stone 45th Anniversary Edition (rated G for all audiences) remains a charmer and I'm glad to replace my old VHS with this new edition.

Companion viewing: Excalibur, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Camelot, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court

The Muppet Show: Season Three

Season Three of The Muppet Show comes out on DVD May 20. (The Muppet Holding Company/BVHE)

I was a little too old to have grown up with Sesame Street as my educational TV show, but my younger brother and sister watched it, learning to count with The Count and understand the concept of near and far with Grover. But I have to admit, I often watched the show, and probably used my younger siblings as an excuse for having it on. My favorite character was Cookie Monster, and his obsession with cookies and things that looked like big, giant, delicious, chocolate cuppy-cakes. I was always impressed by the ingenuity of Jim Henson and his Muppet creations.

Fortunately for us "older" folks, Henson came up with The Muppet Show, a half hour variety program that débuted in 1976 and allowed teens and adults to watch the Muppets without guilt, excuses, or younger siblings. The show ran until 1981, and the third season of wackiness is now available on DVD. Season Three boasts guest such as Liberace and Gilda Radner, who could have been Muppets themselves; unlikely glamorous types such as Marisa Berenson and Raquel Welch; legends such as Danny Kaye; and rockers like Alice Cooper. My favorites from Season Three are Spike Milligan, the uncontrollable British comic from The Goon Show, and oddly enough Sylvester Stallone, fresh from Rocky and seeming quite at home with the Muppet gang. I also love Danny Kaye's bit with the Swedish Chef. But the real standout on this DVD is a bonus feature called Muppets on Puppets. This black and white TV documentary featuring Jim Henson provides a brief history of puppets and goes behind the scenes of the early Muppets themselves. It's an absolute delight, and Henson is such an unassuming and supremely talented host. You get to see part of a Muppet fairy tale from backstage, which ramps up the intensity of the performance as you see how much work goes into something that appears so effortlessly charming. The genius of Henson and people like Frank Oz (who did Miss Piggy and Sam the Bald Eagle among others) rests in their ability to create thoroughly believable characters. So when Rolf the Dog is told that he's a puppet, neither he nor the viewers seem willing to believe it. Then Henson tells Rolf to look down and Rolf is shocked to find a man down them manipulating his every move. It's a great moment because Henson is like a magician who's so confident that his trick will dazzle you no matter what that he's willing to give away all his secrets. And he was right. Even after seeing how the Muppets are constructed and manipulated by people behind a stage, we still buy into them as characters we love. The Muppet Show remains a delight for audiences of all ages.

The Muppet Show: Season Three retails for $39.99 (four discs).

Dinner and a Movie

Big Night kicks off a new film series combining dinner and a movie. (Samuel Goldwyn)

A good meal and a good movie... That's hard to beat. Other venues have tried matching up meals and movies. The latest one to venture into this tasty terrain is the Oceanside Museum of Art, which introduces its Culinary Cinema Series this weekend. Their plan is to pair food themed films with an appropriate menu. Kicking off the series on May 3 at 7:00 pm is the Stanley Tucci-Campbell Scott restaurant comedy Big Night. The story concerns two Italian brothers (Stanley Tucci and Tony Shaloub) determined to make it big in the restaurant business. But first they have to beat the establishment across the street that's serving up some stiff competition. Hoping to complement the savory onscreen courses will be chef Carol Blomstrom, owner of Lotsa Pasta in Pacific Beach, who will prepare Timpano, a dish cooked for hours in a large pot lined with pastry and filled with layers of roasted vegetables, meatballs, sausage, herbs, and sauces. Mmmmm.  Call the museum at 760-435-3721 for the complete menu, pricing and information. Thinking about food reminds me of the list I made for Thanksgiving about the best in culinary cinema. Read on if you're hungry for some tasty movie morsels, and maybe some of these will be included in the Oceanside film series. Wonder if Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, in which a pair of pot-heads get the munchies for those famous little White Castle burgers, is on the menu?