February is in full swing and this week brings a host of new movies and some great classics hitting Blu-ray for the first time. This week’s releases include the first time on Blu-ray Casablanca, Unforgiven, Gangs of New York, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Godfather I and II.

There are also several Dr. Who TV movies, a couple seasons of TV’s Dynasty, Volume 3 of Batman: The Brave and the Bold and the Blu-ray release of Zombieland with Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (pictured above).

Check out this week’s new releases:

Movies

Adam ~ Hugh Dancy, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving (Blu-ray and DVD)

Amelia ~ Hillary Swank, Richard Gere (Blu-ray and DVD)

Casablanca ~ Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains (Blu-ray)

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ~ Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Tobey Maguire (Blu-ray)

Gangs of New York (Remastered) ~ Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day Lewis, John C. Reilly (Blu-ray)

Planet Hulk ~ (Blu-ray and DVD)

Love Happens ~ Jennifer Aniston (Blu-ray and DVD)

Mystic River ~ Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon (Blu-ray)

Continue Reading →

Today’s Wednesday Western comes to you courtesy of a namedrop by the big man himself, Clint Eastwood.  If Eastwood casually says The Ox-Bow Incident is a really good Western,  you have to drop what you’re doing and watch it.   (Considering it’s only one hour long, it’s pretty easy to find some time to do it!)

I can see why Eastwood likes Ox-Bow.  There are shades of Hang ‘Em High and Unforgiven in it. It’s the kind of film that reminds me why I was so eager to explore this genre. We all tend to classify Westerns as rousing shoot-em-ups and masculine swagger, but there are a lot of dark, bitter stories hidden among the John Ford panoramas. Even this film is often billed as a Henry Fonda movie about cattle rustlers, giving the impression that it’ll be a classic horse opera.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

This is a haunting morality play that takes the glamor out of posses and deputies, emphasizes the danger of a mob, and makes you think twice about rooting for Wild West justice.  While Eastwood has been credited as “killing” the Western with Unforgiven, I think The Ox-Bow Incident should have done it back in 1943.

Continue Reading →