New on DVD: Rabbit Hole, Bergman and oh yes, The King's Speech.

Jose here, with a roundup of this week's new DVD releases.

First up we have the Oscar winning The King's Speech which surprisingly hasn't been out on DVD for decades. Doesn't it feel like one of those movies you're used to passing by on video store aisles, next to things like Around the World in 80 Days, Oliver! and all those other Best Picture winners nobody remembers anymore? Maybe I'm alone on this one, since the film was so popular it ended up making $138 million in the North American box office. Will perennial home video popularity follow?

Much less popular, but inarguably more interesting, was Sofia Coppola's Somewhere which also debuts on DVD tomorrow. The Venice Film Festival winner was supposed to reignite Stephen Dorff's career but went by almost undetected by audiences. Give it a try at home, bask in its visual richness and join Nat next week as he features it in "Hit Me With Your Best Shot".

There is also a rerelease of From Dusk Till Dawn, which includes the documentary Full Tilt Boogie: a chronicle of the behind the scenes of the George Clooney vampire fest.

Speaking of things that suck, how crappy was it that Nicole Kidman failed to win any major awards for her moving turn in Rabbit Hole? This tale of grief and sorrow also contained a powerhouse performance by the always underrated Aaron Eckhart and great turns from the reliably good Dianne Wiest and Sandra Oh. The Blu-ray includes deleted scenes and audio commentary with director John Cameron Mitchell. I'd love to hear how he found the calm to direct this after his two outrageously "visual" previous movies.

Also out on DVD is Ingrid Bergman in Sweden a boxset that includes some of the legendary actress' most famous Swedish movies. The set includes Intermezzo (which she then remade for her Hollywood debut), A Woman's Face and making its DVD debut is June Night which was Ingrid's last Swedish movie before moving to America. 

Other new releases include Jane Campion's Sweetie making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of The Criterion Collection and Peter Weir's The Way Back.

 Excited about any of these releases? 

DVD: Gwynnie, Kate and Dolph?

Today's DVD releases cover a lot of ground. But let's start with the most amusing. Two collections arrive today. One, Tracy & Hepburn the Definitive Collection, collects every film that co-starred Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn, one of moviedom's most legendary couples both onscreen and off. The other is Dolph Lundgren Triple Threat. Hee. Because my movie-addled brain is always mushing things together I couldn't help but imagine a Lundgren/Hepburn series for a split second. What kind of movie could they possibly have made together?

The Lundgren triple doesn't even include any movie you've heard of. It's mostly post 90s stuff. Unfortunately none of the films are musicals despite the title of "triple threat" . When you hear triple threat you automatically think of a actor/singer/dancer, right?  Make your next straight-to-DVD action pic a musical, Dolph.

The best of the new releases is Claire Denis's typically hypnotic and disturbing White Material, which I wrote briefly about in January and the worst is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt. 1 which I'm off-trend about it because it got wildly thumbs up reviews but I think it's easily the worst Potter feature  (give or take the Chamber of Snoozing) and aside from that admittedly stellar animated sequence, it was the most cynical (and successful) cash grab of 2010. The debuts  I haven't seen: the Gilles Marchand thriller Black Heaven starring Grégoire LePrince-Rinquet (Love Songs) and the acclaimed documentary Marwencol, about a brain damaged man recreating a World War II era town to 1/6th scale.

Finally, Country Strong also debuts on DVD today. But since we've heard Gwyneth's lovely voice crooning the  tracks, is there any reason left to see the movie? Have any of you?

I feel a poll coming on...

poll by twiigs.com

New on DVD: Zeéeeee, Tron, Jack, and Swans Hangin' On

Just out on DVD: Casino Jack, Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I Love You Philip Morris, Little Fockers, The Tacqwacores, Tron Legacy and the final season of Friday Night Lights (yes! can't wait).

Which went on your queue immediately?

And finally, I kid you not, "The Renée Zellweger Collection" has hit stores. I always find these three-pack "collections" so bizarre as they're usually highly unrepresentative of someone's career. The films featured in this one are ME MYSELF AND IRENE, DOWN WITH LOVE, and MY ONE AND ONLY. I guess Down With Love is totally "a Renée Zelwegger picture" but the other two? Well, I haven't seen My One and Only so I shouldn't say that. Have you?

P.S. I like Down With Love. Fun movie. I like Peyton Reed so much but his career doesn't seem to be happening in the way I'd hoped post Bring It On (2000). Sigh.

Meanwhile, Black Swan which came out last week on DVD is still trying to hold on to our collective psyche by launching midnight screenings hosted by famous queens.

Shequida and Manila Luzon (one of my favorite girls on RuPaul's Drag Race) hosted the event which got the crowd dancing here in NYC.

Events were hosted at midnight in Los Angeles (there's the wonderful "Chloe" to your far left -- her YouTube videos sending up Chloë Sevigny as fashion hipster icon are a treat -- with "Rhea Litre"), Chicago (that's Frida Lay as the Black Swan and "Mercedes" as the White Swan) and San Francisco (Heklina and Sister Roma hosted).

Attendees were encouraged to dress up of course.

I totally considered going as my girl Winona in a silver X dress with a nail file protuding from my cheek but alas... my ideas are always bigger than time and my budget can account for.

New on DVD: Black Swan, Topsy-Turvy and More

Hi everybody. Michael C here again. A quick drop in to remind everybody that Aronofsky’s Black Swan, a film I consider the finest of last year, is hitting DVD shelves.

Having seen the remarkably in-depth behind the scenes featurette on the Swan DVD I can report that the real contribution that got screwed out of recognition was not Portman’s dancing double (igniting recent controversy) but Swan’s special effects team. On a limited budget, the effects of Black Swan are just as skillful as Inception’s. Swan's effects are often invisible (few stop to think how they are able to film in rooms filled with mirrors), but when they are intentionally noticeable they contribute to the film’s artistic vision. Why doesn’t that factor into award recognition? (Although I should point out that small scale f/x are no obstacle to Film Bitch Award recognition)

Though technically flawless I doubt the invasion of killer robots during Iron Man 2's climax is going to linger in anybody’s memory, yet I can confirm that Nina’s legs snapping violently backwards with a sickening crack has lingered since the film first screened. 

So I encourage folks to check out that DVD doc to fully appreciate the craftsmanship that went into this amazing film, although there may be a few points you will want to cover your eyes in order to preserve the magic.  And as long as we're shopping for movies another masterpiece hits Blu-ray today, under the Criterion Collection umbrella: Mike Leigh's Topsy-Turvy. Leigh's ode to the creative process is the staid and dignified white swan to Aronofsky's wild and subjective black.

Also hitting DVD or BluRay today:

• Fair Game (Naomi Watts & Sean Penn)
• Resident Evil (Hilary Swank, straight to DVD)
• Tangled (see previous posts)
• Made in Dagenham (Sally Hawkins, Miranda Richardson & Rosamund Pike)
• All Good Things (TFE's Kirsten Dunst interview)

New DVD: Let Me In

It occurred to me recently that I had never said anything about Let Me In, post theatrical release, so let's do that now since it's fresh out on DVD. The American vampire film won a few year-end citations here and there as a high-quality film but it didn't fare well with the public. It was featured in Cinematical's surprising and funny list of the lowest grossing wide releases of 2010 a month ago. Here's what they said about the vampire film.

Let Me In (Gross: $12.1 million. Widest release: 2,042 theaters.) Let's face it. No matter how good it was, a moody remake of a Swedish import about a non-sparkling teen vampire was never going to be a blockbuster. But we were still surprised at just how poorly this fared in theaters. For comparison's sake, 'Twilight: Eclipse' made $300 million, and even 'Vampires Suck' made $36 million. This is why we can't have nice things.

I get the sentiment and love the joke but I can't agree that it's a big loss as a "nice thing".

It's true that I objected to the remake so I wasn't automatically the most receptive audience. But I kept hearing how good it was so I finally caved and watched a couple of months ago, at first with great interest, about what they'd alter and how its new American setting would affect it. The strong reviews are not surprising. It's a well made, handsome movie. The cinematography is beautiful and moody (though it heavily borrows from the aesthetic ideas from the original, particularly in regards to depth of field), the performances are solid, etcetera.

But the movie fails to answer the question that all remakes must answer: What is the reason you are remaking this? If the movie presents no answer beyond "because it was in a funny language" the movie has failed.

The American version of Let The Right One In didn't make radical changes or bring in new exciting ideas about the characters/story. The few alterations seemed to merely underline the originals suggestion that the victimized boy (Oskar/Owen) would one day become the serial killing man (Håkan/The Father) because he loves that little monster (Eli/Abby). It's creepier when you have to do the work to connect those dots yourself. The only big alteration (place but not time) adds nothing new. And then there were minor erasures of the first film's more difficult and more ambiguous sexuality. Gone was the shock cut to Eli/Abby's genital area and gone was Oskar's gay (?)  father  -- this character never appears in the remake except by telephone where we learn that he's shacked up with someone named "Cindy". Unless that's a drag queen, he's safely heterosexual for American audiences. Audiences of the original seem to disagree on matters of Eli's gender and on Oskar's father's orientation but the very fact that they prompt argument is another testament to the first film's insinuating ambiguous grip on its audience.

Oskar & Owen

Mostly Let Me In seems content to love and ape Let The Right One In clinging to it as willfully as Oskar/Owen latches on to Eli/Abby. The love is a mark of good taste but a weak excuse for a remake. If you love something, watch it! Be inspired by it. Make your own thing instead. The film it most recalls, other than the Swedish original, is Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998). That earlier much-reviled "recreation" is a far more interesting artistic exercize because it's so weirdly honest about it's own borrowed artistry and masturbatory xeroxing. Critics weren't at all kind but then that one wasn't in a 'funny language' to begin with.

Also New on DVD This Week
Critical darling indie Monsters, the true story Conviction (interview with Juliette Lewis), the sci-fi tinged drama Never Let Me Go (here's a piece on Andrew Garfield) and Oscar doc finalist The Tillman Story.