Good morning all. Welcome back to the Atomic DVD Shelf.

As usual, there’s an armada of  new films getting released this week and we don’t have quite enough time to tackle them all. So, I’ve assembled a tasty sampling of several new pics hitting this week, and I’ve also got a longer look at Where the Wild Things Are Blu-ray via the link below:

Dvd Showcase: Where the Wild Things Are Blu-ray

Ok, now that we have that out of the way, lets get started by heading under the sea to visit…

Ponyo

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Since Lasseter and the gang have been doing their thing at Disney, the studio has done a wonderful job of handling the U.S. releases of Studio Ghibli’s animated work. The Japanese based Ghibli, run by anime maestro Hayao Miyazaki, has produced some of the most beautiful and captivating family films available. Several of them, including the incomparable My Neighbor Totoro, are being released today on Bluray to coincide with Ponyo. This one shares the same traits as Miyazaki’s other films; it has an absolutely lovely color pallete, fluid and hand-drawn animation that mimics book illustration, and a story featuring young and unlikely protagonists. In a riff on the Little Mermaid fable, Ponyo tells the tale of a young fish who finds her way out from under her father’s sea kingdom and onto land where she gets a pair of legs and a new friend. I personally didn’t flip for this one in the same way I did for Spirited Away or Howl’s Moving Castle, but it’s a great movie nonetheless. Especially wonderful for a younger set who will be spellbound by the imagery, including an entire ocean of prehistoric creatures swimming through a flooded town.

Special Features: I haven’t looked at any of them yet, but if they are like the ones on the DVD releases of Miyazaki’s past work, they are worth the time. Watching the man talk and work with his team is always a treat. Here’s what you get extra:

World of Ghibli – An Extraordinary Interactive Experience

Enter the Lands – Meet the characters and hear the story of the movie

Behind the Studio – Discover the film’s inspiration through documentaries, including all-new interviews with Hayao Miyazaki

Meet Ponyo – Introduction by the Producers

Storyboard Presentation of the Movie

Gentlemen Broncos

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

As a fan of Napoleon Dynamite (not so much Nacho Libre) I really wanted to like Gentlemen Broncos. Add in the fact that Jemaine Clement plays a deluded jackass of a Science Fiction writer and I was on my way to being intrigued. When I realized that Sam Rockwell is Bronco, the fictional hero of the stolen sci-fi novel I was sold. And unfortunately, as quirky as this one gets, it just doesn’t really work. I still get a kick out of the Rockwell scenes, where he’s constantly transforming Bronco from a space hick who rides a stuff deer outfitted with missiles to a fey, genderless puff with long white hair and Hulk Hogan mustache. The rest of the movie is just an unfunny and sort of unpleasant collection of ridiculous bits. If you enjoy Hess’ oddball humor, maybe, but there’s not much to really get worked up about here.

Special Features: A few deleted scenes and behind the scenes featurettes but nothing extraordinary. The best bits, possibly better the movie itself, are the outtakes with Rockwell providing some actual comedy.

Ninja

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Cheaper and more ridiculous than last year’s bigger budget Ninja Assassin, this Ninja is also the better movie. A fun and sometimes funny slice of Saturday afternoon hack and slash, it has all the ingredients that those ninja fiascoes from the late 80′s had. Props to the physical prowess of Scott Adkins who handles himself as well as any Seagal or Van Damme. There’s a group of virtually unknown actors here and it’s more or less an indie movie, but as B-level entertainment Ninja has no pretensions and it stages the action scenes with a boldness that Assassin never even thought of. Funny that a no name production like this would best the big blockbuster, but it goes to show, when it comes to ninjas the way of stealth is always better.

Special Features: Sigh! Just a bunch of trailers for movies that don’t look half as interesting as this one. Shame, because it could have been fun to hear from the guys who made this.

2012

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

2012 is a big, loud, dumb experience. When dealing with Master of Disaster Roland Emmerich, one should expecting nothing less. High profile actors run around in the face of awesomely realized special effects and try their best not to drown under avalanches of CGI. John Cusack, Woody Harrelson and Amanda Peet try to bring dramatic pathos to the cataclysm-as-pinball-game milieu, but it’s all for naught. This isn’t an inspiring entertainment; it’s an assault on the senses. If you, like me, have come to enjoy this kind of sensory harassment than 2012 will be a better example than Transformers 2. Although it’s destined to lose the brain-crunching impact it had in theaters, 2012 looks gorgeous in hi-def and it’s exactly the kind of disc one would want in their collection if for no other reason than it’s a terrific demonstration of a home theater’s capabilities.

Special Features: A 3 disc set, this one has several tedious extras, including elaborate commentaries and behind-the-scenes features that suffer the same fate as the film; too much technical proficiency and not enough fun. An outrageously titled piece called Roland Emmerich: Master of the Modern Epic is ludicrous as it parades out a group of the man’s collaborators who extol him as if he were Spielberg or Hitchcock. Curiously, there is very little said here about either Universal Soldier or 10,000 B.C. Go figure. Best feature: An interactive piece revolving around the Mayan Calendar. Like the rest of the content, it’s a load of bull, but at least it’s entertaining.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Nate’s review:

Rating: ★★½☆☆ 

A well acted and cleverly telegraphed dramatic piece that flirts with the mystery aspects of its story but never ultimately commits. Robin Wright gives an incredibly warm and nuanced performance considering the challenging nature of her character’s arc. Despite several attempts at forging a layered and introspective vision of a one woman’s unique life, Pippa Lee feels contrived and disjointed. If you enjoy well acted ensemble pieces, this delivers on that level, but it never fully develops into something with substance. The result is a lovingly crafted work with no consequence. I most enjoyed Alan Arkin, and gasp! Keanu Reeves. I usually like the work of Rebecca Miller, but Pippa remains elusive.

Special Features: There are two on the disc and will mostly be of interest to cinephiles who like to hear autuers share stories of discovery from the set. For everyone else, they are rather mundane and the commentary with Miller and Wright has long patches of silence that suggest neither party was particularly prepared for it. The interviews are mundane and don’t shine much light on the film’s creation or the experience of working with Miller.

The two features are: Commentary with Actor Robin Wright and Writer/Director Rebecca Miller and Interviews with Robin Wright, Alan Arkin and Blake Lively

Alice Miniseries

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

The best thing about a remake or popular adaptation is that when it opens, we often get releases of other prior iterations. There are more versions of Alice in Wonderland being released today than I can possibly mention, and unfortunately I’ve probably picked the very least of them to review here. This one is cobbled together in the same spirit as Sy-Fy Channel’s last twisted adaptation, Tin Man. Except there’s very little twisted in it; Alice is just the sci-fi, pseudo cyberpunk vision of Carroll’s Victorian absurdity. Kathy Bates is a domineering Red Queen, Matt Frewer an addled white night, Mad March is a cyborg killer–no really, he is– and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum are mad scientist twins. In this version Alice is a Judo teacher and the people of Wonderland are addicted to…feelings. That’s right, they are all bunch of hopped-up emotion junkies and when Alice steps in to save her boyfriend Jack, the adventure begins. Or rather, the adventure begins, and then stops, begins, stops, begins, stops. Over and over and over again. Light entertainment but frustratingly underwhelming and slight.

Special Features: There are zero special features save for a bookmark function and a misplaced commentary located under Set-Up.

Nate’s Pick of the Week: Cold Souls

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

I love Paul Giamatti, and in this case that goes both for the real actor and the facsimile of him that wanders the alternate reality of Cold Souls, an existential sci-fi comedy that elicits both laughs and scratches of the head. Playing like a Charlie Kaufman-lite premise, Souls follows Giamatti as he struggles with a production of Chekov’s Uncle Vanya. When he finds he can’t properly internalize the play, he comes to the irrational conclusion that it is his soul that’s getting in the way. So, he has it extracted. In this reality, David Straithairn has a machine that will suck it right out for you and then store it. Unless of course, it gets stolen by a ‘soul mule’ and sold on the Russian black market to a young blonde ballet dancer who wants the essence of a hot Hollywood actor residing in her body. Yea, I know how it sounds, and odder still that she ends up with Giamatti. Or that once extracted, Paul’s soul ends looking identically like…a chick pea. There’s plenty of weirdness, but also some melancholy and poignancy as Giamatti contemplates what he has given up and interacts with the young Russian woman who has been schlepping souls out of the country for so long that her own is little more than residue. If odd and thoughtful is your thing, this is one stop shopping.

Special Features: Not even on Blu-ray, Cold Souls is getting the ‘dumped’ treatment. Left by the side of the Blockbuster with only some uninspired deleted scenes and a half-hearted feature looking at the design of the soul extractor. Doesn’t matter though, cause the movie is mint.

Thanks again for joining us as we pick through the cinema jungle of home entertainment. Next week is rife with some Oscar pics, some of which might be hitting dvd with some awards under their belt depending on how the weekend goes. See ya next week with Precious, Up In The Air, Old Dogs (not up for any Oscars), Planet 51 and Boondock Saints 2.

Welcome to the Atomic DVD Shelf. Right here, every Tuesday, we’ll be taking a peek at all of the latest Bluray and dvd releases. In addition to info on extras and our own personal ratings, I’ll also dish up my own recommended disc of the week.

Let’s get started.

HALO Legends

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Leading this week’s eclectic pack is a disc I never really expected to see, but here it is nonetheless.  Halo Legends is a collection of animated vignettes culled from the universe of the popular X-box game and brought to life by Japanese animators. The result is something very similar to The Animatrix or the Batman: Gotham Knight anthologies from a few years back. The animation and storytelling styles vary, but with Frank O’Connor overseeing most of what goes on here, true Halo fans have little to worry about. The Flood, the Elite, Master Chief and the Spartans; they are all here in 8  entertaining and visually stunning shorts.  There are several special features in the disc including ‘The Making of Halo Legends’ and ‘Halo: Gaming’ involved but the most interesting bit is far and away the Audio commentary by Frank O’Connor and Joseph Chou. Nice stuff for fans of the series.

Law Abiding Citizen

AP rating:

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Okay, I still have yet to see this Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler action thriller but Matt had good things to say about it in his review of the film back in October. There he called it a ‘great, fast paced thrill ride’ and I’ve heard similar things from other fellow movie fiends. This one looks ridiculous and implausible, with one of those messages that argues that if revenge looks like justice, it’s all good. Which means it will probably make a great Friday night popcorn flick with some beer and pizza. This edition has a few making of features and a commentary by the film’s producers, Lucas Foster and Alan Siegel.

Coco Before Chanel

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

I’m rather mixed on this biopic of the life of fashion designer Coco Chanel. You’ve got Audrey Tatou giving a really solid and at times wonderful performance in a film that feels like it’s been hammered together out of all the wrong bits. I enjoyed the set design and the costuming well enough, and again Tatou has enough screen presence for three well-meaning biopics. In the end, though, this rags-to-riches story didn’t quite captivate me or move me too care that much about Coco herself. Good for a rental, but I’d skip buying this one sight unseen. For an alternate take on the film, check out our review from last fall.  Coco Before Chanel is in French with English subtitles and there’s a making of and behind the scenes featurette on the disc, including a commentary byFontaine.

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★½☆☆☆ 

Yeech! If you were one of those people who watched the first Cabin Fever and thought, “Gee, needs more flesh-ripping and goopy skin scraping scenes”, then this movie was made for you. Inexplicably directed by Ti West, the guy responsible for the expertly creepy and remarkably tame House of the Devil last year, CF2 moves the flesh-eating contagion out into a larger environment with gorier results. I hated the first movie and found its sense of humor to be alternatingly boring and loathsome. This one at least, is aiming solely at the gore audience and I imagine it’s likely to be a real treat for that demographic. Either way, it blows Eli Roth out of the water. Special Features? how ’bout a barf bag? Instead you get the usual ‘making of’ and a commentary by West, no doubt explaining what bills needed to be paid in order to get him in the director’s chair. Ooh, Ooh, there’s a gore reel too!

Nathan’s Pick of the Week: Black Dynamite

Nate’s rating:

Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Terrifically silly and legitimately funny, Black Dynamite isn’t just taking big juicy bites out of the blacksploitation genre, like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka! Instead, it shows genuine affection for them and the entire culture they grew out of. Michael Jai White, usually playing the sidelines in lesser movies, is front and center here and he gives a great comedic performance while channeling Richard Roundtree, Fred Williamson and Melvin Peebles perfectly. Theres’ not much substance, but baby, is there style! The highlight is a kung-fu battle between BD and Richard Nixon in the White House. Nunchakus have never been put to better use! The special features push this one over the top though. There’s a great bit called ’70′s : Back in Action’ that really gives you a feel for what the filmmakers were going for. The deleted scenes are hilarious and not just throw-away filler and the commentary is quite spirited.

And finally, because it’s here and I can’t help myself:

Small Wonder: Season 1

I’m sort of amazed that in the 80′s worshipping culture we live in, this took so long to get here. I’m also equally horrified that it’s here at all. Makes me nervous that maybe Tim Burton is planning a dark remake wherein Vicki realizes what an odd, lonely thing she is and sets out to meet her fate far from the cloistered walls of suburbia. Eh, probably not. It will likely go to Michael Bay and Vicki will be a young 20 something robot that fires rockets from her….Nevermind, I’m getting carried away. All that needs to be said is this.  Back in 1985, this was still odd and creepy and in the spirit of full disclosure, I had a crush on the little robot girl.

Yea, that’s just about enough for this week. See you next time with releases for The Box, Sorority Row, The Informant, and Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant.

While most of us enjoyed this movie for what it is, Shock has some interesting tidbits about the upcoming DVD release of the film. The biggest news on the DVD in my eyes would be the above mentioned Alternate endings. Yes I said endings, there will be two added to the special features.

Here are just a few things from the DVD extras:

• Additional Scenes: Congrats Rob
• Additional Scenes: When You’re in Japan
• Additional Scenes: I Call That a Date
• Additional Scenes: It’s Going to Hurt
• Additional Scenes: Alt Ending #1
• Additional Scenes: Alt Ending #2

Nothing earth shattering in my eyes but this announcement makes me want to purchase the DVD even more. Now if only Paramount would get off of their arse and release it on Blu-Ray it would make my decision a whole lot easier.

So what do you think the alternate endings will show? Anything juicy? Talk amongst yourselves!