As the summer movie season approaches, the studios unleash their first wave of DVDs that tie in with the upcoming blockbusters. However, this week also sees the release of one of the most intriguing DVDs so far this year.
Heading this week’s slate of recent releases is Darren Aronofsky’s working-class sports saga The Wrestler (Fox, also Blu-Ray), featuring the towering performance of Oscar-nominated comeback kid Mickey Rourke, as well as the Best Picture nominee Frost/Nixon (Universal, also Blu-Ray), with its televised tête-à-tête between Michael Sheen’s celebrity reporter and Frank Langella’s Tricky Dick. Also this week: the Biggie Smalls biopic Notorious (Fox, also Blu-Ray), and the acclaimed documentary A Jihad for Love (First Run).
As far as I can see there’s only one major classics release this week, but it’s a doozy- Criterion’s Science Is Fiction: 23 Films by Jean Painlevé. Featuring nearly two dozen works from the famed French scientist/filmmaker, this box set also features an original score by Yo La Tengo that accompanies eight of the films, as well as extensive interview footage with Painlevé from the French TV series Jean Painlevé Through His Films. Much has been made in the past of Criterion’s ongoing efforts to release the canonical classics of world cinema in worthy DVD editions, but no less noble is their commitment to honoring more esoteric fare like this, which might not otherwise have gotten released on DVD. I only hope that enough people will pick up this DVD that Criterion will be encouraged to release more like it in the future.
In TV on DVD news, this week sees the release of Caprica (Universal), the prequel to the acclaimed Sci-Fi Network series Battlestar Galactica, and the pilot episode for an upcoming series of the same name.
This week’s most in-demand Blu-Ray only release is the X-Men Trilogy (Fox), which is hitting shelves in advance of the big-screen spinoff entry X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Each of the films is also available separately, if you’d prefer. A comic book movie of a somewhat different stripe is also arriving on Blu-Ray today- Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City (Disney), which includes both theatrical and “extended” versions, along with plenty of special features. Other Blu-Ray only releases include Charlie Sheen in The Arrival (Lionsgate), and, just in time for Earth Day, the nature doc Arctic Tale (Disney).
Finally, our Synopsis of the Week- a feature which, by rights, ought to be re-titled Anime Synopsis of the Week- is actually a twofer this week, coming as it does from the ADV Films two-pack of Puni Puni Poemi and Kekko Kamen. Here’s the synopsis:
”Aliens annihilate Poemi Watanabe's parents in PUNI PUNI POEMI, so she goes on a revenge program that includes S&M, humongous robots, and the mysterious properties of dead fish. Poemi becomes a superhero in the process, but all she wanted was to be a professional voice actress!”
OK, I guess I get the ways S&M and humongous robots must be related to a plot like this, but the whole “dead fish” plot point sounds so bizarre that it’s one of those things that can only seems to turn up in Japanese animation. Also, I sure do hope that Poemi becomes the superhero voice actress she’s always dreamed of being! Moving on:
”In KEKKO KAMEN, a busty supervixen puts up a losing battle against stripping down to her bare essentials as a parade of creeps-- ranging from a principal to a camera-wielding samurai-- successfully remove her wardrobe.”
Compared to its companion in the DVD set, it doesn’t sound like this one has much of a plot. In fact, if not for the synopsis revealing that the creeps “successfully remove” the heroine’s wardrobe, there would be almost no story to speak of. I do, however, like that the protagonist is a “busty supervixen”, since as any Russ Meyer fan can tell you, that’s the best kind of supervixen.