My first pick this week is Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. This film is beautifully animated (and was also the first animated film to be photographed anamorphically. Even if you think you’re too old or too cool for one of the classic Disney Princess films, you’re not to cool. The animation is stunning and you really can’t argue with the utter bad-assedness of the fight with Malificent as a dragon in the end.
We also have the first in a very long spell of seasons of the Simpsons with Simpsons Season 11. This is the last season that had episodes in the 90s, but still had some great episodes, including that great Mad Max episode with Mel Gibson, the Death of Maude Flanders, and the one where The Simpsons take the Burns Yacht out to international waters and are plagued by pirates. A lot of great moments in this season.
Robot Chicken Season 3 hits the streets today. This is a funny show, but I just don’t think it’s ever been funnier than just the Star Wars special.
Today also sees Special Edition releases of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. These are pretty much required viewing (and I would advise purchasing them as well) and if you haven’t seen them, you’re no longer my friend. These are all masterpieces. My favorite of the trio? Rear Window. Seriously, I have a big robo-crush on Grace Kelly and the film is just thrilling.
Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil gets another release today.
The next film of note is Watership Down. Yes. The animated film about the rabbits based on the novel. This seems to be a much larger cult classic than I realized and now it’s finally getting the Special Edition DVD treatment.
The two big Blu-ray re-releases of the day are Beetlejuice and Young Frankenstein. If you’re getting into Blu-ray’s, you could do worse than adding these to your collection.
The last item on my list is Michael Moore’s Slacker Uprising Tour. In some stores, it’s being sold in a two pack with a little film you may have heard of called This Divided State.
That’s all for today (it was a big day) and I’ll see you next week which sees the releases of a couple of my most favorite movies ever.