Hitler’s Bodyguard is a documentary series released by Acorn Media. It’s a four disk set with over 10 hours of runtime.

As the name implies it’s a documentary series dedicated wholly to Hitler’s Bodyguard and how he survived his rise to power, and the duration of the war. It sounds like a pretty refined scope, but Hitler’s whole life was surrounded by death threats and murder attempts. (Over forty!)

At some points the documentary seemed a little redundant, but every episode had a lot of educational value. Not only just about World War II, but the state of the rest of the world, Hitler’s rise to power, and personal details about Hitler and some other Nazi’s that I found particularly interesting.

For example, I didn’t know that Hitler didn’t drink Alcohol. (There is some other pretty interesting politics about Alcohol with the Nazi party as well.) Hitler’s niece (whom he was in a love affair with.) Was murdered in his apartment with his pistol before he was the fuhrer, and he served very little jail time. Then the last interesting thing I would like to point out is, at the beginning of the Hitler’s rise to power, he seemed to have more liberal views on homosexuality than today’s modern Mormon. (In fact at one point there was an entire platoon of flaming Nazi’s that earned quite a bad reputation.)

It’s amazing how well the in’s and out’s of the Nazi party were documented. Conspiracies, lies, even drama between Nazi officers. What wasn’t so surprising, yet still interesting was the accounts of Hitler’s bodyguards themselves. Sometimes he had over a thousand at a time, and was still at great risk. They talk about the formation’s the bodyguards would keep to make him as secure as possible, and they show tons of wonderful stock footage depicting its unbelievable reality.

I found the most interesting parts of the series were the historical accounts of his murder attempts. They have an entire episode dedicated to the attempt in the wolf’s lair that was just recently made into a movie, Valkyrie staring Tom Cruise. They also go into details about his attempts, (or rather successes) at murder. A full episode was dedicated to “Night of the Long Knifes.” the code name for an operation that allowed Hitler’s rise to power, by murdering practically everyone that could possibly stand in his way, and all in one night.

The information was all really engaging, and the series followed a steady natural progression starting with the foundation, and  ending with Hitler’s suicide in his bunker. I found that episode particularly interesting as I really liked the movie Downfall. (which is even more amazing now that I know more about the actual events.)

The stock footage was wonderful, a lot of it was in color. I found the narrator of the series to be informative, but a little over the top at times. All in all, I think it’s a great series, and it’s worth checking out even if you don’t find yourself terribly interested with World War II. (I know I’m not.)

This series is being released this coming Tuesday, and can be purchased from Amazon through this link!

Out this coming week on DVD is the independent horror film, “The House of the Devil”, written, directed and edited by Ti West, who, by the looks of it, is as avid a fan of the horror genre as one can get. Before I get into my review any further, here’s the synopsis of the film:

Sam (Donahue) is a pretty college sophomore, so desperate to earn some cash for a deposit on an apartment that she accepts a babysitting job even after she finds out there is no baby. Mr. and Mrs. Ulman (cult actors Noonan and Woronov) are the older couple who lure Sam out to their creaky Victorian mansion deep in the woods, just in time for a total lunar eclipse. Megan (Gerwig) is Sam’s best friend, who gives her a ride out to the house, and reluctantly leaves her there despite suspecting that something is amiss. Victor (Bowen) at first seems like just a creepy guy lurking around the house, but quickly makes it clear that Sam will end this night in a bloody fight for her life…

and the “>trailer…

Now, before I saw this DVD roll into the BSR offices, all I knew about it was from the trailer I saw a few months ago. Unfortunately, the movie came and went without my knowledge, and I missed the chance to see it in the theater…I am an idiot. And hopefully, with this DVD review, my sin will be forgiven and my soul will not be damned to the darkness of a James Wanian abyss; but rather, allowed to ascend into the celluloid heavens without blemish. Truly, I am upset that I missed “The House of the Devil” in theaters, and if I weren’t reviewing this DVD for Big Shiny Robot, I may have missed it altogether. And with a horror movie of this caliber, that would have been a shame. Have I made myself clear? Am I being sufficiently blunt?

“The House of the Devil” is a beautifully crafted film with the characters, plot, tension and dialogue you don’t normally see in a Horror film of this era. That is not to say I haven’t enjoyed any of the recent outings of the horror genre. But writer/director, Ti West has made a film that perfectly embodies the phrase, “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey.” And let me tell you, the journey was fucking terrifying. West knows that true horror doesn’t come from filling every frame with slashing daggers, or haunting shadows of mystery assailants; and I wasn’t bombarded by slamming doors or cats jumping out from darkened corners. Instead, West relies on foreboding dialog, a charmingly naive female lead, and the ability of the human mind to concoct any number of horrifying scenarios that could occur in a house so creepy, so off the beaten path and occupied by the creepiest nice people ever…you know the type.

As I watched this film, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the storytelling techniques Hitchcock used to define character and build tension. The tension, oh, the tension in this movie was palpable! Ti West teases the audience with every music cue, line of dialogue, editing and lighting choice to build a level of tension so great and drawn out that one is almost driven to the point of insanity themselves. “The House of the Devil” is a must see movie for those who love the horror genre and cinema as a whole. Seriously, buy it, netflix it, enjoy it. “The House of the Devil” is worthy of your precious DVD shelf space.

In the feature-length special, RISE AND FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL, HISTORY™ uses computer imagery to reconstruct how the wall grew from a meager obstacle to a mighty barrier of seven concentric walls with ditches, fences, signal wires, tank-traps and a flood-lit death strip patrolled by half-starved dogs – a nearly impenetrable barricade with a 96-mile circumference, 200-plus bunkers and 302 watchtowers. Featuring firsthand accounts from the people who tried to escape this “Wall of Death” by any means possible, including tunnels, hot air balloons, wind surfing boats, bi-planes and a cable railway, the program contains additional interviews with the security officials who designed the wall and Stasi men who protected it, border guards, politicians, historians and journalists help to breathe life into the Cold War icon whose demise, beginning on November 9, 1989, signaled the start of one of history’s most dramatic political transformations.

Shows like Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall are made for people like me. Granted I studied History and focused on socialism but even before that I would have been all over this show. Not only do you get to see a digital re-creation of the evolution of the wall you get to hear the stories of the people who escaped over (and under) it.

The story of the Berlin Wall is interesting, everyone knows about it but how many people actually know when it sprang up and who let it happen? I didn’t, and I spent a decent amount of time in college studying Post-War Europe. It happened on Kennedy’s watch, and under the direction of one of recent history’s biggest jerks, Erich Honecker. It grew more intimidating and effective every year from its erection in 1961 to its destruction in 1989. This special gives you a brief rundown of how The Wall came to be and the causes for it and all the while shows you the bad ass people with the guts to take it on.

I loved seeing the evolution of The Wall and the digital effects are well done, but more than that I loved hearing the stories of the people who gave up everything they had to cross it. The guy who stole an Armored Personnel Carrier to bust through and crawl through the barbed wire, certified bad ass. The family that used a hastily built hot air balloon to fly over (took them 2 tries), a whole family of bad assery. However, the title for the most bad ass Germans to take on the wall goes to the Bethkes. These 3 brothers took on the wall multiple times, and in the end flew 2 Ultralight planes over the damn thing to scoop their brother up from the East and fly him to the West, and it only took them about 20 minutes, and they made sure to strap a video camera to the planes.

Basically if you have any interest in the Iron Curtain, Germany, or Post-War Europe, pick up this DVD. Its 90 minutes of entertainment and great stories.

Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall from HISTORY is available now on DVD!

I think that by far and away the most interesting release this week is World War II in HD.  It is an amazing thing to see moving images from World War II both in color and high definition and this is no exception.  For any history buff, this disc is essential viewing.

Next on the list is the incredibly interesting, but ultimately cheesy, Bruce Willis vehicle: The Surrogates.  Bruce Willis stars as a cop in a world where no real person leaves their homes, but lives their live through a lifelike avatar.  It seems as though stories involving these sorts of caricatures of humans are coming to full fruition lately.

There’s also a Blu-ray version of Highlander out today, though it’s preposterously expensive and even out of stock.  A bit of google-searching yielded no results as of to why this would be.

Michael Jackson’s This is It came out today as well.  I’d be interested in seeing this, though I’m not sure if I’m interested enough to buy it on my own.

Two documentaries are being released from the history channel today, and I was lucky enough to take a look at them.

First up: JFK 3 Shots That Changed America

I’ve been interested in this subject ever since I watched JFK a few years ago. Getting  so passionate about the subject as to get into some arguments about the conspiracy over 40 years after the actual event. It’s incredible that something that happened before I was born can still inspire such strong opinions. But I think that’s why there’s still a market for documentary’s on the subject.

This documentary is almost three hours long, covering just about everything that happened around this event. A minute by minute recount of events,  from John F. Kennedy’s final speech, going long after his death. The thing I liked the best about this documentary was the stock footage they had. Street interviews with Americans right after the shooting, watching them pointing fingers at the right wing, communists, and all the while smoking plenty of cigarettes.

I thought this one was really interesting, but I wish it was a little shorter. It was a little hard to get through in a single viewing, but certainly worth checking out. The interviews and stock footage of America they use in this documentary are great. It felt like I was doing research while sitting on the couch!

You can buy this one on Amazon here!

The next documentary The Kennedy Assassination 24 Hours After

I found this one to be a bit more gripping, although it was a bit more graphic as well. In fact they show the assassination footage multiple times in the first five minutes. It was ruthless, and I was constantly turning away. Even If you find it hard to sit through documentary’s, I still think you would be pleasantly entertained by this one.

As stated, this one is more gripping, although I think it was more gripping in the standard history channel way. Which pretty much means they say boring things in a very exciting manner. Sometimes this is a bad thing, Mysteries of the Freemasons and Universe for example, are fine documentaries, but they dramatize some pretty lame things. This style actually fit into this documentary fine though, I mean the president was assassinated for god sakes.

They have a lot of coverage about what Lyndon Johnson was thinking and doing throughout the assassination that was really interesting. Not only about the assassination, but the politics of the times etc. I was surprised how much I didn’t know that was in these documentaries. Basically it’s amazing how much information was recorded around this event.

You can buy this one on Amazon here!

I would like to recommend these documentaries to everyone, but sadly it isn’t for absolutely everyone. It’s only for people that aren’t idiots! People that want to know something about Americas recent past and have attention spans, I urge you to pick these documentaries up!

One of the best movies of 1999 and easily one of the ten best of the decade is coming out on Blu-ray today.  I’m quite excited to say that PT Anderson’s masterpiece  Magnolia is out today.  All of his films are masterpieces, but this one in particular.  When I first saw it, it hit me like a ton of bricks.  Upon repeated viewings in the last 10 years, it’s continued to wow me and offer increasing layers of depth and complication to the story.  Budget-tron once said that he can easily judge people based on their opinion of Shaun of the Dead, and while I think that’s also true, I think it’s true in the case of Magnolia, too.  If you don’t like it, I’m going to assume something is wrong with you.  Don’t take it personally, it’s just the truth.

It’s also important to note that Boogie Nights was released in Blu-ray also.  While this film is a masterpiece, it’s just slightly not as good as Magnolia to me.  That being said, it is a perfect 10.

Next we have Steven Soderbergh’s Che, out from the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray and DVD.  I’ve been mulling over this disc for the last week and I have to say that the transfer is amazing.  Soderbergh set out to make a film that looked and felt period, almost as though it was shot on period cameras and broadcast on television and it never seems more crisp or apparent than on this Blu-ray transfer of the film.  Now for me to finish watching it.  The film is divided into two 130 minute parts and I’ve made it through one so far.  Now I need to get through the rest.  Expect a full review soon.

The last thing I will mention is the Blu-ray/DVD flipper disc set of the Jason Bourne saga.  I think this is a great idea and one that will yield the industry a lot of money if they embrace it quickly, but this takes all of the guess work out of the format wars for people.  And for people still on the edge of converting, it gives them a reason to convert faster.  I really liked the first movie in this series and the second gave me motion sickness.  I haven’t seen the third yet, but I think I might watch all three of these with this release and let you know what I thought.  And give a side-by-side comparison of the DVD/Blu-ray since I’ll have them both.

On February 23, 2010 DC and Warner Home Video will be releasing their next direct-to-DVD feature, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Included on this DVD you will find the premier of the all-new DC Showcase of animated shorts!

The DC Showcase will feature animated shorts featuring favorite, but lesser-known characters from the DC Universe in their own animated adventures. From what I can gather from the press release I believe they will start including one of these DC Showcase shorts with each of their direct-to-DVD releases going forward – which is usually two or three a year if they keep the pace of years past. The first DC Showcase included with Crisis on Two Earths is “The Spectre”, and according to the press release, the next short will feature Jonah Hex, which will be penned by Joe Landsale

Warner Bros. was kind enough to provide the first official images from the first ever DC Showcase, “The Spectre”. Check out the slide show and press release below!

And of course, you can pre-order Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths over at Amazon now!

From the creative forces behind the DC Universe animated original PG-13 movies, DC Showcase puts the spotlight on favorite characters from throughout the annals of DC Comics in fascinating, short-form
tales sure to entertain longtime and new fans alike.

The Spectre focuses on a detective story with an ethereal twist, featuring the otherworldly character originally introduced by DC Comics in 1940. The short is written by Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and directed by Joaquim Dos Santos (G.I Joe: Resolute). The voice cast is led by Gary Cole (Entourage) as the title character and Alyssa Milano (Charmed) as Aimee Brenner.

The Spectre will be distributed February 23 by Warner Home Video as part of the Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths Blu-ray/DVD.

DC Showcase is a co-production from Warner Premiere, Warner Bros. Animation, Warner Home Video and DC Comics. Bruce Timm is Executive Producer. Future DC Showcase titles include Jonah Hex (written by Joe Lansdale).

There’s a lot of interesting things this week, but we’ll start with the Blu-ray of Fellini’s 8 1/2 by the Criterion Collection.  This is perhaps one of the greatest films ever made and there’s something to behold when black and white is properly transferred to HD.

Next we have Rian Johnson’s follow-up to his masterpiece Brick in The Brothers Bloom.  Sure, it had some problems with the script, but it was one of the best 5 act movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It was funny and smart, well-acted and generally a treat.

And while I didn’t think Moon was a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, I did find it to be a very competent and entertaining piece of sci-fi.  Sure it had some plot holes and the ending didn’t work all that well and barely made sense, but Sam Rockwell really knocked this one out of the park.  This is a must for any sci-fi fan or fan of independent cinema.

The Simpsons Season 20 comes out today which, to me, says one of two things.
Either they skipped over seasons 13-19 because Fox admits that the quality of the show dropped off, or because they were just too damned excited to make some money off of a Blu-ray Simpsons release.  In either case, we have it now.

The last one I’ll mention today is The Hurt Locker.  I haven’t seen it, but it’s making everyone’s Top Ten lists and is something I’ve been meaning to see. Now I’ll have a chance.

Mike Judge’s new film Extract, is a comedy made in the same model as office space. Transplanting some of the focus off of the protagonists job, but still maintaining the same style of small annoyance humor. Starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, J.K. Simmons and Ben Afleck.

I thought this movie was good, but I didn’t like it as much as Office Space, or Idiocracy. Not that it wasn’t funny, it just didn’t pull me in the same way. I hear a lot of people say that they love Jason Bateman, but I just don’t understand why, I don’t mind him, but he doesn’t stand out to me in any way. He is so plain, almost to the point of being boring, but he certainly didn’t ruin the film.

In some ways this film goes further with some of the jokes, and it was funny, but the deviations subtract from the overall plot and make it feel a little sluggish. Even though it’s only a brisk 89 minutes long. This might sound a little harsh because it’s just a comedy, and it succeeded in being funny throughout the whole film, but this is the main reason it wasn’t as good as office space. In fact the main plot was so thin that Mila Kunis was barely in it. They were so focused on small secondary plots that the main story hardly existed.

This is admittedly knit-picky, I laughed throughout it, and it’s better than a lot of comedies that come out. I would even go so far as to say this is definitely worth watching once. I thought the sub-plot with Jason Bateman’s wife cheating on him with the gigolo pool-boy was really funny.

As far as the Blu-ray goes, it’s a pretty bare-bones disk. (Less than 20 minutes of special features.) Although I’ve started to move my collection completely towards Blu-ray as of late. As sad as it might sound, I’ve even started to enjoy watching comedy’s in high def. The prices really aren’t that much worse, and the technology is just going to keep getting cheaper.

Overall I would give this movie 6 out of 10 gold stars.

Buy the Blu-ray on Amazon!
Or the DVD!

At the beginning of the year, just after Christmas, not much of substance comes out.  That’s why this week is being toplined by SuperFriends Season 1, Volume 1.  This is the first set in the 1970s DC animated cartoon series and contains the first 8 episodes.

Next on the list is John Wayne’s The Green Beret’s.  I like John Wayne, I like war movies, this is a no-brainer.  Sure, it’s conservative propaganda and a World War II film set in Vietnam, but it’s fun.

That’s it.  That’s all I can find this week worth telling you that you might want to spend your hard earned money on.

Until next week when there’s actually something more of substance t0 talk about.