The Wrestler, which was perhaps one of the best films of last year, arrived yesterday on DVD and I was quite excited to get my hands on it. Watching the film again, I wonder how it didn’t get more award nominations. In case you’ve been living in outer space, The Wrestler revolves around “The Ram” (played, in what should have been an Oscar Winning performance, by Mickey Rourke), an aging wrestling star whose glory days are behind him. He’s estranged from his daughter (played beautifully by Evan Rachel Wood) and is alone in the world until he meets a stripper with a heart of gold (played brilliantly by the ever better looking Marisa Tomei).

Since I’ll assume that you guys haven’t been living under a rock, I’ll assume that you have seen the film and we all know that it is top notch, so we can move onto the specific features of the disc. I will be very honest and upfront about this: This disc is extremely light on special features. I’m grateful for these features and found them extremely excellent, but I would skip the DVD version of this film and go straight for the Blu-ray.

The special features consisted of a behind-the-scene’s featurette and a Bruce Springsteen music video.

Both were good. I didn’t realize how non-traditional the filming of The Wrestler was, though I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a visionary like Darren Aronofsky. The interviews and behind the scenes footage were enlightening and raised questions about the nature of the filmmaking that sometimes it didn’t quite answer. In any case, it’s always fascinating to get a glimpse of the way Aronofsky runs a set, no matter how unorthodox. I was also fascinated to learn that the venues and wrestling matches were, for the most part, real due to the inadequate budget of the film.

There’s lots of nuggets of information to be gleaned from this feature and I wish there were more of it. I was a little disappointed by the lack of commentary on this disc as well since that’s a pretty standard feature, but if there was a lesson to be learned with The Fountain, perhaps we’ll see a downloadable version of one on Aronofsky’s website.

My verdict on this one? It’s obvious you have to own this movie. As Aronofsky fans and a lovers of excellent films, we have to own this film, but my advice is to skip the DVD and get the Blu-ray.

I expect to see more of this by film studios as well. Stripping down the DVD version and loading up the Blu-ray. It makes sense if they want to dictate purchasing behavior.

Let’s start at the top and move on down, shall we?  One of the best films of last year hits DVD and Blu-ray today, and that is Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece The Wrestler. I’ll have a review of the DVD up in the next day or two, but I loved, loved, loved this film. And as much as I liked Sean Penn’s performance in Milk, I still think Mickey Rourke deserved the Academy Award more.

And it is Mickey Rourke and great performances that lead us to our next pick of the day. Sin City on Blu-ray. I’ve had a chance to take a look at the disc first hand and I have to say it gets my highest recommendation for Blu-ray purchase. I’ll have a more complete review of the features up tomorrow.

Frost/Nixon is next. I’m not usually the biggest Ron Howard fan, he’s a poor mans Spielberg and his movies tend to range from crap (Da Vinci Code) to pretty good (Willow) but they never transcend barriers greater than that. This is certainly in his top tier of films, though and definitely worth watching at least once.

After that, we have the Adult Swim cartoon Squidbillies, Vol. 2. I’ve seen a few episodes on the television and it seemed hilarious.

Though I haven’t watched any Battlestar Galactica yet, I will make sure that Caprica is on the list today. Please, don’t tell me anything about it as I’ll get there someday, I’m sure.

Another one I’m excited to check out is Wolverine and the X-Men: Heroes Return Trilogy. I’ve been hearing great things about this cartoon series and I want to see some of it for myself. (Which reminds me, have you entered the X-Men DVD contest?)

Another release I’m quite excited for (based on very solid recommendations and the frequent mentions in that Raiders story conference) is the Blu-ray, Criterion Collection release of Wages of Fear. This film is supposed to be great and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

Arctic Tale came out on Blu-ray today. You can read my review of the disc here.

The last two films on the list are the Blu-ray releases of X-Men and X2. If I have to tell you why you should have these two movies on Blu-ray, then you should stop buying movies now.

We’ve partnered with Buena Vista Home Entertainment to hold another contest this week, and this time we’re giving away 2 copies of X-Men Vol. 1 & 2! (Click the pictures for full size cover art.) These two boxes contain all of your favorite episodes of the show, culminating with the Phoenix saga.  We’ll post our own review of these episodes up soon. Now, there are going to be two ways you can win this contest and you only need to enter one way.

1. Draw your favorite member of the X-Men.
2. In 250 words or less, tell us what your favorite throw down between your favorite X-Men and your favorite X-Villain, which issue it was in, and why.

You can email your responses to bigshinyrobot (at) gmail (dot) com or, better yet, post your entry on your own site with a link back to Big Shiny Robot! Just send us the link and you’ll be entered.  We’ll be taking submissions all the way through midnight on Monday, April 27th.  Winners will be announced on the 28th. These come out on DVD April 28th and, if you don’t feel like entering the contest, you can pre-order it on Amazon here. And don’t forget, you’ve still got until Friday the 24th to enter our Star Wars themed DVD contest.  (Details on that here)

It is my humble robotic opinion that it is hard to make a bad documentary, provided that you are interested in the subject and it teaches you something. Arctic Tale isn’t an exception to this rule. This was interesting, and I learned something. Therefore it is worth something.

The film makers seemingly followed a polar bear around for eight years to make this.

On top of the fact that you are learning while you are watching it, it is also entertaining. Watching the animals of the arctic surviving is pretty intense. In fact I was watching this with my seven year old nephew, and he was so afraid at points that he had to leave the room. I felt the same way at points, it is hard to watch something fight for their lives to the extent these animals do. It really makes you appreciate the fact we can watch a movie like this with a bucket of popcorn on a big screen television after eating a large dinner. In fact it makes you feel kind of guilty. (That’s okay though, it’s the good kind of guilt.)

Processing the facts of natural selection it’s a wonder that all the animals of the arctic are so darling, for example the arctic fox. This animal is so cute that every second you look at it it doubles the amount you want to take it home and snuggle it. What is the advantage of that for this creature? I understand how house cats could have cute in their genes, but polar bears? how does this happen.

In either case, it’s a nice easy documentary to watch it has a good message about global warming and I think it’s something that you can get your kids to watch. The only things that I can say that are remotely negative was the fact that they had an entire segment about walrus’ farting, and my next largest complaint was that Queen Latifah wasn’t that entertaining of a narrator.

Since I am reviewing the Blu-ray release of this film, I guess I should mention how good it looked. For the most part it did look good, at other times it seems like the camera men and women were so far away that the digital zoom kept it pretty grainy at any resolution. I guess this is a complaint for the camera people though, how dare they stay out of harms way and use the digital zoom.

The bonus features were pretty limited but when it comes to movies like this that are geared for kids I don’t know what more I would expect. This is one of those things that you will enjoy slightly more on Blu-ray. In fact almost any time you have the money it is worth it to get the blu-ray, except for chick flicks. You don’t need to waste extra money to see high definition chick flicks.

This has been a very hard week to make recommendations for.

Pillow Talk is the first on the list today. It’s a special release for the 50th anniversary. This is one of perhaps two Doris Day movies I can stand, the other being Alfred Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much. Oh, and That Touch of Mink. That movie is great, too…

The Last Kiss is coming out on Blu-ray today. I haven’t yet seen it, but I’ll be posting a review of this film in the next day or so, as will Dr. Cyborg. Anyone have an opinion of it? I’ve been meaning to see it since I really liked Garden State.

The last thing I’ll mention is The Spirit. I didn’t see it and all the reports I’ve gotten back about the film are about 90% against and 10% for. Where do you guys stand on this one?

First on the list today is the Pre-Code Hollywood Collection. I haven’t seen any of the movies in this set, but to date I’ve never been disappointed with pre-code Hollywood. This one has movies starring everyone from the likes of Cary Grant to Claudette Colbert.

Next we have what appears to be a nice collection of Max Fleischer’s Superman: 1941-1942. This is a two disc set and looks to be dandied up in all the right ways.

Doubt comes out today, which I didn’t get to see. It seemed like it was Oscar bait that was trying a little to hard to be so. But I love Phil Hoffman, so there’s always that.

Day the Earth Stood Still came out. I’m going to refrain from commenting on it until I get my copy to review in. But I will say it looks like it tried hard to be the antithesis of Oscar bait.

And, the last thing I’d like to note is that The Wedding Singer is coming out on Blu-ray. I don’t know why I liked this movie, but for some reason I seemed to.

I lied, one more thing this week: The 3 disc special edition of the Coen Brothers’ masterpiece No Country for Old Men. If you don’t own it already, now is the time.

Chud posted quotes from Empire magazine giving us all a little more hope for the fourth installment of this franchise.

They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn’t really have creative control, so to speak.

I don’t even want to comment on Venom, because I know he’s a great character and all the fans love him. I never want to say anything bad about a much-beloved character because usually it turns out that I’m the one that doesn’t understand what makes it great.

The best way for me to move forward on films, I realize…and this was a lesson I had to learn for myself…is that I’ve gotta be the singular voice that makes the creative choices on the film. I love Spider-Man so much that I’d like to continue telling Spider-Man stories but only under those circumstances where I think I can honour him. I don’t think I can honour him any other way.

It’s not often that I can shamelessly promote myself on one of these DVD columns, but today marks the release of my latest film, Killer at Large. I was the producer, writer, editor, researcher, and about 8 other things on this film (along with Clang! Boom! Steam!) and we’ve spent the last 2 years on it. It’s done now, though we’re still organizing screenings via Robert Greenwald’s “Brave New Theatres.” It’s a pretty thorough documentary examination of the American obesity epidemic and I’d like to think it’s important for people to watch. You can also buy it from us on our website and the money would benefit us directly.

Next on the list was the winner of the Oscar for Best Picture this year, Slumdog Millionaire. This was a really great film (though some may disagree with me) and I think that at the very least it’s worth watching.

Next we have the animated The Real Ghostbusters, Volume 1 in a nice 5 DVD set tin. This is a must have for any extreme Ghostbuster fan or anyone planning on entertaining some children in front of some cartoons for an 8 hour stretch.

Pitch Black is also coming out on Blu-ray. And I don’t know about any of you, but I felt this movie was an underrated, well-produced piece of science fiction. Chronicles of Riddick also came out on Blu-ray, but as much as I liked Pitch Black, I never really watched any of the rest of the series. Was it worth checking out?

Finally on the list today is Gene Kelly’s An American in Paris. I don’t know how many of you actually dig musicals, but this is certainly one worth watching. Gene Kelley is just so damned fun to watch.

Star Wars always gets top billing in my little corner of the world, which is why Star Wars: The Clone Wars – A Galaxy Divided is seated here, firmly as the king of the hill. This DVD contains the first four episodes of the much acclaimed Cartoon Network series which consists of the Yoda-centric episode and the Malevolence Saga. This is a DVD to give to the kids, not one for the series collectors. This is a cheap disc with four episodes. Lucasfilm has been extremely forthcoming with the knowledge that a full season box set is only a couple of months away, both on Blu-ray and DVD with all the frills. So, there is to be no whining about their double-dipping. You know the score for the get go. If you’ve hesitated to get into the series, this is your chance to try it out. Snag it on Netflix or buy it, you won’t regret it.

Next we have the supplement to this month’s biggest film release, The Watchmen, Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter & Under the Hood. You can read the review that Clang! Boom! Steam! and I wrote of this at Big Shiny Robot!.

Next we have the latest installment of the James Bond trilogy, Quantum of Solace out on both DVD and Blu-ray. You can read my thoughts about it here. Coming out today are also possibly three of the worst James Bond movies (the worst, For Your Eyes Only is already out, so they couldn’t pull a perfect score) come out today. They are, in no particular order of shame, Never Say Never Again (which barely counts as a Bond film anyway), Moonraker, and The World is Not Enough. I’m only hard on these movies because I love the franchise so damned much and I want to point out that these four vintage Bond films are the worst and the new one, Quantum of Solace, was a middling Bond film at best. To balance the inherent poor quality of these movies, Amazon decided to release an exclusive Steelbook Blu-ray edition of the best James Bond film, Goldfinger. So, buy that one for sure.

Some more good news for geeks today, The Venture Bros.: Season Three hits shelves and this is certainly a must-own collection.

There are a lot of classic films getting new releases today, too. First, we’ll start with Hitchcock’s fourth collaboration with Cary Grant, To Catch a Thief . Grace Kelly is a dream in this movie (as with most movies she was in.) Neil Simon’s Odd Couple gets a new release today, this movie is always good for a laugh. Criterion also put out a Blu-ray of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and a normal DVD version of his film, The Last Metro.

I think we covered a lot of ground today. Is there anything I missed?

The Monitor Tapes for Monday, March 23^rd, 2009

THE STARMAN OMNIBUS VOL. 2

James Robinson (W)

Tony Harris, John Watkiss, Guy Davis, J.H. Williams III, Chris Sprouse, Craig Hamilton, and others (A)

Tony Harris (Cover, New)

This actually came out about a month ago, but I only recently picked it up and finished reading (well, I’ve a few pages at the end of Shade’s Journal and Afterward).

Starman is a beautiful series, from art to writing to execution. James Robinson not only makes you fall in love with Jack Knight (the son of original Starman Ted Knight), but also the entire cast of Starmen, O’Dare’s, the Shade and all the wonderful characters inhabiting Opal City. This volume starts the unfortunate exit of Tony Harris, but the artists who pitch in make perfect fits when the stories range to times past, even including Guy Davis (of Sandman Mystery Theater fame) to illustrate flashbacks of the Golden Age Sandman Wesley Dodds in perfect synergy. Though the art changes towards the end of the second volume, it still fits the stories like a glove.

If you’ve not read Starman the first or second time around, the third time is the charm in these beautiful (again with the beautiful!) new volumes. Plus, they’re cheaper than buying the individual issues, even if they were new and not back issues priced at premiums (roughly 15 issues for $49.99 in a slightly oversized format). This is by far my favorite volume as it starts introducing some great characters, DCU history/ mythology, and fantastic character-centric stories. Pick up both volumes of this magical series and fall in love.

AZRAEL: DEATH’S DARK KNIGHT #1 (OF 3)

Fabian Nicieza (W)

Frazer Irving (A)

Guillem March (C)

It was a slow week for my DC comic habit this week so I ended up picking this book up as a kind of filler read. Nicieza is a fairly consistent Bat-Writer and usually an OK read though he might not get the same press as some of his other peers. That said I’ve not been overly “wowed” by the “Suit of Sorrows” sub-plot or even the concept of Azrael (I’m still to this day not going to read “Knightquest” or the Az-Bats books, cause I’m pig-headed about it).

Not bad, I’m not blown away and it’s a bit confusing in parts, but as a whole as most series it will probably read better in the long run (or short since it’s a three issue mini). I love Irving’s art so it’s defiantly easy on the eyes and I dig the style he brings to the table. Needless to say, I’m intrigued enough with the plot-threads spinning out of recent Bat-books to continue this series.

And in brief-

MYSTERIUS: THE UNFATHOMABLE #3 (OF 6)

Jeff Parker (W)

Tom Fowler (A)

Dr. Seuss-esque demons, damaged debutants, magic, murder, and satanic cults from the 70’s! Parker is gold on anything and Fowler’s art brings the whole thing alive. Read it, damnit!

DC COMICS AVAILABLE WENDSDAY, MARCH 25^TH, 2009

DC

* BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL – COMMISSIONER GORDON

* BATMAN: GOTHAM AFTER MIDNIGHT #11 (OF 12)

* THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD VOL. 3: DEMONS AND DRAGONS

* CHECKMATE: CHIMERA

* THE FLASH ARCHIVES VOL. 5

* JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #31

* ORACLE #1 (OF 3)

* SHOWCASE PRESENTS: AMBUSH BUG VOL. 1

* SUPERMAN #686

* SUPERMAN/BATMAN: ENEMIES AMONG US

* TRINITY #43

* THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT #11 (OF 12)

* WONDER WOMAN #30

JOHNNY DC

* BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #3

* CARTOON NETWORK BLOCK PARTY #55

VERTIGO

* JACK OF FABLES #32

* MADAME XANADU #9

* UNKNOWN SOLDIER #6

WILDSTORM

* GEARS OF WAR #5

* RESISTANCE #4 (OF 6)

* SECRET HISTORY OF THE AUTHORITY: HAWKSMOOR

* TOP 10 SPECIAL #1

* WILDCATS #9

Check out DC Comics website, dccomics.com for previews on Wednesday for DCU and Johnny DC titles, in addition to Vertigo and Wildstorm.

Plus, don’t forget that tomorrow’s the day to finish the Watchmen film experience by picking up the DVD or Blue-Ray and watching “Tales of the Black Freighter” also featuring “Under the Hood” documentary on the Minutemen!

And as always, thanks for reading!