There are some interesting things coming out today for you guys to check out.

First up is Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind. I caught the world premiere of this at Sundance and I really feel like it was an incredibly enjoyable movie. Yes, it was a bit sappy, but it had a lot of heart and a lot of incredibly innovative physical filmmaking that paid homage to the films of the eighties that it seems as though Gondry held so dear. In fact, aside from the fact that it was released in 2008, I would have guessed that it was an 80’s movie.

Next up is Disney’s cartoon version of The Sword in the Stone which is being released today as a special edition. This is one of the few classic Disney movies (of about a dozen) that I would advise most nerds like us to own, whether or not you have children. Add to that the fact that these Disney 2-disc sets always have some of the most fascinating special features and you’ve got something worth owning. The Walt Disney presents sort of presentations of the behind the scenes hosted by Disney himself were always of the utmost interest to me.

There’s a bundled sale on some Blu-ray War Classics that I told you about in previous columns (Patton, Sand Pebbles, The Longest Day) on sale at Amazon. If you’re keen on war movies and Blu-Ray, this is the cheapest you’ll probably find these movies for a while until Blu-Ray gets way cheaper.

Last on the list is a French noir film that Criterion is putting out called Classe tous risques. I don’t really know anything about it other than that, but French films, noirs and Criterion releases are almost always worth checking out separately, but together, they must be fantastic.

Honorable Mention: So I Married an Axe Murderer is getting a Blu-Ray release. I remember liking this in junior high when it came out, but I really don’t remember it. Does Mike Myers hold up after a decade and a half? I do remember that it’s a lot like Alfred Hitchcocks “Suspicion” but with Mike Myers in the Joan Fontaine role and Nancy Travis in the Cary Grant role, but that’s about it.

And for the most worthless $60 Blu-Ray Bundle ever? Amazon has bundled Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four 2 and X-men: The Last Stand together, all for the low price of $59.99 + shipping.

Jesus, I’d honestly rather burn sixty dollars than waste it on those.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I’m buying much of anything this week. There are a few movies that come out that I’ve been interested to see, but not too much.

Probably the only movie to come out this week that I’d consider buying is Lions Gate’s new 2 disc special edition release of High Noon. This is classic Gary Cooper and one of the first movies to be set in essentially real time. Grace Kelly plays his new bride, as well, and we can all do with a little more Grace Kelly in our lives.

With a suggested retail price of $13.99, the price makes it pretty much a must have.

(Interesting factoid about this film: This is Bill Clintons favorite movie and he screened it 17 times during his two terms in the White House.)

Second is Jumper. I dig Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson and Doug Liman makes, at the very least, entertaining films. Part of the reason I didn’t catch this at the theatre is that it seemed as though I was going to get exactly what I saw in the trailer without much variation. Who knows. If I had a netflix, I’d add it to my queue. But I don’t. So I’m not sure if I’ll ever see it.

The only other two films seeing DVD release today that I was half interested in seeing were The Other Boleyn Girl (Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson in the same movie? Hellooooooo Nurse) and Funny Games with Tim Roth and Naomi Watts.

Dr. Cyborg’s comments to me regarding the boring dryness of The Other Boleyn Girl kept me from it at the theatres and Funny Games actually looked more stupid the more I saw the trailer, so I didn’t bother seeing it in the theatre.

So, that’s the column for this week.

The big nerd release of the day is the complete third season of the Incredible Hulk TV show. This show set the pace for Hulk mythology for a long time and I think it’s half the reason people didn’t like Ang Lee’s Hulk movie better. Anyhow, it kicked ass and I’m considering dabbling back into these because I remember loving them as an adolescent robot.

Even then, though, I thought Lou Ferrigno looked preposterous in that green make-up.

The next notable release would be the Dirty Harry collection. I’m not going to make any stupid jokes about making anyone’s day or if anybody’s feeling lucky, but I will say Clint Eastwood kicks a lot of ass. Period.

The next one I want to check out is called The Skull. It has Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it and sounds right up Clang! Boom! Steam!s alley. Here’s the synopsis:

The Skull teams up horror legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in a chilling, supernatural tale of murder from beyond the grave. Based on a short story by Robert Bloch (Psycho), The Skull introduces us to Dr. Christopher Maitland (Cushing), a collector of the occult. When he is given the opportunity to purchase one of the infamous Marquis de Sade, he leaps at the chance. What he doesn’t know is that his friend, Matthew Phillips (Lee) is the former owner of the skull – and quite happy to be rid of it. Possession of The Skull leads to a terrifying series of nightmarish events for Dr. Maitland as he tries to keep control of his life, and as the forces of unspeakable evil bear down upon him.

I think that sounds rad.

There’s a lot of cool Blu-ray releases of classic war movies today, too: The Longest Day (Great old war movie starring John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and Henry Fonda and directed by the same guy who directed Swiss Family Robinson, Ken Annakin (yes indeed, his name was the basis of the Star Wars character)), The Battle of Britain (It’s got Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier in it), Patton (George C. Scott, Coppolla script, nuff said), A Bridge Too Far (William Goldman scrip, Richard Attenborough directing and everyone is in it (Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, James Caan, Laurence Olivier, Elliot Gould, Anthony Hopkins, Denholm Elliott and tons more.)

You’ve watched it! You can’t un-watch it!

I had a faulty servo removed last week and am just now getting things back to normal. So, the DVD column is going to be fairly brief today. The number one pick for the day is Woody Allen’s “Cassandra’s Dream”. This movie was really solid and tight and more in the vein of “Match Point” than “Scoop”.

I give it my highest recommendation.

Other new releases for the day to look out for: The new Rambo movie came out, along with all of the preceding films in the series. Criterion Collection put out a version of the Thief of Baghdad that looks top notch. The Three Stooges Collection Vol. 2 (1937-1939) came out and that’s always a good time.

So, see you next week.

Swank is out of the office today, something about getting a faulty servo taken out. So I’m going to do my best to cover the DVD releases for him.

The highlight this week is the Muppet Show Season 3. This season ran from 1978 to 1979 and featured 25 famous guest stars. Roy Clark, Pearl Bailey, Jean Stapleton, Harry Belefonte, Danny Kaye, Cheryl Ladd, Raquel Welch, Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, and Sylvester Stallone, just to name a few. Some notable skits and performances are Robin Hood, Alice Cooper, and Liberace.

This week three great movies will get the dvd treatment. There Will Be Blood, V for Vendetta, and one of my all time favorites:

Another noteworthy release this week is James Stewart Western Collection (100th anniversary of Jimmy Stewart). Here’s a snippet about it from Amazon.com:

Hollywood legend James Stewart takes the law into his own hands with 6 action-packed adventures in James Stewart: The Western Collection. Celebrate this Academy Award®-winning screen icon’s 100th Anniversary with some of his most daring roles ever in Destry Rides Again Winchester ’73 Bend of the River The Far Country Night Passage and The Rare Breed. Co-starring silver screen favorites Marlene Dietrich Rock Hudson Tony Curtis Maureen O’Hara and Shelley Winters this essential collection showcases one of Hollywood’s most versatile actors at his best.

The Indiana Jones Trilogy is number one on the list of films to catch on DVD today.

These new versions are new double-disc sets and are available individually for the first time. (You know, for you morons who think Temple of Doom isn’t as great as the others.)

The double-discs each contain never-before-seen behind-the-scenes material which is good news for behind-the-scenes nerds like myself. Basically, these are the must-own versions of the film until they finally decide to grace us with Blu-ray versions.

Next on the list is a perfect 10 out of 10 movie newly minted in the Blu-Ray format: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. (Here’s a link to a review of that film, along with five other great films you’re stupid to have not already seen.)

The last thing I would advise everyone to watch out for are a whole pile of Frank Sinatra pictures coming out tomorrow. It’s the 10th anniversary of his death (and such a shame, too…) and they’re pulling out all the stops on his library. A number of war films (like None but the Brave), musicals with Gene Kelly (Anchors Aweigh), early stuff (Double Dynamite) and classics (like the Man With the Golden Arm) are all finding new homes tomorrow.

I also have to personally vouch for Sinatra performances. But don’t take my word for it, Frank Capra once said that if Frank Sinatra were to quit singing and focus on acting, he’d be the greatest actor who ever lived.

Who knows, he might have been right.

UPDATE: I also totally spaced Francis Ford Coppolla’s return to cinema “Youth Without Youth”.  I’ve been hoping and waiting and expecting this film all over the place, but the theatrical release was no where to be found…

Having said that, I’ll be picking it up on DVD and checking it out and hoping that his next film gets at least a slightly wider release.

This is a pretty light week. I think the most noteworthy release this week is the rerelease of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 the movie. We all know and remember the guys from MST3K and they provided hours and hours of entertainment, making unbearable movies entertaining. I haven’t seen this in probably a decade (indeed! it has been that long) so I’m interested in giving it another shot.

On a sidenote, Mike Nelson is running a website that sells podcast, MST3K-style commentaries to watch alongside much larger Hollywood fare than the licensing budget of their show could afford. (They’ve recently finished up I Am Legend, Cloverfield and a number of others.) They even do celebrity guests (Weird Al even joined in for the Jurasic Park commentary). The new commentary I’m most interested in is their track for “Batman and Robin”. I wonder if even they could make that movie watchable. So, check out that site over at www.rifftrax.com…

Another pick for the week is one I missed in the theatres:

It looked great, I just never managed to catch it.

Be sure to check back next week.  5/13 is going to be a pretty big day with more than a few mandatory purchase.

Click here for Swank’s past “Out Today” columns.

Well, I fucked up last week and posted up three (count ’em) picks for this week. All of my sources for DVD street dates managed to lie to me. So, for starters, why don’t you check out last week’s DVD column here.

Now that we’ve got the big titles for the week out of the way last week (seriously, I feel like a total jackass) I can let you in on a couple of smaller titles for this week. For reals.

First is The Red Balloon. Yes, we’ve all seen this film. Who doesn’t remember getting piled into the auditorium to watch a scratchy 16mm print of this? Our kids won’t. That’s why we need to buy the DVD.

The other is a fairly interesting, yet pretty dry, documentary about the problem this country has with corn. It’s called King Corn. I’ve seen it and it’s informative but pretty bland. It’s certainly worth a rental, but I hear tell that there’s a documentary that has a lot of this info in it and is jam-packed all kinds of info-tainment goodness… (*ahem*)

So, that’s it for this week. Next week I won’t fuck up so bad.

We’re all robot nerds. The internet is hovering in one of our windows at all times. It makes sense that we’ve all heard the rumours about a crossover of Tony Stark and Sam Jackson (as Nick Fury) in both Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.

This, indeed, would be very cool.

But I’ve heard advanced word that the footage of Nick Fury may or may not find it’s way into this weeks release of Iron Man.

If not, Marvel might have just lucked onto one of the single biggest marketing tools for the Hulk movie.

Let me explain: Iron Man is an early May release and looks as though it’s going to be one of the highest grossing box-office moneymakers this year. (Right behind Indiana Jones and Iron Man.) Since the studios are too stupid to switch to a year-long release schedule (everyone notices that there hasn’t been much to see since Christmas) and the summer is too cluttered for every blockbuster to stay in theatres for as long as it deserves to, an August DVD release would be a smart move.

August sees the release of the new Hulk movie. And, despite being pretty good (seriously, I watched it again last night, just to double-check) the nerd community (and the community at large) was too stupid to latch on to what made it good. The box-office of a sequel is always pegged to the performance of the original (which is why crap like Spider-man 3 and X-Men the Last Stand had astounding opening weekends despite sucking balls).

But if Iron Man does as well as I’m guessing it will, and they release the DVD to incorporate the Hulk cross-over footage in time to help boost Hulk’s opening weekend, they’ll get a lot more people there and they’ll all be a lot more psyched about the film.

Marvel is notorious for releasing DVDs of this kind anyway (I mean, I’m not the only one with copies of X-men 1.5 and Spider-Man 2.5, am I?) and this would boost not only the profile of the Iron Man DVD, but also the Hulk film finding release. And since Marvel is just starting out as a studio, they better get wise to make sure that every opening weekend they get counts.

I know it seems as though that point took a while to get to, but let me know what you other robots think. Would this be a good move for Marvel?