DVD Releases

I’m Not There, the acclaimed drama that stars Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin all as Bob Dylan, arrives on DVD this Tuesday. Considering that Franklin is a young black kid, Gere plays a version of Billy the Kid and Blanchett is female, one can only imagine that the movie is not exactly a literal biopic, and in fact is one of the most unique and complicated movies I’ve ever seen.

Director Todd Haynes, amazingly, was not nominated for an Oscar for his masterful work here, and, almost equally shocking was the fact that Cate Blanchett, who turns in the best performance of her career, didn’t win for Best Supporting Actress.

You can read my full I’m Not There movie review here.

Regardless, for all of you who didn’t see I’m Not There in theaters, the Bob Dylan movie is now available on DVD. Here is my I’m Not There DVD review:

The DVD review is for the two-disc collector’s edition, a surprisingly weighty release for a movie such as this. The environmental side of me questions why this release is on two discs other than to market it as such; there are tons of special features, but quantity over quality is the name of the game.

The first disc contains I’m Not There along with a director’s commentary from Todd Haynes, along with some on-screen tie-ins to the songs.

The second disc is where the meat is, and contains such features as:

• Deleted scenes
• Alternate/extended scenes
• Outtakes
• Auditions
• A Conversation with Todd Haynes
• Making the Soundtrack
• The Red Carpet Premiere

The deleted scenes are what you’d expect, nothing too substantial or memorable. With this type of film, where the story is essentially organized chaos, it’s hard to watch a single scene and appreciate it on its own. The outtakes are humorous but nothing spectacular. The auditions are interesting; it’s always nice to see actors in raw format and how they went about landing the part. “A Conversation with Todd Haynes” is pretty good, and basically is about the co-writer/director talking about how the movie formed in his mind – and how he made sense of it all. At times, it sounds like he didn’t even know what he was doing. The “Making the Soundtrack” featurette is also pretty interesting and offers up some good Dylan songs for a second listening.

Included on the second disc is also a “Tribute to Heath Ledger,” though it looks like it was put together at the last minute.

Ultimately, the I’m Not There Two-Disc Collector’s Edition DVD has some decent features, though of the ones they list on the back of the box, only a couple are really noteworthy. Still, this is the kind of the movie that, due to its complexity, requires some further explanation, and there is just enough here to satisfy that requirement.

The DVD set is good, but not great. However, the movie itself makes up for any deficiencies on the DVD.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrives in theaters shortly, which means that Lucasfilm and Paramount are back at it releasing everything Indy in anticipation. With re-release DVDs of the original three Indiana Jones movies coming soon, April 29th brings The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume Three: The Years of Change to DVD in a massive box set in vein with Volume One and Volume Two.

Like the previous two box sets, Volume 3 is packed with special features, movies and so on and so forth. George Lucas and the crew spared no expense making these box sets, even going as far as to re-edit the original television show, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, into feature-length films. Whether that’s a good thing, maybe not.

This final box set comes with 10 discs, seven Indiana Jones movies and, according to the box, over 15 hours of special features and over two dozen documentaries. Needless to say, I don’t have the time and willpower to watch everything before writing this review.

A fan of the show growing up, I always enjoyed the the stories involving teenage Indy (played by Sean Patrick Flannery) a lot more, for obvious reasons. The stories are more adventure-filled, a lot less sappy and generally more interesting. While the original TV show mixed together the stories of super-young Indy and teenage Indy on, generally, an episode-by-episode basis and earmarked those episodes to shots of a really old Indiana Jones, these box sets have recut the episodes, made them more chronological and removed the old Indy altogether. The result is several feature-length movies that, while able to focus a lot more on a specific plot line, aren’t nearly as cohesive as they should be.

To make hour-and-a-half-long movies, Lucas had to splice and dice two or three stories together to make one, and the result is often a meandering one. Take Tales of Innocence, for example (coincidentally the first movie I watched on this box set). The first half is about Indy trying to identify a traitor in his crew during World War I and his ultimately tragic love affair with a local woman. It’s pretty exciting and entertaining, aside from a few slow minutes. Then, suddenly, the story switches gear and Indy and several new characters travel to investigate the disappearance of a group of soldiers, only to find that one of the missing commanders has somehow turned into Lord Dracula. This story is fine, too – and also plays into the mystical element that is found in all of the theatrical releases more so than most of the World War I plots – but is clearly not a part of the same movie.

To save time, money and effort, and to appease fans, I would have just left the episodes as they originally were, but we’re stuck with these feature-length re-edits which are good enough. A lot of people had probably forgot that there were dozens of additional hours of Indiana Jones goodness available, and it’s nice to see this high quality show get some renewed attention.

The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones: Volume III: The Years of Change is available to own on April 29th. Did I already say that?

Charlie Wilson’s War is now on DVD (well, as of a few hours from now). The movie, which stars Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts, really didn’t do that great in theaters despite the cast, the writing talent (Aaron Sorkin of “The West Wing” fame) and timing. One can attribute its modest failure to many things, including the fact that it is one of many flops in 2007 having to deal with the Middle East, or that it just didn’t look that good in the previews.

Thankfully, Charlie Wilson’s War was one of the surprising delights of the holiday season, as the movie is hilarious most of the time and meaningful the rest. Hanks, about the last person you’d expect to play a cocaine-snorting, womanizing senator, does a pretty good job, though it’s Hoffman who steals the show as a bitter CIA agent. Roberts is disappointing, though she doesn’t have much to work with given her character.

You can read my full Charlie Wilson’s War movie review here.

As for the DVD, there’s not much here, and one wonders whether this is in anticipation of a 2-Disc Collector’s Edition sometime in the near future. There are only two notable special features: “The Making of Charlie Wilson’s War” and “Who is Charlie Wilson?”

The making-of is mildly interesting, though it has a lot of talking heads all complimenting one another. The most interesting aspect is the look at the real Charlie Wilson, who tells the filmmakers to do depict him as sleazy as they want to – he won’t deny using drugs or having sex with prostitutes. Nice. That’s the honesty we want to see from our politicians!

Unfortunately, by the time I got to watching “Who is Charlie Wilson?”, all of the interesting facts and interview pieces had been used up in the previous featurette. A lengthier, independent documentary would have been much more interesting than a quick summary made for the DVD.

Ultimately, the movie makes it worth the purchase, but if you are a bonus features kind of guy, the Charlie Wilson’s War DVD is not for you.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead was released on DVD on April 15th, so I’m a few days behind on my DVD review. The movie, as you probably don’t know, is about two brothers (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke) who, after some rough times, decide to commit an armed robbery. Their target of choice? Their parents’ jewelry store.

As one might suspect, their robbery goes horribly wrong and the two find themselves in a cat-and-mouse game against the police, their consciences and even each other. Oh, and they’re both sleeping with the same woman (Marisa Tomei, who spends most of the movie walking around naked).

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is a pretty good movie. It’s a pretty decent crime thriller, with good performances and a good story. It’s unique in that it blends family drama with an increasingly dark crime story, though what it lacks is the big twists that really could have taken it to the next level. However, since this blog post is about the DVD and not about the movie itself, you can read my full Before the Devil movie review here.

The DVD, unfortunately, gives little reason to buy this good-but-not-great movie. While I would still recommend a rental, the DVD only offers three special features:

• A theatrical commentary with Ethan Hawke, Philip Seymour Hoffman and director Sidney Lumet. I can imagine this commentary is quite good, but since I never listen to commentaries, I have not made the exception here.
• A making-of featurette, which is about as interesting as watching a sack of coal get transformed into diamonds over a thousand years. It’s more promotional than anything else and really doesn’t offer much insight into the creation of the movie.
• The theatrical trailer. Whoopdy-do!

The Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead DVD is really a lackluster product from ThinkFilm. Even though the movie was never really considered a wide release, I was expecting something a little more substantial in terms of a DVD package.

The movie is still worth it, but those looking for bonus features won’t be satisfied with this release.

I just received the Lars and the Real Girl DVD today in the mail. I got home from work at 5:30, went to my chiropractor’s from 6 to 7, watched the Seattle Mariners finally win a game (what is going on with their bullpen/offense?) and then squeezed in a trip to Costco. Got back at 8:40 with intentions of writing a bit on my new novel (I’m on chapter 2), and debated about watching the special features for Lars and the Real Girl before starting. It could eat up an hour of my time, I thought, but maybe I should pop in the DVD just to check things out…

First off, Lars and the Real Girl is a great movie. Seriously, it’s one of the best movies of 2007. Ryan Gosling is great, and the story is tragically uplifting and heartwarming without ever being sappy. It’ll make you laugh and even cry (well, if you’re into crying at movies, which I’m not), but more so it will just make you laugh. It’s also a lighthearted romantic drama, and works on that level as well. You can read my full Lars and the Real Girl movie review here.

However, the Lars and the Real Girl DVD sucks. My concern about wasting too much time watching the special features was not worth it, as the two movie trailers included on the DVD plus the time it is taking to write this DVD review more than account for the total number of minutes you should spend watching the special features.

The DVD includes a deleted scene that – I’m pretty sure – is only 1.3 seconds long. Wowzer, too bad that got cut!

There’s a small, 10-minute featurette about the movie, of which I only watched half of because I realized just how dull, uninformative and promotional it was.

There’s also a six-minute segment about the “real girl” in the movie (i.e. the sex doll) that is mildly amusing, as Gosling, in an interview, gets upset with her, tears off his mike and storms off, leaving the “real girl” to fend for herself. Still, is it really worth watching? No.

And that’s about it. 16 minutes of special features, only 0.76 minutes of which are worth your time. Lars and the Real Girl is a great movie, but if you’re into special features, the DVD is a waste of whatever material DVDs are made of.

Some people hated Cloverfield. I honestly don’t get it. The movie is fast-paced, action-packed, has great special effects and is rarely, if ever, cheesy. How many monster movies, especially movies about big monsters that attack cities, can make that claim? Cloverfield is probably the closest thing you’ll get to a “realistic” monster movie.

As for the people who claim they got motion sickness or what not, give me a break. How come people react so poorly to shaky cameras? The camera work was really not that shaky and, besides, you should have known what you were setting yourself up for. By the way, I took my mom to the theater to watch the movie, and she was suffering from massive vertigo at the time (she was on medicine and was supposed to do these stupid exercises). She didn’t notice anything wrong with the camera work, and loved the movie.

Anyway, if you want to read my Cloverfield movie review, you can, but the following is about the Cloverfield DVD special features.

There aren’t a ton of Cloverfield special features, but where they lack in quantity, they make up for in quality (and how much you want to bet that a 2-disc special edition is on its way out for the holidays?). There’s an audio commentary from the director, which I didn’t listen to – because unlike some reviewers, I don’t have time to re-watch every DVD release with voice-over narration.

I did watch the deleted scenes and alternate endings. As one might suspect, the deleted scenes and alternate endings are minor variations of what we got in the final release. That are a few cut scenes from the party sequence which don’t add much but are fun to watch anyway, while the alternate endings have subtle but significant adjustments. Ultimately, the director went with the right choice of endings, as the other ones lack the emotional punch. All of the scenes come with optional director’s commentary, of which I did listen to!

There’s also a 28-minute making-of featurette, which looks behind the scenes of Cloverfield. This is one of the better making-of featurettes I’ve seen recently, as we really get a pretty good look at what went into making the film, including the green screen action, set design, so on and so forth. One of the most interesting things is that it appears as though most of the actors have no idea what the movie is about while filming; they are constantly talking about how they know a few scenes, but that’s about it. J.J. Abrams and everyone else took the secrecy of the movie quite seriously.

There is also a featurette dedicated to the Cloverfield special effects. While this one doesn’t vary too much from special effect documentaries for other movies, it’s always interesting to see how the people approached the creature design, CGI and so on and so forth.

There’s also a small blooper reel for those of you who like seeing other people who make more money than you do mess up.

Overall, I enjoyed the Cloverfield special features. I know a little more about the movie than I did before, and that’s always a good thing. If you didn’t like Cloverfield the first time, I suggest watching it again – maybe you’ll like it this time around, or maybe you’ll just settle for being wrong and having bad taste. If you haven’t seen the movie, it’s a shame you didn’t see it in theaters, but the DVD comes out April 22nd, so you’ll just have to do with that.

For more Cloverfield movie details, click here.

Poor Mena Suvari. The actress, fairly attractive and a decent actress, started off her career about as good as anyone who isn’t named Jennifer Hudson can do: not only did she have a major part in one of the last great teen classics, American Pie, but she was the title character in one of the best movies of all time, American Beauty. She was 20 at the time both of those movies were released, and if that’s how her career begun, just imagine what she’d be doing in eight years.

The direct-to-DVD remake of George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead. Wow.

The movie really isn’t a remake of the Romero original, as it bears little resemblance to that film. The original was a continuation of Romero’s two classics and featured a bunch of characters tucked away in an underground bunker. This new Day of the Dead is your standard zombie flick; what starts off looking like an epidemic of the flu turns out to be a cannibalistic nightmare. Several unsuspecting characters find themselves at the center of a shit storm, and you know the rest. Why this movie is actually allowed to be marketed as “based on the motion picture from George A. Romero” is a bit astounding. Other than being a zombie movie, the two movies are far removed.

As one might expect from a direct-to-DVD release, the movie isn’t anything you should rush out to buy, rent or see. This is no theatrical Dawn of the Dead remake, let me tell you. Hell, it’s not even Land of the Dead. It’s your run-of-the-mill zombie film, with so-so writing, quasi-cheap special effects and so on and so forth.

That being said, it is a step above other direct-to-DVD releases, and I have to wonder if with a little more budget and a little more attention to detail this movie could have gone to theaters. It was clearly made with the intention to go straight to DVD, as the makeup, film quality and script aren’t good enough to take the film to the next level. Still, if you like zombie movies, Day of the Dead is tolerable. It has a lot of action, a fair amount of gore and, for the type of movie it is, surprisingly decent acting.

Suvari holds her own and the rest of the cast do what they’re supposed to. Nick Cannon isn’t particularly good, though he was clearly written with the badass token black guy in mind. Ving Rhames even is in the movie, obviously homage to the Dawn of the Dead remake.

The movie suffers from some unnecessary visual effects; I’m not a big fan of zombies being able to jump long distances through the air, climb on ceilings and so on and so forth. The zombies also sound like dinosaurs, another unnecessary move. Ultimately, Steve Miner, who has directed such quality B-grade films as Halloween H20 and Lake Placid, was given a low budget and tasked with making a direct-to-DVD feature. There is nothing here to suggest otherwise.

Sadly, I just looked on IMDB I see that the budget for the movie is $18 million. That’s not a lot these days, but considering that Shaun of the Dead was made for only $4 million, it actually is surprising that the movie looks a lot better. The decision to go with special effects over quality makeup was clearly a bad one.

The new Dawn of the Dead isn’t as bad as I was expecting, and in fact is moderately entertaining, but a few major but doable tweaks could have gone a long way. Fans of the original will be disappointed.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the movie musical starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton, arrives on DVD today (Tuesday). Personally, I thought the movie was a disaster – the music is terrible, the story boring (amazing, considering the movie is about a serial killer who slices people’s necks and then has his “girlfriend” turn the bodies into meat pies to serve to unsuspecting patrons) and the acting overrated, but apparently I am in the minority. A lot of people loved Sweeney Todd for a reason I cannot fathom… usually, when I hate a movie and others love it, I at least can identify the reason; with this one, the only thing that comes to mind is that people are so consumed by the fact that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are teaming up once again that they have convinced themselves it must be good.

Anyway, regardless of how good (or bad) Sweeney Todd is, I have to say the DVD is excellent. I have the two-disc Special Collector’s Edition, and it is jam-packed full of behind-the-scenes featurettes, documentaries and more that give you all kinds of insights into the film. It basically looks like the DVD staff went out and found every random thing they could find about Sweeney Todd, the movie or otherwise, and shoved them onto the discs… and the result is surprisingly good.

While there are plenty more features than this, the memorable ones that stand out are:

• Sweeney Todd movie press release, with Tim Burton, Johnny Depp and the rest. Basically, the cast and crew take questions from the press and answer them in an insightful but often funny way. I realized that I had never before actually heard Burton speak. Some of Helena Bonham Carter’s comments about having to sleep with the director (and then about Depp not having slept with anyone, ever) to get her role are quite entertaining.
•  The truth about Sweeney Todd, an examination of the facts and fictions that are built into the character. I was surprised to see that the character has actually been around for centuries in some form or another, and that there is actually debate as to whether the man really lived or not. It seems clear to me that there is no real Sweeney Todd, and instead his character is a result of many different real-life and legendary people that have cropped up over the years.

Okay, that’s only two, but there are a slew of special features, all of which are useful in their own way. Not are overwhelmingly long, but have just the right running length to be useful without being boring.

I still think the music in the film sucks, though. I like musicals, but I clearly don’t like musicals where the characters sing sentences.

Read my Sweeney Todd movie review here.

There Will Be Blood, one of the best if not the best movie of 2007, makes its way onto DVD April 1st, and with it comes a 2-disc Collector’s Edition. From the actual box down to the features within, the DVD stays true to the look and feel of the film, with a rugged, turn-of-the-century approach and memorable visuals.

While the special features are not anything to scream about, they are, relatively speaking, quite good for a dramatic epic such as this. There Will Be Blood contains but a few real featurettes, most of them pretty simple, but they work and are surprisingly interesting:

• 15 minutes of pictures and research. Normally, I’m not a fan of looking at picture galleries, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Played to the overture, you can watch 15 minutes of photos and old footage that were presumably used to capture the gritty details of There Will Be Blood, from the way characters looked to the oil rigs. While not super informative, it is interesting to see how things looked back then, as well as how close the movie comes to capturing the essence of the time and place where There Will Be Blood exists.
• Deleted scenes. Several deleted scenes are included, and while none may have added to the rather long running time, they are certainly quality scenes that were simply cut for pacing purposes. The most notable deleted scene is one called the “Fishing” sequence, which explains how the oil rig is reopened after the big explosion. This scene is informative, though I can understand why it was removed: unlike the rest of the movie, it focuses too much on the specific drilling methods used at the time, which really doesn’t tie in with the movie’s purpose.
• “The Story of Petroleum”, ca. 1923. The DVD set also contains an actual silent, black & white promotional film created by both the U.S. government and Standard Oil to depict how oil is pumped from the earth. The “documentary” is interesting in more ways than one, as it does drill, forgive the pun, into tiny details at times about the process as well as shows lots of footage that was clearly used as inspiration for Paul Thomas Anderson.

All in all, for the type of movie There Will Be Blood is, this 2-disc Collector’s Edition is worth purchasing. The movie is extraordinary, and there are just enough quality special features to make it worth the extra money. You can read my full There Will Be Blood movie review here.

Sean Penn’s Into the Wild is now available on DVD in a 2-disc Collector’s Edition. While the movie is one of the better films of 2007 (I hesitate to say one of the year’s best), the DVD is lackluster by anyone’s definition.

The second disc, which houses the special features, contains only two featurettes, one titled “The Story, the Characters”, the other “The Experience.” Both of these go on to explain the creation of the characters, the sets and so on and so forth, but I found neither of these to be particularly informative or memorable. Mind you that I watched these features while going on 30-hours of only a couple hours of plane sleep, but there is nothing here worth noting. In fact, I found the featurettes to be rather promotional, as if they were made before the Into the Wild‘s release to get more people excited in this interesting tale.

That’s not much of a DVD review, but that is all Into the Wild has to offer. Why Paramount Vantage has to waste such resources to create a second disc for those featurettes is beyond me, as the set seems more comparable to a standard, single-disc release.

Nevertheless, the movie Into the Wild is still a good one, featuring great acting and an incredibly unique story. You can read my full Into the Wild movie review here.

The Kite Runner, considered one of the better foreign language films of 2007, comes to DVD today. The film actually got a lot of attention, even though it was nowhere to be found at the Academy Awards (other than a nomination for music). While a lot of people liked this film, I found The Kite Runner to be nothing more than a quality TV movie. The first half of the movie is quite good, but the modern day scenes suffered from stale directing (and Marc Forster is directing the new James Bond movie, no!!!!) and flat acting. The final part of the movie plays out like an action movie, but the action is rudimentary at best (Marc Forster, no!!!!).

You can read my full Kite Runner movie review here.

That being said, The Kite Runner isn’t that bad. It might even be worth watching, but I wouldn’t expect an amazing film by any means. The DVD offers these bonus features:

• Commentary by Marc Forster (Quantum of Solace, no!!!), Khaled Hosseini and David Benioff (wouldn’t it have been cooler to have the two young boys provide commentary?)
• “Words from The Kite Runner” – I don’t know what this is, but I don’t really care
• Images from The Kite Runner – Seriously? How can companies still market image galleries as real bonus features? Why would you even want to look at an image gallery when you can just watch the movie?
• Theatrical trailer

Again, The Kite Runner is probably worth seeing, but I get annoyed at the praise this film undeservedly receives.

I watched The Aristocats a couple days ago, and I encountered a very annoying feature that Disney apparently thinks is a device that helps the viewer. It’s called FastPlay, and I’ve run into this piece-of-crap feature on a few DVDs now.

What is FastPlay? FastPlay is a feature on the DVD that allows you to skip the DVD menu and jump directly to the film. Or one would think. Upon plugging in your DVD, a screen appears on the television asking you whether you want to go to the Menu or do FastPlay. Naturally, I want to skip over all the junk and go right to the movie, so I click on FastPlay.

The movie starts, right? Nope! It goes to a movie preview. I normally like movie previews, but not Disney previews. I click the Skip button to jump to the movie. It goes to another preview! Crap, I chose poorly. I hit the Menu button – it takes me to the standard DVD menu. I click on the “Play” button. It takes me back to the first preview again, one for 101 Dalmatians. I skip to the next preview, and the next, and the next.

Five or six previews later, several remote clicks and multiple minutes wasted, I finally reach the movie. How the f**k is that FastPlay?

Here are my issues with FastPlay:

• It isn’t faster.
• It doesn’t skip right to the movie.
• If it’s made to be easier for little children, that doesn’t make sense. I bet two-year olds these days know how to use DVD players.
• It doesn’t save any clicks. Most DVDs go right to a menu, where you can hit “Select” to trigger the Play feature. FastPlay is just a simplified version of the DVD menu.
• There’s narration to explain what FastPlay does. If you need to explain it, then it isn’t very usable, is it?

Why did Disney develop this? Why defy standard DVD usability and actually add a new layer? Why label something “FastPlay” and not bypass all the stuff people who just want to watch the movie don’t want to watch? It doesn’t make any sense.

The Aristocats arrived on DVD in February. I was supposed to review it in February. I didn’t. It’s now March, and I finally got to the film. As much as I could watch anyway.

I don’t believe that, even in my childhood, I ever saw The Aristocats, and as such, my childhood sentiment for the film isn’t there. The movie, about four cats who try to make it back home to Paris after they are abandoned in the countryside by an evil butler, is a Disney classic, but it’s certainly a film that shows its age.

The Aristocats is moderately funny at times and has some quality entertainment; a scene where the butler hides in a haystack and carefully tries to steal a bunch of stuff from a couple of dogs is pretty amusing, and there are other highlights as well. The animation is good given that the film originally hit theaters 38 years ago (yes, 1970 was 38 years ago); actually, I miss this style of animation a lot. All the cartoons these days look so glossy; the roughness of The Aristocats really works in its favor.

I expect little kids will still find this movie entertaining, but I’d be curious to see if that’s the truth. The style of humor is certainly different than that found in modern movies, and I wonder if children are still able to appreciate calmer, more laid back cartoons like this film. Unlike most cartoons, The Aristocats really doesn’t have a prominent villain, and the film takes its time moving from sequence to sequence without any sense of excitement or tension. This isn’t bad – it’s just different.

Nevertheless, I found The Aristocats a little boring. Had I grown up on the film, I’d probably think differently, but since I didn’t, I didn’t see anything very spectacular here.  Little kids may still enjoy it, but the film certainly feels dated.

The DVD offers several games and activities, deleted scenes and some behind-the-scenes featurettes, none of which I bothered to watch.

… or that’s what should happen. I liked No Country for Old Men, which comes to DVD this Tuesday. At the time I saw it in theaters, I thought it was a strong contender for Best Picture. Despite a lackluster ending, the movie is dark, meaningful and well conceived, with all elements working together in synergy. Josh Brolin turns in the best performance of his career. Tommy Lee Jones is good even though his character serves no real purpose. Javier Bardem is amazing and delivers to the screen one of the most memorable and frightening villains of all time. No Country is one of the best Coen Brothers’ movies, if not the best.

These were the kinds of statements that carried the movie through the award season. It struck gold early on, and critics and voters for the various award shows showed reluctance to give other films a chance. With exception to the Golden Globes, a good chunk of “Best” awards went to No Country, despite strong competition from some other great films.

I have to say something I never thought I’d say: I agree with the Golden Globe voters.

No Country for Old Men is not the best movie of 2007, and as such it does not deserve the Oscar for Best Picture. It is, when it comes down to it, a great thriller with deeper meaning, but that’s what it is: a thriller. On top of that – let’s face it, folks – the ending sucks. No matter how you want to spin it, the ending is a dud, and do movies with bad endings deserve to win Best Picture?

(the answer is “No”)

Who should have won Best Picture? I don’t know. I thought both Atonement and There Will Be Blood were stronger candidates. Atonement was a great film on many levels; what it lacked, perhaps, were the super strong performances that No Country boasted. There Will Be Blood rode the coattails of Daniel Day Lewis’ incredible performance, but the movie is powerful, dark and simply incredible to watch. Both of these movies feature far superior endings. You can see my top ten movies of 2007 list for more details.

I’d even make arguments that Juno and Michael Clayton are more satisfying films, though it’d be pushing it to say they are better movies. Still, Juno was entertaining and had a nice, sweet ending; Michael Clayton was a bit slow but had an incredible last scene.

I was not surprised that No Country for Old Men won for Best Picture, but having watched many of the Oscar-nominated films in the last two weeks (generally for the second time), I realize that the movie just isn’t as good. Re-watch No Country, Atonement and There Will Be Blood and let me know if you still think No Country is a better film; it seems like everyone liked the movie so much because the marketing told us that everyone else liked it so much.

By the way, I have the No Country for Old Men DVD, and it’s not all too exciting. Of course, the movie itself is good, but the special features are few to be had. The movie comes to DVD March 11, 2008.

Hi everyone. I just created an RSS feed for upcoming DVD release dates. This upcoming DVD release list does not include all those garbage direct-to-DVD releases, and not even all the new TV season DVD releases that you’ve never heard of. This RSS feed includes indie and mainstream DVD releases that are coming out over the next month or two, and of course updates automatically each and every week.

Subscribe now to my upcoming DVD release date RSS feed. Of course, you can also just visit my upcoming DVD release date page, which lists all upcoming releases currently known to me.

Other movie RSS feeds can be found here.