This week, a good half dozen titles of note are hitting stores on Blu-Ray and DVD, but oddly enough they’re all of a similar ilk and only one is any good to me. I wouldn’t call this is a terrible slate of titles, but they seem to mostly be catering to similar audiences and would have benefited from coming out separately. I have no control over that though, so I can only judge what they give me, and today I’m only looking at one flick that I gave a recommendation to. That film will be my PICK OF THE WEEK pretty much by default, but the other titles aren’t trash or anything. What film got my top honor though this week? Well, it’s a failure in most people’s eyes, but I looked beyond the budget and enjoyed what I saw. The movie in question? It’s:
John Carter
The massively bloated budget for this film marks it as an historic failure, but I maintain that this was an enjoyable science fiction adventure that works well enough as escapist entertainment (along with showing where everything from ‘Avatar’ to ‘Dune’ to ‘Star Wars’ got its inspiration from). There’s little to rave about, but I have a feeling that in a few years people will re-approach this flick and wonder why it received so little attention currently. Anyone who enjoyed it the first time around will easily do so again, and now that it’s available for home viewing, everyone else should give it a shot as well. I think a good chunk of you will be pleasantly surprised by it!
-Taking the #2 spot on reputation alone is a film that I’ve yet to see but my friend and colleague here at the site Mike Ward is very high on. It’s the French drama Declaration of War, and you all should do as I’m doing and make some time to check it out and see why Mike’s a fan. Feel free to report your findings on the film when you do…
-Also out this week, we have the disappointing drama Machine Gun Preacher, the mediocre suspense flick/Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds star vehicle Safe House, the overly jingoistic action film Act of Valor, and the adventure Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, which I have not seen. None of these are worth your time in my book, but if you see things differently, by all means give one or more a look and see what you end up thinking of them.
-My Vintage pick easily could have been one of the Alien films this week (for obvious reasons), but instead I’m going to try to turn you all on to something a bit different. In honor of this week’s release of Lola Versus, I’m going with the prior film from Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister Jones. It’s the romantic dramedy Breaking Upwards, and it’s a surprisingly touching flick about a couple that decide to literally plot out their breakup step by step. Of course, things don’t go as planned, but they don’t go as you expect them to either. I was especially moved by Lister Jones’ acting and the script that she and director/co-star Wein came up with. No one saw this when it came out a few years back, but now you really should give it a shot. I highly recommend it and hope you give it a look!
-What will you be watching on DVD/Blu-Ray this week? Discuss on the Forum!
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Tags: blu ray, DVD, Joey's DVD Column, joeys dvd pick of the week, weekly DVD column
3 Comments












There are some gems coming to dvd in the following weeks, so keep at it with us…you won’t be disappointed!
Joey Magidson(Quote) (Reply)
I guess I’m finally going to have to see John Carter…
Mark Johnson(Quote) (Reply)
In my review I called it as if the Star Wars prequels were directed by J.J. Abrams, so make of that what you will…
Joey Magidson(Quote) (Reply)