by John Holliday
by Emily Bloom
by George Taylor
by Christian Fannin
[Our editor, Emily Bloom, brings you the best new releases in her "DVD / Blu Review" article. No filler, no hype, only movies and TV shows we personally buy.]
I can go ahead and give you a sitewide spoiler alert. When The Twilight Zone - The Complete Series comes out on Blu-ray, you can guarantee it will be the "Pick of the Year". I doubt it will make it this year but 2012 is looking good on my calendar (I'm not Mayan). For now, let's focus on season five.
Television shows usually won't get precedence over movies since we are CineWeekly, not TeleWeekly. However, when you have a TV show that's cinematic in every aspect, it has to be included. And no other show has ever been as cinematic as The Twilight Zone. The closest thing would have to be 'Lost' which began as a classic Twilight Zone episode but couldn't follow through as expertly as Rod Serling's masterpiece. Easily the best drama to ever be broadcast, The Twilight Zone ended way too soon (despite 156 episodes) after it's fifth season. Season five, like every other season, includes some highly known classics such as 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet' and 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' which won an Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1963.
While last week's pick was a bare bones edition, The Twilight Zone probably has the best bonus content of any releases ever. The original DVD releases already set the bar extremely high but now the Blu-ray packs even more special features. And lots of them. Not only twenty ADDITIONAL commentaries, but 22 radio dramas, conversations with Rod Serling (always interesting to listen to), and an old audio interview with the director of photography, George T. Clemens. With the fifth and final season now on Blu-ray, it won't be long before a complete series set dominates the market.
Another Richard Matheson classic 50's sci-fi, The Incredible Shrinking Man, is also available this week and is a must for fans of the genre. It's not my thing to cover re-releases of titles that never went out of print but I may ocassionaly make an exception for better editions or this week's 3-D releases. As far as deals go though, a few titles have been given a special $9.99 Blu-ray / DVD combo (separate cases for each) including Burton's Batman, the original Clash of the Titans, and The Wild Bunch.
Did your pal Emily miss your favorite new release title? Are you sure you aren't the only one that likes it? Let her know at: emily@cineweekly.com
