Fresh Loaf

This week, CL Charlotte’s Matt Brunson discusses the DVD releases of The Gregory Peck Collection, Wall-E and more.

WALL-E (2008). Although this animated effort from Pixar is a treat for the young and old alike, it’s the rare sort of toon tale that may have ended up endearing itself even more to adults than to kids. And it’s not just because grown-ups will enjoy the usual asides tossed their way (e.g. a witty reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey; Aliens star Sigourney Weaver providing the voice of a ship’s computer); it’s also because the plot speaks to them in a way that it can’t to humans who still don’t possess all their permanent teeth. Read the rest here.

(Photo courtesy Walt Disney and Pixar)

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

2008 Philadelphia Phillies: The Official World Series Film

24: Redemption

A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!

Fred Claus

George Carlin: It’s Bad For Ya

Hancock

Meet Dave

Space Chimps

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

“Bones” Season 3

Encounters at the End of the World

Garden Party

“Hannah Montana” Season 1

Live at Wembley Stadium: The Foo Fighters

Mister Lonely

Priceless

Tropic Thunder

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2

Wall-E

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

Christmas on Mars

Firefly

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

Kung-Fu Panda

Liberty Kid

Mister Foe (more…)

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

“Batman” the Complete Animated Series

Bourne Trilogy

Chill

A Christmas Story

“Futurama” Bender’s Game

Get Smart (more…)

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

“Affairs of the Heart” Series One

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

Baraka

Dead Space: Downfall

Eight Miles High

“The Flinstones” the Complete Series

“Good Times” the Complete Series

Houdini’s Death Defying Acts

Journey to the Center of the Earth

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl

The Night Before Christmas and More Holiday Tales

The Polar Express 3-D

Shiver

Together Again for the First Time

“War and Remembrance” the Complete Series

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

Casino Royale

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

“Family Guy Freakin’ Sweet Party Pack”

The Incredible Hulk

“Knight Rider” the Complete Series

“LA Ink” season one

The Strangers

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Zombie Strippers

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This week CL Charlotte’s Matt Brunson discusses the DVD releases of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, The Strangers and more.

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008). Let’s try to put this in perspective, shall we? On the Scale of Cinematic Achievements, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull places dead last among the four big-screen Indy adventures. Given the quality of its predecessors, however, that can hardly be construed as a smackdown. Read the rest here.

(Photo by David James/Paramount & Lucasfilm)

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

Alfred Hitchcock Premiere Collection

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventure Collection

“Life With Derek” the First Season

Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Tribute Show

“The Rules of Engagement” the Second Season

Saving God

Standard Operating Procedure

The Strangers

“That 70s Show” Complete Series Stash Box

“The Unit” the Third Season

War, Inc.

Witness to the Mob

A Woman Under the Influence

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Here are some of the titles that come out on DVD today. For more, see Matt Brunson’s View from the Couch column tomorrow.

“30 Rock” Season 2

“‘Allo, ‘Allo!” Series 9 and the Complete Collection

Dare Not Walk Alone

“Grace Under Fire” the Complete First Season

Halloween Unrated Three-Disc Collector’s Edition

The Happening

“How I Met Your Mother” Season 3

Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer

“Martin” the Complete 5th Season

“Mission Impossible” the 5th Season

“Robot Chicken” Season 3

“The Simpsons” the Complete 11th Season

Sleeping Beauty Two-Disc Platinum Edition

The Visitor

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan

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This week CL Charlotte’s Matt Brunson discusses the DVD releases of Ewan McGregor-Hugh Jackman movie Deception, Iron Man, the special Coppola Restoration of all three Godfather movies and more.

DECEPTION (2008). It’s hard to believe a movie starring Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor, two impossibly charismatic actors, could be so dull, but the evidence is right here. McGregor stars as Jonathan McQuarry, a meek accountant who has no fun until a lawyer named Wyatt Bose (Jackman) swoops down like a slumming deus ex machina and introduces his new pal to the pleasures of pot, nightclubs and mixed doubles tennis matches. Just before Wyatt leaves town for a business trip, he “accidentally” switches cell phones with Jonathan; soon, the virginal numbers cruncher is receiving calls during which sexy female voices merely whisper, “Are you free tonight?” Passing himself off as Wyatt, Jonathan soon discovers an anonymous sex club in which the members all turn out to be Wall Street movers and shakers. Read the rest here.

(Godfather photo courtesy Paramount Pictures)

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Here are some selected titles that arrive on DVD today. Keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View From the Couch,” posted tomorrow.

2008 Olympics – Beijing 2008 Complete Opening Ceremony

“Adam 12″ Second Season

An Autumn Afternoon

“B.L. Stryker” the Complete Series

“Beauty and the Best” the Complete Series

Bigger, Stronger, Faster*

Can’t Hardly Wait 10th Anniversary Edition

“Click & Clack’s As the Wrench Turns”

CSNY: Deja Vu

“Deadliest Catch” the Complete Fourth Season

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Iron Man

Jellyfish (more…)

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Mila Kunis and Jason Segel in Forgetting Sarah Marshall

This week CL Charlotte’s Matt Brunson discusses the DVD releases of Cool Hand Luke, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Leatherheads and more.

COOL HAND LUKE (1967). In a career filled with iconic anti-heroes – including what I deem the “4-H Club” from the 1960s (Hud, Harper, Hombre and The Hustler) – Lucas Jackson just might be the most popular of all the societal misfits played by Paul Newman. After drunkenly destroying parking meters in a small Southern town, Newman’s wisecracking loner is shipped off to a prison whose inmates break their backs working on a chain gang. Read the rest here.

(Photo by Glen Wilson)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

“Alvin and the Chipmunks” Holiday Gift Set

“Boston Legal” Season Four

“Brothers and Sisters” Season Two

“CSI New York” The Fourth Season

“Caillou’s Winter Wonders”

“Cashmere Mafia” The Complete Series

Deception

The Foot Fist Way

“Friday the 13th” Season One (more…)

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This week CL Charlotte film critic Matt Brunson takes a look at 88 Minutes, An American in Paris and more, including that dizzying color-fest Speed Racer.

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951) / GIGI (1958). The film industry has produced a substantial number of truly transcendent musical masterpieces – Singin’ in the Rain, Top Hat and A Hard Day’s Night are but three examples – yet rarely have these films won Best Picture Oscars. Instead, the Academy’s taste in musicals tends to run toward lavish, overproduced extravaganzas that often lumber rather than waltz across the screen. MGM’s two Best Picture musical winners in the 1950s are entertaining enough – and certainly superior to such victors as Oliver! and The Great Ziegfeld – but they represent neither the finest of their respective years nor the movie musical genre itself. Read the rest here.

(Photo courtesy Warner Bros.)

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A whole bunch of movie and TV titles come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

88 Minutes

“The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet — Christmas with the Nelsons”

“Alvin and the Chipmunks” The Alvinnnn!!! Edition

An American in Paris — Two-disc special edition

Another Cinderella Story

The Babysitters

Beetlejuice — 20th anniversary deluxe edition

Blood Simple

The Busby Collection — Volume two

Charlie Chan Collection — Volume five

“Chuck” Season one (more…)

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This week, CL Charlotte film critic Matt Brunson reviews the Tina Fey comedy (mom-edy, perhaps?) Baby Mama, director Vadim Perelman’s The Life Before Her Eyes, Snow Angels and Young@Heart — all on DVD for the first time — as well as the second collection of the Fox Horror Classics.

BABY MAMA (2008). With Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler and other man-children routinely hoarding the screens in our nation’s multiplexes and living rooms, here come Tina Fey and Amy Poehler to remind audiences that girls just want to have fun. Indeed, the Cyndi Lauper hit of that name is granted its own karaoke-set scene, and its inclusion is fitting in a movie that’s similarly pointed, joyous, and light on its feet. This stars Fey as Kate Holbrook, a successful businesswoman who, upon finding out that she only has a one-in-a-million chance of getting pregnant, turns to an agency to provide her with a surrogate mom; she ends up getting Angie Ostrowiski (Poehler), who clearly resides several rungs down the social ladder. Read the rest here.

(The Life Before Her Eyes photo by Phillip Caruso. Courtesy Magnolia Pictures.)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

14 Women

“Alvin and the Chipmunks” — “Go to the Movies — Daytona Jones”

“Avril Lavigne: The Best Damn Tour — Live in Toronto”

Baby Einstein’s “Baby Beethoven” and “Baby Mozart”

Baby Mama

Barbie and the Diamond Castle

The Big Lebowski 10th Anniversary Edition

Brian Regan — The Epitome of Hyperbole

“CSI Miami” The Sixth Season

Child’s Play Chucky’s 20th Birthday Edition

Cool Hand Luke

Essential Art House, Vol. 1

The Fall

Fist of Legend

Foreign Exchange

Forbidden Kingdom

Fox Horror Classics Collection, Volume 2

“Grey’s Anatomy” The Complete Fourth Season

(more…)

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This week, CL Charlotte film critic Matt Brunson reviews the special edition release of the Coen brothers’ 1998 The Big Lebowski, as well as the French film Brotherhood of the Wolf, the two-disc edition of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas and more.

THE BIG LEBOWSKI (1998). Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski may be sloppy, repetitious and occasionally abrasive, but it’s also imaginative, sharp-witted and ofttimes very, very funny. Jeff Bridges plays Jeff Lebowski, an unkempt pothead who calls himself “The Dude.” An avid bowler – he spends his days knocking down pins with his buddies (John Goodman and Steve Buscemi) – The Dude finds his life turned upside down when a couple of thugs mistake him for L.A.’s other Jeff Lebowski: the incapacitated millionaire (David Huddleston) whose sexpot wife Bunny (Tara Reid) ends up getting kidnapped. Read the rest here.

(Photo courtesy Walt Disney Home Entertainment)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

Ballet Shoes

Before I Forget

“The Big Bang Theory” the Complete First Season

The Blue Elephant

Bratz Girlz Really Rock

“Cheers” Season 10

“Desperate Housewives” the Complete Fourth Season

“Eli Stone” the Complete First Season

Fist of Legend

Genghis Khan: To the Ends of the Earth and Sea

“Ghost Whisperer” the Third Season

“Honey West” the Complete Series

How to Rob a Bank (more…)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

August

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Chicago 10

“Entourage” the Complete Fourth Season

“Everyone Hates Chris” Season 3

“Heroes” the Complete Second Season

The Little Mermaid 3: Ariel’s Beginning

The Nightmare Before Christmas Two-Disc Collector’s Edition

“NCIS” the Fifth Season

“One Tree Hill” the Complete Fifth Season

Postal

The Presidents Collection

Redbelt

“The Shield” Season 6

Walker Payne

What Happens in Vegas

Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?

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This week, CL Charlotte film critic Matt Brunson reviews stoner comedy Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the Larry McMurtry classic Lonesome Dove, and British coming-of-age story Son of Rambow, which first caught our attention last spring at the Atlanta Film Festival.

HAROLD & KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY (2008). 2004’s Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle looks better with each passing year, but it’s pretty much guaranteed that Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay won’t be enjoying a similar critical ascension in the future. That’s largely because the satire is less subversive and more overt, meaning that what you see is basically what you get. Kal Penn and John Cho are again an engaging team, and here, the plot requires their characters to get mistaken for terrorists, leading to an interrogation by a moronic Homeland Security honcho (Rob Corddry) who decides to send them to Guantanamo Bay to enjoy a steady diet of “cock-meat sandwiches.” Read the rest here.

(Photo by Jaimie Trueblood/New Line Cinema)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

Affinity

An American Crime

“Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations” Collection 3

Camp Rock

Chronicle of an Escape

Dana Carvey – “Squatting Monkeys Tell no Lies”

Deal

“Dexter” Season Two

Fletch Collection

A Four Letter Word

“George of the Jungle” Swinging First Season

“Gossip Girl” The Complete First Season

Hannah Montana/Mylie Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour

“House, M.D.” Season Four

John Oliver – “Terrifying Times”

The Life Before her Eyes

“Married…with Children” The Complete Ninth Season

(more…)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

“Anthony Bourdain – No Reservations” Collection 3

“Beastmaster” the Complete Collection

The Counterfeiters

“Doctor Who” Episode 17, “The Time Meddler,” and Episode 121, “Black Orchard”

“Family Ties” the Fourth Season

The First Olympics – Athens 1896 — The DVD version of this TV movie couldn’t have come out at a better time, with this year’s summer Games starting on Friday.

Fortress — A re-release of the 1993 Stuart Gordon sci-fi film, complete with new slipcover.

“Get Smart” Season 1 — The complete first season of the classic comedy series that inspired this summer’s hit movie starring Steve Carell.

(more…)

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Here are some selected titles that come out on DVD today. For more, keep an eye out for Matt Brunson’s “View from the Couch” column tomorrow.

The Band’s Visit — The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra is stranded in a remote town in Israel and must find a place to stay the night and get acquainted with their neighbors.

“Beverly Hills 90210″ Season 5 — The DVD set comes out in just enough time to give you one last chance to scope out the old 90210 before the new version premiers on the CW Sept. 2.

“Centennial” the Complete Series

Dark City: Director’s Cut

Doomsday

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay — Also available on Blu-ray and two-disc special edition DVD.

“The Hills” Season 3 —More drama than you can shake a designer stick at.

Inglorious Bastards — Enzo G. Castellari’s original 1978 WWII film. Quentin Tarantino’s remake is set to come out June of next year.

Lost Boys: The Tribe — The direct-to-DVD sequel to 1987’s The Lost Boys.

Never Back Down — Djimon Hounsou stars in this Ultimate Fighting/martial arts movie.

Shine a Light — Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones rock doc
“Tiny Toon Adventures” Season 1, volume 1— Buster and Babs Bunny (no relation) are finally on DVD in the 1990s Steven Spielberg-produced cartoon series.

The Tyrone Power Matinee Idol Collection — With ten of the swashbuckling star’s best-loved films.

WarGames — The 25th anniversary release, nicely coinciding with last week’s one-night-only screening of the film in theaters nationwide.

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