New Blu-ray & DVD releases w/c March 21st 2011

DVDfever.co.uk – New Blu-ray & DVD releases – week commencing March 21st 2011

New Blu-ray & DVD releasesw/c March 21st 2011

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Once again, we look at a few titles in more detail which are due out next week. The prices listed are the currentprices on Amazon.

• Butterflies: The Complete Collection (£35.93 DVD, BBC)
• Charlie Wilson’s War (£12.59 Blu-ray, Universal)
• Christopher And His Kind (£11.99 DVD, ITV)
• Dallas Season 14 (£14.99 DVD, Warner)
• Ghost Whisperer Season 5 (£23.19 DVD, Walt Disney)
• Husk (£13.99 Blu-ray, G2)
• The Kids Are All Right (£15.93 Blu-ray, £12.93 DVD, Universal)
• London Boulevard (£13.99 Blu-ray, £10.93 DVD, EIV)
• The Other Boleyn Girl (£12.59 Blu-ray, Universal)
• Out of Sight (£9.93 Blu-ray, Universal)
• Private Practice Season 3 (£16.93 DVD, Buena Vista)
• Ray (£13.99 Blu-ray, Universal)
• Skins Series 5 (£13.97 DVD, £47.99 DVD, C4 DVD)
• Skyline (£14.93 Blu-ray, £11.93 DVD, Momentum)
• Sleepers (£9.93 Blu-ray, Universal)
• The Tudors Season 4 (£29.99 Blu-ray, £17.99 DVD, £43.99 Complete DVD, Sony)
• The Universe: 7 Wonders of the Solar System in 3D (£9.99 Blu-ray, History)
• The Universe Season 5 (£12.99 Blu-ray/3D, £10.93 DVD, History)
• We Are What We Are (£12.93 Blu-ray, £9.99 DVD, Chelsea Cinema)

The Tudors Season 4

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Henry Cavill, and special guest Joely Richardson star in the thrilling final season of The Tudors, the epic drama about the life, loves, and lusts of England’s most notorious King.

King Henry VIII marries his fifth wife, seventeen-year-old Catherine Howard, a mischievous beauty who ignites the passion of both the King and his chamber groom, setting up a deadly love triangle. Spun into a midlife crisis, Henry remarries and embarks on a war with France to capture Boulogne and symbolically recapture his youth. At home, the battle between Catholics and Protestants escalates when Henry’s beloved sixth wife is charged with heresy. Now Henry, in his growing madness, must determine her fate while securing the legacy of his magnificent reign.

Loaded with never-before-seen extras that gives you special access to the sexy, lavish world of The Tudors. Including the in-depth featurettes:

• Illicit Affairs: Secret Romance in Henry’s Court
• The Tudors After Henry: The Royal Children of Henry VIII
• Farewell to the King: Michael Hirst on The Tudors finale

The Tudors Season 4 is released on Blu-ray (£29.99),DVD (£17.99) andComplete DVD Boxset (£43.99).

The Kids Are All Right

If the relationships that anchor Lisa Cholodenko’s warmly funny films appear unconventional, their problems–their pleasures–remain universal. In The Kids Are All Right (no relation to the Who documentary), she takes on a suburban Los Angeles family with two teens, Joni (Alice in Wonderland’s Mia Wasikowska) and the unfortunately named Laser (Josh Hutcherson, The Bridge to Terabithia), and two mothers, Nic (Annette Bening) and Jules (an atypically relaxed Julianne Moore), who conceived via artificial insemination. Now that she’s heading off to college, Laser urges 18-year-old Joni to seek out their birth father, who lives in the area (her name comes from folksinger Mitchell).

Though she hits it off with Paul (Mark Ruffalo, effortlessly charming), a motorcycle-riding restaurant owner, Laser has his doubts (troublingly, the 15-year-old’s best friend uses “faggot” as an all-purpose epithet). After they introduce Paul to their parents, allegiances start to shift. While Nic, a doctor, serves as breadwinner (and disciplinarian), Jules, a homemaker-turned-landscape artist, provides the nurturing. Paul, on the other hand, lives free from attachments, inciting both curiosity and suspicion. Furthermore, Jules finds him strangely irresistible, which only expands the fissures in her loving, yet unstable union. As with Laurel Canyon, Cholodenko doesn’t just create fully rounded characters, but entire communities.

In the end, Kids isn’t about children vs. adults as much as the family unit vs. the singular outsider. Though the story concludes on a relatively happy note, it’s clear where her allegiances lie.

Special Features: Feature commentary with director/co writer Lisa Cholodenko, The Journey to Forming a Family, The Writers Process and The Making of The Kids Are All Right

The Kids Are All Right is released on Blu-ray (£15.93) andDVD (£12.93).

Skins Series 5

Channel 4’s critically-acclaimed drama follows the angst-ridden lives of its teenage characters, as they grapple with issues of race, religion, sexuality, drugs, and eating disorders. Skins’ portrayal of these characters as poster children of the hedonistic lifestyle is unflinching in its candour. The first two series established the characters of Tony, Maxxie, Sid, Michelle, Cassie, Anwar, Jal and Chris. As well as introducing us to Bristol’s Roundview College; their home away from home.

The third series saw a new cast enrol at Roundview; JJ, Naomi, Emily, Katie, James, Effy, Freddie, Pandora and Thomas. Then in 2011, Franky, Mini, Liv, Grace, Alo, Rich, Nick, and Matty became the third generation of Skins sixth formers. So expect plenty of bitching, backstabbing, and general angst-ridden behaviour in this, the complete first to fifth series.

Special features include:

• Video diaries
• Director’s cut trailer
• Series One Trailers
• Music video: ‘Standing in the Way of Control’ by Gossip
• Behind the scenes – including interviews with cast and crew
• Daniel’s Story: writer, Daniel Kaluuya’s story of working on Skins
• Skins in NYC
• Maxxie’s Dance: behind the scenes
• Skins Secret Party and behind the scenes
• Five bonus Skins stories: Cassandra/Christmas With Skins/Audition Day/Tony and Sid/Maxxie’s Love Life
• Series Two Trailer
• Backstage tour
• Skins Series 3 Auditions: featurette
• ‘Unseen SKINS’: extra
• ‘Welcome To Roundview’: extra
• ‘The Pact’: extra
• ‘Wurst Case Scenario’: extra
• ‘Search For A Sexbomb’: extra
• Series Three Trailers
• Making the Series Three Promo Shoot: featurette
• Bonus Series Four Stories
• Animated feature
• Commentaries with the writers and directors

Skins Series 5 is released on DVD (£13.97) andDVD Boxset (£47.99).

Skyline

Skyline, an effects-laden thriller from directors Colin and Greg Strause, wears its various influences–films like Alien, District 9, Independence Day, and War of the Worlds–on its sleeve, but even if it doesn’t measure up to those predecessors, the film offers enough thrills and action to keep sci-fi fans interested. The Brothers Strause, as they call themselves, have done visual-effects work on blockbusters like Avatar, Titanic, and 300, and the effects are by far the best part of this tale (scripted by Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell) about an armada of giant spaceships that suddenly appear in the skies over Los Angeles and immediately set about their business–namely, shooting down immense blue columns of light that hoover every human in sight up into the ships, where aliens will do nasty things to them.

Observing this horror from a posh Marina Del Rey penthouse are a group of gorgeous, strikingly solipsistic young people in skimpy clothes, including Jarrod and Elaine (Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson), a couple visiting from New York. A few action sequences find them trying to escape (bad idea, as the mother ships disgorge an endless supply of smaller, tentacled craft and troops of gross, city-stomping monsters to seek and destroy any luckless fool they encounter). But for the most part they huddle inside, watching the action, screaming hysterically, and uttering dialogue that’s either cliché ridden (“What are those things?” “Does it even matter?!”) or merely inane (mid-attack, Elaine, who’s just learned that she’s pregnant, complains when someone lights up a cigarette; you’d think she’d have more pressing concerns).

And therein lies the problem, as some cool images and jolting moments are mitigated by Skyline’s lame script and below-average acting.

Skyline is released on Blu-ray (£14.93) andDVD (£11.93).

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