New Blu-ray & DVD releases w/c March 14th 2011

DVDfever.co.uk – New Blu-ray & DVD releases – week commencing March 14th 2011

New Blu-ray & DVD releasesw/c March 14th 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.

• 71 – Into the Fire (£10.93 Blu-ray, £7.49 DVD, Cine-Asia)
• Altitude (£12.93 Blu-ray, £9.99 DVD, Anchor Bay)
• The Arbor (£12.93 Blu-ray, £7.49 DVD, Verve)
• Bellamy’s People (£12.99 DVD, BBC)
• The Beyond (£14.99 Blu-ray, £11.99 DVD, Arrow)
• Cars Toon: Mater’s Tall Tales/Cars (£12.99 DVD, Walt Disney)
• Confessions of a Dog (£8.99 DVD, Third Window)
• Five Centimetres Per Second (£8.99 DVD, Manga)
• Francis Rossi: Live From St Luke’s London (£13.93 Blu-ray, £10.93 DVD, Ear Music)
• Gasland (£8.99 DVD, Dogwoof)
• Jackass 3: The Explosive Extended Edition (£16.93 Blu-ray, £12.93 DVD, £17.93 DVD Boxset, Paramount)
• Justified Season 1 (£20.20 DVD, Sony)
• Legacy: Black Ops (£9.93 Blu-ray, £6.99 DVD, Revolver)
• Let Me In (£9.99 Blu-ray, £9.99 DVD, Icon)
• Man of Aran (Restored Edition) (£10.99 DVD, Park Circus)
• My Bloody Valentine (£15.93 Blu-ray 3D, £4.54 DVD, Lions Gate)
• The Sinking of Laconia (£9.93 DVD, Fremantle)
• Steven Seagal: Lawman Season 2 (£10.93 DVD, History)
• Terry Wogan’s Ireland (£11.99 DVD, BBC)
• This Is England ’86 (£15.93 Blu-ray, C4 DVD)

Jackass 3: The Explosive Extended Edition

Johnny Knoxville and his crew of fun-loving cohorts bring their routines to the big screen in this collection of the feature length adaptations of the popular MTV series Jackass. Whether it’s pummelling one another in their groins or throwing together half-cooked skits that employ everything from costumes, sets, wild animals, and most often, faeces, the boys are certainly on form in their distinctive brand of comedy.

In this stunning collection, containing the first four feature length versions of Jackass, series regulars Bam Margera, Ryan Dunn, Chris Pontius, Steve-O, Dave England, Jason Wee Man Acuna, Preston Lacy, Ehren McGhehey, and Brandon DiCamillo; Henry Rollins, Tony Hawk, and Spike Jonze are among the movie’s guest stars. If you miss a moment because you were covering your eyes, no worries – there are plenty of slow-mo recaps to fill you in on the horribly wonderful gags that you missed.

This is without doubt a series of films that does exactly what it sets out to do – deliver consistent laughs to an audience more than happy to eat it up. Jeff Tremaine directs the MTV Films/Paramount Pictures productions. This collection includes the title Jackass: The Movie, Jackass: Number Two, Jackass 2.5 and Jackass 3.

Jackass 3: The Explosive Extended Edition is released on Blu-ray (£16.93),DVD (£12.93) andComplete DVD Boxset (£17.93).

Let Me In

John Ajvide Lindqvist’s celebrated vampire novel makes the leap to the big screen once again with the second feature adaptation in so many years (Tomas Alfredson’s critically acclaimed 2008 hit LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, being the first). The sensitive target of vicious bullying at school, 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a social misfit from a broken home. By day Owen dreams about laying waste to his classroom tormentors; by night his attentions turn to his reclusive neighbours in their austere apartment complex.

One evening, as Owen takes out his pent-up aggressions on a tree, his new neighbour Abby (Chloe Grace Moretz – KICK-ASS) appears over his shoulder. A young girl wise beyond her years, Abby just moved in next door to Owen with her stoic caretaker (Richard Jenkins), who seems to harbour a sinister secret. Compelled by Abby’s apparent imperviousness to the harsh winter elements, her frail disposition, and the fact that she’s nowhere to be found before the sun falls, Owen senses a kindred soul, and strikes up a friendship with the girl, despite her repeated attempts to maintain an emotional distance.

Simultaneously, their community grows vigilant following a series of vicious murders, and Abby’s caretaker vanishes without a trace. Later, as Abby begins to grow vulnerable, her bond with Owen strengthens. By the time Owen begins to suspect that his evasive new friend is something other than human, it starts to seem as if Abby could use a good friend after all. Given that his bullies are growing more emboldened by the day, so too could Owen.

Let Me In is released on Blu-ray (£14.93) andDVD (£9.93).

The Beyond

A young woman from New York named Liza (Katherine MacColl) inherits a Louisiana motel that has been unoccupied for nearly 60 years. While restoring the old building, many of the workers meet mysterious and untimely deaths, each more ill-fated than the next. Furthermore, Liza is visited by a blind specter named Emily (Sarah Keller) who lectures from a 4,000-year-old book of collected prophecies that explains the motel is situated above one of seven portals to hell. As her sanity dwindles, Liza finds some much-needed stability in a local doctor named John McCabe (David Warbeck), who is determined to find a rational explanation for the recent state of affairs. Nevertheless, the protagonists are led through a maze of bizarre confrontations with beings beyond the realm of the living, and into an apocalyptic world of unknown horrors.

THE BEYOND is at once the quintessential Lucio Fulci film and a staple in the overall Italian horror genre. The director’s epic masterpiece is a blend of atmospheric surrealism and nightmarish visions (a grisly tarantula attack, flesh-melting acid spills, a softball-sized gun blast through the skull of a young zombified girl, and an eyeball impaling or two) that are definitely unsuitable for those with weak stomachs.

The Beyond is released on Blu-ray (£14.99) andDVD (£11.99).

My Bloody Valentine

Bloodthirsty fans of the classic slashers of yesteryear should be sated by MY BLOODY VALENTINE (2009), a gory trip that’s not just a remake but a retro-amalgam of the greatest hits from the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s. The HALLOWEEN-influenced, eerily Canadian 1981 original holds a modest place in many horror hearts despite its notoriously trimmed violence. But even those who haven’t seen it will get the feeling that this VALENTINE sports an amplified blood-and-guts factor, one that brings with it the distinctly outlandish brutality and hulking-masked-killer archetype of a FRIDAY THE 13th instalment combined with the polished chase scenes of post-SCREAM teen horror.

As if this gore-ucopia didn’t have enough spices already, its premise and structure are also indebted to such cheeky mystery-slashers as HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME and APRIL FOOL’S DAY. A decade after traumatized miner Harry Warden goes on a pickaxe massacre, guilt-stricken Tom (Jensen Ackles) returns to his quaint hometown only to find that a string of similar murders has started up. With Warden believed to be long dead, Sheriff Axel casts suspicion on Tom. It seems his old flame, Sarah, is the only one who truly believes he’s innocent.

The movie’s horror-expert filmmakers imbue VALENTINE with the reliably enjoyable entertainment-trumps-logic of slasher films, especially in the way everyone in town–including the police–seems way more interested in proving or disproving Harry Warden’s involvement than actually stopping the in-progress murder spree. Similarly, beloved genre vet Tom Atkins (NIGHT OF THE CREEPS) is on hand to deliver a coolly understated retired-cop performance. But peppered in are some nifty subliminal visual flourishes and at least one off-the-wall sequence (think fully naked, fleeing little people, and a box-spring-as-cage).

The 3-D version is uncommonly well-integrated, subjecting viewers not only to hair-raising projectiles, but an effective immersion into the mise-en-scene.

My Bloody Valentine is released on Blu-ray (£15.93) andDVD (£4.54).

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