Blu Rays for 02/17/09 Previewed Briefly By Blue

* Body of Lies (Warner) - Ridley Scott directs a Tony Scott movie. That's usually fairly bad news, as when he did GI Jane. Russell Crowe is interesting, as is DiCaprio, but this looks generic as hell.

* Capote (2005) / In Cold Blood (Two-Pack) (Sony) - One is a good movie, the other is an outright classic. Dunno if you can get In Cold Blood separately, but it should look pretty spectacular on blu ray. Rightly considered one of the best achievements in cinematography.

* Changeling (2008) (Universal) - Starring Angelina Jolie and her funny hat. Melodrama from Clint Eastwood, it sounds like he's on autopilot on this one. Pre 1950 Hollywood is hard to dramatize well, only really Chinatown and LA Confidential did it well.

* Gandhi (Sony) - This Gandhi guy, I don't get it. So what if he starved himself to make political points. YAWN! Just kidding. Ben Kingsley's signature role. If only they'd shot Weird Al's planned sequel.

* High School Musical 1-3 (Box Set) (Walt Disney) - The perfect gift for anyone you hate in your life.

* High School Musical 3 (Walt Disney) - Go away.

* High School Musical: Remix (Walt Disney) - Die.

* How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (MGM) - This movie is probably about someone buying and giving away copies of the High School Musical box set.

* Kramer vs. Kramer (Sony) - Dustin Hoffman vs Meryl Streep in a knockdown, drag-out, battle for the ages! Nah just kidding they just play a married couple that get a divorce. One of those "real life" dramas that BORE THE LIVING FUCK OUT OF ME. Though in fairness I haven't seen this since I was like 5.

* The Midnight Meat Train (Lionsgate) - No, not gay porn. This is an adaptation of one Cliver Barker's Books of Blood short stories. It's fairly faithful, with some story padding to make it feature length. Kind of generic all in all. I was lucky to see it in the theater because Lionsgate buried it's release. Rental, at the most.

* One Long Night (Vivendi Visual) - Dunno what this, not interested in looking it up.

* The Passion of the Christ (Definitive Edition) (Fox) - Catholics and Christians in general annoy the hell out of me, and this movie is a good example why. See, Scorsese made a BRILLIANT movie about Jesus on the cross 20 years ago called The Last Temptation of Christ. In that movie, Jesus has doubts about whether he is the son of God, which apparantly is the worst thing ever to Christians. So in right wing The Passion of the Christ, Jesus goes through lots of horrific punishment and torture stoically, content in his sure knowledge that he's the son of God and that he's sacrificing for the sake of humanity. But the thing is, if you know 100% positively you're the son of God and you're going to heaven for sure, etc, where is the sacrifice in that? I far prefer Scorsese's version, where Jesus is not sure and sacrifices himself anyway. Because that actually IS a sacrifice, it actually requires him giving something up.

* Quarantine (Sony) - American remake of [Rec] which is sadly unreleased here still. It would've been nice to see that as a supplement on this blu ray, but no go. Rental.