[[image:090317_header.jpg:Blu-ray release | March 17, 2009:center:0]]
Media | A2Q Archives | A2Q on Twitter | A2Q #80| March 17, 2009
First thing’s first: Sorry, Twilight fans. While the DVD is coming out this week, the Blu-ray won’t be on shelves until May. One the one hand, I’m kind of bothered that a major release isn’t coming to BD day-and-date with its DVD counterpart, as I thought we were beyond that at this point in BD’s life-cycle. On the other hand, it’s Twilight.
If you happen to be a Twilight fan, I am sorry, but might I suggest a vastly superior romantic fantasy that arrives on BD this week? The Princess Bride is the best of the fantasy-themed movies that seemed to be prevalent in the 1980s. Legend, Neverending Story, and Labyrinth are all fine movies, but Princess Bride is a cut above. Even people who don’t think they are fans of the movie are probably quoting lines from some of its famous dialog without even realizing it. (“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”) I won’t quote all of my favorite lines from the movie, as we’d be here for a while, so I’ll just gently nudge you into rewatching this gem at your earliest opportunity, preferably snuggled up to someone you care about.
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Punisher is kind of a low-rent character, and the reboot/sequel Punisher: Warzone doesn’t try to make him something he isn’t. The Punisher in this movie barely speaks, letting his actions do the talking. And when I say actions, I mean deliriously over-the-top murder-sprees with gore straight out of a direct-to-video 1980s action movie. Ray Stevenson (of HBO’s late, lamented Rome) and Wayne Knight (Newman from Seinfeld) are well cast as the Punisher and Microchip, respectively, but the two main villains are terrible. While Stevenson and Knight play it mostly straight, the guys playing the villains seem to be trying to out-camp each other at every opportunity. Overall, the movie isn’t very good, but I still had a good time laughing at the extravagant execution scenes when the paper-thin story wasn’t getting in the way.
Thanks for reading Add to Queue, GameSpite’s weekly round-up of US Blu-ray release highlights. Sorry, rest of the world; region locks are the industry’s way of saying they still don’t understand the Internet. You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is never get involved in a land war in Asia, but only slightly less well-known is this: never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha h– Cover art courtesy of Amazon. Follow Levi Tinney on Twitter, or add him to your PSN or XBL friends list: VsRobot. You can also contact him via e-mail via levivsrobot [at] gmail [dot] com.
Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist.
As you wiiiiiiish!
Well, you saved me the trouble of writing up how everyone should see Punisher: War Zone, because – while technically not a good movie – it was the most fun I had in a theatre last year. The only thing you left out was McGinty and his urban freeflow gang.
Also, I saw The Princess Bride for the first time like 6 months ago, and despite impossibly high hype set by everyone else in the world, it exceeded it no problem.
My wife gets all swoony about Carey Elwes because of this movie.
The funny thing about Twilight’s Blu Ray conversion being shafted in favor of Twilight’s is that the woman who wrote Twilight apparently thinks that The Princess Bride is a horrible story with a weak female lead. There’s irony in this, and I love it.
The parkour destruction Punisher Warzone is one of the all time best kills in movies, an excellent jab at a modern action movie trend. I like it a ton.
“the woman who wrote Twilight apparently thinks that The Princess Bride is a horrible story with a weak female lead”
I do not think those words mean what she thinks they mean.
Uhhhh, buttercup is a ridiculously weak female lead. The only thing she does is wait to be rescued. Also, she agrese to marry the prince if Westley will go free, and is the only character in the scene dense enough to take Humperdink at his word. It’s because she’s not a man of action, and lies become her. I love me some PB, but certainly not for its strong portrayal of women.
That may be a fair appraisal, but the female protagonist of the Twilight books makes Buttercup look like Gloria Steinem. Or something like that.
You know, this is one of the first BluRay re-releases I’m feeling seriously tempted by. Someone edify me on how much better a movie this old looks on BluRay vs. DVD. (Or if the answer is, “it all depends on the particular movie’s transfer”, someone buy Princess Bride BD and report back on how good it looks. Thanks.)
It…all depends on the movie’s transfer. I have 40-year-old Bond flicks that look amazing on BD, while the region 2 release of The Goonies is a pile of crap that looks like it was just dumped onto BD straight from Laserdisc or something.
Seeing “Quo Vadis” and “The Robe” squeezed between Punisher and Van Wilder: Whatever makes for quite the juxtaposition.
(I’ve only seen the two wholesome movies in the middle because I had a lazy Latin teacher in high school.)
Vaterite:
Buttercup attempts to escape her initial kidnappers by jumping off the boat, and only allows herself to be pulled back in when she’s shown that death is certain if she attempts to escape that way.
She defies the “Dread Pirate Roberts,” reputed to be a first-class villain and murderer, and *pushes him down a hill*, realizing that he is Westley only moments later. Had she not realized this, she would have had a perfect opening for a successful escape, with no outside assistance at all.
She follows Westley without hesitation into the fire swamp, which is known to be fatal to all who enter.
She agrees to marry Humperdink in order to save Westley’s life, not because she’s a nitwit, but because she has no other means available to her. She threatens to kill herself to let him know that she means business.
She is “weak” only in the sense that she does not fight or confront her foes by more direct means. But within the confines of her situation, she is brave and displays a great strength of character. She is only weak if you are working with a very narrow definition of strength.
The only bad thing about The Princess Bride is that it’s so totally eclipsed the original novel, which is even better, in the popular mind. [Stephen King apparently believes that Goldman is (or was, as of 1985 or so) the only author/screenwriter to ever really successfully adapt his own book.]