DVD Spin Doctor

'Shrek 3' DVD on menu for Thanksgiving

The not-so-jolly green giant makes his return to home video Nov. 13, DreamWorks Animation and Paramount Home Entertainment confirmed today.

"Shrek the Third" stomps in for the holidays on HD DVD and DVD. (This brings no joy to the Blu-ray kingdom; Paramount, as you recall, dropped Blu-ray.)

The HD DVD comes with Dolby Digital Plus Audio. The standard def discs come in widescreen (enhanced for 16x9) and in full screen (for those who must). Audio is your basic Dolby Digital 5.1.

DreamWords' video unit always treated "Shrek" like royalty. The first "Shrek" DVD was a state of the art at the time, bursting with exclusive content such as a terrific made-for-DVD musical number.

For the third DVD we have "the Donkey Dance" with comic step-by-step instructions; "Shrek's Guide to Parenthood"; "Big Green Goofs"; and Shrek and Donkey's "How to Be Green" environmental tips.

HD DVD-only interactives include "The Animators’ Corner" (storyboards); "Lost Scenes"; "The World of Shrek" guide to characters and the actors who voice them; "My Menus"; the pop-up "Shrek’s Trivia Track; and "Donkey’s Digital Coloring Book," which lets kids digitally paint scenes.

Reviews were respectful but mixed for this "Shrek" outing. But hey, who cares once the turkey's down to bones and the movie begins ...

Continuing the good olde time theme, MGM announced today The Princess Bride: 20th Anniversary Edition. The Rob Reiner comedy classic comes with "The Official Princess Bride DVD Game," which looks like a graphic novel; and a trio of new featurettes -- "Princess Bride: The Untold Tales," "The Art of Fencing" and "Fairytales and Folklore."

Another fun activity: figure out how many "Princess" DVD editions this makes. Versions for girls ("Buttercup") and boys ("Pirate") came out just last year, so this one looks like a ride-along for "Shrek 3."

The smart, fun and rousing live-action tale stars Robin Wright Penn, Cary Elwes, Andre the Giant and Billy Crystal. I'd watch it over "Shrek 3" every time. Is there a "Geezer" edition yet?

New DVDs: 'Knocked Up' is a keeper

Pick of the week: Knocked Up
Dog of the week: Dog the Bounty Hunter: The Arrest

In "Knocked Up," Judd Apatow deftly married the stoned-lovable-loser movie to old-school romantic comedy. Moviegoers fell hard for the year's best date movie. Reviews were great; word of mouth sold a GDP-sized fortune in tickets for Universal Pictures.

The Seth Rogen-Katherine Heigl comedy should register as one of the year's biggest home videos. Apatow's sassy script and the rapid-fire obscure pop-culture references make repeat viewings mandatory.

Then there's the star-making performance of "Grey's Anatomy" actress Heigl, an utter delight. (What if Bacall and Hepburn got to swear up a storm?)

A lot of couples will enjoy hitting pause for some back-and-forth over the sexual politics and moral pop quizzes at the heart of the film.

The HD DVDlooks like a studio film done right; images are crisp and clear. The audio stays mostly front and center, good for the many choice songs on the soundtrack.

Also: Stoned lovable losers should check out the U.K. sick flick "Broken," well acted and made for nothing; Lamberto Bava's fun "Demons"; and William Friedkin's horror comeback "Bug."

New and notable:
As You Like It (HBO Video)
Babel Special Collector's Edition (Paramount)
Broken (Dimension Extreme)
Bug (Lionsgate)
Cracker: A New Terror (Acorn Media)
Demons 1 & 2 (Anchor Bay Entertainment)
Elvira's Movie Macabre (Shout! Factory)
Evening (Universal)
Frostbitten (Genius Products)
Home Run Derby, Vol. 3 (MGM)
The King of Queens 9 (Sony)
Knocked Up (Universal)
Mickey Rooney & Judy Garland Collection (Warner)
My Name Is Earl 2 (Fox)
Next (Paramount)
Roger Corman Collection: The Intruder, Eat My Dust (Buena Vista)
Tekkonkinkreet (Sony)
The TV Set (Fox)
Twisted Terror Collection (Warner)

Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org

Time to party with 'Wild Women of Wongo'

Labor Day over, the Dog Days a fond memory, our lunchbucket pals on the Film Crew straggled back to work, busting on the worst in "movie" making.

This time, it's a mud-wrestling death match with the all-awful "Wild Women of Wongo."

Let's make the plot description mercifully brief. Beautiful women live on a tropical unisex island -- the only males being scuzzy ape-like beings on the other coast. Hunks from the mists of the south float ashore, ready for fun. The ape-scuz take exception.

Awful movie humor works beautifully with, say, "Plan 9 From Outer Space." That Ed Wood classic is bad, but good for easy laughs. This time, the Film Crew -- you, know, the guys from "Mystery Science Theater 3000," minus wisecracking robots -- must find a way to make some toxic waste from the year 1958 sit up and sing. Good luck, men, we'll be cowering offshore. Send up a Wongo flare when it's over.

For braver souls, DVD Spin Doctor and our friends at Shout! Factory are giving away a few safety-sealed copies of "The Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo."

Just sign up for this DVD blog's email feed. Earliest signups get the, uh, goods. No spam or ape-scuz monkey business -- just the day's DVD Spin Doctor editorial content. Same as the RSS. Be sure to activate the email when the confirmation notice comes. Days later, "Wild Women" will be at your door. Sorry, no returns accepted.

Beatles DVD news: 'Help!' finally on the way

"Help!" clearly was in need of help. It's been a long decade since MPI released its DVD version of the Beatles' second movie. That disc has long since been out of print, with copies going for about $100 as Amazon collectibles. The movie remained in limbo because of the usual Fab Four "rights issues," as with "Let It Be."

Now we have got another DVD.

Apple Corps. and EMI are rereleasing "Help!" on Oct. 30 Nov. 6 in a restored version with a new 5.1 remix of the soundtrack.

Must have been a Fab Four vibe out there; this DVD blog ran a look back at the "A Hard Day's Night" DVD just last week.

Here are the "Help!" extras listed in the Apple Corps. press release.

• "The Beatles in Help!": 30-minute documentary about the making of the film with director Richard Lester, the cast and crew. Includes exclusive behind the scenes footage of the Beatles on set.
• Missing scene with Wendy Richard (of "EastEnders" fame).
• "The Restoration of Help!": An in-depth look at the restoration process.
• "Memories of Help!": The cast and crew reminisce.
• Theatrical trailers: Two from the U.S. and one from Spain.
• 1965 U.S. radio spots (Easter eggs in menus)

In addition to the double-disc edition there's a "Help!" deluxe edition with a reproduction of Lester’s original annotated script, reproductions of eight lobby cards and a poster, plus a 60-page book with "rarely seen photographs" and production notes from the movie.

Both the deluxe book and the standard booklet have an introduction by Lester ("A Hard Day's Night") and an appreciation by Martin Scorsese.

"Help!" wasn't in the same league with "A Hard Day's Night," but I always loved it anyway. The Fabs have a lark with the idiotic secret agent-era plot and there are some great bits of surrealism involving John Lennon (of course). The musical numbers always played better for me in this movie, in color and with better sound.

Have a look back at the "Help!" trailer.

Preorder "Help!" now at Amazon.

Top DVDs: 'Blades of Glory' looking sharp

Will Ferrell's skating-competition goof "Blades of Glory" iced the top spot on the DVD sales and rental charts for the week ended Sept. 2.

"Wild Hogs," which ruled the charts for two weeks, downshifted to a distant second in rentals and third in sales.

Newcomer "Heroes," the hit NBC show, raced into the No. 2 spot in sales. Universal Studios' ambitious packaging of the title in HD DVD paid off in that format with a No. 1 showing.

"300" kept its top 5 streak alive in sales (No. 4) but was MIA on the late-fee chart.

Sales (week ending Sept. 2)
1. Blades of Glory (Paramount)
2. Heroes (Universal)
3. Wild Hogs (Buena Vista)
4. 300 (Warner)
5. Perfect Stranger (Sony)

Rentals (week ending Sept. 2)
1. Blades of Glory
2. Wild Hogs
3. Perfect Stranger
4. Vacancy (Sony)
5. Fracture (New Line)

Thomas K. Arnold has the story over on The Reporter's site.

New DVDs: 'Up in Smoke,' 2 from Jarmusch

Pick of the week: Up In Smoke
Dog of the week: Delta Farce
The drug humor genre had a short spacey run in the 1970s -- better to burn out than to fade away, it seems. Only one act managed to mainstream the running gag of dopes with dope: Cheech & Chong.

The Vancouver comedy act found fame in 1972 with their first two comedy albums, produced by rock czar Lou Adler. Six years later came their film "Up in Smoke," which re-created many of the duo's longtime comedy-club bits. A few decent C&C movies followed, but none topped the original.

Perhaps marking 30 years of toking and joking, Paramount Home Entertainment this week revived "Cheech and Chong's Up In Smoke" with the "High-Larious Edition" DVD.

How does the movie's decades-old drug humor translate to our new century? One DVD critic just noted: "It just doesn't fly while watching sober." Perhaps so. Hell, even the original marketing campaign urged: "Don't watch this movie while straight!"

In the interests of science, I tested "Up in Smoke" in both states of mind -- straight and stoned. No sacrifice being too great for this DVD blog. (The neighborhood punk kid left a joint behind while tagging the garage wall, that's how.)

I gave Straight a head start, watching the first half in my usual Diet Pepsi-fueled state. Then came Stoned for the last half.

Let's go to the clipboard. The results:

Straight: Freaking hilarious.
Stoned: Freaking hilarious.

Slight statistical differences did not affect the outcome of the study, man.

The old DVD of "Up in Smoke" was what you'd expect -- the movie duly presented plus a commentary with Cheech Marin and Adler, plus a handful of deleted scenes.

This time, Paramount fills the DVD bong with a terrific new animated music video for the movie's "Alice Bowie" song; a new featurette with Adler and Cheech & Chong (separately) talking about the movie; a high-speed montage of every instance someone says "man" in the movie; and some newly animated 1970s radio promos -- all presented in the high spirits of the film.

The old commentary and new featurette tell some great tales about the movie and the people who worked on it, such as Stacey Keach, Tom Skerritt, Harry Dean Stanton, Edie Adams and one-man test audience Jack Nicholson.

The widescreen DVD images look great, especially upconverted, with lots of bright, saturated primary colors that come across as reasonably natural. The music benefits from some tasty stereo separation and the dialogue is clear -- even when the boys are good and zonked.

A natural but equally loopy high can be obtained from a pair of Jim Jarmusch titles on Criterion, "Night on Earth" and "Stranger Than Paradise." I'll be checking out the label's rerelease of "Paradise," a road movie built around the spooky old Screamin' Jay Hawkins number "I Put a Spell On You." Far out.

New and notable:
Bobby Z (Sony)
The City of Violence (Dragon Dynasty)
Desperate Housewives 3 (Disney)
Georgia Rule (Universal)
Gumby Essentials (Classic Media/Genius)
I Dream of Jeannie 4 (Sony)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Fox)
Night on Earth (Criterion)
Stranger Than Paradise (Criterion)
Nip/Tuck 4 (Warner)
The Office 3 (Universal)
Resident Evil Double Feature (Sony)
Robot Chicken Season 2 (Warner)
30 Rock (Universal)
Up in Smoke High-Larious Edition (Paramount)
Wind Chill (Sony)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Genius Products)

Complete list of today's releases on my pal Harley's site, onvideo.org