DVD Spin Doctor

'Star Trek' Blu-ray, DVD star date: Nov. 17

J.J. Abrams' enormously entertaining prequel to the world of "Star Trek" arrives on Blu-ray and DVD on Nov. 17, in time for the Thanksgiving holiday.

"Star Trek" beams down in three versions: a triple-disc Blu-ray with digital copy, a two-disc DVD with the copy and a single-disc DVD.

Abrams, who does a feature-length commentary on all three editions, singled out the Blu-ray as the mothership of this title: "The behind-the-scenes features on the DVD -- and especially the Blu-ray -- give a wonderful look at the crazy hard work and incredible fun that went into making this movie,” he said in Paramount Home Entertainment's canned quote.

 The Blu-ray and DVD share some core extra features:

• A New Vision: About Abrams' take on the sci-fi series and his efforts to make the prequel "feel real."
• To Boldly Go: The director, writers and producers talk about the challenges of stepping into the closely watched franchise.
• Casting: About the search for look-alikes who could handle the acting and capture "the essence of these mythic characters."
• Aliens: Designers Neville Page and Joel Harlow talk about their new species and the reimagining of the Vulcans and Romulans.
• Deleted scenes: Includes "Spock birth," "Klingons take over Narada" and "Prison Interrogation and breakout." Optional commentary.
• Trial games for Xbox 360, PC and PlayStation Net.

The three-disc Blu-ray version of "Star Trek" adds branching "pods" to the featurettes, providing extra content triggered by the viewer. Extra features exclusive to the Blu-ray include:

• NASA news: A BD-Live link to the space agency's latest announcements.
• Starships: Director Abrams and production designer Scott Chambliss go over their new designs for the older vessels.
• Planets: Abrams wanted to shoot on real locations whenever possible ... including the new worlds. Where they went to find these extreme environments.
• Gene Roddenberry's Vision: Leonard Nimoy joins Abrams for a discussion of the "Star Trek" creator's world.
• Starfleet Vessel Simulator: One of those interactive 360-degree breakdowns.

I was never all that big on "Star Trek" in any form, although revisiting the original TV series with the new special effects (DVD, Blu-ray) has been a treat. (I was more of a "The Prisoner" young man.) The series' movies ranged from OK to dreadful.

Abrams' modestly named "Star Trek" movie is another animal, a perfect example of a 21st century popcorn movie. It is this year's "The Dark Knight."

 The expansion of the Oscars' best picture race to 10 contenders no doubt will open the doors for medium-brow films, and "Star Trek" will be right there come March.

Top 10 time-travel movies clock in

Everyone loves time-travel movies. Funny thing, though -- in a half-century of trying, no filmmaker has topped George Pal's version of "The Time Machine," the H.G. Wells adventure.

 One of these days a time-travel masterpiece on the level of "2001" will emerge, but it hasn't happened yet. Not for lack of trying.

The latest and splashiest in the genre, "Terminator Salvation," transports us to an apocalyptic 2018, building on three films in which the heroes and villains did the time warp while trying to make each other history. I'm partial to the first one, in which time travel isn't taken for granted; It blows the mind of young waitress Sarah Connor, a legend in someone else's time.

One of the smartest films I've seen in the genre is "Timecrimes," a film fest favorite from Spain that's just out on DVD. Like the hit "Groundhog Day," it deals with time travel on a small scale -- not even a day passes. The 2007 film's budget wasn't much. There are no special effects or splashy concepts. Director Nacho Vigalondo doesn't seem to need them.

A well-off suburbanite, Hector, witnesses some odd events in the woods. He rushes off to investigate and finds a naked woman, dead. Hector's soon been stabbed by a frantic man with ghastly pink bandages covering his head, like a mummy.

Hector seeks help in a rural lab, where a slacker scientist is doing temporal experiments on the cheap, Hector is convinced to hide in a clunky time machine, which transports him back an hour. Thus begins a comically sinister loop that plays like a "Memento"-style puzzle. 

United Artists has American rights for a remake. (The Magnolia single-disc DVD includes a making-of docu and a couple of featurettes.)

"Timecrimes" makes this top 10 of time-travel movies, starting with the best but then in no particular order.

1. The Time Machine (1960) -- George Pal's adaptation of the H.G. Wells novella won an Oscar for its special effects, which remain special today. Rod Taylor plays the Victorian scientist whose comfy machine transports him to a future where humans are cattle and Morlocks are hungry. A definitive take on Wells.

2. Back to the Future (1985) -- The boxoffice smash and 1980s pop touchstone made big fun out of what-if science. Michael J. Fox wings it back to 1955 in a DeLorean souped by up mad scientist Christopher Lloyd. The movie still plays great, even if Universal had to junk the ride.

3. La Jetee -- Chris Marker's 1966 time-travel pic proved wildly influential, most notably spawning Terry Gilliam's "12 Monkeys." Marker's film was a series of black and white photographs that scrolled by to odd ominous narration. The hero is sent back in time to prevent the apocalyptic present, but he really just wants the mysterious girl. Time travel as a real trip. Essential.

4. The Terminator (1984) -- "T2" was a better movie, but the time-travel concept was fresh and at its most compelling in the first of the machine vs. humans movies. Linda Hamilton stars with robo-governor.

5. Army of Darkness (1992) -- The terrific final gag of "Evil Dead 2" leads to comic misadventures in the 13th century. Walmart guy Ash (Bruce Campbell) has a chainsaw and a shotgun with which to fend off the legions of the undead. No problem, man.

6. Time Bandits (1981) -- Terry Gilliam again. Smart sad kid ends up crawling in and out time portals with a bunch of dwarfs. They encounter Robin Hood and Napolean, and take a wee cruise on the Titanic.

7. Timecrimes (see intro)

8. Sleeper (1973) -- Health food nerd Woody Allen wakes up in 2174, freshly defrosted in order to help radicals in their fight against Big Brother. Step this way into the orgasmatron. One of those "early, funnier" Allen movies with Diane Keaton.

9. Time After Time -- H.G. Wells again, but this time the fantasy writer ends up in 1970s San Francisco chasing his pal Jack the Ripper. Fun, romantic movie featuring Malcolm McDowell and his soon-to-be-wife Mary Steenburgen, in only her second screen role.

10. Groundhog Day (1993) -- Bill Murray the weatherman gets to live the same day over and over, until he gets it right. Hasn't lost any of its loopy charm.

And, The Man from Earth (2007) -- Not technically a time-travel movie, but a fine offshoot. A professor who may or may not be 14,000 years old tells his story to a stunned roomful of colleagues. Is the guy an immortal -- or just bogarting the resveratrol? By turns annoying and brilliant, this was the final project from sci-fi screenwriter Jerome Bixby. 

Blu-ray reviews: 'Serenity,' 'Firefly'

"Serenity" and "Firefly" soar anew on Blu-ray, giving Josh Whedon's science fiction adventure yet another spiffy sendoff.

The two high-def releases offer yet another opportunity to mourn the "Firefly" series -- and to wonder what the hell the Fox TV network was thinking when it abruptly canceled the show back in the 2002-03 season. (How'd you like that decision on your resume?) 

For a failure, this show sure has a way of hanging around.

"Firefly," mostly a space-adventure serial and partly a western, was created by Whedon, the writer-director of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" fame. "Firefly" ran for 11 hourlong episodes, although 14 exist on DVD/Blu-ray. The show is named for a class of spaceships that look like the bug. 

"Serenity" is the feature film made by Whedon and Universal two years after the show was canceled. The movie is named after the well-worn Firefly spaceship that the seven heroes inhabit as they wander about the human race's new galaxy, smuggling cows and dodging the evil Alliance.

The movie retains the same excellent ensemble cast, a bunch of unknowns at the time except for Adam Baldwin ("Full Metal Jacket") and Ron Glass ("Barney Miller"). The star (loosely speaking) was Canadian actor Nathan Fillion, whose subsequent credits include "Halo 3" and "Desperate Housewives." A cross between Harrison Ford and Bruce Campbell. "He's a hair actor," Whedon says with a grin. 

"Serenity" picks up where the TV series left off, concludes its major story arc, and ends with the death of a key character. 

Why a mix of science fiction and western genres? Whedon found inspiration in "The Killer Angels," the civil war book. "This made me think of the Millennium Falcon (from 'Star Wars')," he recalls. "Because most things do." The Firefly captain and his gunslinger sidekick (Gina Torres) were on the losing side of a nasty civil war. 

"Firefly" apparently was conceived with a seven-year framework. Whedon says in the "Firefly" extras that he doubts he could reassemble the cast. For example, Summer Glau (pictured), who played the teen with mysterious and dangerous powers, has gone on to kick ass in "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles."

Watching this series -- from the TV pilot through the climax of the feature film -- takes something like two days of couch potato. Once it's all over, viewers who caught the bug may be tempted to start it all over again. 

The movie, in particular, plays beautifully on repeat viewings. I first saw "Serenity" knowing nothing of the TV show, and then most recently after watching the complete "Firefly" series. Either way, it's a big-bang entertainment with plenty of heart and humor to back up its almost non-stop action.

You don't have to be a fan of "Buffy" or "Battlestar Galactica" to enjoy the TV series, but perhaps it helps. A couple of the episodes are kind of sucky, and the production values do have a cable sci-fi feel -- but still I'll take this stuff over the last three "Star Wars" movies any day.

The new Blu-rays were released by Fox ("Firefly") and Universal ("Serenity") within six weeks of each other. 

"Serenity" had been one of the showcase titles for HD DVD, and comes across just as smashing on Blu-ray. The TV series was shot in widescreen, as Whedon insisted, and looks quite good in high def, although some of the effects suffer from close examination.

The DTS-HD lossless audio on "Serenity" gave my system all it could handle: it's a room-rattler in the action scenes, with clear dialogue and decent separation throughout. The "Firefly" Blu-ray's DTS-HD audio was decent but intermittently frustrating, with the characters' lines too often muffled.

"Firefly" was first released to DVD in 2003, where it found most of its loyal fanbase. The extra features from that release are repeated on the Blu-ray, although there is a new and kind of silly "reunion lunch" with Whedon and three of his male stars. Whedon also does an episode commentary that wasn't on the last set.

"Serenity," too, ports over most of its extras from the original DVD release of 2005 and the excellent "Serenity: Collector's Edition" of 2007. New to the Blu-ray are various "U-Control" interactive features such as picture-in-picture goodies. The new "Alliance Database" essays the history of the galaxy and its civil war -- a really useful introduction to the film if you skip the crew profiles, which contain a major spoiler.

'Firefly' on Blu-ray trajectory for Nov. 11

"Firefly: The Complete Series" touches down on planet Blu-ray in November -- long-awaited news for technologically advanced Joss Whedon fanboys.

All 14 episodes are set for release Nov. 11, in a three-disc box that retails for $90, Fox Home Entertainment confirmed. (Amazon lists "Firefly: The Complete Series" at $63.)

The episodes all unspool in 1.78:1 widescreen with English 5.1 DTS HD Master Lossless Audio -- nice presentation for a relatively low-budget sci-fi show that got the boot in season 1.

Extra features new and exclusive to the Blu-ray aren't much: a "Firefly Reunion" roundtable discussion and a single episode commentary with Whedon and three cast members. Other commentaries and features are ported over from the 2003 DVD box set "Firefly" set, presumably still in SD.

For the uninitiated, the terrific post-cancellation movie "Serenity" is the place to start. Then see how it all began, if you're inspired to enlist as a browncoat (fan). ("Serenity" is out on HD DVD; not yet on Blu-ray.)

"Firefly" debuted in fall 2002 on the Fox network, squeezing out 11 episodes before the ax fell. Whedon's many fans from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Angel" couldn't keep the show on the air, but they made enough noise -- and bought enough "Firefly" DVDs -- to convince Universal Pictures to release the "Serenity" film (it's named after the Millennium Falcon-like space ship).

Young fans of Fox's current "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles" will be happy to get a look at the early years Summer Glau putting her ballet training to good use, kicking ass on burly bad guys. (Warner Home Video just released the new "Terminator" TV series on DVD and Blu-ray.)

Other players in Firefly's fine ensemble are Nathan Fillion ("Waitress"), Gina Torres ("Standoff"), Ron Glass ("Barney Miller"), Alan Tudyk ("3:10 to Yuma"), Morena Baccarin ("Stargate SG-1"), Adam Baldwin ("Chuck"), Sean Maher ("Party of Five") and Jewel Staite ("Stargate: Atlantis").

Here's the breakdown of the extras for the "Firefly" Blu-ray set:

• Disc 1

  "Serenity" (Part 1 & 2): commentary by executive producer Joss Whedon and actor Nathan Fillion

  "The Train Job": commentary by Whedon and executive producer Tim Minear

  "Bushwacked"

  "Shindig": commentary by writer Jane Espenson, actress Morena Baccarin and costume designer Shawna Trpcic

  Special feature: "Here's How It Was: The Making of 'Firefly' featurette

• Disc 2
  

  "Safe"
  

  "Our Mrs. Reynolds": commentary by Whedon and actors Fillion, Alan Tudyk and Ron Glass (Blu-ray only)
  

  "Jaynestown"
  

  "Out of Gas": Commentary by Minear and director David Solomon
  

  "Ariel"
  

  Special feature: "Firefly" reunion: "Lunch with Joss, Nathan, Alan and Ron" featurette (Blu-ray only, in HD)

• Disc 3
  

  "War Stories": commentary by actors Fillion and Tudyk
  

  "Trash"
  

  "The Message": commentary by Tudyk and actress Jewel Staite
  

  "Heart of Gold"
  

  "Objects in Space" commentary by Whedon
  

  Special features: "Serenity: The 10th Character"; Joss sings the "Firefly" theme; Joss tours the set; deleted scenes; gag reel; Tudyk's audition

DVD review: 'The Andromeda Strain'

"The Andromeda Strain" miniseries has been rated toxic waste by most TV reviewers. Tough crowd. Expecting a worthy successor to Robert Wise's 1971 feature film to emerge from regular cable TV seems ... wildly optimistic.

As far as a sci-fi telefilm goes, "Andromeda" proves a decent enough diversion, with all-star TV actors, good production values, some rousing visual effects and an intriguing score. OK, so it helps if you come presold on the title and story -- and you'll want to burst out laughing here and there -- but still I give "Andromeda" a detached thumbs-up.

Universal releases the telefilm "The Andromeda Strain" on DVD next week, in a double-disc edition. The four-hour telefilm debuted Monday on A&E and concludes tonight.

Wise's film held up for decades, until its once-futuristic technologies made the drama look stupid (unlike the eternal "2001: A Space Odyssey," a few years older). Still, I'm always up for a viewing of that exciting and influential film about a deadly virus that wipes out a small western town and threatens the planet. (Universal rereleased "Andromeda" on DVD in 2003.)

The A&E project, executive produced by Ridley and Tony Scott, sort of remakes the Wise film and, of course, points back to the Michael Crichton novel. The telefilm moves things along the real-world timeline in numerous ways -- its hero scientists search for the source of the mysterious virus, "CSI"-style; it politicizes the storyline; adds some modern gore; and brings in a swarm of current-events touch points.

And so we have Homeland Security in a supporting role; a Dick Cheney figure up to no good behind his president's back; run-ins with post-9/11 military law; eco-plotting; and some gumby physics (mind that wormhole).

Good to see the old drunk and the infant who can't be infected still register in the plot, at least in part 1.

Your stars fighting to snuff the pandemic include Benjamin Bratt, Andre Braugher, Christa Miller (pictured), Daniel Dae Kim and Ricky Schroder.

Take note of the nods to "Alien," "Fail Safe," "Dr. Strangelove" and "The Birds," all easy to spot.

The DVD's extra features are OK. There's a making-of docu that tells how the Scott brothers couldn't get the project to fly as a Universal feature, despite a decade of trying. (Ridley Scott. "The Andromeda Strain." This is a bad idea?)

For A&E, resources from Turner's "The Company" rolled over into this project, including director Mikael Salomon. One of the producers calls the project's history "very peculiar," noting the telefilm was made like an independent film once Universal refused to make the feature.

The making-of clips from the original film suggest that movie's rich-red images remain in fine shape.

Another extra on disc 2 advertises a breakdown of some of the visual effects but doesn't deliver much.

The director, producers and editor do a listenable if rah-rah commentary. The making-of should be plenty for most viewers.

The widescreen visuals are first rate, with crisp and clear renderings of the two color schemes -- assorted browns and golds for the outdoors; cold blues and greens for the "Wildfire lab." The DVD audio was unexceptional but OK.

Blu-ray review: '2001: A Space Odyssey'

"2001: A Space Odyssey" was erected in 1968 by a pair of geniuses, the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick and the futuristic writer and thinker Arthur C. Clarke.

Kubrick, of course, died in 1999. Clarke passed this week. Both men left behind giant legacies of thought and creative works, none better-remembered than "2001." The black monolith that looms over this science fiction classic will long be their most visible monument.

Here's hoping that Arthur C. Clarke in his final months was able to see and appreciate Warner's Blu-ray release of "2001: A Space Odyssey," released late last fall.

Kubrick's films have a spotty video history -- several released only in cropped versions because of the director's fear of the visuals losing their power on small TV screens. Last year, his estate finally permitted release of his widescreen masterpieces in their original aspect ratios, and in high-definition. This DVD blog reviewed "Eyes Wide Shut" in October and now catches up with "2001" on the occasion of its storyteller's passing.

Visually, the early high-def hits "Planet Earth" and "Blue Planet" have nothing on "2001" (outside of factual accuracy).

The Blu-ray "2001" images are uniformly stunning -- crisp, color-correct and artifact-free. Contrasts are dramatic and artful. The fineness of detail allows for careful examination of Kubrick's sets. Flesh tones are incredible for a color film from 40 years ago. Watching the movie on a big screen in a properly lighted room proves to be a singular experience.

The audio remains mostly front-centered, thus being sonically friendly to the classical music pieces that Kubrick wisely chose, safeguarding "2001" from premature aging via an outdated score. (Imagine "2001" with the Jefferson Airplane.) What favors the music comes at the expense of the possibilities of the 5.1 audio, of course, but an essentially stereo soundstage would be true to the era.

Via the dynamic range of uncompressed PCM or Dolby, the silence that's so essential to the experience retains all of its drama. "2001" is partially a silent movie. The ambient sounds (breathing, the hum and clicks of machines) are more noticeable and enveloping than in past video releases (or on the new DVD). Almost certainly including the theatrical release, the "2001" audio has never been better.

The "2001" extras are the same on the Blu-ray, HD DVD and double-disc DVD releases. Clarke participated in the "2001" extras via interviews that appear to have been taped a few years back. Presumably he was too old for commentary chores, which were handled by the astronaut actors Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood. Effects wizard Douglas Trumbull also participates in the extras but doesn't do a commentary, a real shame.

Clarke says of "2001": "It is still amusing and interesting. Movies that continue to try to upgrade it are ridiculous."

He calls the film's villain, the world's most famous computer: "My late friend Hal."

Clarke is seen in clips from the mid-1960s discussing his theories about space travel and human evolution. He calculates the first alien responses from man's earliest radio signals would arrive in about 50 years, which would be any day now.

Of interplanetary travel he says: "Just as the first amphibians could not have imagined us, so we cannot imagine the ultimate results of space exploration." Just as Clarke could not have forseen mankind's drastic loss of interest in manned exploration.

The actors' commentary is dominated by Lockwood, who played a relatively small part in the film. He's also known for "Star Trek." Unfortunately, star Dullea's comments are sporadic. Lockwood's talk has its moments but is rather clumsy at times ("There goes the bone!") and not all that interesting in total. (The men are recorded separately.)

Lockwood says of directors who would be Kubricks: "Are they willing to pay the price? Stanley just devoted his life to research and cinema. He never really left his house much."

The making of the film is celebrated in the fine Channel 4 docu "2001: The Making of a Myth," which runs almost an hour.

"Standing on the Shoulders of Kubrick" recruits George Lucas, Steven Speilberg and lesser lights to talk about the impact of "2001" on their lives.

Spielberg, who worked with Kubrick on "A.I.," recalls the master saying he wanted to make a movie that changed the form of film. "I said, 'Didn't you already do that with "2001"?' "

Lucas says: "I'm not sure I would have had the guts to do what Stanley did," noting that every effect that appears in "2001" is done physically or chemically, on film. "As far as special effects, it is the pinnacle. ... The whole idea is that space travel is exquisite."

There is also an hourlong audio interview with Kubrick from the 1960s, on which he's on good behavior.

A trio of shorts that clock in at 20 minutes are "The Prophecy of 2001," "A Look Behind the Future" (an archival puff piece with a visit to the set); and "What Is Out There?" about he search for E.T. and such.

Much of the talk in the extras is of the space age's lost momentum.

Trumball says, "We don't look at the stars anymore."

"We're well past 2001 and none of this has come to pass," the effects master says. "We haven't made alien contact, we haven't taken men anywhere beyond the moon. ... There's a kind of disappointment in the air that our imaginations got ahead of our ability to deliver."

Clarke adds: "I'm disappointed that space travel, unlike air travel, did not take off for the simple reason that there's nowhere to go to yet."

Another extra of interest shows the early visual concepts for "2001," many done by Kubrick and his wife. They are of their time -- images drawn from hippie consciousness with objects floating around in outer space, like rejects from a Yes album cover. Had these prevailed, the mighty "2001" might have just been a stepping stone on the way to "Star Wars."