Wednesday, October 23, 2013

This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

The Conjuring: This scary movie is one of the bigger surprise hits of the year, but they could have been more timely with the DVD release. I mean, they totally missed a natural Columbus Day tie-in.

The Internship: Remember when Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson made such a popular screen team in "The Wedding Crashers?" You do? Yeah, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?

Before Midnight: Years ago, Richard Linklater charmed us with "Before Sunrise." Some years later, he kind of cheapened it by doing a sequel. Now that we know its a trilogy, does that make it more legitimate?

Dead in Tombstone: Any movie with this title that stars Mickey Rourke AND Danny Trejo should come with a free bottle of sanitizer.

Necessary Evil: The Villains of DC Comics: Surely this documentary will give special attention to perhaps the single most reviled and feared villain the company has had in years: Co-publisher Dan DiDio.

Sugarfoot Season 2: New from Warner Archive is the second season of perhaps its most popular Western from the classic TV era. Well, next to "Maverick." And of course "Cheyenne." And probably "Bronco." And--aw, let's just say it was one of its most popular Western series and be thankful its out, OK?

Alice Season 4: Also from Warner Archive. It's kind of weird that this show was so ubiquitous when I was growing up, yet has disappeared now and is relegated to the Archive. I watched way more of this show than was healthy as a kid, but the last time I saw it...I didn't watch very much. Of course, the show was butchered  by ION, which surely didn't help, but still it's a very shlocky, sitcommy kind of sitcom. Still, anything with Marvin Kaplan and Dave Madden deserves a little more respect.

And in streaming:

It was a slow week at Netflix, but it did add the excellent 2008 In Bruges.

Hulu added a handful episodes of the late 1970s New Soupy Sales show because--well, why not?

The real action is on Warner Archive Instant. The service didn't add a new showcase category, but it added a variety of movies including, to name just a few, Jean Harlow in Bombshell, several Red Skelton movies including Half a Hero, Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid, and the 1981 documentary This is Elvis. Granted, Netflix has thousands of titles and Warner Archive Instant is a more curated streaming provider, but still, that sounds a lot more exciting to me than Netflix adding Emily Owens M.D. Season 1.

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