It’s another weak session for DVD releases, but there are some highlights especially among the animation and TV on DVD titles as well as more classic films on Blu-ray and a sign of the future, a new anime series that debuts on Blu-ray and regular DVD on the same day.

 

TV on DVD

 

There are a lot of solid releases in this category, but for pure value and entertainment it’s hard to top Rocky & Bullwinkle: Season 4 (Classic Media, 418 min., $19.98), which presents 19 great episodes of the animated anthology series.  The Season 4 episodes aired during 1962 and 1963 and featured the zany antics, absurd humor, and puns guaranteed to make you groan that made Rocky & Bullwinkle such a hit with both children and adults.  In addition to the Rocky & Bullwinkle sagas, “Painting Theft,” “The Guns of Abalone,” “The Treasure of Monte Zoom,” “Goof Gas Attack,” and “Banana Formula,” this two-disc set includes a full complement of 19 “Fractured Fairy Tales” all deftly narrated by Edward Everett Horton, plus the wacky “Peabody’s Improbable History,” and the serial-spoofing “Dudley Do-Right of The Mounties.”  The decorative hardcover packaging is superbly designed and, with the low purchase price of this full season set, it’s just impossible to match the “laughs-per-dollar” (or the “groan-per-dollar”) ratio of Rocky & Bullwinkle: Season 4.

 

Two other worthy animated TV on DVD releases are out this week.  The two-disc Batman: The Brave and the Bold: Season 1, Part 1 (Warner Bros., 272 min., $19.97) collects the first 13 episodes of the new Batman animated series appearing on the Cartoon Network, that has already spawned two all-ages comic book series (see ‘The All New Batman: The Brave & the Bold Comic”), while the single-disc Wolverine & The X-Men Vol. 6: The Final Crisis includes the 3-part season finale of the Nicktoons series.

 

The new live-action series of note debuting this week is Cougar Town: The Complete Season One (Disney, 552 min., $39.99), which stars Courtney Cox as a recently divorced forty-something single mother, who suddenly finds herself back in the game.  The 3-disc set includes all 22 first season episodes plus bloopers, deleted scenes as well as “Taming Cougar Town” and “Ask Barb” featurettes.  This series walks a fine line as it attempts to avoid caricaturing its main characters and it tends to be funnier and more insightful than its brassy and vulgar title would indicate.  Although average viewership declined from 14 million to around 8 million, ABC has ordered a second season, which will premiere in September.

 

The best recurring series is Dexter: The 4th Season (Showtime, $49.99, BD $64.99), the clever cable series about a sympathetic serial killer (he only kills those who “deserve” it).  A Blu-ray release is still a good indicator that the program in question is a high quality show, which is certainly the case with Dexter, which has inspired an entire wave of spin-off products including a board game, figures, and trading cards (see “Dexter Gets Figures, Board Game, Bust”). 

 

But many avid TV viewers will prefer the unpretentious and hard-hitting Friday Night Lights: The Fourth Season (Universal, 566 min., $29.98).  This Texas high school football drama series is so good at portraying the lives of ordinary middle and lower middle class Americans that it had to rescued by satellite provider Direct TV after NBC dumped it.  Folks who stopped watching this series when it slipped off network TV should definitely pick up the DVD release.

 

Other recurring series out this week include the vintage 1950s comedy Father Knows Best: Season 5 (Shout Factory, 810 min., $39.98), One Tree Hill: The Complete Seventh Season (Warner Bros., $59.98), and Ugly Betty: The Complete Fourth and Final Season (Disney, 860 min., $39.99).

 

Dark Oracle (Mill Creek, 560 min., $14.98) is an interesting Canadian series created by Jana Sinyor (DeGrassi: The Next Generation).  Dark Oracle, which won an International Emmy for “Best Children’s Program” follows the adventures of teenage twins who discover a comic book that gives them clues about the future of their lives.  When the twins actually enter the comic book’s world, they learn that the Dark Oracle has a hidden agenda that puts them in danger.  With its blend of live-action and comic book-style animation, this is a series parents and librarians might want to check out (especially given its low cost).

 

Anime

 

The major release in this category is Casshern Sins, the 24-episode 2008 anime series from Madhouse.  Funimation is releasing the series in two 12 episode parts:  Casshern Sins Part 1 (Funimation, “17+,” 288 min., $49.98, BD $54.98) and Casshern Sins Part 2 (Funimation, “17+,” 288 min., $49.98, BD $54.98).  The new Casshern series is a complete refashioning of the classic 1973 Tatsunoko Productions series Neo-Human Casshern.  In the classic series Casshern is cybernetic superhero battling the evil robotic forces of the Braiking Boss, but in Casshern Sins, Casshern is an agent of the Braiking Boss who assassinates Luna, mankind’s last hope, an act that brings about an apocalyptic event known as “The Ruin” and costs Casshern his memory.  Casshern Sins manages to be as action-packed as any mecha series in recent memory, though it sometimes strains credulity that the relatively slight figure of Casshern, whose design recalls the 1970s original, can pound down the giant robots that attack him.  Nevertheless the animation looks great (especially in Blu-ray), and the soundtrack, which features a choice of the Japanese original with subtitles or an excellent English dub, is equally effective in high def.  Extras on the BD include textless versions of the opening and closing songs as well as a documentary of the pre-release event featuring the main Japanese seiyu and director Shigeyasu Yamauchi.

 

The other major new release is the Shigofumi Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “13+”325 min., $49.98).  Shigofumi: Letters from the Dead is an original fantasy anime series that follows the activities of a young girl Fumiko, who is charged with delivering letters written by dead people to the living.  The 12-episode TV anime, which was directed by Tatsuo Sato and animated by J.C. Staff, was broadcast on Japanese TV in 2008.  The Complete Collection also includes a 24-minute OAV directed by Sato.

 

The only other release this week is the low cost Viridian edition of Origin: Spirits of the Past Special Edition (Funimation, “13+, 90 min., $19.98), an anime film produced by Gonzo that debuted in the U.S. in 2006.

 

Theatrical

 

Not much shaking in this category.  The Last Song (Disney, “PG,” $29.99, BD $39.98) is a sappy adaptation of a lachrymose Nicholas Sparks novel that stars an overmatched Miley Cyrus as a piano prodigy, while Furry Vengeance (Summit Entertainment, “PG,”    $22.99, BD/Combo $40.99), is a trite “animals stop development farce” that stars Brendan Fraser and received only an 8% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles (Target Exclusive, “PG-13,” $12.99) is by far the best American film debuting on DVD on Tuesday.  One of the best American movies ever made about the theater, Me and Orson Welles is based on a novel by Robert Kaplow and features a bravura performance by Christian McKay as Orson Welles and a very smart one by Claire Danes as the maestro’s ambitious assistant.  Linklater’s minor masterpiece racked up an 84% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes with what few detractors it had criticizing the film for being “slight”--well so is the source material and so are a good many charming films grounded in the real life experiences of ordinary people.  Me and Orson Welles is an art house gem—the only disturbing thing about its DVD release is that it’s exclusive to a big retail chain, and hence won’t get the kind of publicity it deserves.

 

Ji-Woon Kim’s The Good, the Bad and The Weird fared almost as well with critics as Me and Orson Welles, earning an 82% positive rating.  This hyper-violent homage to Sergio Leone is set in Manchuria in the 1930s, a setting that actually works quite well as Kim mixes western gunplay and martial arts into an intoxicating brew that never takes itself too seriously.

 

Like Me and Orson Welles, Ricky Gervais’ Cemetery Junction (Sony "R," $24.96, BD $30.95) is a coming-of-age saga.  The hero of Cemetery Junction dreams of escaping his provincial upbringing in this sensitively produced 1970s period piece from the creators of The Office.

 

Classic Films

 

Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Kino, $34.95) is not one of Buster Keaton’s best films, but that’s like saying the Virgin of the Rocks isn’t one Leonardo’s best paintings—there are relatively few works in the master’s oeuvre and they are all masterpieces.  Steamboat Bill, Jr. is the last of Keaton’s independent productions, and in the film’s climatic scenes it is clear that the technology of the mid-1920s was not quite up to Keaton’s vision.  But there are many priceless sequences in the film including a rare Keaton pantomime as he tries to communicate surreptitiously with his father in the presence of a jailor, a priceless scene in which Keaton tries on a variety of hats, and a great “meet cute” with his flapper girlfriend at the barbershop.  Keaton’s sublime athleticism is also on full display—no one could ever take a fall better than Buster, who learned his trade in the family vaudeville act, which was basically organized comic child abuse (think Homer choking Bart) in which his father, playing the drunken Irishman stereotype to the hilt proceeded to throw the mischievous Buster all over the stage.  As was the case with Kino’s Blu-ray edition of The General (see “November 24th DVD Round-UP”), this is likely to be the best print of Steamboat Bill Jr. that anyone will ever see.  In fact the Kino disc presents two slightly different versions of the film, both of which are re-mastered from 35mm prints and which look almost as good as The General on Blu-ray—though only the most devoted Keaton buff will be interested in the differences between the two versions.

 

Also worth checking out is a new version of The Conversation (Lionsgate, “PG,” $14.98), Francis Ford Coppola’s fascinating 1974 film thriller that stars Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who accidentally stumbles into the middle of a murder plot.  As a character study of the modern tech savvy loner and a meditation on the demise of privacy in our technological age, The Conversation is without peer.