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Insights from home entertainment industry experts. Home Media blogs give you the inside scoop on entertainment news, DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases, and the happenings at key studios and entertainment retailers. TK's Take analyzes and comments on home entertainment industry news and trends, Agent DVD Insider talks comic adaptations, and IndieFile delivers independent film news.

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November 19, 2009
‘Fight Club’ BD Pranks Fans

Those watching the new Fight Club 10th anniversary Blu-ray edition might be surprised to find the disc loads the menu screen for Never Been Kissed.

It’s all part of a gag by director David Fincher, who thought it would be funny to fool fans with a fake menu of a romantic comedy released the same year as Fight Club, 1999. Never Been Kissed was his top choice, but the menu only was included with the blessing of Drew Barrymore, who starred in the film.

After a few seconds, the Never Been Kissed menu gives way to the actual menu for Fight Club, which seeks a target demographic that is a bit more macho than for Barrymore’s film.

Both films were distributed by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.

I laughed out loud when I first saw the gag, but I don't think it goes far enough. It would have been funnier if the Never Been Kissed menu stayed the menu for Fight Club, at least until you selected an option to get the real menu. Imagine the look on the faces of those saps who went to the bathroom while the disc loaded, only to return to the horror of a sweet rom-com menu, and thinking they have the wrong disc!

I guess you can only be so cruel.

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November 18, 2009
Magnolia to Bow ‘Chevolution,’ ‘Outrage,’ ‘The Burning Plain’

The Burning Plain

Magnolia Home Entertainment in January is releasing one great film I have seen and two that I need to.

The Burning Plain

Genre: Drama
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/12
Prebook: 12/15
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD, $29.98 BD
Reserve for purchase (DVD or Blu-ray)
Reserve on Netflix

Charlize Theron and Kim Bassinger star in the latest from Guillermo Arriaga (Babel, 21 Grams, Amores Perros). Theron stars as a restaurant hostess with a secret sex life; Bassinger is a desperate housewife; and Jennifer Lawrence stars as a young woman who falls in love with a man her father hates. In typical Arriaga fashion, the stories intertwine, and, I’m guessing, in typical Arriaga fashion, you won’t want to miss it.

Outrage

Genre: Documentary
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/19
Prebook: 12/22
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD
Reserve for purchase
Reserve on Netflix

Kirby Dick’s searing documentary opens the closet holding allegedly gay and definitely anti-gay rights politicians such as Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and retired Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.). Dick, the firebrand behind This Film is Not Yet Rated, another great doc that explored hypocrisy (in that film with the MPAA), interviews blogger Michael Rogers, who outs closeted politicians who vote against gay rights, as well as Rep. Barney Frank, the openly gay Massachusetts Democrat who’s always good for dropping sardonic bits of wisdom into a stew of bull droppings. You might feel conflicted about both Dick’s and Rogers’ tactics with regard to the right to privacy (I sure do), but it’s hard to ignore the film’s point about why such hypocrisy shouldn’t be allowed to continue without exposure when the end result is so damaging to a group of people.


Chevolution

Genre: Documentary
Studio: Magnolia
Street date: 1/19
Prebook: 12/22
Price/Format: $26.98 DVD
Reserve for purchase
Reserve on Netflix

Features interviews with various commentators on the socialist revolutionary, including actor Gael Garcia Bernal, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and artist Shepard Fairey.

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November 17, 2009
Loss-Leadering Coming to Blu-ray Disc

My, my, how times have changed. Studio executives used to cringe at newly released theatrical DVDs selling for below $15 their first week in stores, generally at big discount chains like Wal-Mart and Target. The mass merchants were using DVDs as loss leaders to drive traffic into their stores, devaluing the product in the consumer's eyes and later coming back to the studios and complaining about margins. Studio executives were reluctant to lower wholesale prices, even though that's what their big retail customers wanted, and all of a sudden that taboo word that's not supposed to be discussed in public — pricing — was on everyone's tongues.

Now, we're finding loss-leader pricing has come to Blu-ray, a year before anyone expected it to. Wal-Mart and several other mass merchants are advertising, and selling, hot new Blu-ray Disc releases for less than $20 — and this, mind you, is before Black Friday, when we traditionally see the lowest prices all year for everything from digital cameras and computers to kitchen sinks (I mean that literally).

Studio executives, frankly, don't know what to think. They're stunned to see it happening so soon, and worried that in the future not only will their visions of incremental profits fade away faster than those visions of sugarplums we keep hearing about each Christmas, but that retailers will start pressuring them for lower wholesale prices and, before you know it, Blu-ray Disc will suffer the same price erosion that plagued DVD within several years of that format's launch — something studio executives have vowed to not let happen again.

While I was among those decrying the race to the bottom in DVD pricing, in this case I'm singing a different song. With apologies to the Beatles, "Let It Be." Given the economy and the slump in DVD sales, we had better do something quick to pick up the slack and take Blu-ray Disc to the masses — and there's nothing better than making the format affordable to everyone, particularly when low-end Blu-ray Disc players are expected to sell for as little as $75 come Black Friday and even final-spec players should be available in the low $100s.

If you think about it, the fact that Wal-Mart and the other mass merchants are using Blu-ray Discs as loss leaders is a tremendous vote of confidence in the format. It means they believe Blu-ray Discs are hot enough to lure people into their stores, as long as the prices aren't out of whack with what they're used to paying for DVDs.

Sure, down the road we might moan and groan about "leaving money on the table" (one of Hollywood's favorite laments), but in this economy, when more and more people are going back to their old habit of renting movies instead of buying them, we need to do something, anything, to get people back in the habit of buying and collecting movies and TV shows.

Let's worry about the potential fallout later. If we don't get Blu-ray Disc to the masses now, regardless of the price, there might not be a later.

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November 17, 2009
Beaming Up ‘Star Trek’ Exclusives

Amazon.com's Star Trek gift set

“Star Trek” fans have plenty of options when it comes to picking up the new movie on disc.

For those out there willing to look past the film’s complete disrespect for previous “Star Trek” history (and judging by the Internet response, that’s most of you), several retailers are offering up exclusive versions of the movie containing collectibles you won’t want to miss.

Best Buy, which is selling the DVD at $14.99, the two-DVD deluxe edition at $22.99 and the three-disc Blu-ray at $23.99, has a Blu-ray gift set for $39.99 that also includes a set of four insignia badges.

Fans of steelbook casing (which I am not) can head over to Transworld-owned f.y.e. and Suncoast stores and pick up the deluxe DVD edition in metal packaging for $34.91.

Target offers a neat little package that has a plastic replica of the U.S.S. Enterprise that contains the discs in the saucer section. Both the two-DVD ($26.99) and Blu-ray ($29.99) configurations are available, in addition to the regular packaging assortments (DVD $15.99; two-DVD set $22.99; Blu-ray $24.99).

Amazon.com offers its own Enterprise replica, but theirs will run up the bill a bit. The online retailer has an exclusive Blu-ray boxed set containing a hand-cast pewter replica of the ship, limited to a run of 5,000 copies, which is listed at $130 but selling for $99.99.
 

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November 17, 2009
Film Movement Expands Into Canadian Market

Canadian film buffs, take note: Independent and foreign film distributor Film Movement is launching a DVD subscription service in Canada.

As it does in the United States, the distribution company will offer Canadian users membership to a sneak preview DVD-of-the-month club at its new Canadian Web site, www.filmmovementcanada.com. Users can purchase 3, 6 or 12 month subscriptions to receive a new DVD each month as the film is opening in theaters, and months they hit retail and rental.

All film movement DVDs contain a feature film as well as a short film by a different director.

“Over the last seven years, Film Movement has grown enormously as a company, consistently exploring new distribution channels and revenue streams,” said Film Movement’s president, Adley Gartenstein. “Opening our DVD subscription service to Canadian consumers is the next logical step for Film Movement as we continue to expand the reach of the company and our ability to share the best in art-house cinema with film lovers across North America.”

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