This week’s MSN DVD column looks at one of the summer’s biggest disappointments: Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood”, which takes a foolproof concept and turns it into … well, into another overblown Ridley Scott movie.
I’m doubly disappointed in Russell Crowe, who in “3:10 to Yuma” displayed an excellent understanding of the kind of wiles-and-charm performance a Robin Hood movie would require … and couldn’t be arsed to give that performance in an actual Robin Hood movie.
Ah, well. The Blu-ray does look nice, I’ll give it that.
On the topic of DVD releases, but nothing to do with Robin Hood…I’m wondering what determines the release schedule for DVDs/blu rays. What prompts me to ask is that I’ve long waited for news on the blu ray release of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums, but still no word. Who decides on when these will be released? What are they waiting for?
At least Apocolypse Now and The Sound of Music have been announced. Was the timing there solely to arrive for the holiday shopping season? Or do they in fact spend months/years processing the film for release on blu ray?
It’s a combination of the two. The creation of HD masters and disc authoring can indeed take months, or even years, depending on the level of restoration involved — if you have the “Godfather” BD set, the featurette on Robert A. Harris’ restoration of the first two films will give you sense of the effort involved in resuscitating older titles.
That said, the holiday release window is exactly when you’d expect to see studios rolling out their prestige titles, and I don’t doubt that “The Sound of Music” — which Fox is releasing in one of its elaborate gift sets — was marked for a Q4 release in its given year. (It always has been in the past.)
As for “Rushmore” and “The Royal Tenenbaums”, there are a couple of reasons why we haven’t seen those yet. Disney is very, very slow in reissuing its catalogue titles on Blu-ray; they’ve released just a handful in 2010. “Armageddon”, “Tombstone”, “Monsters, Inc.” and the “Toy Story” movies … and I think that’s it, isn’t it?
The studio’s Wes Anderson films present additional complications, because their DVD special editions were produced in concert with Criterion, which may present licensing issues for the re-release. (Disney distributed the discs, but Criterion created the content.)
I’m hoping Criterion’s BD release of “The Darjeeling Limited” will light a fire under Anderson to get his older films out on the format, too … but it’s not ultimately up to him.
Thanks for the response Norm. I DO have The Godfather BD set, but haven’t watched the restoration featurette; I will now.