While the current vampire craze had some influence on the show's success, when
True Blood made its debut on HBO in 2008, fans flocked to the Alan Ball drama because it is engaging and a fresh departure from the norm. Today, HBO is releasing
True Blood: The Complete Second Season on Blu-ray just in time for a quick recap before the debut of the third season in the coming weeks.
For the
Blu-ray review of True Blood: The Complete Second Season, staff reviewer Kenneth Brown commented, "After an intriguing first season, True Blood's hit-or-miss twelve-episode followup represents a small step back for the series." Regarding the Blu-ray quality, he commented, "Its faithful video transfer is a sharp-toothed beaut, its DTS-HD Master Audio track features one of the best TV mixes I've had the pleasure of reviewing, and its supplemental package is decidedly decent."
Viggo Mortensen announced his semi-retirement just over a year ago, but that actor best known for his role as Aragorn in
The Lord of the Rings: The Motion Picture Trilogy is still making movies – just not at the typical Hollywood pace. Today marks the Blu-ray release of the only motion picture he made last year,
The Road, which earned him numerous nominations from various film societies.
One of the consequences of licensing your films to Criterion is that, even after the license has expired, all future releases will undoubted be compared to their release. While Universal's Blu-ray release of
Spartacus is an obvious improvement over previous Criterion DVD releases of the film, staff reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman was able to spot some differences when comparing the two versions.
In his
Blu-ray review of Spartacus, he concludes, "This is an OK placeholder for the time being, but I bet rabid videophiles will be counting the days until Criterion can go back to the Blu drawing board and give this legendary film the HD release it really deserves." Whether or not Universal will license this film back to Criterion is still unknown, but one can always dream.