After all these years, it is still difficult to visualize funny-man Jon Favreau as being a successful action film director, but that is exactly what he has been able to accomplish with
Iron Man, and its sequel,
Iron Man 2 - which is out today on Blu-ray. If he decides take the director's chair for
Iron Man 3 it will be interesting to see if he can keep the magic flowing where other action trilogies failed (I'm looking at you
X3: The Last Stand and
Spider-Man 3).
For the
Blu-ray review of Iron Man 2, staff reviewer Martin Liebman commented, "Iron Man 2 delivers pretty much everything anyone could want out of both a sequel and a Summer blockbuster." He continues, "Paramount's three-disc Iron Man 2 Blu-ray delivers a pristine 1080p transfer, a faultless lossless soundtrack, and hours of extra content. Here's another disc that's in the running to be remembered as one of 2010's best."
Jonah Hill's biggest strength as an actor is his ability to seamlessly play off other actors in the scene. For
Get Him to the Greek, he teams up with stand-up sensation Russell Brand (reviving his supporting role in
Forgetting Sarah Marshall for one of the funniest comedies of the summer and a must buy Blu-ray for any comedy fan. The next step, for both actors, is to take the ultimate test and see if they can keep the audience laughing when they are alone on the screen.
Staff reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman commented in his
Blu-ray review of Get Him to the Greek, "Brand and Hill make an oddly adorable couple, and the supporting cast is aces. If you're not easily offended and have a somewhat jaded sense of humor, Get Him to the Greek may well be the most enjoyable comedy you'll see this year."
Whenever Criterion releases a film, you know two things. First, the film is part of an elite collection of titles representing some of the best filmmaking ever (with a few exceptions;
Armageddon? Really?). And second, the film is presented more accurately than any other studio has been able to achieve. Such is true for today's Blu-ray release of
The Thin Red Line, one of the most painfully real depictions of WWII action in the Pacific Theater.
In his
Blu-ray review of The Thin Red Line, staff reviewer Svet Atanasov comments, "Based on James Jones' novel, The Thin Red Line is a notably chaotic film, one that relies on sudden changes of tempo and dynamics to effectively recreate the maddening nature of war." He continues, "The film looks and sounds incredible. Criterion's Blu-ray disc also contains a variety of new, produced exclusively for this release supplemental features."
And finally today, Warner releases (via Digibook) the 1933 classic film
King Kong. At the time, the film was considered a modern marvel – much like the oversized ape that the film portrayed. Today it stands as a historic piece that – while seeming almost juvenile by today's standards – reminds us of how film used to be, and how far it has come.
For the
Blu-ray review of King Kong, staff reviewer Ken Brown commented, "King Kong isn't just a slice of cinematic history, it's a remarkable, entertaining, dare I say delightful bit of '30s spectacle that deserves to be seen by filmfans young and old. And Warner's Blu-ray release makes owning this stop-motion classic a cinch. The film's extensive restoration and subsequent video transfer is a faithful beast, its DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track is the stuff of purists' dreams and its five-hour supplemental package is worth the price of admission alone."