This week sees the Blu-ray release of Breaking Bad: The Complete Fourth Season. While seasons one, two, and three have offered sterling television entertainment, Season Four manages to raise the bar, offering ever darker and more thrilling insights into the psyche of chemistry teacher-turned-crystal meth producer Walter White. Series creator Vince Gilligan has described his intention to show how "Mr. Chips becomes Scarface," and these thirteen episodes go a long way towards realizing the latter half of Gilligan's quote.
In his Blu-ray review, Martin Liebman gives the program his highest recommendation, writing that, "in essence, this is a top-tier, front-line show that only improves with every passing season, episode, sequence, and second...[it] has become the finest show currently airing on television and one of the best of them all."
Another notable title is Walt Disney Pictures' John Carter, though the attention given to this science-fiction blockbuster has been far less adulatory than the praise that Breaking Bad has received. Less than three months from its theatrical debut, critics have already equated the film with the likes of notorious Hollywood bombs Ishtar and Heaven's Gate; early estimates suggest that the box-office flop will cost Disney in excess of $200 million.
However, divorced from the controversy, John Carter satisfies as a serviceable - if never truly excellent - children's adventure picture with solid action sequences and some impressive special effects. As Kenneth Brown's Blu-ray review notes, "most adults will shrug their shoulders when Carter hurtles through the sky across the Martian plains; older kids, on the other hand, will beg for more...It doesn't make it a great film, as [John Carter creator Edgar Rice] Burroughs would likely assert, but it makes for a fun two-hour ride."
Quite a bit better than just "fun" is Universal Studios' 1973 classic The Sting. Bolstered by the chemistry between leading actors Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who first struck cinematic gold together in Sting director George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting swept the 1974 Academy Awards Ceremony, winning Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture, among many others.
Its HD debut only reaffirms the picture's brilliance; Jeffrey Kauffman marvels at The Sting's freshness and charm, how, "this is a film where...you spend the bulk of the movie not really knowing what's going on, which is followed by a devastatingly effective series of reveals that paints everything that has gone on in an exciting new light. The Sting is...a film about a giant con gambit, and the term 'con' itself is a perfect indicator of just how brilliantly the film achieves its goals."
Finally, this Tuesday sees the much-anticipated HD version of Yellow Submarine. Inspired by the music of The Beatles, the visually stunning, highly imaginative animated feature finds the Fab Four trying to save Pepperland from the evil Blue Meanies. Since its premiere in 1968, Yellow Submarine has occupied an unusual spot in the hearts of film fans; it has been embraced both by counter-culture cinema buffs as well as by Beatles and animation fans.
The Blu-ray gives the film a complete visual and aural makeover, including a restored monaural soundtrack alongside a 4K digital picture restoration, one where technicians at Triage Motion Picture Services had to go through the picture frame by frame - without the benefits of automated software assistance - in order to preserve Yellow Submarine's original artwork.