Batman Fever

Hey, have you heard about this new Batman flick coming out next? Apparently it’s called The Dark Knight or something like that. Think it’ll do well? Just kidding, of course. Like every other fanboy on the planet, I can’t wait to check out what director Christopher Nolan’s got in store for his second go-around with Gotham City’s Caped Crusader. To whet our appetite for TDK, a guano-load of Bat-related merchandise is headed our way starting with Batman Begins: Limited Edition Gift Set (Warner Bros., $39.92/$49.99 Blu-ray). Although the actual DVD is the same two-disc edition that was released a few years back, this package does come with several new goodies, including a special preview of The Dark Knight, a flash drive with images from the new movie, collectible postcards and a 32-page booklet containing Knight’s comic-book adaptation (the latter is only available in the Blu-ray set). Taking a page from The Matrix movies, Warner Bros. has also released an animated tie-in to The Dark Knight entitled Batman: Gotham Knight (Warner Bros., $29.98). An anthology of six short stories, all of which were written by established comic-book authors (including Greg Rucka and Brian Azzarrello) and animated by leading Japanese anime companies, Gotham Knight is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the shorts perfectly capture the mood of the character, while others are weighed down by bad writing or indifferent animation. All in all, chalk this up as a good idea that suffers from so-so execution. Finally, jump in the wayback machine for a trip back to 1966 courtesy of Batman: The Movie (Fox, $9.99/$39.98 Blu-ray), out now in a new Blu-ray edition. This is the big-screen version of the immortal ’60s TV show that starred Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder. Light years removed from the somber mood of The Dark Knight, this version of Batman perfectly captures the spirit of the comics published during that era and contains one of the funniest lines every penned: “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb.”

Extras: We’ve already covered the Batman Begins set, so let’s move onto Gotham Knight. Disc 1 comes with a commentary track featuring various DC Comics head honchos as well as a preview of the company’s next animated feature, Wonder Woman. Disc 2, meanwhile, comes with a half-hour documentary devoted to Batman’s rogue’s gallery and another doc about the Caped Crusader’s creator, Bob Kane. (Despite some fun archival footage, this fluff piece loses points for not addressing the importance of Bill Finger to the character’s staying power.) As for Batman: The Movie, the standard edition comes with a West/Ward commentary track and a retrospective featurette. The new Blu-ray disc has a lot more to offer, including an isolated music score, three new featurettes and an interactive map to the film’s L.A locations.

Mummy Madness

The Dark Knight isn’t the only blockbuster sequel on the horizon. August 1 brings the third installment of The Mummy franchise, entitled The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Seeing as how it’s been seven years since the last film, it makes sense that Universal is issuing new two-disc editions of the first two films, 1999′s The Mummy: Deluxe Edition (Universal, $19.98) and 2001′s The Mummy Returns: Deluxe Edition (Universal, $19.98). Personally, I’ve never seen the appeal of this series—too much CGI, not enough character development—but they have been huge hits and helped launch the career of Rachel Weisz. I’m much more excited about Universal’s other mummy-themed release, The Mummy: Special Edition (Universal, $19.98), a two-disc edition of the classic 1932 horror flick, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris “Frankenstein” Karloff. But the tie-ins don’t stop there! Jet Li apparently plays a major role in the new Mummy movie, so the studio is issuing Jet Li’s Fearless: Director’s Cut (Universal, $19.98), which was supposed to be Li’s final martial arts epic. (Li’s retirement proved to be even shorter than Jay-Z’s!) This special edition comes with three versions of the movie: the theatrical cut, an unrated cut and a director’s cut that features deleted scenes with Michelle Yeoh, who, coincidentally enough, is also appearing in Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Finally, Universal is also putting out Van Helsing: Collector’s Edition (Universal, $19.98), a would-be franchise starter starring Hugh Jackman as the legendary vampire hunter who battles the triple threat of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man. The only monster missing from the movie? The Mummy! Maybe he was supposed to be in the sequel…

Extras: All of these discs sport several new bonus features along with extras that were available on previous editions. The Mummy and The Mummy Returns offer sneak peeks at Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, as well as behind-the-scenes featurettes devoted to the special effects and production design. The ’32 Mummy has a commentary track from film historian Paul M. Jensen and a second one from several monster experts, including makeup guru Rick Baker, as well as a retrospective documentary devoted to Universal’s classic creature features. Fearless only offers a new documentary and a deleted scene, but considering they’ve also included three cuts of the film, it would be churlish complain. And finally, Van Helsing sports outtakes, an interactive map and featurettes galore.

X-Files: Revelations (Fox, $22.97)

Sure you could prepare for the impending return of The X-Files on July 25 by picking up the entire nine-season run on DVD. But let’s be honest: 1) That’s an insane commitment of time and money and 2) Who really wants to watch Season 7-9 (otherwise known as “The Robert Patrick Years”) anyway? Fortunately, X-Files guru Chris Carter has got your back. The two-disc set sports eight episodes from the show’s pre-Season 7 run that, the box promises, “are essential viewing for fans who want to fully experience all the thrills, mysteries and nuances of the upcoming theatrical movie.” Uh-huh…if you say so, Chris. Anyway, the episodes featured here include the pilot, which debuted waaay back in 1993, as well as that awesome Flukeman episode from season two, a Lone Gunmen-heavy adventure from season four and one of my personal favorites, “Bad Blood,” where Mulder and Scully find themselves in a small Texas town populated by vampires.

Extras: Cater and fellow exec producer Frank Spotnitz provide an introduction to each episode and the new movie (entitled I Want To Believe) is teased via a trailer as well as the full-length Q&A from WonderCon earlier this year. Personally, I want to believe this new film will be worth the decade-long wait…but I’m not getting my hopes up.

City of Men (Miramax, $29.99)

A visually dazzling look at life on the mean streets of Rio’s crime-ridden favelas, Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund’s City of God caused a sensation when it was released in American art-houses in early 2003. In addition to scoring numerous awards (including four Oscar nominations), the film was a big seller on DVD and launched a television series entitled City of Men, which aired here on the Sundance Channel. Over the course of 19 episodes, viewers watched two young residents of one favela, Ace (Douglas Silva) and Wallace (Darlan Cunha) grow up while avoiding getting caught in their neighborhood’s never-ending drug war. The new film version of City of Men functions as the show’s finale, but can also be watched without having seen any of the series. Having survived their childhood and teenage years, Ace and Wallace are now 18 and find themselves confronted with grown-up responsibilities. Ace, for example, has a young son with his girlfriend, but he can’t quite get used to the idea that he’s somebody’s father, particularly since he grew up without one. Also a product of a fatherless home, Wallace dreams of meeting his dad and, to his surprise, he gets the chance after Ace uncovers information about the man’s whereabouts. While these two are wrestling with daddy issues, their favela erupts in a new bout of violence as the current gang leader Midnight is usurped by his former lieutenant Fasto. City of Men may be less stylish than its predecessor, but in some ways it’s a richer, more emotional film. City of God frequently allowed its aggressive visuals to overpower its characters, whereas Men keeps its locked focus on the men (and, sadly, only a few of the women) that make up this community. Even if the tale of Ace and Wallace has come to an end, there’s still plenty of material for more stories about Rio’s teeming favelas.

Extras: An informative fifteen-minute featurette walks you through the history of this franchise from God to Men.

Shotgun Stories (Liberation Entertainment, $24.95)

Last year, I made the mistake of skipping Craig Zobel’s indie drama Great World of Sound during its limited theatrical release and didn’t catch up with it until the end of the year, at which point I didn’t have enough time to fully consider it for my Top Ten list. I’m glad I didn’t commit a similar error with Shotgun Stories, the debut feature of Jeff Nichols, who studied alongside Zobel at North Carolina School of the Arts. Both men are also friends and colleagues of David Gordon Green, NSCA’s breakout star who is making his big-budget debut this August with the Seth Rogen comedy Pineapple Express. (Green is a producer on both of their films as well.) A modern-day version of a Hatfield & McCoy-style family rivalry, Shotgun Stories follows two sets of brothers who share the same father, but have otherwise led separate lives. The first set of Hayes children knew their father as an abusive drunk who couldn’t even be bothered to give them real names. As a result, they’ve grown up referring to each other as “Son”, “Boy” and “Kid” respectively. After splitting from their mom, Hayes Sr. cleaned up his act and married another woman, with whom he had three more sons. The two Hayes families cross paths when their father dies, leading the eldest Son (played by Michael Shannon) to deliver a venomous eulogy at the funeral. That speech pits the sets of brothers against each other in an intense rivalry that ends up having deadly consequences. Spare and quiet, but never dull, Shotgun Stories is an impressive directorial debut.

Extras: A commentary track from Nichols and a few deleted scenes.

Also on DVD

Kimberly Peirce’s Iraq War drama Stop-Loss (Paramount, $34.99) was a dead film walking before it even opened in theaters in March. Coming off a string of high-profile Iraq-themed flops, journalists and critics alike devoted a lot of their coverage of the film to whether or not moviegoers would turn up to support it and—guess what?—they didn’t. Which is a shame, because they missed out on a pretty good film, marred only by some shaky writing in the back half. Peirce talks about the making of Stop-Loss (though not its less-than-stellar reception) on a commentary track and a behind-the-scenes featurette and 11 deleted scenes reveal what was left on the cutting room floor. I read Scott B. Smith’s horror novel The Ruins (Paramount, $34.99) in one sitting and I can honestly say that experience was more frightening than any horror movie I’ve seen in the past two years. Sadly, the movie version of this terrific book is a tremendous disappointment made all the worse by the fact that Smith himself wrote the screenplay. What came off as terrifying on the page is alternately silly or implausible on film and the film’s young cast don’t bring any dimension to their roles. The biggest sin, however, is that Smith didn’t even retain the book’s brilliantly apocalyptic finale for the movie, instead concluding on a completely stupid note that betrays the rules the story establishes early on. A slightly better, but still compromised, alternate ending has been included on the DVD, along with a handful of other deleted scenes, a commentary track from the film’s director Carter Smith (no relation) and three making-of featurettes. Prior to starring in M. Night Shyamalan’s unintentional comedy The Happening, indie film golden girl Zooey Deschanel appeared in the intentional comedy Flakes (Genius Products, $19.95), as the kooky girlfriend (a role she specializes in) of a frustrated New Orleans musician (Aaron Stanford), who earns a steady paycheck by managing a diner that serves only breakfast cereal. Problems arise when an aspiring businessman opens a competing restaurant and hires Deschanel as his assistant manager. Clocking in at an ultra-brief 85 minutes, Flakes is enjoyable enough while you’re watching it, but don’t expect to remember a thing about it an hour later. From indie comedy to indie thriller, the crime caper Toxic (Genius Products, $19.97) features a Who’s Who of B-List stars, from Master P and Ron Jeremy to Tom Sizemore and Dominique Swain. Swain plays a mental patient who goes on a murder spree in response to her pops taking out a hit on her life. 2008 has been the year of the superhero blockbuster, so the David Zucker-produced spoof Superhero Movie (The Weinstein Company, $29.95) seemed like it would have plenty of targets to ridicule. For some reason though, the filmmakers stick largely to the first Spider-Man flick, which came out six years ago—a lifetime in comic-book movie years. Although a few gags hit the mark, much of the humor is groaningly obvious. You can tell a spoof is in trouble when the deleted scenes and outtakes aren’t any funnier than what’s actually in the film.