New Video Releases for the Week of April 27th, 2010

Read on for this week’s new DVD, Blu-ray, and Netflix Instant Watch titles.

New Releases:

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus – (DVD & Blu-ray)

The latest from Terry Gilliam, and the last performance we’ll see from Heath Ledger (until his 10 Things I Hate About You song and dance routine shows up via CGI in a vacuum commercial in 50 years like Fred Astaire). Aside from that (and the inventive/interesting plot), the main reason to watch this movie is Christopher Plummer. At 80 years old, he’s probably not going to get the chance to do many more roles like this, and it’s always nice to watch a true legend at work.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #4073
Total Times Ranked: 2476
Percentage of Times Won: 63.56%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 4
Directly rank it against (scroll over for match-up):
Good • Average • Terrible

It’s Complicated – (DVD & Blu-ray)

The latest drivel from Nancy Meyers. The cast is amazing, but Meyers’s track record is a pretty big turn-off.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #5745
Total Times Ranked: 583
Percentage of Times Won: 57.34%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 0
Directly rank it against (scroll over for match-up):
Good • Average • Terrible

District 13: Ultimatum – (DVD & Blu-ray)

More parkour action to scratch the itch any of you may have to watch that sort of thing.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #7916
Total Times Ranked: 76
Percentage of Times Won: 48.51%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 0
Directly rank it against (scroll over for match-up):
Good • Average • Terrible

Classics and Re-Releases:

Armageddon – (Blu-ray)

I hate this movie. Hate, hate, hate it. It’s one of the five or so movies I’ve come to completely loathe instead of just forgetting as time has passed. On paper, I should love this movie. I love Bruce Willis (even in Hudson Hawk). I like Ben Affleck so much, that I wrote every speech in my college speech class about how great he is – actual assignment be damned. I could go on and on listing why this movie should be great, but it just sucks. I wish there was a way to instantly place it at the bottom of my list along with Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels where it belongs.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #291
Total Times Ranked: 183582
Percentage of Times Won: 28.54%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 1548

The Fugitive Kind – (Criterion, DVD)

Marlon Brando. Mrs Paul Newman. Sidney Lumet. Tennessee Williams. Those are some names that instantly make my ears prick up; That Criterion is releasing this makes it a must watch.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #6820
Total Times Ranked: 180
Percentage of Times Won: 34.2%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 0

Ride with the Devil – (Criterion – DVD & Blu-Ray)

Criterion is really starting to anger me with their cover art. Their cover design is so consistently amazing that I am willing to drop $30 for a movie I would otherwise have just rented.

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #4013
Total Times Ranked: 1061
Percentage of Times Won: 29.26%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 1

Cold Turkey – (DVD, Only on Amazon)

Dick Van Dyke stars in the Thank You for Smoking of the early 1970’s. An entire town gives up smoking to win a $25 million prize. With that description, it’s definitely worth a rent.

The Vanishing Fiancee (aka The Green Room, aka La Chambre Verte) – DVD (Only on Amazon)

“Lesser” Truffaut, if there could even be such a thing, is still definitely worth finding and watching. I don’t think anybody has ever been able to make movies as compulsively watchable as Truffaut.

Dune – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #731
Total Times Ranked: 31394
Percentage of Times Won: 29.85%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 106

Tombstone – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #341
Total Times Ranked: 60703
Percentage of Times Won: 45.46%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 365

Traffic – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #217
Total Times Ranked: 153720
Percentage of Times Won: 42.76%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 1515

The Jackal – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #1858
Total Times Ranked: 11709
Percentage of Times Won: 29.35%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 12

Elizabeth – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #930
Total Times Ranked: 19224
Percentage of Times Won: 32.59%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 68

Elizabeth: The Golden Age – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #2307
Total Times Ranked: 3227
Percentage of Times Won: 24%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 3

Out of Africa – (Blu-ray)

Flickchart’s Global Ranking: #1845
Total Times Ranked: 6130
Percentage of Times Won: 26.20%
Users Who Have It In Their Top 20: 16

Direct-To-Video (Watch at your own risk!):

Five Minutes of Heaven – (Liam Neeson)
The Descent Part 2 – (Sequel to The Descent)
Transylmania – (Not actually DTV, but let’s pretend it is…)

Netflix Instant Watch:

Friday April 30:

• Don’t Play Us Cheap – (Melvin Van Peebles)
• Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song – (Melvin Van Peebles)
• Educating Rita – (Michael Caine)
• The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing – (Burt Reynolds)
• The Country Bears – (Haley Joel Osment)

Saturday May 1:

• The Stunt Man – (Peter O’Toole)
• Thirst – (Chan-Wook Park)
• Love the Beast – (Eric Bana)
• Murder on the Orient Express – (Sean Connery)
• Serpico – (Al Pacino)
• Freaked – (Alex Winter)
• She (1935)
• Scarlet Street – (Edward G. Robinson)
• There’s No Business Like Show Business – (Marilyn Monroe)
• Funny Games (2007) – (Naomi Watts)
• Cabiria (1914)
• The Stepford Wives (2004) – (Nicole Kidman)
• Suspect Zero – (Aaron Eckhart)
• The Machinist – (Christian Bale)
• Pretty Much Every Comedy Central Show on DVD