The Shelf is going to be a little different from here on out. It will still give you all a list of the best and biggest Blu-ray and DVD releases of the week, but any individual release reviews will be separate and only linked to here. Hope that’s cool with everyone; new site, new Shelf. Unfortunately, we start with a whole bunch of things that were in theaters in February…
FEATURE FILMS
Monuments Men
George Clooney’s World War II team-up film, based on a true story, involves him, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, and others as part of a team whose mission it is to collect precious art and stop it from being destroyed by either the Nazis or the U.S. troops in France. It’s like Saving Private Ryan but with paintings and the like.
3 Days to Kill
Kevin Costner plays a dying CIA agent who wants to connect with his estranged daughter (Hailee Steinfeld) before the end, but an experimental treatment might be able to save his life if he does one more dangerous assignment. McG directs this thriller that has “When was this in theaters” written all over it.
Pompeii
What if Gladiator got mixed with Dante’s Peak and had Kit Harrington from Game of Thrones, Kiefer Sutherland, Carrie Ann Moss, and Emily Browning in it? Well, if Paul W.S. Anderson directs, it’s a movie that tries to make you forget it’s called Pompeii and is about the famous volcano. It’s loud, it’s dumb, it’s a lot of fun.
Vampire Academy
Vampires? Check. Teenagers? Check. Based on a book? Check. Directed by someone with decent, though not glowing, credits to his name? Check. Box office failure? Chhhhhheeeeeeeeeeck.
Nosferatu the Vampyre
Werner Herzog’s 1979 reimagine of F.W. Murnau’s silent classic. It stars Klaus Kinski as the rodent-like Count Dracula and is suitably creepy. Read my full review of this release right here.
About Last Night
A remake of an ’80s movie based on a play by David Mamet that was called Sexual Perversity in Chicago. This version stars Kevin Hart, Michael Ealy, Regina Hall, and Joy Bryant. That’s about all I got.
TELEVISION SERIES
Doctor Who The Enemy of the World
The re-discovered and newly-restored serial from 1967-68 starring Patrick Troughton playing double roles. It’s pretty amazing. Read my full review right here.
Warehouse 13 Season 5
The last season of Syfy’s popular syence fyction comedy series about agents who must collect alien and supernatural artifacts so bad people don’t get them. The very final episode just aired Monday night and it’s already out on DVD.
Call the Midwife Season 3
Period drama about a group of midwives delivering babies in a poor East End part of London in the 1950s. It tends to win or get nominated for awards.
Happy Days Season 5
The halfway mark for the Garry Marshall series which ran from 1974 to 1984 about how great the 1950s were. Potsie can sit on it, Ralph Malph’s still got it, and Fonzie is inexplicably cool.
LA Law Season 2
There were no lawyer shows worth talking about before this series in which good looking attorneys in the City of Angels try cases and get romantic and stuff. I don’t know, my parents used to watch it.
