Angels Around Me From Green Apple Entertainment On Apr. 16

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Green Apple Entertainment has tabbed Apr. 16 as the DVD debut date for writer/director (actor and producer) Stephen “Stix” Josey’s crime drama with a message, Angels Around Me.   The film worked the festival circuit last year, including a rollout at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival in June.

On the surface, Angels Around Me would appear to be a turf war story very much in the spirit of a Goodfellas or New Jack City.  It certainly has all of the trappings. 

Boston crime lord Big D (Scott Neufville — Pain, Love & Passion, The Last Shot, etc.) is facing mounting pressures from an up and coming “made man” (with Miami connections) named Tony (played ruthlessly by Anthony Menounos).   His nightclub serves as the front for his ever-growing criminal operation … he’s young and ambitious and wants to (or is it needs to) make a name for himself; Big D is in his crosshairs.  

Angels Around Me can be enjoyed on that level — as a straight action film.  Action fans can certainly sink their teeth into a story that pits rival mobs — and their street soldiers — against each other in a life and death struggle (filmed in and around Boston to great effect).  As a bonus it has a hard-driving soundtrack that punctuates the action.

Big D (Scott Neufville) and his crew take care of some business in Green Apple's Apr. 16 DVD debut of Angels Around Me.

However, there is more going on here as Big D’s would-be bodyguards — Mark Hayes (Derrick Hammond) and John Baker (Stephen Josey — long-time music producer and composer-turned-filmmaker) — have another, far more important, mission on their plate than just keeping Big D’s rivals from taking him out.  

Not all is as it seems.  Good, evil … it comes in many forms.   Even the local police work at cross-purposes; trust here comes at a premium. 

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Breaking Glass Pictures Sets Stuck To Your Pillow For A Domestic DVD Debut On Apr. 30

Madrid, Spain, picturesque, romantic and home to the love-sick Miguel (Suso Martín), a man who desperately loves a local beauty named Patricia (Paola Verdú).  That’s the location and the set-up for Spanish filmmaker Mari Navarro’s Stuck to Your Pillow, which will be arriving on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures on Apr. 30.

There are just two little problems with this relationship.   First, the lovely Patricia is married, but when has that ever stood in the way of a love affair?   It complicates things, sure, but this is romantic Madrid, that little detail can be worked out.

Perhaps — and it is just a “perhaps” sort of thing — there might just be a little more of an obstacle to their relation than her being married … it seems that poor Miguel is not just love-struck, but he has literally just been struck dead in an auto accident!

That would be the end to most any relationship, but that wouldn’t make for much of a romantic comedy, which is what Navarro has delivered in equal parts — fun and romance!   Despite his guardian angel (Eduardo Tato) insisting that it’s time to go, Miguel embarks upon his quest — as a ghost — and soon discovers that he can profess his love for her in her dreams.   They can live, love and go on romantic adventures in her dream world.

              Paola Verdú and Suso Martín are "dream lovers" in Breaking  Glass Pictures' Apr. 30 DVD debut of Stuck to Your Pillow

To complicate matters even further, her husband (Juan Dávila) becomes convinced that his wife is having an affair.  Everything in her behavior of late points to that.   His solution is to hire two private investigators (incompetent, private investigators at that) — Socio (Rubén Torres) and Vigilante (Sepu Sepúlveda) — to ferret out the other man in the picture.   They arrive at the conclusion that it has to be a ghost! 

So there you have it.  A woman having a love affair with a ghost, while her husband battles for her affections in the waking world.   It’s all great fun … and with a Spanish flair (with English subtitles).

Bonus features include commentary from writer/director Mari Navarro, deleted scenes and a making-of featurette.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Warner Home Video's Cloud Atlas Heads Home On May 14

Warner Home Video has let it be known that May 14 will be the release date for Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and DVD editions (both featuring UltraViolet) of the film adaptation of David Mitchell’s 2004 sci-fi/adventure novel, Cloud Atlas.

The ARR works out to a long-in-the-tooth 200 days (many false reports on the release date have come and gone) and the box office tally in the domestic market came in $27.1 million (Cloud Atlas did much better overseas).

Those unfamiliar with Mitchell’s book found the theatrical trailer interesting, but nearly incomprehensible … which violated so many of the unwritten “rules” for making a successful trailer.  

Basically, when you are dealing with multiple storylines — spread across five centuries (past, present and future) — with the key actors in radically different roles, you can’t be literal with the presentation.   It’s simply too confusing. 

Theatre audiences watching the trailer found it baffling … in three minutes most came away with the impression that the film didn’t make any sense.   Visually stunning, but what’s with Tom Hanks?   He’s this guy; that guy … what?   Huh?

Sometimes it is better to lie (well, fib a bit).  Keep it simple.  You have a story to tell in two minutes … focus in on a key point or two and built interest; suspense … intrigue.   

To this point, years ago I was in the theatre business and ShoWest was the convention to attend.   It used to be at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas (now Bally’s) and way in the back of the hotel they had this cool little theatre (now where the sports book is) where you could watch trailers for hours on end and press a little red button and someone would bring you drinks.   

It was heaven for a cinema junky.   Drink a cool beverage and watch three hours worth of movie trailers.   Almost without fail the endless stream of trailers fell into three groups.  There were those that were simply horrible (such as Cloud Atlas), then there were the ones that picked out the best parts — usually comedies — and you knew instinctively that the film itself was going to be rotten and finally there were those trailers that caught your interest (wow, got to see that one).   It’s an art form and you either get it right … or you’ve lost a golden opportunity to get theatre-goers to return to the multiplex to see your movie.

A film can overcome a confusing theatrical trailer: even a muddled launch campaign.   But, for whatever reason, Cloud Atlas opened at Halloween.   Too early for a prestigious Thanksgiving run-up to Christmas and the awards season that follows and well-past the prime summer season (big films and big audiences).   

So now comes home entertainment and Warner Home Video has to dig out from under all of these mistakes that were made in the theatrical launch to generate interest in a film that underperformed in its theatrical run.   Sometimes a studio is just helpless in when a film gets released — production delays; competition … this or that; it’s always something, but home entertainment is the fall back; the salvation.

With the May 14 street date for the home entertainment launch, at least Warner Home Video has plenty of time to beat the promotional drums and re-awaken interest.  Actually, they’ve played it pretty smart.  They didn’t try to rush it in for a release during the Christmas-selling season or the immediate post-Christmas (early January) period — it would have gotten lost.   

They also avoided the Oscar flurry (February/March) … and with the May 14, it will be at retail before the big summer films take away their audience who are off to the cinema for the latest blockbusters.

The good news is that Cloud Atlas does have its selling points.  It’s a genre film, well-produced, visually stunning and with a known cast (Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, etc.).   It also teams three filmmakers with solid film credits — Run Lola Run’s Tom Tykwer (who handle three of the segments) is teamed with the writing/directing tandum of Andy and Lana Wachowski, who were responsible for Warner’s Matrix film series.

Three months to work it, coupled with some key selling points, plus bonus features, that should prove to be a winning combination for Warner Home Video.

As to those bonus goodies for Cloud Atlas, both DVD and Blu-ray SKUs include the featurette titled “A Film Like No Other.”  Exclusive to the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack are six additional production featurettes, including one titled, “The Bold Science Fiction of Cloud Atlas” and another listed as “Eternal Recurrence: Love, Life, and Longing in Cloud Atlas.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Well Go U.S.A.'s Not Suitable For Children Debuts Apr. 16

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Well Go U.S.A. has gone to the land Down Under for the Apr. 16 DVD and Blu-ray release of writer/director Peter Templeton’s delightful “romantic” comedy, Not Suitable For Children, starring True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten.

Templeton’s film comes as something of a pleasant surprise from a country noted for its horror, action and dramatic films.   They make some of the best in the world, but romantic comedy is not really the country’s long suit — filmmaker P.J. Hogan’s Muriel’s Wedding being a wonderful example of what they can do when they put their hearts in it (it was sweet, fun and at times very dark).   

There are others, sure, but you get the drift.

A few quick words about filmmaker Peter Templeton — before we dive into the merits of the Not Suitable For Children arrival in the domestic home entertainment market — he has done quite a bit of Aussie TV (stuff that Yanks have probably never heard of), but is most noted for his early short films, including The Saviour, which was nominated for an Oscar back in 2005.  

Not Suitable For Children marks his first full-length feature film and he absolutely knocks it out of the park — or, would that be he strikes it off the pitch?

Kwanten plays Jonah, a twenty-something bachelor with a reputation of partying hardy every weekend — he’s actually managed to turn it into something of a business.  He’s a lady’s man, ready to swing, even if the name of his latest shag becomes a bit elusive in the fog of alcohol and noise of the night.   You get the picture early on that he loves to play, party and have love-and-leave’em sex with the babes (who are more than willing).  

Now comes the hook.   His latest “conquest” notes that he has a “you’ve got a lump sort of thing” there … which leads to a quick check up at the doctor (Lewis Fitz-Gerald — Breaker Morant), who informs Jonah that he’s got testicular cancer, but he’s caught in time.   After the surgery he’ll still be able to party (you only need one), but with the therapy associated with the surgery and the after-treatment he will, sorry to say, be sterile.

Three weeks, four tops, before the end comes to his baby-making opportunities.   That is all the time he has to go through his long list of “relationships” to find a willing partner so that he can become a dad before … snip, snip, snip!  

His flatmates (and business partners) — Stevie (Sarah Snook — Sisters of War) and Gus (Ryan Corr) — offer to help (lots of suggestions), but as the endless encounters (proposals; offers; suggestions) wear on, it begins to look as if it is a hopeless (and very funny) fatherhood quest for Jonah.   Perhaps, just perhaps, the answer is staring him right in the face!

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Paramount Announces Rise Of The Guardians And The Guilt Trip

Paramount Home Media Distribution did the perfect one-two publicity move during these past two weeks.   When you have announcements for all sorts of things, the most important thing is not to step all over the news.   Big titles crush little titles, that is just the way it goes.

Last week Paramount announced a series of Blu-ray releases from the film catalog (a nice Star Trek promotion timed to take advantage of the theatrical launch of Star Trek Into Darkness on May 17), plus some KidVid and TV-on-DVD product selections.

With these “little guys” safely tucked away, Paramount was back this week with release news, for not about just one, but two recent theatrical hits making their transition to the home entertainment market place.

Direct Peter Ramsey’s Rise of the Guardians, a beautifully delivered film adaptation of the William Joyce “The Guardians of Childhood” series of books, will be available to own on Mar. 12 as a three-SKU product offering.

The ARR for this DreamWorks Animation production works out to 109 days and the box office take for the film’s run in the domestic market was a nice $100.9 million.  

Ignore all that financial scuffling you might have heard in recent weeks about the film’s big budget and the production write-offs that took place over at DreamWorks … that’s just bean counter stuff and it has nothing to do with how consumers will react to the two Blu-ray SKUs (a 3D/2D Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and a Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack) and the stand-alone DVD edition once they reach retailer’s shelves.   

That $100 million number for multiplex ticket sales speaks volumes about how theatre-goers felt about the film … and that’s all that matters!

As to bonus goodies, all three SKUs will feature commentary from director Peter Ramsey (his theatrical debut directing effort after building a solid track record as an illustrator and storyboard artist over the past 15 years), who is joined by producers Christina Steinberg (National Treasure, Bee Movie, etc.) and Nancy Bernstein (f/x and visual effects wizard for such films as Star Trek: Nemesis, The Day After Tomorrow, I, Robot, etc.).  

Also included on all three editions of Rise of the Guardians are “More Magic” (a collection of printable Easter egg holders and coloring sheets) and two featurettes — “Dreamers and Believers” and “Sandy’s Dream Guide.”

Exclusive to the Blu-ray product offerings are two additional featurettes — “Behind the Magic” (a four-part look at the characters, effects and music) and “The Man Behind the Guardians” — plus two interactive games: “Jack Frost Snowball Showdown!” and “Rock, Paper, Scissors with Sandy.”

The second theatrical hit heading home is director Anne Fletcher’s road trip comedy, The Guilt Trip, teaming Seth Rogen with Barbra Streisand.   The street date for the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack (with UltraViolet) and DVD stand-alone SKUs will be Apr. 30.

The box office gross came in at $36.7 million and the ARR for that end of April date works out to 130 days.

As the story goes, screenwriter Dan Fogelman (Cars, Bolt, Tangled, etc.) had a road trip from hell with his mother some years ago and decided to put it to paper.   Throw in Rogen (whose humor is infectious) and add the iconic Streisand and you pretty much have the perfect mix for what could indeed be a believable cross country auto trip in which you would not want to be along for the ride (or, maybe not)!

As to bonus goodies, exclusive to the Blu-ray SKU are five production featurettes, deleted scenes, a gag reel and both alternate openings and endings.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Slow-Walks Zero Dark Thirty

It looks as though director Kathryn Bigelow’s Best Picture nominee, Zero Dark Thirty, will be heading to the home entertainment market place on Mar. 19.   

The ARR for Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack and DVD editions (both SKUs featuring UltraViolet) works out to a lightning-quick 88 days … current box office, and still growing, is $83.6 million.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s stellar publicity department seems to have taken time off for Mardi Gras and Valentine’s Day festivities this past week and in doing so has failed to issue any official press announcements (a one-page, poorly-designed, sell-sheet hardly qualifies).   

In the meantime, every on-line retailer has posted the date (perhaps coming directly from Sony’s sales group … who are acting in their own best interest).   Based on this over-whelming evidence of retailer activity, Mar. 19 is the date we are going with.

In all fairness (and we do like to be fair to an organization that wouldn’t know what a screener for one of their major announcements was used for, even if they sat on it), this might just be part of an in-house stealth operation to keep the home entertainment news all hush-hush and below the radar so as not to discourage potential ticket buyers from heading over to their local multiplex on the run-up to the Oscar ceremonies on Sunday, Feb. 24.

That is the only logical explanation.   It would be inconceivable for any home entertainment group to actively suppress the sales and marketing of a high-profile Best Picture candidate at the height of the Oscar season (with all that free publicity), unless studio distribution brass have requested a slow-walk effort until after the Academy Awards to minimize theatrical exhibition blowback (there are millions of dollars at stake here).  

Zero Dark Thirty — with five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Script and Best Actress (Jessica Chastain) — could be the ultimate winner (although Argo appears to have a slight edge right now, with Silver Linings Playbook closing very fast … never count the Weinsteins out).  

 

If Zero Dark Thirty does capture Oscar gold for Best Picture, it is well-deserved … and even if only half of the storyline is accurate (based on an original screenplay by Oscar-nominee Mark Boal — Oscar-winner for The Hurt Locker), it is both a small wonder that Osama was ever taken down (talk about your bureaucratic ineptitude) and a tribute to the professionalism of the SEAL team that took care of business.

On Sunday, Feb. 17, the WGA announced their winners, the results of which could signal a head-to-head duel for Argo and Zero Dark Thirty this next Sunday.   They were in separate categories — Original and Adapted — and they both took home WGA honors.

This double-win appears to set-up a hold-your-breath Oscar finale as neither director, Kathryn Bigelow or Ben Affleck, were nominated by the Academy for their work (so no clue will be forthcoming as to the Best Picture-winner when that Oscar is handed out in the Best Director category).   

Tearing open that final envelope this year could yield a very big surprise!  This year’s selection of Best Picture candidates features some terrific films in competition … from blockbusters to dark horses.  

It is a vintage year!  Right now there are at least six different films that still stand a chance of winning Best Picture laurels, especially if the votes cast among the Academy members are divided.   

Based on retailer information, the Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack includes four production featurettes as the only bonus nuggets — “No Small Feat - Making Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Compound,” “Targeting Jessica Chastain” and “Geared Up.”

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Inventory of New Theatrical Releases With a Box Office Gross of at Least $25 Million

Calendar of $25 Million-Plus Theatrical Releases as of February 15, 2013

ARR - The Asset Rollover Rate (ARR) is the number of days between a film's theatrical debut and its subsequent release on either DVD or Blu-ray.

New Announcements in Red. 

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Indican Pictures Says Apr. 30 For Blu-ray And DVD Editions Of The Man Who Shook The Hand Of Vicente Fernandez

Indican Pictures will bring DVD and Blu-ray SKUs of iconic film legend Ernest Borgnine’s last screen role, retired radio personality Rex Page, to market on Apr. 30 with the release of writer/director Elia Petridis’ The Man Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez.

The ARR is 144 days and the box office take from the film’s limited theatrical showcase break this past December was $6,249.   That’s why we have DVD and Blu-ray … so that the other 300 million plus people in the country who weren’t in the right place — and at the right time — can enjoy this delightful film.

Ernest Borgnine was perfectly cast as the “old timer” Rex Page, a man with a fondness for Westerns (just imagine him as Dutch Engstrom, only fifty years older and in a care facility), who at 94 was as sharp and on his game as any thespian half his age.   He can be cranky, funny (what a great wit) … and rattlesnake mean when pushed too far!

What filmmaker Elia Petridis (How Henri Came to Stay) has concocted here is part send-up and part homage to the heyday of Spaghetti Westerns, with the nursing home that Rex finds himself in substituting nicely for any frontier town of the 1880s.   

Rex (Ernest Borgnine) takes on Walker (Barry Corbin)

The place is run with an iron fist by a man named Walker (Barry Corbin), who like any Western villain has a henchman (played by Tony Plana, perhaps best known as Ignacio from the Ugly Betty television series) to do his bidding — who attempts to takes liberties with the beautiful Solena (Carla Ortiz) — and terrorize the other citizens too meek to stand up to him (actually, the other patients and staff members of the facility).   

When the mainly Latino staff discovers that Rex once met Vicente Fernandez (famed Mexican actor, king of the Ranchera style of music and known as the “Sinatra of Mexico”), he becomes their hero.  He becomes someone they can rally behind, especially when Fernandez will be performing in concert at a local venue and the entire plans to attend ... but Walker has other plans for them.

The stage is now set, metaphorically-speaking, for the big showdown.  The Man Shook the Hand of Vicente Fernandez is great fun and a nice sign-off for the legend … who left us on July 8 of 2012.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Last Kind Words On DVD From Image Entertainment On May 21

Image Entertainment has selected May 21 as the DVD debut date for writer/director Kevin Barker’s chilling backwoods tale, Last Kind Words.

Inspired by Geeshie Wiley’s spring of 1930 folk-blues recording, “Last Kind Word Blues,” which is filled with lyrical images of death, ghostly references and a love that transcends time (and perhaps even physical boundaries — that is left to the listener to decide and debate).   

Wiley concludes her mournful tune with …

“The Mississippi river,

you know it's deep and wide

I can stand right here,

see my face from the other side

What you do to me baby

it never gets outta’ me

I may not see you

after I cross the deep blue sea.”

Now that the atmosphere for Last Kind Words has been set, we begin with Eli (Spencer Daniels — as Tyler in the Crash television series, plus such films as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Star Trek, etc.), a newbie to these rural parts of Kentucky where his father and mother have returned to work a farm.   It is familiar turf to them, but details are left a little vague on that subject.

Eli is a true, wide-eyed innocent, so it comes as quite the shock to him when a local beauty — a nearby neighbor — named Amanda (Alexia Fast — Jack Reacher) takes a fancy to him.   It seems as if she is playfully seducing him … and he is an easy conquest.   

Alexia Fast and Spencer Daniels star in Last Kind Words (on DVD May 21)

Also on the farm is a man named Waylon (another amazing performance by Brad Dourif), who sort of acts as the “Greek Chorus” as events unfold.  He gives the viewer clues as what is going on (quick with the folklore) and ominously warns Eli to steer clear of the spooky woods, which of course is a place he will need to explore.   Waylon has his share of secrets.

The alluring Amanda also sets boundaries, which at first seem silly, but quickly take on a deeper meaning when Eli goes where he has been warned not to go.   What he finds hanging in the woods would give anyone nightmares.

Last Kind Words is a near flawlessly delivered ghost story — Southern Gothic in its telling — that will have you ducking for cover and hiding your eyes as things literally go bump in the night!

The film worked the festival circuit, including the Atlanta Film Fest and the Brooklyn International Film Festival, to some nice reviews during 2012.  With the May 21 street date for the DVD, Image has three full months to beat the promotional drums for this one. 

No word from Image Entertainment just yet as to bonus goodies that might be included on the DVD release.

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report

Ariztical Entertainment's D'Agostino On DVD and Blu-ray, Apr. 23

-->On Apr. 23, Ariztical Entertainment will serve up DVD and Blu-ray editions of actor/writer, producer and director Jorge Ameer’s D'Agostino.   Ameer delivers a multi-genre film presentation that is an erotic and challenging sci-fi flick wrapped in a mystery with personal, even sexual awakenings.

Allan Dawson (Keith Roenke) is a top executive, rich beyond avarice with a beautiful lover named Sylvia (Torie Tyson).  With wealth, power and the trappings of sexual conquest, outwardly you would think that he’d be one happy man, but he finds none of it to be satisfying.   Bored and detached.

The opportunity to get away from it all comes quite unexpectedly when his grandmother passes and he is left with a small island estate in picturesque Greece.   With the pretense of heading off to investigate his inheritance — leaving Sylvia behind (he’s got to figure out a way to get out of that relationship) — he packs up and jets off to his hoped-to-be island paradise (filmed in around Santorini).

That’s Jorge Ameer’s set up for D'Agostino.   Basically you’ve got some wealthy, bored business executive who just wants to be alone for a few days to plan his next moves.   From this starting point the film could go off in any one of a number of different directions.

The path that the filmmaker takes us down is totally unexpected.   Once Allan arrives at the estate, he discovers a naked, perhaps even feral man cowering in a locked room.   It is a mystery how he got there, but it is D'Agostino (Michael Angels) of the film’s title … and if that isn’t weird enough, his presence (existence) there becomes even stranger.

It turns out that he is a cloned human being, who has been kept in isolation over the years (fed and kept healthy) and was in the process of being shipped (via sea) to the United States to be harvested for fresh body parts.   He somehow washed ashore and found his way into the empty dwelling.  

Keith Roenke and Michael Angels star in D'Agostino

For an individual bored with just about everything, this new “pet” is just too tantalizing to pass up — it is an opportunity for Allan to find himself.   He cleans him up, nicknames the man Diablo and soon develops a relationship with the clone as he abandons the trappings of wealth, power and the limitations that society places upon “responsible” people as he starts to live out his own fantasies.   

Allan can “mold” this “friend” into anything he likes.  It is a blank slate (not another human being, but an It)!   His training as a ruthless, even morally indifferent business executive is both his fall back position for creating Diablo into his own image … and his ultimate undoing.

As to bonus goodies, the DVD SKU contains 30 minutes worth of unspecified material, while the Blu-ray edition doubles up on that with a full 60 minutes of bonus materials (featurettes, interviews, outtakes, etc.).

To download this week's complete edition of the DVD and Blu-ray Release Report: DVD & Blu-ray Release Report