Well Go U.S.A.'s Kid Cannabis On DVD And Blu-ray This Coming July 8

Rolling Stone in October of 2005 featured an article by Mark Binelli describing a multi-million dollar drug empire founded by a chubby Coeur D'Alene, Idaho pizza delivery boy named Nate Norman.

By all accounts he was a nice kid, with “a big heart,” who had dropped out of high school and looked for all the world not to have much of a future.   But one day, with his buddy Topher Clark, he hit upon the idea of making some extra cash by smuggling marijuana across the border from Canada — where it could be acquired legally.

According to Binelli’s piece, an investment of $1,400.00 within two years grew into millions in sales (they sort of lost track) … and then someone got killed and the wheels came off.   Gone were all of the fancy cars, the piles of money, the parties, the drugs (more than just pot), the guns and all of the over-the-top houses.   Just prison.

Actor-turned-director/writer John Stockwell (Christine, Top Gun, Losin’ It, etc.) read Binelli’s article, along with a similar piece by Kevin Taylor titled “Dreaming in Green,” (where he actually interviewed Nate Norman and some of the other players) and optioned the screen rights to both.   He knew a good story — and almost surreal story — when he saw it!

The result is Kid Cannabis, starring Jonathan Daniel Brown (Project X, Bad Milo) as Nate Norman and Kenny Wormald (Footloose, You Got Served, Clerks II) as his goof-ball partner, Topher. 

Well Go U.S.A. knows a good thing too!!   They acquired Stockwell’s film earlier this year and will launch it theatrically on Apr. 18 and then bring both DVD and Blu-ray editions to market on July 8.

Working with Mark Binelli, Stockwell has fashioned a script that is faithful to the story — and as Stockwell tells it, he even got to meet the real Nate Norman in prison by bringing him some fast food from Burger King (Nate’s girlfriend and lawyer wanted significantly more for such a face-to-face interview).   

Nate and Torpher were just high school dropouts and recreational stoners who ended up with more money then they knew what to do with.   Kid Cannabis is the perfect tell-all … and if you were not aware that it was based on actual events, you might come away thinking that it’s just another stoner comedy (“Dude, where’s my car?”).   Funny, over-the-top … and sad.

If you can’t catch this one during its theatrical run, be sure to mark July 8 on your calendar … this is going to be one sweet DVD and/or Blu-ray ride.

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

Wolfe Says Director Chris Mason Johnson's Test On DVD June 6

Writer/director Chris Mason Johnson’s Outfest Grand Jury Award-winner for both Best U.S. Dramatic Feature and Best Screenplay, Test, will be making its DVD debut from Wolfe on Friday, June 6.

In a word, Test is impressive!   Filmmaker Chris Mason Johnson has pulled off the production of a film that has the same sense of time and urgency as Matthew McConaughey’s Oscar-winner, Dallas Buyers Club.   Both are set in 1985, both read true to the period, but Test did it in the constraints (and spirit) of indie filmmaking on just a fraction of the budget.  

Set in San Francisco in 1985, with the terror of the HIV outbreak in its infancy — complete with the rumors, the bad assumptions, ignorance and the confusion of the period — we meet Frankie (played by dancer Scott Marlowe in his screen debut), a modern dancer, with talent, but struggling to win acceptance (issues relating to his masculinity, which is pretty amusing when everyone around him is gay).

It is here, in the dance company, that Frankie embarks upon a relationship with Todd (Matthew Risch — Sex and the City 2, Legally Blonde: The Musical, Switched at Birth, etc.), which from today’s POV, seems reckless at times, but then again, this is 1985.

With the backdrop of “the executioner” at your door at any given moment (those telltale signs that you may have gotten a death sentence), the discussion; the debate is do you get the newly-developed test for HIV … or is it better not to know?   

The tension builds in the story and their relationship against a backdrop of well-selected period soundtrack and some excellent dance choreography (the sense of it all rings true in an almost cinéma vérité manner of presentation).  The acting is spot-on and Johnson’s script is filled with both humor and dread.

Bonus features include deleted scenes.

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

 

May 13 For Paramount Home Media Distribution's Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 2

Paramount Home Media Distribution will be heading back to court on May 13 with a full docket of six Perry Mason cases.   

The three-disc DVD collection titled, Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 2, showcases six feature-length investigations and trials that includes The Case of the Scandalous Scoundrel, which finds Perry Mason suing scandal sheet publisher Harlan Wade (Robert Guillaume) over an alleged affair with none other than Della Street (Barbara Hale) … when Wade ends up dead a host of worthy suspects are in the spotlight, but the police zero in on a former reporter (played by Michelle Benti) who retains Mason to defend her in court!

Other cases in the collection are: The Case of the Avenging Ace has Perry working on the appeal of an old murder case when suddenly a key witness is also murdered; it’s Mason to the rescue in The Case of the Lady in the Lake when tennis player Billy Travis (David Hasselhoff) appears to be the only suspect in the murder of his rich wife and in The Case of the Lethal Lesson we find Mason pulling double duty as both a college instructor and the defender of one of his students accused of a revenge murder. 

Finishing up these murder mysteries are The Case of the Musical Murder, where Mason is the witness to a murder, but was heavily sedated for a knee operation at the time ... so his testimony is out the window and he has to solve the case the old fashioned way.

And lastly, The Case of the All-Star Assassin has Perry on thin ice in the defense of a hockey player who is accused of killing the arena’s owner when negotiations turn sour.

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

Mill Creek Entertainment Expands May Release Slate With Cantinflas Double-Features And More!

Mill Creek Entertainment continues to expand its price-to-sell slate of new DVD products for delivery to the consumer market place during the month of May.

Added to the schedule this week are no less than five double-feature selections featuring the legendary Mexican screen comedian (also screen writer and film producer) Cantinflas (aka: Mario Moreno).   Included in the mix is his first color film, the 1957 comedy directed by Miguel M. Delgado, El Bolero de Raquel.

Being released under the promotional banner of “Cantinflas Dos Películas” are the following double-features on May 20: El Bolero de Raquel/Su Excelencia, El Circo/A Volar Joven, El Gendarme Desconocido/Los Tres Mosqueteros, El Senor Fotografo/Si You Fuera Diputado, and Soy Un Profugo/El Mago.  All SKUs are priced at just $9.98 each and are presented in Spanish with English subtitles.

Also added to the May 20 release calendar — and also priced at just $9.98 each — are four TV-on-DVD selections: Good Times: Season Three, Good Times: Season Four, The Jeffersons: The Complete First Season and The Jeffersons: The Complete Second Season.

Lastly, May 13 marks the DVD release of the double-disc set titled D-Day: 70th Anniversary Collection.   SRP is just $9.98.

Included in this ten program collection are: “D-Day: The Invasion – March to Victory,” “Winston Churchill,” “D-Day: June 6, 1944,” “Secrets of War: D-Day Deceptions,” “Victory At Sea: D-Day,” “The Finest Hours of the Second World War: D-Day,” “Crusade in Europe: D-Day,” “WWII Diaries: June 1944” and “Medal of Honor – WWII – Europe.”   As a bonus, Mill Creek Entertainment has included director Alfonso Brescia’s (aka: Al Bradley) 1968 film release of Hell In Normandy, starring Guy Madison.

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

Warner Home Video Preps Blu-ray Of The Outsiders: The Complete Novel Edition For June 3

Warner Home Video continues to expand both its Blu-ray and DVD theatrical catalog libraries with new product offerings.

June 6 will see a Blu-ray rework of director Francis Ford Coppola’s 1983 film adaptation of the S.E. Hinton’s best-seller, The Outsiders.   The edition that Warner Bros. has planned for June 3 is Coppola’s 2005 recut, which is titled The Outsiders: The Complete Novel Edition.

Restored to the film are some 22 minutes worth of footage excised from the original theatrical cut complete with a new musical score.   Bonus features include two separate audio commentaries, one featuring producer/director Coppola and the second (recorded in 2003) includes cast members C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Matt Dillon and Rob Lowe.

Other bonus nuggets showcase a quartet of production featurettes — “Staying Gold: A Look Back at The Outsiders,” “S.E. Hinton on Location in Tulsa,” “The Casting of The Outsiders” and “Cast Readings of Hinton's Book.”

Set for release on Aug. 5 is a Blu-ray edition of Bill Murray’s 1997 comedy, The Man Who Knew Too Little.

On the DVD release front, July 15 marks re-release of three films from the venerable Samuel Goldwyn film library: Ball of Fire (1941, teaming Gary Cooper with Barbara Stanwyck with direction by Howard Hawks), Dead End (1937, the East Side Kids —Leo Gorcey, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan and Billy Halop — teamed with Humphrey Bogart, Sylvia Sidney and Joel McCrea in this 1937 social commentary directed by William Wyler) and The Little Foxes (1941, also directed by William Wyler — starring Bette Davis and Teresa Wright (both Oscar nominated) — the film was nominated for nine Oscars, including Best Picture).

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

HBO Home Entertainment's True Detective Heads Home On June 10

HBO Home Entertainment’s latest hit cable series, True Detective, will be heading home on June 10 as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings (with UltraViolet).  

All eight episodes featuring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as Louisiana State Police homicide detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart — who are investigating the murder of a former hooker and begin to suspect that a serial killer is on the prowl — are included in these first season collections.

Bonus features include deleted scenes, episode commentary (two) and a behind-the-scenes featurette titled “Making True Detective.”

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

RoboCop Reboot From MGM Home Entertainment June 3

MGM Home Entertainment, with sales and distribution expertise provided by 20^th Century-Fox Home Entertainment, has selected June 3 as the DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack editions (with UltraViolet) of director José Padilha's remake of RoboCop.

The ARR is 109 days and the box office take was a solid $57.4 million (probably not enough from domestic ticket sales to reboot the franchise … will need international help to do so).

Bonus features include deleted scenes, a three-part making of featurette and Omnicorp announcements.

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

Robert Duvall's Tomorrow Gets Blu-ray Date Of Apr. 29 From B2MP

B2MP, Inc. has targeted Apr. 29 for the release of a new Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack hi-def transfer of director Joseph Anthony’s 1972 film adaptation of William Faulkner’s short story, Tomorrow.

Out of print for some time now as a DVD SKU, this will be the first time that this collaboration between screenwriter Horton Foote and actor Robert Duvall will be available as a Blu-ray product offering.

The two first teamed in 1957 — before Duvall became the legendary film actor that he was destined to become — in Foote’s stage play, The Midnight Caller.  It is widely credited that Foote recommended Duvall for the role of Boo Radley (his screen debut) in director Robert Mulligan’s 1962 Oscar-winner, To Kill a Mockingbird (Best Actor for Gregory Peck and Best Adapted Screenplay for Foote).   

They would team again in 1966 for director Arthur Penn’s The Chase (based on Foote’s play) and then scored Oscar gold for both Best Actor (Robert Duvall) and Best Screenplay (Horton Foote) in director Bruce Beresford’s 1983 film masterpiece, Tender Mercies.

No collection of Duvall’s work is complete without Tomorrow, an understated, but beautifully crafted story of love, the South and one man’s sense of right, wrong and justice.

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

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's About Last Night To DVD And Blu-ray On May 20

Director Steve Pink’s film adaptation of the Leslye Headland stageplay, About Last Night, will be making its way to the home entertainment market place on May 20 as both DVD and Blu-ray product offerings (with UltraViolet) courtesy of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.

The ARR comes in at a quick-to-market 95 days and the box take was a nice $48.5 million.

Bonus features for the DVD SKU are limited to the featurette “An Un-Romantic Comedy,” while the Blu-ray edition contains three additional featurettes — “About Last Night Advice,” “I Love You?” and “Word on the Street.”

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