New DVD Spin: Blade Runner Super-Multi-Deluxe, The Simpsons Movie, and Halloween

This week's a good one for DVDs. The studios are backing up the truck and loading our shelves with souped-up replicants, cinematized Simpsons, love-locked musicians, Robert De Niro as a flying pirate, and more.

Here are the first few that caught our attention:

Blade Runner (Universal)
Five-Disc Ultimate Collector's Edition
Four-Disc Collector's Edition
The Final Cut Two-Disc Special Edition
Ridley Scott's brilliantly designed, atmospheric and influential future noir, by way of author Philip K. Dick, finally gets the royal treatment on DVD in no less than three simultaneous, increasingly encyclopedic purchase options, not to mention HD DVD and Blu-ray versions. Everything has been restored and remastered from original elements, then given all-new Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Extras only start with the new feature-length documentary Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner, which includes Shawshank Redemption director Frank Darabont and Pan's Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro taking opposite sides on the "Is Deckard a replicant too?" question. Not even the "attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion" have ever looked and sounded better, or been so assiduously deconstructed. And remember -- Los Angeles in 2019 is now only 12 years away.

For the serious two-fisted, big-gulping fan, the five-disc Ultimate Collector's Edition brings home five distinct versions of the film, from the work print to Scott's 2007 "Final Cut." All that plus nine hours of bonus materials -- and its own limited edition, numbered "Deckard" briefcase with collectable memorabilia such as a Spinner car replica, Unicorn figurine, illustration and photo cards, and a lenticular Motion Film Clip in Lucite.

The always worthwhile DVD Savant provides info on the various purchase options and their abundant supplemental material, as well as his usual smart yet casual insights into the film itself. He reports that he is "impressed with the transfer, which replicates (hmm...) the dark, rich look of the original theatrical experience." Meanwhile, DVD Movie Guide gives the newly improved image of the two-disc Final Cut edition an "A+" grade, saying that "this transfer looked about as close to perfect as one could expect," and that it "lived up to any potential hype and dazzled from start to finish." DVD Beaver takes a look at the Four-Disc Collector's Edition, offering screen captures that compare it with previous DVD editions. The Beaver also bullet-points the discs' extras and gives us a handy guide to "Making sense of all the available Blade Runner editions," plus devotes a page to the Blu-ray and HD editions. Thanks, Beave!

The Simpsons Movie (Fox)
Woo-hoo! The Simpsons Movie has darn-diddly-tootin' nearly everything a dedicated Springfield day-tripper could want: Green Day sinking into a toxic lake, Springfield encased in a giant bubble, Itchy and Scratchy on the moon (which gets nuked), Spider-Pig, beautiful Alaskan scenery ("where you can never be too fat or too drunk"), Homer's latest mystical epiphany, Grampa's apocalyptic religious vision, an angry mob with every local resident from Mayor Quimby to Kang and Kodos (ideal for your freeze-framing pleasure), floor popcorn, Moe as the Emperor of Springfield, President Schwarzenegger, Marge on a motorcycle, Lisa's new dreamy Irish boyfriend, and of course Bart's freedom fry.

The DVD's extras are surprisingly slim, although the two lively and informative commentary tracks more than make up for any canned "featurettes" we might otherwise look for. Indeed, IGN DVD tells us "the commentaries are really the keystone to this disc. . . . funny and informative and are among some of the very best of the year." DVD Talk provides a good overview of the extras, and DVD Beaver delivers screenshots from the Blu-ray edition, which Hi-Def Digest rates "five out of five stars for video" (that's "1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video," by the way).

Halloween : Unrated Director's Cut (2007, Weinstein Co.)
Even unnecessary and unwelcome remakes now get the two-disc Special Edition treatment, so Rob Zombie's unnecessary and unwelcome remake of John Carpenter's landmark Halloween arrives tricked out with "Zombie's brand of crass, heartless brutality" (as film critic Eric D. Snider put it) plus some extra footage and enough DVD extras to spur the horror-fan webzine Fangoria to rate the DVD higher than the movie itself.

DVD Movie Guide calls the image "a good but not great transfer" with "pretty good Dolby Digital 5.1" sound. About the audio commentary from writer/director Zombie, Movie Guide's writer notes that "I may not like his movie, but I like Zombie's commentary quite a lot" because the big Z "offers lots of great stories from the shoot and never simply narrates the movie." DVD Talk spends a lot of pixels on the two discs' extras, which include the three-part documentary "Re-Imagining Halloween," 17 deleted scenes and an alternate ending with the option of Zombie's commentary, fifteen casting screen tests, ten minutes of bloopers, and a short documentary called "The Many Masks of Michael Myers."

There's more of this week's "New DVD Spin" coming. Stay tuned!

Read about more new DVDs.

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Mark Bourne

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