Do you as the viewer ever watch that movie that you feel due to overwhelming popular opinion you should like? Unfortunately, I run into this all too often. Most of the time I'm able to push that aside, and give an honest review. Sometimes it is harder. Private Fears in Public Places directed by Alain Resnais is one of those movies. Set in Paris (with language to match); this puts six lonely characters in search of love during the harsh winter season. However, what they find isn't what they were searching for. Naturally these characters' stories intertwine and we get a whole lot of snow effects which encapsulate the end of each scene (and each part of this review).

Hmmm... interesting. Looks like there's a single disc, non-SE version coming too, to complement the 2-Disc SE DVD and 2-Disc HD DVD versions announced yesterday. That's all I know so far...

Click for super enormous version...


Here's the first ever Review Super-Roundup: a soon-to-be-regular feature where we track down reviews all over the net in an effort to provide you with a well-rounded view about a particularly exciting or unique release.

Reviews aren't in any particular order; the one's with numerical rankings come first, and hell, I put UpcomingDiscs at the top because that's my prerogative. Other than that - these are culled from all over, and the quotes from each attempt to capture the spirit of the review. Click on through and enjoy! BTW - if you have a review you'd like included, comment it.

This week's round-up - THE HOST: A Korean monster horror movie in the tradition of Godzilla, with a healthy dose of humour and emotional context. It did really well in Korea, and has become a DVD cult hit globally since. Most reviewers really liked it; a few were luke warm.

Reviews are lined up after the jump!

The DVD version is pre-orderable:

The HD DVD one is just "sign up for email notification"....

I’ve said in the past and still believe that Josh Hutcherson will be a pretty good adult actor if he chooses to go down that path. I liked his work in Little Manhattan and recently finished watching him in Bridge to Terabithia, but then he comes back and makes films like Firehouse Dog, which seem to flush away a lot of that goodwill in my opinion. He doesn’t try at all and becomes the typical sweet kid, rather than the intellectual who acts larger than his shoes.

(Supplemental material portions of this review are culled from Gino Sassani's review of said film in the Blu-ray format, so enjoy or read elsewhere.)

I've always enjoyed Hitchcock's Rear Window, and I've gotta say I was more than a little disgusted when I saw that it was going to be remade and modernized, with no less than Shia fricken' LaBeouf in the main role. Oddly enough, LaBeouf carries the role pretty well.

(You’re going to have to forgive me, I’m pulling ample portions of this review from my earlier Divimax review of Dawn, with some exceptions of course.)

Anchor Bay, holding all (or most) of the keys in George Romero’s zombie film trilogy put out a copy of this film now before overloading us we on the remake, done in grainy, handheld 28 Days Later style by director Zack Snyder of 300 lore. A stopgap one disc version was released, followed by this huge-arse four disc version that we’re viewing now.

In hellish vision of a near future (?) LA, Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is an incompetent garbage man who moonlights as an even worse comedian (his jokes aren’t funny, and he is half-crippled by stage fright). His only friend is the manipulative Gus (Bill Paxton). When Marty starts to grow a third arm out of his back, he loses his girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) but attracts the attention of sleazy showbiz types Wayne Newton and Rob Lowe.

Wow - finally! My favorite movie of the summer will come out to play on DVD and HD DVD on October 16th. Both formats are OK initial releases, but leave plenty of room for future extended/director's/collector's editions - the DVD audio is particularly weak. Anyway, both releases have a slew of features - from chest-thumping Chevrolet goofiness to what sounds like a cool CGI-model explorer that takes up an entire HD DVD disc.

For now, there's going to be 2 releases. Each is two discs, but the features and extras aren't remotely similar:

  1. DVD "Special Edition" - 2 discs
    16:9, DD 5.1 Audio. 5.1 - is that it? Yup.
    Disc One: Feature, with Michael Bay commentary track
    Disc Two: A zillion featurettes/documentaries - see below for full details
  2. Transformers HD DVD - 2 discs
    1080p, DD+ 5.1
    Disc One: Feature, "Head's Up Display" (see below), web-enabled features
    Disc Two: Transformers Tech Inspector - seems to be an interactive production model browser

Final word? There's no way I'm not getting the DVD release. Its strong out of the gates, but I'm anticipating a future follow-up purchase with better-rounded audio.

The complete details from the Press Release follow after the jump... and there's more info to come over time!

Wow - finally! My favorite movie of the summer will come out to play on DVD and HD DVD on October 16th. Both formats are OK initial releases, but leave plenty of room for future extended/director's/collector's editions - the DVD audio is particularly weak. Anyway, both releases have a slew of features - from chest-thumping Chevrolet goofiness to what sounds like a cool CGI-model explorer that takes up an entire HD DVD disc.

For now, there's going to be 2 releases. Each is two discs, but the features and extras aren't remotely similar:

  1. DVD "Special Edition" - 2 discs
    16:9, DD 5.1 Audio. 5.1 - is that it? Yup.
    Disc One: Feature, with Michael Bay commentary track
    Disc Two: A zillion featurettes/documentaries - see below for full details
  2. Transformers HD DVD - 2 discs
    1080p, DD+ 5.1
    Disc One: Feature, "Head's Up Display" (see below), web-enabled features
    Disc Two: Transformers Tech Inspector - seems to be an interactive production model browser

Final word? There's no way I'm not getting the DVD release. Its strong out of the gates, but I'm anticipating a future follow-up purchase with better-rounded audio.

The complete details from the Press Release follow after the jump... and there's more info to come over time!