March is shaping up to be a crowded month in DVD/BD Release Land. Whether it’s because of the Academy Awards, or because there are some big new theatrical releases to piggyback on, or because March falls three months after the big holiday releases, there’s so much coming out this month that there’s no way The List is going to be able to touch on them all. Sorry gang. I hope and pray you’ll be able to track down info on 2012 somewhere else.
In the meantime, there are a few standouts to point to this week, easily grouped into trends. From the “prepping for the multiplex” department, Warner is releasing a Blu-ray of the 1981 version of Clash Of The Titans, while every home video company in the country is re-releasing whatever version of Alice In Wonderland they have the rights to. From the “a must for documentary fans” department, definitely check out Agnès Varda’s memoir-doc The Beaches Of Agnes and the dot-com-boom-and-bust reminiscence We Live In Public. And from the “family films that aren’t for the whole family” department, we have Spike Jonze’s Cassavetes-inspired version of Maurice Sendak’s Where The Wild Things Are (not to mention Jonze and Lance Bangs’ excellent Sendak bio-doc Tell Them Anything You Want) and Hayao Miyazaki’s cheerfully surreal fishflick Ponyo, which should’ve been nominated for an Oscar. And now, in a bit of gratuitous cruelty, I’m going to lodge the Americanized Ponyo theme song in your head for the rest of the day:
Alice (2009)
Liongate, $19.98; Blu-ray, $29.99
Alice In Wonderland (1933)
Universal, $19.98
Alice In Wonderland (1966)
BBC Warner, $14.98
Alice In Wonderland (1999)
Rhi, $19.93
The Beaches Of Agnes
The Cinema Guild, $29.95
The Beiderbecke Collection
Acorn, $39.99