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Blu-ray Today: Robocop Reborn, Titans Attack, and a Bed Eats People


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Robocop (Remake) – Yes, the original RoboCop is an unassailable, stone-cold classic, but it’s not as if back in its day there weren’t multiple attempts to suck the brand dry of all spin-off potential. Judged against the Paul Verhoeven film, most things fail, but judged against almost anything else associated with the name of Robocop, this remake stands tall, with a cast you can only buy for top dollar, and a different enough spin (Murphy knows he’s Robocop from the getgo, as does everyone else) that it never feels like a bad Xerox.

If they don’t decide to go for a Robosequel, I’d be happy enough with a spinoff movie centered on Samuel L. Jackson’s Bill O’Reilly knockoff character Pat Novak.

Death Bed: The Bed That Eats Patton Oswalt wasn’t kidding in his riffs on this strange cult gem. It is indeed about a bed that eats people, and occasionally decides to destroy the whole house with telekinetic powers if you piss it off too much. Newly restored by director George Barry, it features a new introduction and commentary track that also features horror historian Stephen Thrower.

Attack on Titan Part 1 – Oh good; finally a chance to catch up on this anime that I’ve been hearing about almost constantly. Maybe I’ll even learn why some of the Titans look like giant naked people and others resemble flayed anatomy? Maybe? Or is that just something you have to roll with?

True Blood Season 6/Falling Skies Season 3 – To be honest, these are not on my priority list. Should they be?

Lone Survivor When people talk about “gore porn,” they probably aren’t referring to movies like this, but maybe they should be – I ejected the movie about halfway through, after the third (I think) sequence of a Navy SEAL falling down a rocky mountainside in slow motion, hitting every other jagged point on the way down as blood ejaculates from every bullet hit. That this was based on real people just made it feel sickening, as it no doubt was supposed to – but my revulsion was to the directorial choices (which seemed grossly masturbatory in all the wrong ways) rather than perhaps the intended Taliban, who mainly appear as distant, anonymous targets, at least as far into the film as I got.

As I understand it, the actual lone survivor likes the movie. Fair enough – you survive the real deal, and no fiction will ever seem as bad. But if you’ve lost loved ones to combat, you may not wish to relish the gore as much as director Peter Berg does.

Son of God I’m all for biblical movies, and have liked a fair few featuring the J-man, but word is this one sticks so strictly to the text that Jesus doesn’t even say a single line of dialogue not directly from scripture, which tends to be a handicapping factor when adapting books. It’s no ordinary book, of course, but I like my movies and preaching to be separate, generally. I also happen to think the faithful deserve better than a slight re-edit of something they already saw on TV. If it’s your thing, though, God bless ya. Literally.

Ravenous When Christ said to take and eat, for this is his body, he didn’t mean it the way this film does. In 1840s California, accidental hero Guy Pearce is given a pseudo-promotion to a fort in the Sierra Nevadas, where he encounters mysterious vagabond Robert Carlyle, who claims to be fleeing from cannibals. Slowly but surely this movie is becoming a new cult classic, I think primarily because it deviates from the expected screenplay formula in clever ways. I don’t consider it an unheralded masterpiece, but it’s something different, and worth a look. This version includes a new interview with Jeffrey Jones.

Super Duper Alice Cooper The original shock rocker deserves a decent documentary. I hope this is the one.