Rob Hunter loves movies.  And as a test to see if anyone actually reads these intros he’s hidden a contest within the post. One lucky winner will win a brand new copy of A&E’s 3-disc set of The Sherlock Holmes Collection starring Peter Cushing. It collects the five surviving episodes of the 1960′s BBC series, and fans of the great detective will not be disappointed. So join us each week as he takes a look at new DVD releases and gives his highly unqualified opinion as to which titles are worth BUYing, which are better off as RENTals, and which should be AVOIDed at all costs.

Click on any of the titles below to magically head over to Amazon.com and pick up the DVD.  And don’t forget to check out Neil Miller’s hilariously titled This Week In Blu-ray column for reviews on the latest high definition Blu-ray releases!

Hard Revenge Milly: Hyper Violence Collection

Pitch: They picked the wrong husband to kill. The wrong baby to set on fire and throw against the wall. And the wrong wife and mother to leave alive…

Why Buy? This was one of my favorites at last year’s Fantastic Fest in Austin (review here), and I’m thrilled to finally get a copy for myself. Miki Mizuno plays a kick-ass woman out for revenge against the thugs who killed her husband and baby. Beautifully choreographed martial arts fly beside geysers of blood, swordplay, and deadly body modifications. Seriously, this flick (two short movies actually) is fast, furious, and fun.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurettes

Pontypool

Pitch: One of the more unusual zombie flicks you’ll ever see. Of course it’s Canadian…

Why Buy? Like the revenge genre, zombie films are forced by their very nature to be pretty similar to each other. One, something causes the dead to rise and attack the living, and two, a small band of survivors struggle to escape the bloodthirsty onslaught. There are good ones and bad ones, but they’re all the same in those regards. This smart entry in the genre follows those two steps but does so with a wholly new concept. It works brilliantly for the most part (review here), and with the help of three fantastic lead actors the movie carries you along for a zombie ride unlike any you’ve experienced before.

Blu-ray? Yes (region-free UK import only)

Extra Features? Commentary, short films, featurette

Righteous Ties

Pitch: Korean gangsters mess with the wrong Korean gangster…

Why Buy? I’m recommending a Buy here for two reasons. First (and most important), it’s a really good movie. A gangster goes to jail refusing to testify against his boss, but when his family is attacked and that same boss turns his back on him he decides to leave prison early and get some revenge. The action is exciting throughout, the comedy and drama balance nicely (for the most part… some of the musical cues are over done), and the performances are all solid. Most impressive though is the film’s take on friendship and self-worth. And the second reason to buy? To encourage Virgil Films to keep releasing these fantastic but lesser known Korean flicks of course!

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

WWII In HD

Pitch: For all you folks who thought the world existed in black & white until the fifties…

Why Buy? Have you ever seen actual footage from WWII in color? Not colorized, but actually filmed in color so we see it as it really was (minus the shrapnel). This engrossing and impressive doc from The History Channel features over seven hours of footage that not only documents some of the action during the war but also some of the personal stories. The color barrier has always served to separate the viewer from the experience and the emotion, but this previously unseen footage breathes life into the history we thought we knew. A fantastic gift for fans of WWII, documentaries, and color! (Happy birthday dad!) Keep your eyes out for an upcoming contest where we’ll be giving away both a DVD and a Blu-ray of WWII in HD.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Featurettes

Bad Biology

Pitch: “I was born with seven clits…”

Why Rent? This movie is the nuts. Frank Henenlotter (Basket Case) returns after an almost twenty-year break from feature films, and he comes back crazier than ever. The first five minutes of the movie feature a woman having sex, killing the guy, raiding the fridge, birthing a CGI baby in the tub, and then walking out the front door. Seems she has some unusual lady parts… and she meets her match in a man with a three foot shlong that constantly tries to escape from his boxers. Lots of sex ensues including genital POV shots, stop-motion rape, and a forty-five minute orgasm. Watch it with the family!

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Plain brown wrapper (kidding, but you’ll probably want one)

The Boys Are Back

Pitch: See Clive Owen as you’ve never seen him before! Doing something other than shooting people and fingering strippers…

Why Rent? Owen has received some solid praise (from the four people who saw this in theaters) for his performance here, and while it’s good it’s most notable for being unlike his typical fare. He plays a man forced by tragedy into the role of single father… yes, exactly like Raising Helen. It’s Owen’s most emotionally demanding role since Closer (emotions of a completely different sort), and he’s fantastic. If only the movie was worthy of his performance… not that the film is bad, it just isn’t as engaging as its lead.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurettes

The Escapist

Pitch: Brian Cox plots an elaborate escape from the slammer. Something he never managed as Hannibal Lector…

Why Rent? Prison escape movies are pretty much always entertaining, and this British one is no different. Cox leads an oddball group of prisoners in an elaborate plan to escape incarceration. The movie unfurls with dueling time-frames… one follows the escape planning and the other traces the escape itself. It’s an interesting, but not wholly successful effort (review here).

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

Give ‘Em Hell Malone

Pitch: See Thomas Jane as you’ve already seen him before! And that’s not a bad thing…

Why Rent? Russell Mulcahy’s best film may still be Razorback (at least until his Teen Wolf remake hits), but that doesn’t mean this over the top mash-up of film noir and the ridiculous isn’t entertaining. Jane plays it straight amidst a motley crew of oddballs including an Asian assassin with knives in her lady bits, an arsonist with a bad habit of burning himself, and a Ving Rhames-type character played by Ving Rhames. Toss in some solid gunplay, car chases, and choice dialogue and you have a silly but fun enough way to spend ninety minutes. Robert Fure liked it more than I did (his review here) which would usually be a bad sign, but it’s still worth a watch.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Featurettes

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

Pitch: “I’m gonna hit it so hard whoever pulls me out of you is gonna become King of England…”

Why Rent? Tucker Max’s entire career is based on him being a prick, and while that’s enough for his fan base it isn’t for me. Which is why I fully expected to hate this movie… but the screenplay by Max and Nils Parker had the good sense to add a couple more interesting side characters in addition to a handful of legitimate laughs. It’s raunchy, crude, rude, and cheap, but fans of Van Wilder will most likely enjoy it as much as I did (review here). If nothing else, the bathroom scene is the funniest and most disgusting since Trainspotting.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Outtakes

Jackie Chan Presents Wushu

Pitch: Martial arts meets an afterschool special…

Why Rent? This mediocre martial arts flick came incredibly close to getting an Avoid recommendation. Terrible acting, ridiculous attempts at danger and suspense, and lots of generally uninteresting wushu competition. The story and dialogue seem geared towards mid-schoolers in an effort to teach friendship and teamwork, and it’s all just so very trite. But it’s all saved (barely) by an end battle that manages to find some truly exciting fight choreography. Watch it once then forget it and toss in Ong Bak.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurettes

Saw VI

Pitch: Obama should be using this as propaganda in support of his health care overhaul…

Why Rent? I know this latest installment was highly praised as a return to form for the series, but I’m only recommending it for the gore… the sweet, bloody, beautiful, and unrated gore. I’m not a fan in general because the central conceit of the series continues to be problematic on the same two fronts. One, the supposed antihero Jigsaw is killing innocent people (or at least some people who hardly deserve to die). And two, the plotting is so intricate as to be absolutely ridiculous and impossible. But damn the gore effects here a thing of beauty.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentaries, featurettes

Sherlock Holmes

Pitch: It’s the latest release from The Asylum! That makes it automatically watchable…

Why Rent? Again, it’s from The Asylum, so you know it’s going to be an incredibly entertaining piece of shit. And who among you are strong enough to skip a movie that pits Sherlock Holmes against sea monsters, dragons, and Iron Man (in a brilliant nod to Robert Downey Jr.’s other role)? HIDDEN CONTEST!!! Yup, I’ve made this really difficult to find I know… if you want a chance at winning a copy of the new A&E/BBC release of The Sherlock Holmes Collection starring Peter Cushing just leave a comment below with the word “Contest” and the name of your favorite Sherlock Holmes movie. It’s that simple! (Just be sure your Disqus account has a working email address so we can contact you if you win.) Winners will be chosen on Feb 2nd!

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

Surrogates

Pitch: In the future people stay home and send synthetic replicas out into the world instead…

Why Rent? Which is pretty much what happened to this movie when it was in theaters. Well, folks stayed home anyway. They stayed away in droves which is a shame because it’s not a bad movie at all. Bruce Willis is always likable, Radha Mitchell is always watchable, and director Jonathan Mostow knows how to craft a solid action scene. It may not have been a big enough spectacle for theaters, but it fits right in at home. Where you can watch it from your couch you lazy bastards…

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, music video

B-Girl

Pitch: White girl with mad skillz gets shanked by an ex and heads to the mean streets of suburban L.A. to recover…

Why Avoid? Anyone who knows me knows I love nothing more than listening to hip-hop and breaking some fly moves with my homies on a weekday afternoon. (Was that even remotely believable?) As such, my opinion is probably the last one to listen to about a movie like this… but even with the break dancing, east coast vs west coast shenanigans, and bippity bop music it’s still supposed to be a movie. And as a movie it just doesn’t work. The drama is forced and often melodramatic to such a degree (see the scene with the dumpster attack flashback… both of them) that I just couldn’t connect with any of the characters long enough to care. And don’t get me started on the film comparing Angela’s journey to Homer’s The Odyssey… (The ode to Jaws‘ injury comparison scene is a nice touch though.) Recommended for fans of Step Up and Bring It On 3 only.

Blu-ray? Yes

Extra Features? Commentary, music video

Fireball

Pitch: And this is what you get when you hire a blind cameraman…

Why Avoid? This Thai remake of Parker and Stone’s BASEketball (not true) drops the baseball half in favor of ass-kicking but somehow manages to be just as funny (as in not funny at all). But how’s the action you ask? Poorly shot I answer… the editing is so tight and fast as to render the combat almost unintelligible, and the camera often misses the action! Seriously, it moves too far or too slow and leaves us with only the after effect. And the story? Making baskets is second to beating the crap out of each other which kind of defeats the point of including basketball at all.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? Featurette

Import Export

Pitch: I haven’t seen this much ass fetishism since my last Tinto Brass marathon…

Why Avoid? Two strangers in Ukraine live lives no one would want. This Eastern European flick has exactly one speed, and that’s meandering. The action onscreen can be as mundane as nurses attending to a sick child or as nontraditional as a woman masturbating for an internet porn site… either way the lack of life and energy is painfully obvious. And speaking of masturbation, this movie is filled with some very explicit sexual activity. Sadly, it’s of the utilitarian variety and lacks the common decency to be even the slightest bit arousing. There’s a message here about the struggles, circumstances, and misfortunes of life, but it’s not worth wasting two hours of your life to reach it.

Blu-ray? No

Extra Features? None

Also out this week, but not seen in advance with my own eyes: Bright Star, Daytime Drinking, Desirable Teacher, Fuel, Mermaid, Michael Jackson: This Is It, Moscow Belgium, Paris Texas (Criterion), St. Trinians, Whip It

Read More: This Week in DVD

What are you buying on DVD this week?