I’ve got a bit of an obsessive compulsive issue when it comes to DVDs and Blu-rays. I’m one of those suckers who will get caught every so often in a double-dip if I’m not paying attention. If I am being observant, I’m the guy who waits four extra months to get a disc with some special features attached. I really dug Transformers 3 and wanted to watch it again, but I’ll be damned if I was going to buy a disc with no extras on it! The issue that has my panties all aflame this week is all about special features and the lack thereof. Oh, most discs today come with some special features on them, but the “featurette” has become the bane of my existence. It used to just be what they called small extras on the disc, but now they’ve really emphasized the -ette, meaning mini, small, or useless.

It’s been my opinion for a while now that all-you-can-eat subscription services like Netflix are going to be a temporary thing with a limited window of success. Back when movie streaming was a minor thing aimed at a niche, tech savvy audience, it probably made sense for studios to sign deals with Netflix giving them access to their film libraries. Even five years ago high speed Internet wasn’t so ubiquitous, and if you wanted to stream something over the Internet, that pretty much meant you were streaming it to your computer monitor. But in today’s world of omnipresent wifi and apps that allow everyone to stream movies to smart TVs, video game consoles, app-enabled Blu-ray players, smart phones, and tablet computers, the entire game has changed. Now people can stream movies wherever they are, whenever they want. And they do… a lot. I think we’ve all seen that statistic floating around that 1/3 of all Internet traffic in the evenings comes from people streaming movies through Netflix. While I’m not in any position to prove that such a statistic is true, let’s just assume that it’s mostly true; that accounts for a huge amount of movie watching that ten years ago was being done through the more profitable to studios vehicle of DVD purchases and rentals.

Coming off a year where box office sales showed some of the most disappointing weekends in quite a few years, and where the DVD buying bubble has now clearly burst, you could say that it’s starting to look like the film industry is in some financial trouble. They’ve tried to find new revenue in the form of 3D films, but as the months have worn on ticket sales to 3D showings have been bringing in less and less extra cash, and sales of 3D enabled home equipment pretty much never got out of the gate with any momentum. Factor in the rise of cheap rentals through Redbox kiosks and all-you-can-eat streaming services like Netflix, and the film industry as a whole is faced with the daunting task of how to keep their content seen as being a commodity. All hope doesn’t seem to be lost for makers of motion pictures, however, THR talked to a number a studio heads about what’s been working for them over the last year and where they expect to see growth in 2012, and there seems to be some hope. Over and over again the two areas where movies seem to be making more money than they did in year’s past is through video on demand services and sales of Blu-ray discs. Dennis Maguire, the president of worldwide home media distribution for Paramount said, “2011 showed that home entertainment continues to excite and enthrall consumers. Blu-ray and EST continued to surge, and new delivery systems [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Hollywood is a business. A big business. A ten billion dollar box office per year kind of business. While that is an impressive number, you also have to remember that I said “box office,” which is ignoring the home video market. If you include direct sales only, that’s another $5 billion. I swore that I would never do math again after college, so I’m not going to bother with rentals and licenses and all that shit. Suffice it to say, Hollywood is a big business. And they want to be bigger, like all businesses. Enter the shady world of rehashing. The repeated raping of your wallet. There was a time when it was as simple as releasing a Special Edition or Collector’s Edition of a movie. Now, films have two theatrical releases, get remastered in 3D and sent to theaters, and are then released on three to four separate DVD releases. As a super-fan, I’m excited to get Collector’s Editions – I’ll even double dip now and then, but the process has gone too far and offers too little.

If you’ve been fortunate enough to avoid this news until now, I’m sorry, it’s about to get shitty. George Lucas, in a move that surprises no one but angers anyone who’s ever seen Star Wars, has excessively tinkered with the movies in the saga, taking the beloved and dropping a pile of turds on it. It’s true Lucas has been wallowing in the sewage pool after tweaking the original movies in shitty ways (Greedo shoots first, Jabba looks like ass, etc) and making three bad movies to utterly destroy the awesome coolness that was Darth Vader and irreparably rupture the continuity of the franchise. Not content to stop there though, ol’ Georgie-poo has decided to add another notch to his bulbous neck by ignoring (mostly) fan outcry and amplifying the shit we already hate. Let’s break it down.

It was only a matter of time before George Lucas started making more changes to his Star Wars movies. The guy has seemed to crack the code that the more versions of something he makes, the more times he can sell it to his hopelessly devoted legion of fans. Or, more accurately for what he did with the Special Edition Star Wars DVDs, all he has to do is sell everybody a screwed up version of the movies they love, and then he can go back later and make double the money by selling them the original versions that they wanted in the first place. The only thing he has to worry about is fanboy gripes, but I’m sure he’s able to get over that as he cries himself to sleep on mounds of fanboy money.

I used to love collecting TV seasons on DVD almost as much as collecting movies on DVD. But what the movie discs always added, things like commentary and behind the scenes docs, the TV discs completely lacked. After season 1, what’s left to say? We know how the show got made, why people got cast as they did, what a pain in the ass it was to get the pilot produced, the re-casting that occurred after the pilot. Extra content was hard to come by. For crying out loud, the most recent season of Dexter’s special features included episodes of other Showtime programs. Those are ads, not bonus features. A movie on DVD is easy. It’s a single thing, the story exists in that movie and that movie alone (usually). I don’t have to pop in the next five discs just to get to episode 22 where I find out that House is still a drug addict or that Jack is still really angry about something. In order to re-watch a TV series, especially a serialized one, I have to re-watch the entire thing. Very few shows exists that I enjoy watching single episodes of. I recently spent the last few weeks selling all my old TV on DVD sets, even the ones I had the complete series for, simply because I wasn’t watching them. As I packaged each one and put it into the mail box, I realized how much money I spent on the set, and how useless of a purchase it really was.

Charles Foster Kane’s mustache was getting a little gray. Or a little sepia. It’s hard to tell. The immortal film of the fictional man’s life (based on a non-fictional man) will be coming to Blu-ray this September (alongside iTunes, On Demand, VUDU and Amazon Instant Video) as a 70th anniversary edition, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, a ton of work has been done to give it a digital facelift. The money quote comes from Warners Imaging Colorist Janet Wilson: “The work to re-create the original look of the film and to clean up the effects of aging was a painstaking, frame-by-frame process. The source for most of the picture was a 4K scan from a 1941 composite fine grain positive master.” It will no doubt look pristine and no doubt look nothing like the movie we know (which is what happened with Beauty and the Beast recently). Still, it will be fascinating to see Citizen Kane done in such a different way, and any excuse to watch it again is a good one. Also, any excuse to grow a mustache is a good one. Are you looking forward to seeing Kane on Blu-ray and/or growing a sweet ‘stache for the occasion?

If you’re the type of old school movie fan that simply must browse a shelf before deciding what you’re going to curl up and watch for the evening, then life just got a whole lot more affordable; as long as there’s still a Blockbuster open in your area. In an effort to lure customers away from the cheaper options of Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster is set to begin offering thousands of their titles for only 99 cents a day, and is lowering prices on new release films as well. And under a new promotion, if you rent one movie priced at $2.99 a day, you will also be able to take home a film of a lesser price for free until July 4. Putting older films at 99 cents a piece will put many of Blockbuster’s prices right in line with heated rival Redbox. Renting new releases for $2.99 still makes Blockbuster the more expensive option on the most sought after films, though. Blockbuster is still relying on exclusive deals that get them new video releases several weeks before the kiosk and mailing services to hold onto a chunk of that audience, but I just don’t know how many people aren’t willing to wait another couple weeks to get the movie cheaper. Especially in today’s entertainment climate where there are a million other things they can just go watch instead. Blockbuster president Michael Kelly said this about their new initiative, “Our customers are seeking a better value, we’ve answered with [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

Once upon a time, about twenty years ago or so, Disney didn’t have to rely on Pixar to keep their legacy as King of children’s entertainment going.  A new generation of hand drawn Disney classics like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast were breaking box office records, earning critical acclaim, and winning awards. Then came The Lion King in 1994, a film that to this day holds the record as being the highest grossing hand drawn animated feature of all time. The Lion King was perhaps the crowning achievement of Disney’s second golden age, and in order to remind you of their past accomplishments, Disney is going to celebrate by selling it to you all over again.

I’m not sure anyone would say they’re a fan of 90s horror. I’m not even sure what that would mean. They were a fan of bad horror? Or Scream or maybe I Know What You Did Last Summer? Either way, if you’re feeling nostalgic for movies made in the 90s or maybe just for a time period when Rebecca Gayheart was relevant, then we have the contest for you. Starring the previously mentioned Gayheart alongside Rose McGowan before she melted down, then melted her face and had it poorly repaired, and Dexter’s Julie Benz, Jawbreaker was a fun film about High School bitches and murder. Let me whet your whistle with this PR company provided summary:

Before you go getting some silly idea like me believing in some silly idea like love, let me clear this up: this isn’t about the love between a man and a woman, a man and a fine cigar, and a fat kid and his chocolate cake. That’d be too easy. The price of those are heartbreak, oral cancer, and diabetes. No, this is about a love we all share, everyone of us reading this site and writing for it. This is about a love of cinema and, tragically, the extreme cost of it. Going to the theater is a great experience. Unless you’re a millionaire, the theater offers a gigantic screen, booming sound, and stadium seating. Watching Transformers on the big screen knocks the robotic pants off of watching it at home no matter how big your Samsung is. All of that is great – but is it worth the astronomical price?

Back in 2006, Samsung sold the first Blu-ray players for public consumption at the low, low price of $1,000. Other things that cost that much? One-thousand chicken nuggets or a great down payment on a crappy car. Fortunately, prices have dropped steadily. Now, High-Def Digest is reporting that prices for Blu-ray players might drop lower than $40 this year. That’s a 2500% decrease in price over a little less than 5 years. Plus, you can now buy more movies than 50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, A Knight’s Tale, The Last Waltz, Resident Evil Apocalypse, and xXx on the format. So that’s great. Blu-ray firmly won the format war against HD-DVD, and now it looks like it’s poised to become the household replacement to DVD players (that even my parents might want to get). In fact, they might be bundled alongside televisions (which are also dropping in price), making their proliferation even more pronounced. Seems like so long ago that they hit the scene. Time to update my Betamax, because this news gives even more weight to Fure’s argument for everyone to buy Blu-ray players.

What is Movie News After Dark? This is a question that I am almost never asked, but I will answer it for you anyway. Movie News After Dark is FSR’s newest late-night secretion, a column dedicated to all of the news stories that slip past our daytime editorial staff and make it into my curiously chubby RSS ‘flagged’ box. It will (but is not guaranteed to) include relevant movie news, links to insightful commentary and other film-related shenanigans. I may also throw in a link to something TV-related here or there. It will also serve as my place of record for being both charming and sharp-witted, but most likely I will be neither of the two. I write this shit late at night, what do you expect?

This week, on a very special episode of Reject Radio, we have a surprise visit from FSR publisher and beard enthusiast Neil Miller who reminds everyone why he’s really a big softie beneath that rugged exterior. Instead of the usual news and reviews, the show is one large Segment Three where we give thanks for the cinematic wonders of 2010 (and the fact that the year is almost over). If you’re heartbroken that we didn’t review Burlesque, please pick up your consolation prize on your way out. Listen Here: Download This Episode

If everything had gone perfectly back in 1985, Doc Brown would have rolled into our future this week on October 25, 2010. But that wasn’t the case, and thus started one of the greatest motion picture trilogies of all time. Back to the Future is out on Blu-ray for the first time in a box set (and also on DVD), so not counting the hours of special features, you can spend six hours revisiting the entire saga. And if you’re going to spend that much time watching the movies, you’re gonna need to have something to drink with that.

It’s the 35th anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Fox is celebrating this occasion with a brand new Blu-ray of the film. Being only a few days from Halloween, it makes sense to pop in the disk, pull on your fishnets and enjoy the classic rock musical one more time.

If you’ve walked around your local Best Buy or other fine retailer of movies and entertainment, you may have noticed a change recently: there are a lot more rows of Blu-rays. You see, this new format is here to stay. HD-DVD formally gave up the fight in 2008 and since then, Blu-ray has been the lone High Definition dog in the fight. Which means the fight is over, so why haven’t you purchased a Blu-ray player yet? After all, virtually all major titles are now released on Blu-ray. You’re not missing anything. Tons and tons and tons of old movies, from Apocalypse Now to The Thing are also coming out on the high-def format if you haven’t already picked them up. The price of Blu-ray players has dropped. If you want video games with your movies, a PS3 costs $300, not a bad shake. If you just want the movies, you can get an entry level Blu-ray player for under $90. Yes, that does cost more than the $30 DVD player you have, but the Blu-ray player can handle both Blu-rays and DVDs. It’s not like you’re losing anything by upgrading. In fact, the Blu-ray player will make your DVDs look better! But there’s an even more important reason to upgrade….

Back in 1979 Francis Ford Coppola took a vacation to South East Asia and filmed a family movie over a weekend. While that is probably untrue, in 1979 he did spend months in hell toiling to create what more than one reputable critic has described as “one of the greatest films of all time.” Hitting the streets on October 19th, Coppola’s Apocalypse Now comes to Blu-ray in stunning high definition for the first time. Available in two versions, the 2-Film Set and the Full Disclosure set, the former will run you $40 and the three disc latter version is $60. Unless of course you happened to know some handsome fellas willing to give you a copy for free….

Coming to Blu-ray September 28th is director Adam Green’s follow-up to the pretty excellent 80′s inspired slasher Hatchet. His sophomore effort ditches the buckets of bloods, head rips, and disfigured villains (but keeps Kane Hodder) and instead opts for a more realistic thriller about a trio of friends stuck on a chairlift. Yeah, kind of like Open Water but you know, in a chairlift. Except there are no sharks. No, instead their are wolves. This is one of those titles that doesn’t lend itself amazingly well to the Coroner’s Report: with so few characters, there’s bound to be a low body count and with no sadistic inbred dude hiding in the woods, there won’t be much head cutting. Also, there are no boobs. But is it worth watching anyways?