Everything old is new again as two of the week’s best DVD releases are for films that are decades old including Giorgio Moroder’s 1984 redo of Fritz Lang’s classic Metropolis with music by Freddy Mercury, Loverboy and other 80s superstars. But don’t fret, there are also some solid new films to check out this week including Bellflower, Griff the Invisible, The Warring States and more. As always, if you see something you like, click on the image to buy it. Three Colors: Blue White Red (Criterion) Krzysztof Kieslowski’s thematic trilogy looks at France’s motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Blue stars Juliette Binoche as a woman who suffers a terrible loss and attempts to free herself from life and its responsibilities with a kind of slow-motion suicide, but she instead finds true freedom through healing. Red features Irene Jacob as a young woman whose solitude is slowly shattered by unexpected friendships. And I have no clue what White is about. I haven’t even seen Criterion’s new set yet, but even a Criterion release of just Blue and Red would warrant an automatic purchase.

That is, if you can take your eyes off the giant, Cthulu, lightning-based robot cyclops from the future. He’s staring back at you, too. And he’s urging you to go to Fantastic Fest this year because zombie Edgar Allen Poe will be there to fight the entire team from Red vs Blue.

I wasn’t quite sure at first how to tackle a list of the Best DVDs of the Year… by definition, aren’t the best dvds the ones containing the best movies? (Yes, they are.) We don’t want this to be a list of the year’s best movies though, so instead we’re looking at the best collections, box sets, and special editions. Obviously the quality of the movies or shows within still matter, but they’re just one aspect of a truly great dvd release. The other two most important things in a quality dvd are the extras and the packaging. The best dvds of the year should ideally have all three traits… awesome feature, awesome extras, awesome packaging. (At the very least they should have two out of three.) So here we go. These are the Best DVDs of 2009! AK100 (Criterion) This may be considered cinematic heresy but I’ve only seen three of Akira Kurosawa’s many movies. Forgive me. Happily the fine folks at Criterion have long been supporters of the director, and this year they released the most comprehensive dvd set ever seen for any director. AK100 celebrates what would have been Kurosawa’s 100th birthday and includes 25 of his movies from a career that lasted half a century. It includes the ones I’ve seen (Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Yojimbo) and several others including a few that have never even had an official dvd release. The films each come in their own case, and the set also comes with a [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]