Paramount once again delivers the highlight of the week with the two-disc edition of the summer superhero blockbuster Iron Man including an excellent hi-def presentation of the film along with a bevy of supplemental material. On the superhero front, Fox answers back with the director's cut of Daredevil which is arguably vastly improved from its somewhat underwhelming theatrical cut.
Sony stays relatively quiet again this week (after mysteriously pulling a few romantic comedies off the schedule) with only the 90's teen comedy Can't Hardly Wait, while Universal offers up a number of compelling releases with a trio of Judd Apatow comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up (available together in the Ultimate Unrated Comedy Collection boxset), as well as a trio of horror flicks The Thing, Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Land of the Dead (also collected together in the Halloween Starter Pack).
Speaking of Halloween, it's not surprising to see a number of other horror films on the schedule: Disney with M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, Dark Sky with Tobe Hooper's influential 1974 original The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Warner with the slasher duo Rest Stop: Dead Ahead and Rest Stop: Don't Look Back, Image with the Asian supernatural horror/fantasy film Re-Cycle, Echo Bridge with the made-for-TV Salem Witch Trials, and Anchor Bay with a couple of boxsets bundling up previous releases in the Masters of Horror Bundle and the Blu-ray Zombie Bundle.
Looking past Halloween, is it too soon to break out the winter holiday decorations and put up the lights? Echo Bridge doesn't seem to think so, since they are releasing a trio of Christmas-themed TV-movies Angel in the Family, A Christmas Visitor and The Man Who Saved Christmas
If superhero action, relationship comedies, Halloween horrors or Christmas family dramas aren't what the doctor ordered, perhaps some music will do the trick? You can choose from a pair of operas, Verdi: La Traviata from Arthaus Musik and Bellini: Norma from Opus Arte, or from a trio of concerts, Jethro Tull: Live at Montreux and Legends: Live at Montreux from Eagle Rock and Roy Orbison: A Black and White Night from Image. Image is also releasing the Discovery Channel's documentary series on the NASA space program When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions.
As if this week's release schedule was not already bursting at the seams, Amazon has made available a few Blu-ray Asian imports from MSI: the Hong Kong crime action-thriller Fatal Move, the romantic drama Secret and Tsui Hark's martial arts epic Seven Swords.
