Top 5 Fridays | “Essential” Blu-Rays

Did you just get a shiny new blu-ray player for Christmas? Are you flush with gift-card cash and itching to spend it? Are you the Mad Hatter and suggested a cool idea for a blog post about essential blu-ray discs? Well have I got a top 5 list for you. We pride ourselves as home video specialists here at the Film Cynics – at least that’s what we use as a smokescreen for why we’re not more on top of what’s playing in theatres – and we’d like to use our powers for good instead of evil (unless you consider the voracious consumption of consumer goods to be evil, in which case we invite you to burn in hell with the rest of us) and would like to offer up 5 blu-rays we think you should have in your collection.

Now keep in mind that these are all discs that I own – I wouldn’t recommend anything that hadn’t actually crossed my desk – and that this is not an exhaustive list and, as always, we’d love to your your contributions. Also, this is not meant to be a judgement on the films these blu-rays are holding, although to make this list you’ve gotta be bringing something special to the table. With all those disclaimers out of the way, let’s begin:

5 – Speed Racer | Warner Bros. (2008)

Hours of Bonus Features: 1

When I first learned about this new form of optical disc technology, I told myself that Speed Racer would be the first film I would buy when I got myself a player. I hadn’t even seen the movie before, all I’d seen were the trailers and all I knew was that the Wachowski Brothers had adapted it from the cartoon series. But what better reason did you need than that – this movie clearly has the goods to test the tensile strength of your HDMI cable and fire up every single pixel of whatever HD screen you’re watching it on. For pure visual spectacle, you’d be hard pressed to find something dripping with more eye candy. It’s not exactly backed up with a lot of special features, but that’s not why it made this list, it’s here strictly for the spectacle.

4 – Blade Runner: Complete Collectors Edition | Warner Bros. (1982)

Hours of Bonus Features: Too many to count (but a lot are in SD)

This isn’t the place to get into what a classic film this is, let’s just agree that Blade Runner has had a measurable effect on just about every science fiction film. With that out of the way, the blu-ray release of this film is beyond peer as far as the depth and breadth of features exploring the making, marketing and effect the film has had on popular culture. However, the reason I’ve put it on this list is to be able to get the full effect of what a proper digital remastering and high definition presentation can do to the viewing experience of a film. Between the girth of features and perfection of presentation, this is a serious ensemble of digital entertainment.

3- Star Trek/Iron Man | Paramount (2009/2008)

Hours of Bonus Features: 3+/~4

I was torn between which of these I was going to put forward. Both are high profile Paramount releases, supported with plenty of special features and great menus, so it really boils down to which crew you’re more interested in learning about. The team of producers involved in Star Trek are definitely committed to the material, but they seem like a bunch of young over-rich jerks to me. As for Iron Man, Jon Favreau is always fun to watch at work, and there is plenty of background on the character thanks to Marvel’s involvement, but they just did more groundbreaking stuff when they were making Star Trek. Regardless, both blu-rays have this great feature where you can explore either the Enterprise or any of the Iron Man suits. As a footnote, the Iron Man 2 blu-ray has this really cool “S.H.I.E.L.D. Data Vault” feature that explores the gadgetry in the film.

2 – Scott Pilgrim vs. The World | Universal (2010)

Hours of Bonus Features: 4+

Universal’s blu-ray releases had all but gone unnoticed by me over the past couple years, but Scott Pilgrim vs. The World got my complete and undivided attention. Starting with great menu construction that includes easy to read selections and a cool hydraulic sound as you make your way deeper into the special features, it’s got a cool video loop playing in the background without looking too busy. As for the features, it boasts deleted scenes, music videos, a great animated short from Adult Swim, commentaries, featurettes, and this cool “app” thing called pocketBLU that can actually turn your iPhone into a remote for your blu-ray player. They also do this cool thing where it updates the trailers it plays before the movie via the Internet, but if you prefer watching movies at home so you don’t have to watch trailers this might not be a selling feature. Really, this blu-ray is a total package deal with the features ably matching the content.

1 – Watchmen Director’s Cut | Warner Bros. (2009)

Hours of Bonus Features: ~2 (not counting Maximum Movie Mode)

Despite being known as the guys who came up with the crappy cardboard DVD case, Warner doesn’t mess around when it comes to their big blu-ray titles. Besides the usual array of deleted scenes, commentaries and featurettes, Warner Bros. came up with a genius idea called “Maximum Movie Mode”. Maximum Movie Mode is by far the coolest thing blu-ray is capable of doing – a showcase for the true movie lover. The director of the film stands in front of a pair of flatscreen TVs and presents their film and talks you through keys scenes by presenting featurettes and sharing their own experiences as you shift in and out of the movie in progress. It’s kind of like the visual commentary they did for Goonies, but with so much more to absorb. Sherlock Holmes and Terminator: Salvation both have Maximum Movie Mode as well (and several other releases like Book of Eli have some imitation of it), but Guy Ritchie really isn’t committed to the enterprise, and McG isn’t the first director I’d approach to hear his insights on the filmmaking process – but Zack Snyder, the guy’s got a captivating geeky energy that draws you into the experience. That Watchmen was such an intricately constructed film with so many inside jokes and nerdy flourishes helps offer a great deal more to explore than your average film, and Zack is there to talk you through all of it.