Tag: Blu-ray

Animation, DC Comics, Television1 Comment

Beware the Batman is on Blu-Ray, Just Not on TV

Keith Chow

In a surprise press release last week, Warner Home Video announced a blu-ray and DVD release for Beware the Batman, the most recent animated iteration of the Dark Knight Detective. This was a surprise because the announcement was last week and the disc comes out today. While there may have been some rumblings earlier in the month about a possible home video release, most DVD announcements usually give buyers way more lead time than just “next week.”

Though it was a pretty big departure from how Batman has typically been depicted in animation, Beware’s dark and emotional storylines quickly attained a loyal following every Saturday morning. Unfortunately, the suits at Cartoon Network didn’t feel that enough of these loyal fans were watching and unceremoniously pulled the plug after only airing for a few months. Though it was never officially cancelled, it was never not cancelled either (and the rest of the episodes haven’t seen the light of day ever since).

But hey, we fans are getting a blu-ray (available today only at WBShop.com), so hooray?

Continue reading “Beware the Batman is on Blu-Ray, Just Not on TV”

Animation, Movies, School of Hard NOCs

El Chu and Some Other Planes

Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria

As a parent, you remember the first time you took your #NOCsintraining to see their first movie. Isabella’s was Kung Fu Panda. Giselle’s was Kung Fu Panda 2. Well, it was their little brother’s turn, and we were honestly apprehensive about the situation. Santi cannot sit still for more than 20 minutes, so we needed to find something that would boost his interest.

Santi's first movie
Santi’s watching his first movie.

The Disney film Mater’s Tall Tales was a huge hit in our household, especially with Santiago, our 2-year-old. So when we found the short film at the end of Cars 2 about “Air Mater” all that Santiago could say for weeks was “Again! Please!”

With that in mind, we settled on Planes to watch. The nerd in me, researched characters and plot before we went to see it. Everyone was excited because this was supposed to be the next in the Cars series, but I was intrigued with one character, El Chupacabra.

Continue reading “El Chu and Some Other Planes“

Marvel, Movies10 Comments

In Defense of The Wolverine

Keith Chow

At the beginning of this blog’s life, The Wolverine was a very popular topic. Jenn wrote about her issues with the film — primarily how she felt the movie was yet another example of Hollywood’s exotification of Asia and is essentially an Orientalist fantasy in the spirit of Miss Saigon. Later, Claire rebutted Jenn’s claims of Orientalism in the movie but still thought it sucked because of all the plot holes and poorly drawn characters. We even discussed it at length on Hard NOC Life.

Here’s the thing, though. I liked this movie. Like, a lot. It was probably one of my favorite movies of the summer and is definitely my favorite in the X-Men movie canon (which, I guess, isn’t all that difficult since X2 and the Magneto bits in First Class are the only good ones in the franchise).

Now that it’s out on blu-ray and DVD, I thought it was an opportune time to express why I liked it (even though it seems no one else on the blog did).

Continue reading “In Defense of The Wolverine“

DC Comics, Movies6 Comments

Tweets About Man of Steel on Blu-ray

Keith Chow

So Man of Steel was released on blu-ray and DVD today. As I do whenever a superhero movie is released on home video, I went to the store first thing in the morning and bought it.

Since dispersing special features across multiple retailers as store-exclusives is now standard practice, I had to make the tough decision of where to get my copy. Should I go with the Wal-Mart exclusive in steelbook packaging with 30+ minutes of additional extras? Or go with Target’s lenticular digi-book with a different set of special features (also 30+ minutes)?

So I did what any good fanboy would do. I bought both.

Full disclosure: unlike most of the fanboy intelligentsia, I really liked Man of Steel when it came out in June. While I agreed with some of the critiques — namely, the overindulgent third act — I thought the positives outweighed the negatives and was really excited about how Zack Snyder and company were going to follow up the events of this movie in a sequel or two. Now that we know the sequel is going to Gotham, I’m less enthralled with how they intend to follow through on what’s set up in Man of Steel.

Continue reading “Tweets About Man of Steel on Blu-ray”

Horror, Movies14 Comments

World War Z: Not Like the Book, Still a Great Zombie Movie

Jenn

12662aI don’t know when zombies became cool, but they sure took off some time in the last five years. They’re everywhere: on TV, in video games, in comics, in cell phone commercials, in corporate for-profit adventure/mud-running events. It kind of makes me wish zombies were a publicly traded stock option. I could have invested my savings years ago and made millions before the zombie bubble bursts.

One of the landmark works in the contemporary zombie zeitgeist (oh yeah, I totally just put all those words together into a sentence) is Max Brooks’ World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, which I haven’t read, because I suck. Also, because it doesn’t have pictures, and I like my “fun read” books to have pictures in them.

But according to Wikipedia, the World War Z novel is a multi-perspective story that documents the global battle against a zombie apocalypse. It’s supposed to be really good. I do plan on reading it someday.

Continue reading “World War Z: Not Like the Book, Still a Great Zombie Movie”

Movies, Star Trek5 Comments

My Star Trek Blu-ray Dilemma

Keith Chow
14665781_201309051255
Target has, arguably, the worst box art. But I’m a sucker for bonus features.

As you know, one of the reasons we at The Nerds of Color decided to celebrate Star Trek this week — aside from it being the franchise’s 47th anniversary — was the fact that the latest iteration of Trek, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness, was being released on DVD and blu-ray today.

Like a good fanboy, I went straight to Target first thing this morning to secure my copy as soon as possible. After carefully examining about a dozen different cases, I finally chose one whose slipcover was minimally damaged by Target’s idiotic security cases (I’m very picky about the condition of the packaging).

It wasn’t just happenstance that I went to Target to get my copy of Into Darkness. You see, when Paramount Home Video announced the blu-ray release back in May, they also announced a series of retailer-exclusives and multiple versions of the disc. As of today, there are nine different ways to own Star Trek Into Darkness on blu-ray (and this doesn’t include options such as iTunes or DVD). Now, giving different retailers incentives is not a new phenomenon. In the past, the kinds of exclusives offered by different outlets ranged from unique packaging (like variant slipcovers or steelbooks) to including little tchotchkes (such as collectible figurines or other paraphernalia).

Continue reading “My Star Trek Blu-ray Dilemma”