Blu-ray Today: Game of Thrones, Darkman and a Foxy Feast

Darkman – When I was a kid on vacation with my aunt down in Florida, I once asked her to buy me a “Who Is Darkman?” T-shirt. She agreed, but only after I responded in the negative to her query, “That’s not onea them racial things, is it?” Indeed it was not; it was Sam Raimi’s attempt to springboard off the Batman movie phenomenon and create his own version with full-on horror-movie makeup. Darkman never quite captured the zeitgeist the way Ash did, but it predicted Liam Neeson’s evolution into a movie badass long before that image really took hold, and made Frances McDormand a female lead before she hooked up with became perennial awards-bait with the Coens. New interviews with both of them and villain Larry Drake are highlights of this new Blu, which apparently doesn’t have the best picture sharpening, but the movie always looked a little cheesy anyhow. As long as the sound is top-notch when Neeson yells “GIVE ME THE FUCKING ELEPHANT!,” I’m good.

It’s Game of Thrones, and it comes in that thing. Like Julia so often says to me, “You want it. Just get it.”

Fantastic Mr. Fox: The Criterion Collection – Among the fully loaded extras in this new edition of Wes Anderson’s foray into stop-motion are a full audio recording of author Roald Dahl reading the original book aloud, 18 pages of reproduced original manuscript, as well as several featurettes about (and including appearances by) the man himself. Director Anderson finally recorded a commentary track, too. The non-sequitur humor made my wife hate this film even though she normally loves cute critters and animation, but if you know Anderson, you’ve some idea what you’re getting into, and all told it is probably, joke-for-joke, his most out-and-out funny film. Respect the Mister Fox or go cuss yourself.

Battle of the Damned – Dolph Lundgren is Max Gatling, zombie-fighting commando, who this time around encounters killer robots as well. If I have to say any more, this is not the movie for you.

Beware the Batman Season 1 Part 1 – Did anybody warm to CGI Batman? I admit I didn’t really care enough to try.

Tourist Trap – Here’s a ’70s horror movie that seems to come with no extras whatsoever. That’s different.

BONUS NON-BLU DVD:
Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Epic Series – Thanks to the stupid way Amazon puts reviews of all formats on one page, and the relative lack of reviews elsewhere, I’m not entirely sure what we’re getting here, except that it is the original ’70s series and does not include Galactica 1980. It appears to be ten discs rather than a previous 6-disc version that was packed in a Cylon head, now with more deleted scenes – but again, it’s difficult to tell which review belongs to which edition.

Which is why I’d say wait till a Blu-ray version. They have to do one, right?

And those are my top picks – you’ll pardon me if I ignore the Pompeii mockbuster. What would you add this week?