Blu-ray Round-up; 3 Classics from MGM!

Kalifornia
Written by: Tim Metcalfe Story by Stephen levy and Tim Metcalfe
Directed by: Dominic Sena
Starring Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, David Duchovny and Michelle Forbes

Special Features: Theatrical and Unrated editions of Kalifornia

Bull Durham
Written & Directed by: Ron Shelton
Starring: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Trey Wilson, and Robert Wuhl

Special Features: (on DVD) Commentary from Ron Shelton, Kevin Costner and Tim Robbins, The Greatest Show On Dirt, Diamonds in the Rough, Between the Line - The making of Bull Durham, Kevin Costner profile, and Sports Wrap

Escape From New York
Written by: John Carpenter and Nick Castle
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring:Kurt Russell, Lee van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Season Hubley, Harry Dean Stanton and Adrienne Barbeau

Special Features: Original Theatrical Trailer

I'm going to do this round up a little differently. Rather than concentrate on each title, I'll review them as a group.  Why do it this way?  Well, because each of these releases have the same problems so instead of repeating myself three different times, why not make it easy and do them all as one review? 

For this round up we have three catalog titles from MGM.  Kalifornia, a serial killer thriller featuring a mesmerizing performance from Brad Pitt.  Bull Durham, the classic baseball romantic comedy (refreshingly adult and R-rated), and the fantastically fun Escape From New York featuring the classically iconic and vastly under sequelized Snake Plisken (aka Kurt Russell).

I'd never seen Kalifornia or Bull Durham before so I was excited to see them for the first time.  Escape From New York I have seen and enjoy quite a bit.  It's been a few years since I've seen it so I was looking forward to revisiting it on Blu-ray.

So let's start with the good first.

The films themselves are all quite good.  I enjoyed all three of them.  Of course, Escape from New York was my favorite but I was shocked at how much I enjoyed Bull Durham.  I had it in my head that I wasn't going to like it.  I'm not a sports guy and I'm not a particular Kevin Costner fan but despite that, I really liked it.  Kalifornia was great as well.  Probably due almost entirely to the performances of Brad Pitt and Juliet Lewis.

The films all look great.  The transfers are nice and crisp.  Pretty great job for films that are a couple decades in the hopper.

Each of them come with DVD copies of the film which is nice for those who are planning to move to Blu-ray but haven't taken the full dive yet.

Here is where I get confused.  The sets, with the exception of Bull Durham, are woefully short on special features.  and in the case of all of them, the features are on the DVDs.  I kinda feel like an opportunity was wasted to give some great features and bonuses.  Instead, we're given movie only Blu-rays and a DVD with 1 feature. 

Kalifornia has no features to speak off, instead the DVD contains the theatrical version of the film while the Blu-ray is unrated.  Escape from New York has a trailer.  Bull Durham has a few features on the DVD but nothing really all that interesting.

It makes me curious as to what the point of even putting these movies out is.  Besides money of course.  If you aren't going to utilize the format why waste the time, and fans money releasing them.  There are straight up DVD releases that are cheaper and have more features available.

Another concern for me is the sound.  It seemed extremely low in places on all three of the films.  I had to crank my speakers up to 30 a few times just to hear what was happening.

So bottom line is this.  We have three really good movies well worth adding to your collection but the releases are a little skimpy in terms of features and sound quality.  I'd keep an eye on these for a price drop and when they hit the $9.99 area jump on them.

Escape from New York, Bull Durham and Kalifornia are all available now.