Another Day, Another Blu-Ray

A friend of mine once remarked that the majority of my DVDs are the movies that you can watch on basic cable on any night of the week. Those words were running through my mind today when I bought the Blu-Ray boxed set of the Austin Powers trilogy. What can I say? I always liked it, and it was on sale for $25, so I thought, "Why not?"

Things was, I never got the Blu-Ray discs I set out to get. I've always had a soft spot for James Bond, so I thought about grabbing Quantum of Solace, but on the way out of the house, I saw my DVD websites indicated that a newer special edition comes out in a couple of months, so I figured I'd wait. As you may remember, I rented Whip It a couple of weeks ago, and that had the unexpected side effect of being temporarily obsessed with Ellen Page, so I was keeping my eyes open for Whip It. I'm also temporarily obsessed with The Goonies, and you'll find out why in tomorrow's podcast, but I couldn't find it on Blu-Ray.

Oh, look at that. It's not on Blu-Ray yet. I guess I could have just spent $10 to get the regular DVD out of the discount bin.

But those quests went out the window when I was in HMV, perusing some of the TV on Blu-Ray, and I saw a boxed set, Doctor Who: The Complete Specials. This is the series of TV movies that ran throughout 2009, signaling the swan song for David Tennant as the 10th Doctor. I actually haven't seen these yet, so after almost half an hour of staring at the boxed set on the shelf, wondering whether to get them or not, I got them.

But that wasn't all! It was also a movie day, so I had to go check out the first big blockbuster of the summer, Iron Man 2. I've got to admit, I've been disappointed with the films of 2010 so far, so I went into Iron Man 2 with some drastically lowered expectations. And I don't know if it was because of those lowered expectations, but Iron Man 2 completely blew me away. It's funny, it's action packed...I wouldn't say it was better than the first one, though. It's definitely on-par with the first one. Whatever, it was a hell of a ride and I enjoyed the hell out of it.

And then I went across the hall to finally see Kick-Ass. Kick-Ass is an incredibly messed-up film, but messed-up in a good way. As the superhero genre starts becoming more and more mainstream, I'm sure we're going to get more deconstructions like this, where people ask the question, "What would it be like if superheroes started popping up?" I was surprised at how darkly comedic the film was.

If I have one complaint about Kick-Ass, that would be the same complaint that was once raised about the first Shrek film. Around 2/3 of the way through the film, they switch from mocking the cliches of the genre to falling back on them. It really does feel like standard superhero fare at the climax.

But still, a highly enjoyable film.

Complete reviews in the next day or so.