It’s a television-on-dvd week.  The movie people seem to be sleeping off their “The Dark Knight” hangover.  Let’s look at three interesting TV show releases:

• Caroline in the City: Complete First Season

Wow, I had just about forgotten about that show.  Maybe they really are running out of TV shows to put on DVD, after all. . .

• Tru Calling: The Complete Season

Just in case that new “Dollhouse” show does well, here’s where Eliza Dushku last struck out on her own for a series. . .  I can’t believe this hasn’t been out on DVD before. Has it?

• The Wire: Season 5

Someday, I really hope to see this series. Someday. . .

In the meantime, I’ve getting very excited for the return of THE SHIELD for its final season next month!

• Here’s a parking garage with distorted signage.  Looks like something out a Fincher movie opening credits sequence, but would distract me horribly when driving. . .

• Remember Joe Schmoe?  Great reality show. The original star of it turned into an alcoholic pot-smoking jerk. He thankfully turned his life around.

• 10 Reasons It Would Rule to Date a Unicorn.  I’m not sure it’s very funny at all, but there’s something earnest in its effort that I can admire. Someone bought a domain name for this gag.  It wasn’t enough to just post it on a message board somewhere. . .

• Firefly comes to Blu Ray.

After last week’s riches, what could live up to it?  The TV world is certainly giving it a shot. Check out today’s list of new releases over at TVShowsonDVD.com.  I’ve never seen a list that long, not even during the Christmas season.  There’s nothing there that’s going to get me to click over to Amazon, but perhaps your tastes will find something satisfying there.

In the world of movies, you have this:

• Starship Troopers 3: Marauders

I almost don’t want to get into the argument again over whether the first move was any good or not.  But, gee whiz, they made a third?  It’s direct-to-DVD, isn’t it?

• Nim’s Island

That’s it — I’m completely out of touch.  What is this thing? It’s a kid’s movie, I’m guessing. . .

Big release week, post San Diego convention.  Let’s get to the good stuff!

(The plug-in I used for this blog is having problems finding cover images for the first two DVDs I’m referencing here this week. Until then, please click through on either Buster Bunny below or the T-Shirt to get to Amazon.  Then, run a search to order the DVDs.  Thanks!)

• Tiny Toon Adventures

An all-time classic. It’s probably not as good as I remember, but this was the first cartoon series I was a knowing fanboy for.  I know I’m in the minority here, but I Heart Elmyra.  Her first appearance, as she carries Dizzy Devil behind her, slapping him on every rock on the road along the way, still cracks me up.

Yes, the final animation had wildly varying quality, but the writing and art direction (from names such as Paul Dini and Bruce Timm) are top notch, with a lot of memorable and very cool stuff.  I love this series, and it’s one of the last things I’ve been waiting to see on DVD since the format debuted.

• Freakazoid: Season One

This was a fun show that might have been a bit too wacky and zany for its own good. Things calmed down and focused a little better in the second season, but there’s still plenty of good stuff in here.

The story goes — and I’m not sure if this is true or not — that this was the last cartoon FOX was doing with Steven Spielberg, so they wanted to get as many different characters and spin-offable concepts into one show as possible.  Thus, the anthology format of the series.

• Witchblade: The Complete Series

There’s a movie coming in 2010, but don’t expect Yancy Butler in it.

• WarGames: 25th Anniversary Edition

Now I feel old again.

• 21

Loved the book. Saw that the movie was advertised as “inspired by” the book, and not directly adapting it.  That sounds like trouble.  Reviewers weren’t terribly kind, as I recall.  The book is great, though.

• Spaced

This is the release of the week.  I’ve only ever seen the first half of the first episode, and have been dying to see more.  Now, you an get the complete series with tons of extras in one boxed set.

These are the people who brought you “Top Fuzz” and “Shaun of the Dead,” people!

• Robot Chicken: Star Wars

Came out just shortly before the “Family Guy” parody.  This one is supposed to be pretty good, though I’ll likely never see it.  Only $10 at Amazon right now.  (Click on the image above.)

Next week is a HUGE week: Freakazoid and Tiny Toons.  They’re one of the last few things I’ve been waiting for on DVD since the birth of the format. Most everything else has come out already.

Halfway through another month, with a couple of promising releases:

• The Bank Job

Is Jason Statham in another movie every other week, or is it just me?  In any case, I don’t remember anything about this movie when it first came out at the beginning of the year, but the writeups I’m seeing about it now are promising.  Granted, it’s a movie set in the 70s, which is about my least favorite decade for movie settings.  But it’s supposed to be a fairly good one along the stylistic lines of “The French Connection” and other movies of the era.

The cover image above links to the special two disc edition, which includes a digital copy of the movie.

• Step Up 2 The Streets

I saw the first one.  In theaters.  It was my wife’s idea, of course. There were a lot of dance movies that summer, as I recall.

• Birds of Prey

It only lasted 13 episodes on the WB, but had a couple of redeeming qualities.  The actress they cast as Oracle was perfect from a visual point of view.  They really nailed the comic book character in the casting there.  That’s not something you can say too often.  (I thought George Clooney made for a great Bruce Wayne, though his Batman was lacking.)

Best Buy is including a comic book with your purchase, though I don’t know what it is.  It’s probably not from the classic Dixon/Land/Guice era, though.  Just a guess.

• College Road Trip

When did Martin Lawrence gain all that weight?

Next week: I’m very excited for “Spaced: The Complete Series.”

Nearly random thoughts after watching the Pixar movie “Ratatouille” this weekend:

I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’m not going to flinch at the sight of an invasion of rats in a kitchen.  The lead rat is cute.  His brother is lovable.  His father is respectable.  But to see dozens of them swarming around food?  I can’t buy into it.

That said, it’s a great movie. It all fits together, even if most of it was (like most Disney movies, honestly) easy to predict from a very early stage.  The ending, most satisfyingly, was not something I predicted, though.  That took me by surprise, made a lot of sense, and definitely sealed the movie with a happy ending worth enjoying.

Loved the “Lifted” short film.  This was the first I saw it.  I love silly slapstick, and an alien who can’t drag a human out of bed and into his ship will make me laugh every time. I think it was the bold brassy music that really sold it, though.  Every time the music turns into a soaring John Williams riff, you expect something dramatic and awe-inspiring.  And that’s when the alien hits the wrong switch.

The biggest surprise of the movie for me: The true break-out star of the movie is an Augie!  Auguste Gusteau (nice punny name) rocked!

Was enjoying the credits, but thinking that the painted style looked somehow familiar.  I had forgotten that Scott Morse worked on this movie until I saw his name in the credits.

Something for Pipeline: There’s a bold image at the end of the credits, basically promising that the movie was done without shortcuts — no motion capture done here!  I liked that a lot, particularly given the past week’s “Alex Ross Ruined Comics” blogosphere debate.

Interesting landscape this week:

• Batman: Gotham Knight

It’s the animated prequel to “The Dark Knight.”  Written by a bunch of comic writers.

• Superhero Movie

This is the superhero movie parody movie.  Somehow, it didn’t get sued by DC/Marvel for using their joint “superhero” trademart.  Still, it made almost $60 million worldwide.

• Jake and the Fatman: Season One

It’s my list.  I can include whatever I want.  And for some reason, I feel like mentioning this one.  Odd.

• Fastlane: Complete Series

If you’re a “Saved by the Bell” completist and you want to fill out your Tiffani Amber Thiesson collection after “Beverly Hills 90210,” here you go.

Next week: “Birds of Prey: The Complete Series”

This is part two of my “Tchaikovsky” review.  The first part showed up last week.

One generic thought before I move on, though:  I wonder if we aren’t reading too much into the music.  Unless it’s backed up by one of his writings, I can’t always assume that the interpretation of the music is exactly reflective of the mood of the artist. To say that a piece written in a minor key means that the composer was feeling moody and depressed seems to be a bit of a leap for me.  Can’t a composer write in a minor key because that’s the song he heard in his head?  Is it that crazy to think that someone can write against their “mood” or their life’s position at a given moment?  The people who read into his Sixth Symphony and say, “Yep, he was clearly suicidal while writing this” just make me laugh.

Music can, no doubt, mirror ones emotions or provoke one’s emotions, but to use a single piece as such a documentary piece of work is disengenuous.

Back to the DVD: As a bonus, there’s a third hour on the DVD that’s an older documentary on the death of Tchaikovsky.  The first clue to its age was the video quality, which looked just slightly better than VHS.  The second was that its host had huge glasses.  The third was that the host appeared in his office, sitting in front of a giant box housing a 15 inch monitor.  A book on the shelf behind him faced outwards to display its title, “CompuServe.”  Ah, the good old days.

The special was produced in the early days of the Soviet breakup.  There’s even a reference to Glasnost early on.  The host visits the same home that the main feature’s host visited to study Tchaikovsky’s papers.  The problem is, they hadn’t opened up the vaults yet, by the sounds of it.  The picture this host paints is of a Russia that’s still secretive, and still happy to protect its icon through concealment of documents.  I have a feeling that those restrictions loosened up a great deal by the time the feature documentary was researched and shot.

The focus is squarely on Tchaikovsky’s death here, and presents some interesting theories.  The accepted story about death by cholera from unboiled drinking water does have holes in it.  On the other hand, people are not always consistent and perfect. An “accidental tragedy” might leave the door open for speculation, but it does happen.  A more sensationalistic theory or two is floated, including one in which Tchaikovsky is convinced to kill himself before his good name is sullied as well as — get this — the good name of the school he attended as a child.  There are multiple suicide theories, and interviews with those old enough to be not far removed from the situation lend weight to a suicide theory.

The thing is, we’ll just never know.  It’s too late for forensic evidence.  It’s too far gone for anyone living at the time to still be with us.  (Tchaikovsky died over 100 years ago.)  It’s fun to theorize and raise conspiracy theories, but ultimately futile. There’s a lot more to learn about the man and his music from what he did write down. And, like I said, there’s more than enough “reading between the lines” that’ll be done with the music, itself.  That should be enough for all of us.

All told, the DVD is an interesting look into the life of a famous composer with a beautiful soundtrack that’s sadly not long enough. It’s worth a rental, if you’re intellectually curious about such things.

• The new O.A.R. single, “Shattered,” has a music video up on MSN.  The first thing I noticed is that they used a LensBaby to make the video.  That was confirmed by their YouTube “Making Of” video.

• The complete Guitar Hero: Aerosmith track list.

• Guitar Hero: The Beatles?  Maybe.  I doubt it, but it would be cool.

• The Simpsons map for Quake III.  (YouTube video at the link.)

• The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries are coming to DVD, too!  That was an overlooked gem. Beautiful TMS animation, too.

There’s only one serious contender for Release of the Week:

• In Bruges

An action flic set in a town in Belgium.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  I may have to go abuse some Amazon credit on this one.

For completists, you can also buy the Charlie Rose episode in which they talked about the movie, between Super Tuesday and Alice Waters.

• Persepolis

For serious comic fans, on the other hand, this is the only Release of the Week possibility, animated from the best-selling and critically-acclaimed comic.

• 10,000 BC

I’ve seen more of the movie in the DVD commercials than I ever did the theatrical trailers.  They don’t impress me any more.

• Futurama: Beast with a Billion Backs

This is the new direct-to-DVD production.  I get the feeling that this will be the best-seller amongst this blog’s audience.

• The Spiderwick Chronicles

Seemed to be popular with the kiddies.

Mark July 29th on your calendar.  That’s the day the first set of “Tiny Toon Adventures” and “Freakazoid” DVDs come to your home theather. Whoo-hoo! (Official press release for the sets is at the link. TTA contains first 35 episodes.)

For someone who becomes as obsessive about things as me, I hate to admit how little I know about classical music.  I own a lot of it.  Franz Liszt is my favorite. But I’ve never made an effort to learn more about it, beyond knowing what I like, which tends towards the more bombastic and the more piano-based pieces.  I would think that at some point I would have gone on a tear reading about it, listening to podcasts about it, watching documentaries — something.  But I don’t know much about that world.  Mine is a completely superficial knowledge.  Everyone knows that Beethoven was hard of hearing, or that Mozart had a rival in Saliere.  (Hmmm, I have AMADEUS on DVD.  I should really watch that someday. . . )  Past then, I’m your typical clueless modern guy.

Heck, most of the classical music we’re familiar with comes from soundtracks to animated shorts, fireworks displays, or commercials.  (The work is in the public domain.  It’s cheap.  Why not use it?)

When BBC America offered me a chance to look at a two hour documentary on Tchaikovsky that’s new on DVD, I jumped at the chance.  (Really, on what other blog would you ever read a sentence like that?)  The unique thing about TCHAIKOVSKY: THE TRAGIC LIFE OF A MUSICAL GENIUS is that it isn’t quite a documentary, and not quite a dramatic presentation.  It is a strange hybrid that occasionally suffers for it.  So long as you keep in mind that it is billed as a “personal remembrance” of British conductor, Charles Hazelwood, the shortcomings of the piece will make more sense.

Hazelwood, an admitted Tchaikovsky fan, travels to Tchaikovsky’s Russian home and schools to meet with today’s classical students and to visit the archives of the man.  As it turns out, Tchaikovsky was a prolific letter writer, and thousands of those letters are saved at his country home, which has been preserved to be as it was when he died.

Tchaikovsky’s story is very Hollywood friendly for the modern age.  He had a bad childhood, being left at a boarding school by his mother who died when he was a teenager.  He was a musical genius who quickly rose up the ranks, only to be stymied by those who didn’t understand his gift.  He was a gay man who was afraid his “secret” would get out, despite being notoriously promiscuous and friendly in public with a number of other gay men.  (If he were truly hiding it, he could have done a better job.)  He attempted a marriage to a woman, which worked out just slightly less well than Elton John’s did to Renate Blauel.  That led him to run away from home, travel the world, and write more.  Eventually, he returned home, debuted his masterpiece Sixth Symphony, and died a few days later.

He wrote more than you might realize.  His “Swan Lake” revolutionized the ballet world.  His style became synonymous with Russian music and Russia, itself.  He did opera.  He piano pieces and violin pieces. He did full symphonies.  He did it all.  He even did “The 1812 Overture” on commission from the tsar. It was a classic work-for-hire hack piece.  Many consider it a lesser work, though we all hear it every year on July 4th in this country, and in countless cartoons.  The one thing you can’t control as a creator is the public’s response to your work.  “The 1812 Overture” should have been a small (albeit bombastic) piece, quickly forgotten.  Instead, it’s one of the best-remembered.

I called this documentary a “hybrid” before for a reason.  While most of the two hours is done in a traditional talking heads documentary style, there are also dramatic recreations of events interspersed throughout.  While they’re well-acted and look authentic enough, they’re often repetitive of what was just narrated and occasionally veer off into moments of salaciousness.  Sometimes, it’s enough to know a piece wasn’t well received by a composer’s instructor. We don’t need to spend the next two minutes watching the instructor badmouth the piece to his student, though it is fun to see him bang away on the piano.

The highlight of the documentary, though, is the music.  Hazelwood is seen conducting an orchestra filled with music students inside a gigantic marble room.  The sound quality is outstanding.  As we’re just hearing selected highlights from certain pieces, there’s not a dull moment in the bunch.  I’d love to have a DVD filled with those pieces recorded in that room in glorious surround sound. It would have been nice to include some of those performances as a bonus, at the least, or a second DVD.

Video quality is good.  This documentary originally aired in 2007. I don’t know if it was originally presented in high definition or not, but the picture quality is of a very good DVD quality.  I have no complaints there.  The menus are simple and easy to navigate, though the two hours of the documentary were broken into two episodes and there’s no “Play All” button.  You play one episode, go back to the main menu, and play the other.  It’s a minor nit, but I know it would bother some people.

There’s a bonus documentary on the disc, too, about the conspiracy theories surrounding Tchaikovsky’s death. It’s worth talking about, but I’ll save it for another time.

TCHAIKOVSKY: THE TRAGIC LIFE OF A MUSICAL GENIUS is an excellent primer in both the man and the music.  While the format of the piece is a little wonky, the end result is strong.  Now, where do I put my request in for a documentary on Liszt?

(If that’s not enogh Tchaikovsky for you, video clips of Hazelwood discussing the man’s music can be found on this page.)

It’s about time we got to this. . .

• The Bucket List

Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in a movie about two old guys doing stuff.

• Californication: Season One

Stars David Duchovny.  Past that, I know nothing.  It’s one of those pay-cable shows. I don’t subscribe to those channels.

• Fool’s Gold

Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson plays a divorced couple trying to get along long enough to find treasure in the deep sea.  There are mobsters, too, I think.

• Be Kind Rewind

This one is probably the geek release of the week.  I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.  Sadly, it stars Jack Black, so I have zero interest. But others might be interested in this bizarre-sounding movie.

Anything interest you?

Let’s see what we’ve got here:

• John Adams

The latest hit HBO series is a mini-series.  It’s historical drama! It’s got that guy from that flop M. Night Shyamalan film! (Notice his name isn’t above the title of his new film now? Ouch.)

Updated: I stand corrected by the NY Times: “Mr. Shyamalan, who will get his name above the title for “The Happening,” …”

• TekWar

See, kids, there was a day when syndicated programming filled up the schedules of local stations.  They weren’t all WB or UPN or CW affiliates.  And sometimes, those syndicated shows would form mini-networks of their own and give us shows like “Time Traxx” (still not available on DVD in Region 1) and “Babylon 5″.  (Remember the Prime Time Entertainment Network?  Five of us do.)  “Viper” went from NBC to syndication many years later.  “Two” only lasted one season. On and on and on.

Then, there was “TekWar,” starring Greg Evigan and William Shatner. The latter was the “writer” of the book series upon which the television series was based.  There might even have been a comic book mini-series at the time.  I can’t recall.  (Howard Chaykin did a “Viper” mini-series, I remember, based on the NBC series, not the syndicated one.)

I remember liking it in a way at the time.  Cheesy, perhaps, but not awful.  I might think differently today.  I don’t know.

18 episodes are included in this set.  That’s the entire series.  I’m pretty sure there was a series of made-for-TV movies made before the TV show began.  Whether they count those now as double-length episodes or are just not included in this package, I do not know.

That’s likely more than you wanted to know about lowly little “TekWar,” isn’t it?

• Jumper

My, but they REALLY promoted the heck out of this.  It even got a coveted “American Idol” bump. Made $80,000,000, so I suppose they weren’t too disappointed by it.

Next week - more DVDs.  Aren’t there always more of them?  Too bad this whole Blu-Ray thing isn’t taking off.  Someday, they’ll realize people don’t want to pay $500 for a DVD player. . .