THE EPITAPH VOl. 45 - SIX-PACK EDITION
SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (2021) - SUPERMAN & LOIS: THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (2021) - ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (2021) - WARNING (2021) - CORALINE (2009) - PARANORMAN (2012)
Labe: WBHE
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: PG
Duration: 115 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Atmos, TrueHD, Dolby Digital 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 2160p UHD Widescreen
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Cast: Don Cheadle, LeBron James, Khris Davis, Sonequa Martin-Green, Cedric Joe, Jeff Bergman, Eric Bauza
The original Space Jam did very little for me, I have never been a sports fan, but I will say that the rogue A.I. set-up of this sequel offers plenty of Ready Player One styled pop-culture references that celebrate the decades of WB IP, with references and nods to Harry Potter, The Matrix, The Mask Game of Thrones, A Clockwork Orange, Mad Max Fury Road, Batman, Wonder Woman, Austin Powers, The Iron Giant, The Herculoids, and if my eyes are to be believed, The Devils - which WB has refused to release for decades - stop taunting us WB! Just on a purely pop-culture level this was a fun time for me, so good job on WB for finding a way to pull someone as disinterested as myself into the film. It also helps that I think the Looney Tunes animated action is far superior to the first film, and the 2D and 3D digital animation feels more in the spirit of the classic toons I loved a a kid. The 4K UHD is a demo-worth stunner with vibrant HDR10 enhanced colors and a bombastic Atmos mix that will give your home theater a nice workout. The BD/UHD dual format release also includes a slipcover and a redemption code for a 4K digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Multi-Part Behind-the-Scenes: First Quarter: Game On, Second Quarter: Teamwork, Third Quarter: Out of This World, Fourth Quarter: The Looniest (31 min)
- Deleted Scenes (8 min)
Special Features:
- Multi-Part Behind-the-Scenes: First Quarter: Game On, Second Quarter: Teamwork, Third Quarter: Out of This World, Fourth Quarter: The Looniest (31 min)
- Deleted Scenes (8 min)
SUPERMAN & LOIS:
THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON (2021)
Label: WBHE
Region Code: A
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 672 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.78:1)
Cast: Tyler Hoechlin, Elizabeth Tulloch, Jordan Elsass, Alex Garfin, Erik Valdez, Inde Navarrette, Wolé Parks, Adam Rayner, Dylan Walsh, Emmanuelle Chriqui
After years of facing super-villains, monsters, and alien invaders intent on wiping out the human race, Superman (Tyler Hoechlin) and his journalist wife Lois (Elizabeth Tulloch) come face to face with one of their greatest challenges ever – dealing with all the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents! When they first introduced Hoechlin to the Arrow-verse I was not a big fan to be honest, but when they launched the first season of Superman & Lois I was sold on hi. pretty quickly. In it Lois and Clark moving back to Smallville after the death of his mother to focus on raising their teenage sons Jonathan (Jordan Elsass) and Jordan (Alex Garfin), eventually revealing to them their dad's secret identity, which causes some strife at home, compounded by the emerging super powers of one of the teens. Small town life is still fraught with problems though, raising teen's is not easy, and for some reason tech mogul Morgan Edge (Adam Rayner) has his sights sets on Smallville, which provides the season with an interesting story arc. The drama is very well-done and the superhero action set pieces feel big budget and very cinematic, well beyond anything else I've seen on the CW and it makes for an engaging superhero story with lots of heart to it, making it one of my favorite DC properties on TV at the moment, alongside Star Girl. All fifteen extended episodes arrives on a 3-disc Blu-ray set that looks and sounds terrific, plus we get about 80 minutes worth of extras, and a redemption code for a digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Superman: Alien Spirit (9 min)
- Superman and Lois Legacy of Hope (19 min)
- Never Alone: Heroes and Allies (21 min)
- DC FanDome Panel: Superman & Lois (28 min)
Episodes:
- Pilot
- Heritage
- The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower
- Haywire
- The Best of Smallville
- Broken Trust
- Man of Steel
- Holding the Wrench
- Loyal Subjekts
- O Mother, Where Art Thou?
- A Brief Reminiscence In-Between Cataclysmic Events
- Through the Valley of Death
- Fail Safe
- The Eradicator
- Last Sons of Krypton
TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (2021)
Label: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Region Code: A
Rating: PG-13
Duration: 88 Minutes (Theatrical), 96 Minutes (Extended)
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Adam Robitel
Cast: Taylor Russell, Logan Miller, Indya Moore, Holland Roden, Thomas Cocquerel, Carlito Olivero
I never watched the first Escape Room movie, so I threw this on not expecting to be fully engaged and to be certainly a bit lost, but they do a decent job of catching you up on what you missed and then get straight into a new but connected story that features the champions of past escape rooms unwittingly converging onto a subway car and being forced to participate in a new nerve shredding series of escape room games. This is fun escapist entertainment along the lines of something like National Treasure, you sort of have to shut off your brain a bit and just go along with the improbable and impossible thrill ride, and that's what I did, I had a great time with it. The over elaborate set-ups and escape rooms fun and we get some nice tense moments of suspense as the characters decipher the clues and navigate their way through the rooms or pay the ultimate price. While I can't even remember one characters name as a type this review it was a fun diversion and I was never bored by it, this was a thrill-ride, a disposable one, but not one I regret watching. The Blu-ray offers up a handful of extras, but the best of the bunch is the addition of the extended cut, which is more that just a few deleted scenes inserted back into the flick, it's a whole alternate cut with different characters and plotlines that actually makes it feel like an all-new movie. This release includes a slipcover and a redemption code for a digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Theatrical and Extended Cuts of ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS
- Go Inside the Minos Escape Rooms (6 min)
- Meet the Players (5 min)
- Director Adam Robitel on Raising the Stakes (4 min)
Label: Lionsgate
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 86 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.39:1)
Director: Agata Alexander, Cybill Lui Eppich
Cast: Thomas Jane, Annabelle Wallis, Alex Pettyfer, Alice Eve, Kylie Bunbury
Sci-fi anthology Warning (2021) is set in the not-too-distant future and offers a series of vignettes that paint a dire picture of the state of the human race. The disconnected stories show us an "space janitor" tasked with satellite maintenance that goes wrong, an aging servant robot looking for a new gig, a young woman who has an Alexa-type device called "God" that counts your sins and blessings, a VR memory stalker, a service that lets you inhabit the bodies of others, and how technological immortality has been achieved and becomes the new class system. The film has a very Black Mirror feel to it but the vignettes don't feel entwined and aren't explored with any sense of satisfaction to my taste, it made me wonder if this was a series that was scrapped and tossed together anthology style without any wraparound to contextualize it, and I think if it had a unifying theme it would help it. The only extras is a trailer that features material I didn't catch in the film which makes me believe that their was some sort of behind-the-scenes shenanigans that might have derailed the true intent of the filmmakers, but who knows? As a whole it's not very satisfying, but I didn;t dislike it, the moving parts are quite interesting and while the themes are not fully explored I thought all of it was intriguing. Not perfect, but I give it a recommend for lovers of sci-fi and dystopian tales. The Blu-ray from Lionsgate includes a slipcover and a redemption code for a digital copy of the film.
Special Features:
- Trailer (2 min)
LAIKA Studios Edition
Label: Shout! Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: PG
Duration:
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: Henry Selick
Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., Ian McShane
From Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach) and based on the novella of the same name by author Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Laika Studios' Coraline is the stuff stop motion kinder-trauma nightmares are made of. This is a modern classic as far as I am concerned, when a young girl discovers a secret door in her new home and discovers an alternate version of her life awaits her on the other side. It seems like a wonderful, more fantastical idealized version of her life, but soon cracks in the veneer appear, but can she return to her own life before the button-eyed nightmare becomes her reality. I saw this in theater in 2009 with my kids, and it creeped them out; so much so my daughter, who was 10 the time has refused to watch it ever since! If tour looking to introduce yourself to some kid friendly horror this Halloween this might be a good option. It reminds me of the darker fantast stuff Disney trafficked in with stuff like Something Wicked This Way Comes and Watcher In The Woods. The new Shout! Factory Blu-ray features a new scan of the film and both new and vintage extras that give a peek into the making of this frightful stop-motion classic. This new edition also includes a slipcover and a 12-page booklet.
Special Features:
- NEW Inside LAIKA-Discovering the Characters of Coraline Featuring Never-Before-Seen Test Footage (11 min)
- NEW Inside LAIKA—Revisiting the Puppets with LAIKA’s Animation Team (9 min)
- NEW Foreword by Peter Debruge, Chief Film Critic for Variety
- NEW Character, Concept Art and Behind the Scenes Photo Galleries
- Audio Commentary with Director Henry Selick and Composer Bruno Coulais
- The Making Of Coraline (36 min)
- Deleted Scenes (9 min)
- Feature-Length Storyboards (94 min)
- Creepy Coraline (5 min)
- Voicing The Characters (11 min)
- Still Galleries
- Trailer
LAIKA Studios Edition
Label: Shout! Factory
Region Code: A
Rating: PG
Duration: 101 Minutes
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.40:1)
Director: Chris Butler, Sam Fell
Cast: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, Jodelle Ferland, Tempestt Bledsoe, Alex Borstein, John Goodman
ParaNorman is another kid-friendly slice of stop-motion animation from Laika Studios, wherein a small town comes under siege of a centuries old witch's curse which unleashes a zombie horde. The only hope is a misfit kid named Norman, who has the ability to speak with the dead. Re-watching it I was surprised just how much I love this spooky fright flick, I think I actually put it above Coraline these days. The stylized and imaginative stop motion feature is ripe with ghouls, ghosts and witchy atmosphere, its also heartwarming and rib-ticklingly funny. I watched it with the subtitles on and I noticed something that must be the subtitlers trolling fans, during a scene that features the Halloween theme the subtitles indicate "Friday the 13th theme", I know that was not simply an error, someone did that on purpose! The Shout! Factory Blu-rays offers a new scan of the film plus loads of new and archival extras, a booklet, and a slipcover.
Special Features:
- NEW Feature-Length Storyboards (92 min)
- NEW Inside LAIKA Featurette-Revisiting the Puppets with LAIKA’s Animation Team (10 min)
- NEW Inside LAIKA Discovering the Characters and Effects of ParaNorman Featuring Never-Before-Seen Animation Test Footage (13 min)
- Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Chris Butler and Co-Director Sam Fell
- Peering Through the Veil: Behind-the-Scenes of ParaNorman (40 min)
You Don’t Become a Hero By Being Normal (3 min)
- A Norman Childhood (2 min)
- Playing As A Profession (2 min)
- Making Norman (2 min)
- This Little Light (1 min)
- Have You Ever Seen A Ghost (2 min)
- The Zombies of ParaNorman (2 min)
- Still Galleries
- Trailer
