Top 10 DVDs/Blu-rays of 2010
by Brian Eggert
01/02/2010
Below are Deep Focus Review’s Top 10 DVDs/Blu-rays of 2010. The selections include everything from timeless classics to arthouse favorites, from top-notch animation to postermodern masterpieces, so there’s something for everyone. Help support this site by clicking the Amazon.com links provided, or head over to Deep Pockets to place your order. Happy holidays, and happy shopping!
Warner Home Video’s enthusiasm for Errol Flynn gives Golden Age cinema enthusiasts something to savor, and be grateful for. After all, with the Warner Archive tendering most of the studio’s classic titles in online-only made-to-order DVRs, any classic title earning a full-fledged DVD release in stores warrants celebration. This set contains five of Flynn’s wartime favorites—three of them directed by Flynn’s frequent collaborator Raoul Walsh—which demonstrate that the actor was capable of much more than his typecast swashbuckling persona from The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood. The films: Desperate Journey (1942), Edge of Darkness (1943), Northern Pursuit (1944), Uncertain Glory (1944), and Objective, Burma! (1945). Each disc comes with “Warner Night at the Movies” features, including vintage newsreels, animated shorts, live-action short subjects, and the theatrical trailers that would have run during the respective film’s original distribution.
Pixar outdid themselves in 2010, not only by surpassing the first two Toy Story films with their new sequel Toy Story 3 in the theater, but by making all three films available to consumers in one incredible package. Pixar Pixar discs are always most impressive for rendering their gorgeous animation with spectacular clarity, which is worth your money more than any extra. But with this “Toy Box” set containing all three films in both Blu-ray and DVD formats, fans of Pixar’s first major franchise have a wealth of games, production details, and short films to explore. Most significant in the set is “Black Friday: The Toy Story You Never Saw”, which details how Pixar’s first feature film was almost never made. With 10 discs to cover the 3 films, the added content only augments the already glowing Blu-ray transfers from Pixar. This set is an absolute must-buy for Pixar aficionados.
Guillermo del Toro receives much-deserved recognition from The Criterion Collection with their release of Cronos, a must-buy upgrade for owners of the now out-of-print Lions Gate disc. This dark and moody vampire-esque tale brings del Toro’s unique visual approach and stylistic bravado to a story that has been run into the ground. More about the obsession with immortality than blood and gore, the director’s moody debut feature is a wonder for the eyes. Criterion’s “director-approved special edition” features Geometria, an unreleased 1987 short horror film by del Toro, which he completed in 2010 for this release. And over two discs there’s a neat tour of del Toro’s personal collections, plenty of interviews and commentaries, and even del Toro’s personal notes on the film. With any luck, Criterion will get their hands on the director’s second early gem, The Devil’s Backbone, as well.
This year’s best film, Inception, also makes one helluva home video release, particularly with Best Buy’s exclusive packaging that features a copy of Christopher Nolan’s screenplay. Inception is a deliriously exciting heist thriller that does something spectacular: engages the viewer’s intellect. Audiences baffled by the scenario or detractors questioning the rules fail to see the pure imagination behind Nolan’s cinematic culmination—his most personal and auteur-defining work. The film leaves itself open for varied interpretations, which still have audiences talking. Indeed, upon second viewing my own reading of the finale completely changed. See it for yourself, and then see it again and again. This Blu-ray/DVD Combo pack includes some intriguing features, including a making-of documentary called “Extraction Mode”, and an analysis into dreams with star J oseph Gordon-Levitt and “leading scientists” in the field. Looking back to the Limited Edition DVD of Memento, Nolan’s discs are always filled with puzzles that reveal new ways for viewers to see the film. This release asks that you don’t just watch the film, you explore it.
Enigmatic filmmaker-poet Terrence Malick returned in 1998, after an 18-year creative hiatus following his picture Days of Heaven, to bring us The Thin Red Line, his adaptation of James Jones’ novel. This three-hour WWII drama dwells on the Guadalcanal campaign, exploring the displacement and inner dialogue of several American soldiers in the beautiful Solomon Islands. James Caviezel, Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Nick Nolte, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, John Travolta, George Clooney, and Thomas Jane lead the spectacular cast of nothing more than familiar faces. One of the most daring and artful studio films ever released, Malick’s masterful work receives top-notch treatment from The Criterion Collection. Their set includes several interviews with the many actors and casting director, fourteen minutes of outtakes, vintage newsreels, and a feature detailing the Melanesian chants featured in the film. The transfer is nothing short of stunning, as Malick’s eye for beauty has never looked better in High-Def.
John Huston’s The African Queen had long been absent on home video, but in 2010 Paramount Pictures finally gave fans of classic cinema superb DVD and Blu-ray editions. One of the great classics of American cinema, the 1951 film has long been under restoration at Paramount. Set against the backdrop of WWI in Africa, it’s the adventurous tale of a drunken riverboat captain taking a prudish missionary down the river to demolish a German warship, and their growing friendship and love along the way. Star Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar for his role, and Katherine Hepburn was nominated for her performance. The accolades are much deserved and the wait for this DVD was well worth it, as this is one of the most charming, romantic, exciting films to come out of the 1950s. The massive Blu-ray “Commemorative Boxed Set” contains an hour long making-of documentary, a collection of reprinted lobby cards, and a copy of Hepburn’s book The Making of The African Queen or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind.
4. Hayao Miyazaki Films
Walt Disney Company, the North American distributor of Hayao Miyazaki on home video, showed their love for the Japanese animation maestro in 2010 with three new 2-disc “special editions” of the previously available titles Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro in standard DVD releases. Each were vast improvements on the previous transfers. Also making its debut on DVD and Blu-ray is Miyazaki’s 2009 feature Ponyo, the film that was scandalously passed up for a Best Animated Feature nomination at last year’s Oscars.
The discs for Castle in the Sky, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro included a new “The World of Ghibli” featurette exploring the studio's animated creations, a behind-the-scenes trip to Ghibli, new documentaries, and interviews with Miyazaki. Ponyo featured the same assortment, but with the added bonus of a storyboard for the entire film. Each title has undergone top-notch digital restoration, and the discs contain both the English and Japanese-language audio and subtitle options. Disney has done a spectacular service to American audiences by showcasing Miyazaki the way they have. By making his films readily available on home video, they have demonstrated how much he influences their studio’s work, and how monumental his presence remains to the medium of animation. If you haven’t discovered his films yet, this year was the perfect opportunity to start. Forthcoming in 2011 is a new Blu-ray edition of Miyazaki’s second feature film Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
One of the most sublime testaments to the power of art, Powell and Pressburger’s The Red Shoes considers the parallels between a ballet dancer (Moira Shearer) and her infectious, maddening work. Criterion’s second release of the film comes fully restored to sparkling perfection in a 2-disc package, crammed with no end of new supplements. A video introduction by Powell and Pressburger enthusiast Martin Scorsese discusses the restoration, scholar Ian Christie offers audio commentary, and Thelma Schoonmaker gives an interview about the restoration, her late husband Powell, and the film. As a strange aside, the set also features two audio readings by Jeremy Irons, one of Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tales The Red Shoes, and the other of Powell and Pressburger’s novelization of their film. Filled with much more than is mentioned here, this release represents why Criterion is in the top of their field. And they couldn’t have picked a better film to showcase their abilities to restore, and gather all historic and modern critical information about, an important piece of cinema.
Sir David Lean’s career as a filmmaker is defined by the epics from the second-half of his career, benchmarks like Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. His first such masterpiece was The Bridge on the River Kwai from 1957, the winner of 7 Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, which elevated Lean from the status of a small-time British director to a world-renowned auteur. The film comes fully restored in the new Collector’s Edition Blu-ray package that honors the original 2.55:1 aspect ratio and features loads of additional content over 2-discs. Included is a 35-page booklet with stories from the production, 2 featurettes (An Appreciation by John Milius and Rise and Fall of a Jungle Giant), an exclusive new retrospective documentary on the film, and even a collection of reprinted lobby cards. It’s one of those grand remasters that shows how a film more than fifty years old can look better than something from today thanks to the skill of the filmmakers. This is a breathtaking transfer, and one of the greatest stories ever put to film.
Both an oddity and an unparalleled masterpiece, The Night of the Hunter is the only film to be directed by legendary actor Charles Laughton. That he never directed again is a tragedy given the visual and thematic complexity on display here. Part fairy tale, part nightmare, the film follows a devilish Robert Mitchum, in a wild and iconic performance, playing a preacher out to find a cash loot hidden by two children. Though dismissed upon its initial release, the film has since grown in notoriety, earning Sight and Sound’s highest honor in their most recent critic’s poll. MGM’s previous DVD offers no features and only a fullscreen transfer. Who better to produce a suitable upgrade than Criterion, who pulled out all the stops for this 2-disc package? The release offers the earlier two-and-a-half-hour making-of documentary Charles Laughton Directs “The Night of the Hunter”, a new documentary produced for this release, an interview with Laughton biographer Simon Callow, archival interviews and television appearances, and more. Boasting a newly remastered widescreen transfer, Laughton’s film looks wonderful—those high contrast black & white scenes simply gorgeous. Criterion really outdid themselves here.
Top 5 Blu-ray Upgrades:
Because Blu-ray technology continues to slowly emerge into the premiere format for home video, some titles deserve recommendations based on their transfers alone, even though they may have been released previously on DVD. Some of the titles on the below list of Blu-ray upgrades contain improved features and more elaborate packages than their previous releases, but they’re being recommended based on the quality of the video and audio improvements, which in each case are vast. If you haven’t purchased these yet, make sure they’re added to your shopping cart soon. And if you own the DVD version already, it’s time to upgrade. In no particular order, these were best Blu-ray remasters of 2010.
