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Really taking things to heart — Repo Men makes its Blu-ray and standard DVD debut Tuesday PDF Print E-mail
Entertainment
Thursday, 22 July 2010 14:52

By Peter Covino

Entertainment Editor

If you like lots of gore and stylistic futuristic sets for your big screen HD TV, Repo Men is a good bet for home viewing.

Repo Men (Universal Home Entertainment), an inconvenient name because it sounds like it could be a remake of Repo Man, the 1984 cult classic with Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, is the story of two men in the near future (played by Jude Law and Forest Whitaker) who really seem to take pleasure in their job — they repossess manufactured human organs.

Yep, if you don't pay in a timely fashion, they will cut that synthetic heart, liver, lungs etc. right out of your body. Not exactly the best kind of socialized medicine.

 


The governments of most of the world seem to have fallen on hard times and the key player is now something called The Union. They manufacture, in huge quantities, synthetic organs, at exorbitant prices, but it is all on a convenient payment system, like your house or you car. But The Union is all about making money, and they know that eventually, you will fall behind on your payments and the repo men will come calling and take back their merchandise, and then re-sell it again to the next customer.

Remy (Law) is particularly good at what he does, and doesn't even flinch as he stuns and/or kills those guilty of non-payment and with surgical skill removes body parts. But he has a wife and son at home and she really wishes he would get in another like of work, maybe something their boy would be proud of in school “at bring your dad to school day.”

And then Remy has an on-the-job accident and he too becomes the recipient of a synthetic organ. Yes, and then the predictable happens — he falls behind on his payments and the hunter becomes the hunted, tracked down by his own former partner.

Repo Men (the disc contains both the theatrical and a director's cut edition) is a hit and miss affair.

There is a lots of futuristic action, and knife work that would make Jack the Ripper sit up and take notice.

Repo Men certainly works as a contemporary commentary on health care and the collapse of the home mortgage industry, but it is not a consistently good movie. But it still has a lot going for it and is well worth a rental at the very least. The futuristic city is a mind blower in the Bu-ray edition.

Bonus features on the disc, which will be released on Tuesday, include deleted scenes and optional commentary by director Miguel Sapochnik and writers Eric Garcia and Garret Lerner; Union commercials, entire corporate commercials used in the film; and inside the visual effects of the film.

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Also new on DVD is 8: The Mormon Proposition (Wolfe Video), a documentary that looks at the practices  the Mormon Church used to pass Proposition 8 (opposing gay marriage) in California.

This is one of those “follow-the-money” kind of stories, that uncovers what is apparently a secretive decades-long campaign against gay rights by the Mormon Church.

Narrated by Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award winning screenwriter of Milk, 8 pulls few punches as it hammers away at the Mormon church's methods to get its members to give, in some cases, huge sums of money to promote and pass the controversial proposition.

This is a film made mostly by Mormons or former Mormons who say church members were pressured to donate (some $22 million was contributed to the cause they say).

The film does seem to be one-sided, even if the film's makers were or are Mormon, though according to the film, the leadership of the Church of Latter-day Saints refused to comment on camera about the church's involvement.

The documentary is at its most powerful when it examines the victims — those shown happily marrying in California when marriage was legal and the aftermath, when couples and even their children were effected. It does make the the LDS seem to be at the very least hypocritical since because they too have had their share of oppression.

There are certainly a lot better ways to spend $22 million.

The DVD is available for Wolfevideo.com as well Amazon.com and other web sites.

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From the serious documentary, to the ridiculous mockumentary, The Flying Scissors explores the competitive world of Rock-Paper-Scissors.

Not as funny as it should be, this comedy, now available on DVD, is told in the now familiar style of films such as Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman.

Director Jonah Tulis gets the most out of this unknown cast, who come from all walks of life to compete in the finals of RPS in White Plains, New York. They had hoped to be at Madison Square Garden, but failed to make the deadline for a cash payment.

There is a lot of potential in this quirky group of contestants, who include an arthritic contestant, who can't use his left hand for something as serious as an RPS competition and is accused of taking steroids, to a contestant called “The Rock” because he keeps on winning even though he consistently uses Rock as his move, as opposed to Paper and Scissors. The variety of contestants makes things interesting and the cast is wholly enthusiastic — if they only had been given funnier things to say.

Maybe with a couple of beers and in a group setting, The Flying Scissors is a whole lot funnier.

The DVD (released by Dinosaur /Gravitas/Warner Bros.) is available online at Amazon. com.

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Universal Home Entertainment continues to release more of the Peabody Award-winning Battlestar Galactica series in Blu-ray HD. Season three of the series gets the Blu-ray treatment July 27.

The battle rages on between the robot Cylons and humans in season 3, the humans finding home in New Caprica, only to be invaded and occupied by their Cylon pursuers. Sci-fi fans will enjoy the action and drama, and even World War II buffs cannot help but compare the situation to occupied France during the second world war or even make comparisons to the U.S. involvement in Iraq as this show transformed from military science fiction to more political drama.

The 5-disc set (20 episodes) features hours of special features including an extended version of the episode “Unfinished Business,” containing 25 minutes of additional footage not shown on TV.

The cast includes  Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber, James Callis and Tricia Helfer.

 

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