Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (Blu-ray Review)
December 14th, 2017 by Hadley Grout
Brought to you by Olive Films, Tchaikovsky’s classic musical fantasy Nutcracker, The Motion Picture features members of the Pacific Northwest Ballet. This is the classic holiday story of Clara, a young girl who dreams of a prince and a magical kingdom of sweets. Led by the odd toymaker Drosselmeier she is guided into a land of enchanted toys, giant mice, and sugary sweets. The film is directed by Carroll Ballard, conceived by Kent Stowell and Maurice Sendak, photographed by Stephen H. Burum, with the music of Tchaikovsky conducted by Sir Charles Mackerras and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra. A great film to bring you that great holiday feeling.
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Men In Black is 20 years old? Damn! Within a period of years it managed to put out a trilogy of films. It has proved to be a well that Will Smith has gone back to time and time again to grab himself a little piece of blockbuster. Recently it had made waves when there as talk that the Jonah Hill/Channing Tatum-led 21 Jump Street relaunch series would spend its third film crossing over with the Men In Black franchise. Now THAT is something that would have been so insane that I would have KILLED to see it. Unfortunately that’s not coming to fruition probably ever. But, what is coming fruition for the 20th anniversary is a nice 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray box set. The set features all the same features as before, but with a new 4K transfer and Dolby Atmos tracks. And its available now. So order yourself a copy from the Amazon linkage you find below at the very bottom. 
Christopher Nolan stands as one of maybe our last great filmmakers that have bridged the gap of their visions to big budget mainstream productions. While he gained esteem and clout through making some Batman films, he’s used it to distance himself and become a household name among directors not unlike Quentin Tarantino or Steven Spielberg. His films are original and his name attached to it make the film an event. They are both impressive and success stories at the box office. His latest, a passionate endeavor on the more little known battle of Dunkirk, amazed audiences and critics alike with its bold choice to be primarily shot in IMAX. While nobody’s home is going to accurately replicate that experience, you’ll still be able to enjoy this landmark war film when it comes to 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray on December 19th as a standalone or part of the 4K Ultra-HD Christopher Nolan box set. 
Director S. Craig Zahler caught the attention of many with his 2015 film Bone Tomahawk. I know here at Why So Blu, many of us were quite fond of that little Western-horror hybrid gem. Now he returns with his follow up, Brawl In Cell Block 99, a sorta prison thriller starring the likes of Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Marc Blucas and the loveable Udo Kier. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, this one had a smaller theatrical run, paired with a VOD release shortly after. The film has received many positive marks from all around the globe, most of them praising Vince Vaughn as giving one of his career best performances. RLJE Films is surprising us with not just a Blu-ray and DVD release, but a 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray home video edition of the film on December 26th. 
Twin Peaks was a true cult sensation. The short lived show is probably the biggest such television program since the original Star Trek. It only had life for 2 seasons and almost 30 episodes. Fandom never died on the show, it delivered a film prequel by Lynch himself and was one of the few televisions shows to have a complete series release on VHS. When Netflix rolled out the show, it found a new life with many newcomers entering the world of Twin Peaks. Now, finally, the series received a popular return and Showtime gave the show an completely unfiltered 18 episode run with every single hour directed and written by David Lynch himself. Now, we get the full collection, with a proper and full on “go for broke” Blu-ray set, coming December 5th. 
In addition to our exclusive 2017 Game of Thrones Hall H Comic-Con coverage 
In terms of horror franchising, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Or Chainsaw as just one word, it varies) is the messiest of the bunch in terms of finding any semblance of continuity or hold. They’ve had sequels, soft reboots, remakes, prequels to remakes, sequels that ignore all the rest and now we have a prequel to the original in the world of the sequel that ignored all the rest. To make matters all the more confusing, it named itself the same as the third film. Well, if there is one constant its the title character of this (And the third film), the horror icon Leatherface. This latest installment was moved around, delayed and then finally debuted in a couple theaters and straight to VOD. Now, just a couple months later you can pick it up on Blu-ray December 12th. 
A New Leaf, presented by Olive Films is a dark, sarcastic, deadpan comedy from writer-director-comedian Elaine May. It stars Walter Matthau as Henry Graham, who, due to his extravagant lifestyle and having no job, has emptied his bank account of his inheritance entirely. After pleading with the Uncle who raised him for a loan, Henry convinces Uncle Harry to give him the money under the terms that the loan must be repaid within six weeks or Henry will forfeit all of his property used as collateral. With the aid of his gentleman’s gentleman, Harold, George Rose, Henry decides to marry into wealth, and once the vows have been taken he’ll decide how to handle getting out of the marriage. Enter wealthy heiress Henrietta Lowell, played by May, a klutzy botanist and the woman of Henry’s get-rich-quick-scheme dreams. But as best laid plans often go, Henry must weather the obstacles placed in his path not only by his Uncle Harry but by Andy McPherson, Jack Weston, Henrietta’s jealous and unscrupulous lawyer.
Olive Films has done a terrific job with the high definition transfer of Operation Petticoat. Cary Grant is the commander of a wheezy old submarine which he gets underway and operational through his conniving junior officer, Tony Curtis. In a series of improbable but acceptable situations, the sub takes on as passengers five army nurses, a few Filipino families including expectant mothers, and a goat. Some of the situations are predictable, such as those arising when chesty nurses meet seamen in a sub’s narrow corridors. At first, this odd group of characters seems poised to eternal conflict, but as it happens in these comedies, they soon learn to complement each other and become indispensable as a team.
Olive Films is proud to present this unusual Cary Grant film. Set in 1941 as the Japanese advance and the Australians withdraw from the South Pacific islands. Cary Grant plays Walter Eckland, an American ex-professor who fled to the islands before the war to escape civilization. He is not well mannered in the least and would much rather have a crate of whiskey than anything else. Eckland is persuaded to volunteer, although that term seems to be used quite loosely as he doesn’t seem to have any choice, as a lookout, and is posted on a South Pacific island alone. He attempts to rescue a watcher from another island, but turns up too late and finds him dead. Instead, he discovers Catherine Freneau, Leslie Caron, the daughter of the French Consul in possession of seven little girls who were students at the consulate. He takes them back to his lookout in a boat more suitable for one where they take over his home and attempt to improve his habits. Because it’s too dangerous to arrange to airlift them off the island, they’re stuck living with alcoholic slob that is Eckland for many weeks. The comedy between this battle of the sexes is quite fun as Freneau tries to make a proper home for the girls and Eckland refuses to cooperate.
Now, we’ve come to a close on our Thanksgiving marathon session of the Transformers films. Maybe if I feel the need, I’ll write some thoughts on The Last Knight so that this site will have an archive of all my thoughts on every Transformers film. Seriously, I’ve done all but that one including the animated one from the 80s that I covered a year ago. Anyway, we are onto the staying in continuity soft reboot of the series with Mark Wahlberg taking the lead. My memory is super hazy on it (I may have fallen asleep when I first watched it), but I think I liked it more than most people maybe (Which isn’t some sort of high endorsement). But, lets see how I feel now, eh? It arrives on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray to complete your set on December 5th (Possibly earlier according to some Amazon users). 
We continue this Thanksgiving weekend journey through autobot Earth history with Transformers: Dark of the Moon. This third film completes the Sam Witwicky trilogy Shia exits after this one. When the film came out it was noted as being a noticeable improvement over the first film. And oddly, its one of the first films I can remember where the marketing involved a lot of people involved bashing and degrading the previous film in the series to sell this new one. Stick by your guns folks, your project didn’t work with audiences, but you can still believe in it! I remember personally thinking Dark of the Moon was just as bad as Revenge of the Fallen, but now I get to revisit and see if I still think that way. You can find this one on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray with the others on December 5th (Or I’m hearing they may ship earlier now). 
When last we left, it was the wonderful Minions-centric prequel to Despicable Me that was torturing my soul. As someone who is indifferent but doesn’t mind this series, that movie was flat out awful. No defending there. But, they’re back, but in more proper form with the third film in the Despicable Me franchise. A funny fact, this was the only film to cross 1 billion dollars globally at the box office this past summer. Crazy, right? It did well in the United States but REALLY blew up overseas. Now its coming home for you, let me try that again, for your kids to own. You could grab it for them now or make it a stocking stuffer. Only the finest in video and audio quality for your child, right? Anywho, you can get ahead and pre-order it now by using the Amazon link below. 
Its pretty exciting that my Holiday slasher/horror selection seems to be growing with some more modern movies being added or made in the last few years. Krampus is a recent favorite of mine that has become tradition to go along with Silent Night, Deadly Night, Christmas Evil and To All A Goodnight. Now, in 2017, we have the home invasion thriller/dark comedy Better Watch Out to make viewing space for. I’ve already seen this once this year, when it came to digital rental and I’m very excited to see it again already here for this Blu-ray review. Well Go USA will be putting this out in a Blu-ray and DVD combo pack. The likes of which will give you ample time to watch during the holiday season as it comes out on December 5th! 
We continue on, going just a swift two years later, with the sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Like the other four films not called The Last Knight in this series, it will be available on December 5th. This second film in the franchise was one that many fans and moviegoers thought was quite subpar during the summer of 2009. But, its not without its dedicated fans. Why So Blu writer and contributor Gregg Senko took a lot of flack for putting this as his top film of the year while most writers had it in their ten worst. While I didn’t agree with Gregg then (or now), its nice to see hist honesty and ability to stand tall with something he loved so much. Maybe with expectations lifted and a polarizing viewing out of the way, I might begin to see more worth in it. Anywho, we continue this journey through Transformers with Revenge of the Fallen. 
Paravmount is completing their 4K Ultra-HD releases of Michael Bay’s Transformers series by releasing the first four to compliment last month’s release of The Last Knight. The four films are going to be available on December 5th (Though there is word that these might be shipping early). While I wasn’t the biggest fan of these films, I’ve not seen them much and am actually pretty excited to go back and revisit them for this set of reviews. It feels like some sort of fun challenge. If anything, hopefully these look stellar and rock my surround system. Plus, my son has only seen the animated film (That I reviewed last year) and has been wanting to see these since he saw a trailer for The Last Knight. Just shy of The Last Knight, my Naptown Nerd faithful will pretty much have a full retrospective from me by the end of this. Let’s begin now, with 2008’s first live action Transformer movie, a film that our own Brian White has called “iconic” and a “religious experience” and the film that got him to upgrade to HD-DVD. 
