This Week On DVD and Blu-ray: May 19, 2009

Between these two new additions to the Collection, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is the better of the two, but that isn't to say El Dorado is a bad film. I would actually recommend you buy El Dorado, but I prefer Rio Bravo as both are extremely similar films, which is another Howard Hawks film starring John Wayne and if you noticed above, it was one of the titles I replaced with Blu-ray. I guess it comes down to whether you prefer The Duke with Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson as he is in Rio Bravo or with Robert Mitchum and James Caan as he is in El Dorado. It's a tough choice to be certain so perhaps owning them both is the only option. I will say this, James Caan's performance in El Dorado is eye-opening if you only know him for his more recent roles. Not even his performance as Sonny in The Godfather can prepare you for this one. You won't even recognize him as he appears to be something more of a young Paul Newman than anything else.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, on the other hand, is a fantastic feature directed John Ford and along with Wayne has James Stewart as a big city lawyer who gets into a bit of trouble with the local criminal of the small town of Shinbone. Stewart is perfect as the innocent do-gooder, Lee Marvin is just as great as you would expect him to be as the evil Liberty Valance and John Wayne is there to tie it all together. If you like westerns you couldn't go wrong with either of these titles.

This Criterion release comes with a stills gallery, an impressive 44-page booklet and a commentary by the 79-year-old director Peter Yates. If you were wondering, yes, he sounds like he is that old, but more on that later.

Oh, and before you watch that you may want to check out this cool little T2 vs. T3 comparison as someone has found the two films are drastically similar in a weird kind of way.

Believe it or not, I didn't actually own any of these movies before I received this set and now I own both the DVD and Blu-ray edition of Terminator 2 and, more importantly, can watch Total Recall for the first time in about 10 years, if not longer. Considering the films it includes, this set priced at $21.99 sounds like a good deal to me.

However, I would never recommend anyone buy Paycheck because it is just a bad movie and The Machinist is a film you should watch more than once only if you are contemplating suicide because it is one damn depressing film, but it is a well executed depressing film… I will give it that.

None of these titles come with any Blu-ray specific features outside of an occasional HD version of an old feature.

But remember, give Three Days of the Condor a chance, and if you haven't seen Changing Lanes give it a shot, and if you have then I assume you know what I am talking about.

Outlander begins when a spacecraft crashes into the majestic fjords of ancient Norway and into the time of the Vikings. From the wreckage emerge two bitter enemies: a soldier from another world – Kainan – and a bloodthirsty creature known as the Moorwen. Man and monster both seeking revenge for violence committed against them. As the Moorwen ravages the Viking world, killing everything in its path, Kainan forms an unlikely alliance with the primitive but fierce warriors. Combining his advanced technology with ancient Iron Age weapons, the hero leads a desperate attempt to kill the monster – before it destroys them all.