Real Steel, Japanese Time Traveling Schoolgirls, Buck Rogers And Other New DVDs This Week [Stuff]

This week has a number of interesting DVDs being released you may want to pick up. The star is Real Steel of course, but there are a couple of Japanese releases you may like and, if your a fan of the 1970s Buck Rogers series, it’s finally on DVD! Sort of.

 The Run-Down

1. Real Steel (Three-Disc Combo: Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy)
2. Godzilla (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]
3. Ancient Aliens: Season Three 
4. Revenge of the Electric Car 
5. Roger Corman’s Cult Classic’s Lethal Ladies Collection, Vol. 2 (The Arena, Cover Girl Models, Fly Me) 
6. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Season One 
7. Time Traveller-Girl Who Leapt Throught Time 

The Break-Down

1. I missed Real Steel when it hit theaters, so I’m excited about the three-disc Combo (Blu-ray/DVD + Digital Copy) dropping on Blu-ray and DVD this week. They say the real heart of the film is the relationship with the son (Dakota Goya) and his dad (Hugh Jackman).

Product Details

• Actors: Hugh Jackman, Evangeline Lilly, Dakota Goyo
• Directors: Shawn Levy
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Walt Disney Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Run Time: 127 minutes

Special features

• Four featurettes:
  – Countdown to the Fight: The Charlie Kenton Story
  – Sugar Ray Leonard: Cornerman’s Champ
  – Making of Metal Valley
  – Building the Bots
• Deleted and extended scenes with introductions by director Shawn Levy:
  – Extended “Meet Ambush”
  – Deleted “Butterfly” Storyline
• Bloopers

2. If your a fan of Godzilla you’ll want to pick up Godzilla (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] (1954) for $27.99. It’s pretty much the greatest version ever made of the Japanese film and has a ton of special features.

Product Details

Takashi Shimura (Actor), Akira Takarada (Actor), Ishiro Honda (Director)

Rated: Unrated

Format: Blu-ray

• Actors: Takashi Shimura, Akira Takarada
• Directors: Ishiro Honda
• Format: Black & White, Full Screen, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Japanese
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region A/1 (Read more about DVD/Blu-ray formats.)
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion Collection
• DVD Release Date: January 24, 2012
• Run Time: 96 minutes

Special Features

• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
• Audio commentary by David Kalat (A Critical History and Filmography of Toho’s Godzilla Series)
• Special Features
• New high-definition digital restoration of Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, Terry Morse’s 1956 reworking of the original, starring Raymond Burr
• Audio commentary for Godzilla: King of the Monsters! by Kalat
• New interviews with actor Akira Takarada (Hideto Ogata), Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima, and effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai Interview with legendary Godzilla score composer Akira Ifukube
• Featurette detailing Godzilla’s photographic effects
• New interview with Japanese-film critic Tadao Sato
• The Unluckiest Dragon, an illustrated audio essay featuring historian Greg Pflugfelder describing the tragic fate of the fishing vessel Daigo fukuryu maru, a real-life event that inspired Godzilla
• Theatrical trailers
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic J. Hoberman

3. For the alien conspiracy nuts, you can check out Ancient Aliens: Season Three. I’ve never seen it, but it supposedly traces alien activity through-out history. If it’s on the History Channel, it has to be true right?

4. You can also get Revenge of the Electric Car (2012). A documentary sequel to the 2006 film Who Killed the Electric Car? talking about how the auto industry was forced to develop and build the electric car.

5. Roger Corman is the king of sclock exploitative film-making, so you may want to pick up Roger Corman’s Cult Classic’s Lethal Ladies Collection, Vol. 2 which has  The Arena, Cover Girl Models and Fly Me. The taglines, “Black Slave. White slave”, “This airline serves three wild dishes. Take your choice.” and “Million-dollare fold-outs who never hold out!” mean these have got to be good.

6. The 1979 classic television series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: Season One starring Gil Gerard is finally on DVD! Actually, you could just get the whole series by buying Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Epic Series on DVD. I’ve looked around, and I can’t figure out why you’d buy this single season when you get get the whole series, but there you are.

7. A cool Japanese film is being released on DVD this week called Time Traveller-Girl Who Leapt Throught Time. It’s the fourth film (third live-action) based on a book called Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time). Here’s the plot:

In 2010, Kazuko Yoshiyama (Narumi Yasuda) works as a pharmaceutical researcher secretly developing a formula for time travel. When she is left comatose after a car accident, her daughter Akari learns of her mother’s first love, Kazuo Fukamachi (Kanji Ishimaru), from Kazuko’s friend Goro Asakura (Masanobu Katsumura). Believing that finding Kazuo will allow her mother to regain consciousness, Akari uses Kazuko’s formula to leap back in time to the 1970s in hopes of finding a younger Kazuo. Instead, she meets and befriends Ryota Mizorogi (Nakao Akiyoshi). Together, they attempt to search for Kazuo, but love begins to blossom between Akari and Ryota, despite the fact that Akari must eventually return to the future.

Sounds pretty sweet.

Are you planning to buy any DVDs his week? 

[Image Source: Moviefone]