This week on DVD - June 16, 2009

June 16, 11:03 AMSalt Lake City DVD ExaminerTyson Huber

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This week's DVD/Blu-ray releases, I'm happy to say, include several "oldies but goodies", and headlining releases this week is the Ivan Reitman 80's comedy hit, Ghostbusters!

Ghostbusters, celebrating it's 25 year anniversary, finally gets the Blu-ray treatment today, and while the transfer is about as good as you'd expect for a movie filled with special effects from the 80's, the fun, excitement, and comedy all holds up perfectly. Even if you have seen Ghostbusters a hundred times, it is certainly worth viewing again on Blu-ray. The script, the comedy, and the performances of Murray, Aykroyd, and Ramis still entertain me to this day, so it's easy for me to tell you that the Blu-ray release of Ghostbusters is definitely worth adding to your Blu-ray collection.

Of course, Sony wouldn't let us all go without some great special features for a 25 year anniversary release! Ghostbusters special features include:

• Digitally Remastered Audio and Video
• SLIMER MODE: Picture-in-Picture Graphical Viewing Experience with an examination of the spook-hunters' firehouse headquarters, an in-depth exploration of the creatures in the Ghostbusters mythology, behind-the-scenes discussions of making the movie, new cast, crew and special effects artists interviews and much more!
• Featurette: Ecto-1: Resurrecting the Classic Car
• Ghostbusters Garage: Ecto-1 Gallery
• Filmmakers' Commentary with Ivan Reitman, Harold Ramis and Joe Medjuck
• Featurette: 1984 – The Making of Ghostbusters – Interviews with the cast and crew
• Featurette: Interviews with Cast and Crew
• Featurette: SFX Team - includes Before and After Multi-Angle Explorations
• Scene Cemetery – 10 Deleted Scenes
• Storyboard Comparisons
• BD-Live Enabled

Next up this week, we have another movie celebrating an anniversary. Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is celebrating its 45th anniversary with its own Blu-ray release. I doubt that I need to tell you how good this Kubrick masterpiece is, but I will say that Sony has included some great special features for this release:

* The Cold War feature
* Inside Dr. Strangelove
* No Fighting in the War Room
* An Interview with Robert McNamara
* Best Sellers (Peter Sellers-centric featurette)
* The Art of Stanley Kubrick
* Split-Screen Interviews
* BD-Live Functionality

Lone Starr and Barf must save the planet of Druidia from Dark Helmet on Blu-ray in the Mel Brooks comedy, Spaceballs! Brooks doesn't pull any punches in the world of sci-fi as he spoofs Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien and many others in his classic comedy. When you purchase this spedial edition Blu-ray, you also get a bonus DVD, Spaceballs: The Totally-Warped Adventures, which includes all of the all-new Mel Brooks satiric adventures. These shorts originally aired on G4 television and they reunite the original cast in animated form to spoof more current popular films such as The Lord of the Rings, and Spider-Man. Of course, there are special features a-plenty included with Spaceballs. If you are a fan of this film, I recommend adding this one to your Blu-ray collection as well.

This sequel/remake/rehashing of Friday the 13th by Marcus Nispel (the same guy who remade The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) also sees release today with an "Extended Killer Cut". This film is intended to be a sequel to the original that disregards all the sequels, but fails to introduce any new ideas in the series. For some reason, Jason has kept to himself in the woods of Crystal Lake all these years, but now has decided to begin murdering again; all the while worshiping the head of his mother. For me, this film failed to produce any scares or thrills, so while I wouldn't say I recommend this, it doesn't change the fact that it is out today on DVD and Blu-ray for those of you that did enjoy it.