This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Anchorman 2, 47 Ronin, The Client List

By John Law

April 1st 2014, 1:27am

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

This week: By the hymen of Olivia Newton-John, it's Anchorman 2! Plus: Keanu gets cut down to size with 47 Ronin, and Jennifer Love Hewitt kills The Client List.

► Even after a ten-year wait, can there be too much Ron Burgundy? You’ll certainly get your fill with the ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES blu-ray, which includes a two-hour, twenty-minute alternate version of the movie that stretches things past the point of exhaustion. It’s a basically the same movie as the theatrical version (which was already long at two hours), but add all the extended and deleted scenes you’d normally see in the bonus features. A few gags stick but it’s mostly an oddball marathon. The theatrical version is plenty, with Ron and the gang joining a 24-hour news station in 1980 to compete with his network anchor wife. In the process, he stumbles across the future of watered-down news when he puts a freeway chase live on air. Funny and satisfying, but not nearly the quotable classic that was the first.

► A test study on how to market a movie as generic as possible, 47 RONIN opened on Christmas Day and was ignored more than your holiday soufflé. This $170 million bomb fooled no one when it was finally released after two years of delays, delivering just what was feared: A wooden, CGI-drenched take on the famous Japanese tale of leaderless samurai who avenge their master’s death. Of course, in this version they need help from a half-breed slave (Reeves) they once rejected.

► Here’s how you get your show cancelled in spectacular fashion: You get knocked up by your co-star, then demand his character also become the fictional daddy of the fictional baby you’re having on the show. So congrats Jennifer Love Hewitt for taking a flamethrower to THE CLIENT LIST, the show that gave you a career resurgence. Instead of putting up with your shit any further, Lifetime Network pulled the plug. Adding insult, Season 2 is only manufactured on demand via Amazon. Frankly, I can’t believe this show about a struggling mom who gives happy endings at the local massage parlor couldn’t thrive on Showtime with a different star (and lots more nudity).

► While you’re jonesing for the next season of ‘True Detective,’ the first season of British series BROADCHURCH will do nicely. When an 11-year-old boy is murdered in a small coastal town, detectives and journalists race each other to break the case, even as the suspect list grows larger by the day. Fox has plans for an American version called ‘Gracepoint’ with the same star, David Tennant.

► What’s this, old Godzilla movies trying to cash in on a new Godzilla movie? Starting to smell like 1998 around here. If anything, the campy flicks of the ‘60s – which began with KING KONG vs. GODZILLA – will make the long wait for a dead serious, apocalyptic version of the big lizard seem worth it next month. Fun for its time but painful to revisit, this one had Big G and a mentally handicapped-looking Kong throw down in Tokyo in the first color movie for both. So many awful trends started with this movie, it’s hard to give it a pass now.

► Based on a screenplay by James Russo, THE BAG MAN is part of an unfortunate trend – movies you didn’t realize Robert De Niro even made. He’s a crime boss who instructs the hit man who works for him (John Cusack) to deliver a bag without looking inside. Feds, hookers, and a wacky hotel manager (Crispin Glover) soon get involved. The weirdness lasts longer than your interest.

► LARPers, rejoice, Joe Lynch’s comedy horror flick KNIGHTS OF BADASSDOM pits three nerdy friends re-enacting a Dungeons & Dragons-like game out in the woods against a demon they inadvertently conjured up. Peter Dinklage, Steve Zahn and Summer Glau star. And yes, that’s ‘Community’s Danni Pudi on the cover. Cool, cool, cool.

► The fact we’re in Season 3 of the Animal Planet show FINDING BIGFOOT tells you how the search went in Seasons 1 & 2. Once again, the documentary show gathers researchers, explorers and skeptics exploring various wildernesses in the U.S. and Canada (and occasionally abroad) looking for a Sasquatch. From the same network that proudly brought you ‘Mermaids: The Body Found.’

Also out this week: