The Cabin in the Woods [A Fat Jesus BluRay Review]

Like all of these BluRay reviews, or DVD ones when I get to some, I'm going to be starting with the commentary track I listened to. For The Cabin in the Woods BluRay you get a commentary with Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon (Writers and Director and Producer respectively). Now I went into this expecting a great commentary. Joss is hands down one of my favorite producers, writers and directors and Drew had worked with him on things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, Angel and even wrote Cloverfield too. So these two should have an amazing track. Well it's pretty mediocre to say the least. Don't get me wrong, as with all of Whedon's work he gives a ton of behind the scenes stories and information and these two definitely had a chemistry, but it felt tired to me. The two sounded deflated and especially on Joss' end too, as I believe he had just got done with The Avengers or was was working on it when this was filmed. Don't quote me on that haha. 

My advice to you is this, though. Take three hours if you have it, or take a couple of afternoons or evenings and watch the commentary track then watch the "It's Not What You Think" BonusView mode. This is another thing I was excited to watch cause of the Second Screen Experience I watched with The Avengers BluRay. But the Bonus View with this is isn't on your computer. It cuts into the movie with inside looks at the shots, the thinking behind scene, how it was filmed and actor and crew tid-bits about what they thought in and around the scene that's happening. I'm sure if I had a 50 inch monster TV I'd be able to enjoy this a bit more, but they way they cut in and out was pretty seamless and (to me) a nice little compliment to the only okay commentary track.

Now we'll move into the first part of all these juicy featurettes. "We Are Not Who We Are" was a pretty good behind the scenes shoot of the everyday walk through of life on the set with the actors and crew. The sets were huge, the basement and props were awesome to see and the cast going about with their own view of things was a cool look. "An Army of Nightmares" was an amazing look behind the scenes of how the monsters, both in make-up and animatronic ones, were made and conceived. The make-up in the end took hours to produce, but in the end looks bloody, horrible and perfect. "Primal Terror" was a neat look at all the stuff it took to make the visual effects and CGI looks good through out. A lot of scenes are done without CGI, but there are just some parts that have to have it. So see all it took to combine the real effects with the CGI and it make it looks seamless was pretty awesome.

There are two Secret Secret Stash, segments if you will, "Marty's Stash" and "Hi My Name Is Joss And I'll Be Your Guide" are pretty well odd to say the least. At least the first one, "Marty's Stash," is. If you listen to the commentary track you know Joss and Goddard joke heavily about the marijuana use and make quite a few drug jokes as well.  So Marty, played by Fran Kranz, go through all the, stoner paraphernalia (weed, joints, hiding places, rolling paper and bongs) that Marty used. Including the infamous Tulip joint. The second one "Hi My Name Is Joss and I'll Be Your Guide" is a great look at the making of the sets and sound stage cabin. The sound stage cabin is very different from the one actually in the woods and all the various rooms and basements that come with it. Finally there's a pretty cool and informative Q&A after an initial showing at WonderCon where Joss and Goddard takes questions from the audience. Having watched this last there's a few things that I hadn't heard asked or talked about throughout all the extras so it's a nice little watch to see them interacting with the fans. 

This DVD set, even with the commentary lacking, is still loaded and The Cabin in the Woods is still one of the best horror films of 2012 and probably of the past 5 years or so as well. The featurettes are very informative and not just little two minute long looks behind the scenes. There's also a ton of them, so if you're taking a Saturday or something to watch everything you won't be done in a couple hours. The films looks good in the BluRay format and really nothing is lacking in this loaded set. Don't hesitate to pick this up and and get trapped in this monstrous cabin.

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The Avengers [A Fat Jesus BluRay Review]

This is my first time doing a DVD and/or Blu-Ray review so I wanted to pick a great (recent movie) with a quality (not quantity) amount of extras and things to go over. So this Blu-Ray dvd combo set, I'll be dammed if I couldn't find it in Blu-Ray packaging, of The Avengers seemed like a good place to try my hand at it first.

First off the commentary track, with Joss Whedon, is pretty damn awesome. From writing, directing and producing TV and internet shows including Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse he's no slouch in TV fantasy. But look to what he's done on the big screen, helping pen movies like Toy Story, Thor, Captain America and The Cabin in the Woods, and it has Whedon all over it as well. As well as all this, Whedon is a life long comic book fan and he has an 8-issue series with Dark Horse called The Fray. So hearing the man behind all of the aforementioned giving little insights to thought processes, why he filmed what a certain way and all his thinking patterns regarding the writing and directing of the biggest Marvel movie to date, well, it's truly a treat.

Along with the Blu-Ray set you get another installment in the Marvel One-Shot series called, Item 47. Item 47, takes place after the final battle of The Avengers and follows the story of a down of their luck couple named Benny and Claire (Jessie Bradford and Lizzy Caplain) who find a left-over Chitauri gun (Item 47) and decide to start robbing banks with it. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Sitwell and Blake (Maximiliano Hernandez and Titus Welliver) are assigned to track and receive the now active gun from the two, reminiscing about Agent Coulston as the mission begins. We are also informed that all the Chitauri guns are all "dead" so it's a wonder that the couple is even using it. I'll let you watch the rest of this short-film, but to say the very least it makes me wonder if we'll see these four in upcoming Marvel movies, including Iron Man 3 (2013), Thor 2 (2013), Captain America 2 (2014), The Incredible Hulk 2 (2015) and The Avengers 2 (2015).

There's a couple of really cool featurettes (A Visual Journey and Assembling the Ultimate Team), a gag reel (The first EVER one for a Marvel film) and deleted scenes that comes with this set as well. One featurette is on the DVD as well. The first is called "A Visual Journey." Chronicling the huge and unique set designs and all the different special effects and cinematography. The other, which is on the DVD as well is "Assembling the Ultimate Team" in which the all-star cast, including Robert Downey Jr, Joss Whedon, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Cobie Smulders and Samuel L. Jackson, all talk about their characters and how this is one of the most start-studded movie of all time. 

The deleted scenes all give more insight into characters like Maria Hill, Hawkeye and there's even a great scene involving Captain America. The gag reel is hilarious and give a great look behind the scenes and what the atmosphere on set was like. Would've been fun to spend a day on that set when everyone was there at once. Also the Second Screen experience, The Avengers Initiative, was cool as well. I synched up my movie with an app on my laptop and it offered a ton of extras such a videos, pictures, actor bios, behind the scenes shots, story-boards, comic book trivia and so much more. Watching with this added a ton of behind the scene stuff, even on top of the commentary I had just watched.

This was the best superhero movie of the year and the BluRay and DVD combo set did not disappoint. The commentary track is there and it's more than informative. The gag reel is hilarious while the deleted scenes are good, but rightfully removed. The featurettes are great watches and the Marvel One-Shot film, Item 47, is the best of the three released so far. The Avengers Initiative was also really cool to go through as well during the watch cause I've seen this movie a lot since it came out. This set is well worth the money and if you can get it in BluRay packaging more power to ya. This is a set you should definitely own.