New DVD and Blu-Ray Releases to Crave This Week: The Fighter, Hereafter - Switch Things Up

By Chris Kavan - 03/14/11 at 11:32 PM CT

Another Oscar-caliber film rolls out to your home viewing pleasure, while the rest of the films fight for the scraps.

1) No doubt the top pick of the week is The Fighter. With Christian Bale and Melissa Leo both taking home Oscar statuettes, you know this is worth your time. And despite his up-and-down film career, Mark Wahlberg is no slouch either. I'm not sure if it will have a Raging Bull effect on me, but I'm willing to take a punch.

2) Clint Eastwood's latest film didn't exactly tear up the box office, but I'm better that Hereafter will still be an interesting film. I'm not sure that supernatural and Eastwood are meant for each other, but this looks to be a bit more cerebral than your typical afterlife film. I hope they don't delve too much into the religious aspect of things - but Matt Damon has a good track record so I'll give it the benefit of my doubt.

3) Even though I have enjoyed Jason Bateman in various roles, I have a feeling that there's no way I'm going to like The Switch. Jennifer Aniston has had a pretty rough track record for films, and this isn't going to convince me to watch her in anything else. It looks like a lame romantic comedy, even in a year that saw a veritable avalanche of lame romantic comedies. I don't like the genre as a whole, and this looks more like torture than anything else.

Luckily, there's good news on the Blu-Ray front. The format does well to stay classy by welcoming Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy into the family. I know it quickly grew on me to become one of my oft-quoted movies and if you watch it a few times, it will grow on you too! Moving on to more serious matters, The Criterion Collection is once again updating its catalog into the new format with the Blu-Ray releases of Au revoir les enfants and Yi Yi. I have seen neither film, but given their attention to detail, expect excellent transfers, sound and a slew of special features to accompany them.

For more great films, visit the FilmCrave New DVD Releases and the FilmCrave New Blu-Ray Releases pages today.