Colors Of Time (2024/Distrib/Icarus DVD)/Everyone Calls Me Mike (2023/IndiePix DVD)/Mars Attacks! 4K (1996/Warner 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray)

4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: X/C/C Sound: A-/C+/C Extras: C+/C-/C- Films: B+/C/B-

Here are more thrillers with mystery and even some comedy....

Cedric Klapisch's Colors Of Time (2024) tries to sell itself as a comedy with some drama, but in reality, it is more of a sort of science fiction tale (by default?) as the film goes back and forth between a group of people uncovering some lost items in Normandy from 1895, with plenty of flashback stretches that reveal more than a few mysteries throughout and how things were before the town would have a breakout moment. Not exactly Somewhere In Time, there is (spoiler!!!) a moment where the two world's cut into each other, done in an interesting enough way.

The cast of mostly unknowns are great, have chemistry, there is money on the screen, especially the older period work which is very impressive and does not get stuck on genre cliches I see far, far more expansive Hollywood disasters wallow in and seem clueless about, even in the basics and basics of storytelling. Yes, a few things are here that we have seen before, but I liked this and was pleasantly surprised enough by it to recommend it. Cheers to the heart and soul it achieves without illicit appeals to pity or bad nostalgia.

Extras include Original Theatrical Trailers for three other Icarus releases.

Guillaume Bonnier's Everyone Calls Me Mike (2023) has a couple (Daphne Patakia and Pierre Loutin) and their young child sailing the world when they dock in Djibouti and meet a cab driver (the title character played by Abdirisak Mohamed) who helps them out. At least at first. The more they hang with him, the better they think things are in their stay, then things start to take a turn for the worst, including being attacked by Somali pirates!

Vague shades of Polanski's Knife In The Water are sadly subsumed by plot points that seem increasingly less likely and make the couple look none too bright. After an interesting start, the film slowly implodes for the last 3/4ths of its 88 minutes and is a sad disappointment when all is said and done. Too bad they did not realize that, since they had the cast and locales, just a bad script.

Extras include an Original Theatrical Trailer.

When a fleet of brainy skull-faced Martians arrive on Earth, humanity initially welcomes the visitors with open arms (and even a white dove). Unfortunately, the aliens have something far more destructive in mind, sending the world into chaos as politicians, scientists, soldiers, and ordinary citizens scramble to survive the hilariously absurd invasion.

Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996) has become a cult classic, a star-studded sci-fi comedy that never lets up from frame one. Finally available on 4K UHD and celebrating it's 30th anniversary, Mars Attacks! looks better than ever and remains an interesting footnote in Burton's career, arriving directly after his Oscar-nominated Ed Wood (1994), which still needs a 4K UHD release as of this writing. This mid '90s era was when Tim Burton was at the peak of his career with so many memorable films that were uniquely his even if some of them didn't perform as well at the box office at the time like this one.

The film stars Jack Nicholson (in a dual role!), Glenn Close, Natalie Portman, Sarah Jessica Parker, Jack Black, Annette Bening, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, Pam Grier, Tom Jones, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Lisa Marie, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito and many more.

I like to think of Mars Attacks! as the movie Ed Wood wished he could have made. Taking inspiration from the wonderfully bizarre Topps Mars Attacks trading cards and bringing their colorful, macabre imagery to life, Burton creates a gleefully over-the-top homage to the science-fiction films of the 1950s and 1960s. There has never been talk of a sequel or continuation of this franchise which is a bit surprising as it has had many successful stories created over the years in novel and comic form, not to mention a ton of really cool collectibles. I think this is a film that played so much on television over the years that it has become one amongst the more memorable sci-fi films in Warner Bros.' library.

Only two bonus featurettes on this 4K release which include the...

Looking Back on Mars Attacks! featurette which gives us some insight on the creation of the film's script

and Ack! Ack! Aesthetic featurette explores the editing and creativity of Tim Burton and digital imagery.

It is notable that other features from the previous Blu-ray release are noticeably absent.

With its enormous cast, wonderfully ridiculous Martians, memorable score by Danny Elfman, and deliberately excessive comical destruction, Mars Attacks! is the kind of movie that embraces its absurdity from beginning to end. If you haven't seen it, or haven't revisited it in years, this new 4K release is a perfect excuse to experience the invasion all over again. Although, I do wish that Tim Burton was more hands on with home video releases of his films as I feel like there could be a lot more supplements to help cement the film's legacy and I still crave more insight on its making and more behind the scenes videos would be fascinating. Arrow Video would be ideal for a 4K release of this film as you know they would pull all of the stops with the extras. For now, though, this new edition will suffice with at least an updated presentation.

Now for playback performance. Mars Attacks! is presented in 2160p on 4K UHD disc HEVC/H.265, 2.39 X 1, Dolby Vision/HDR (10; Ultra HD Premium)-enhanced Ultra High Definition image and Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems) and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit) lossless audio options. It is noticeable that the score only track that was available on the previous release is absent here. The visual upgrade is a drastic improvement over the 2010 Blu-ray release and sound mixes have definitely been improved for the better as well.

The anamorphically enhanced DVDs (2.35 and 1.78 X 1 respectively) are both softer than I would have liked, which is a little more frustrating because both shoots look better than what we can see here, especially Color. Both also offer lossy, French (et al in the case of Mike) Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtracks, though Mike adds a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 that is a slight improvement over its Stereo counterpart and gives it the slightest edge over the two.

- Nicholas Sheffo and James Lockhart (4K)

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