My Blu Ray Picks For 8-28

With so many forgotten gems making their way to blu ray, I thought I would do a weekly look at my favorite new releases.

The Man With Two Brains

I'm a huge fan of Steve Martin's. I especially love his earlier years. This is what I like to call his "wild and crazy guy" era. During this time his go to director was comedy legend Carl Reiner, and together they churned out comedy gold with The Jerk, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, All Of Me, and today's pick The Man With Two Brains.

Martin plays a brilliant, widowed brain surgeon, Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr, who thinks he has found love with one of his patients, a gold digging vixen played by an outrageously evil Kathleen Turner. The two get married and after months of not consummating the marriage, Martin takes his new bride on a romantic honeymoon to Vienna. It's there where Martin meets a mad scientist, played by the great David Warner, who has developed a formula for keeping disembodied brains alive. It's in the scientist's lab where Martin finds his true love, a brain in a jar, voiced by Sissy Spacek, that he can communicate with telepathically.

This is probably my favorite film of Martin's, and of director Reiner's. There are so many laughs in this and a game cast that's not afraid to look silly. It's a must for Martin fans.

Prizzi's Honor

My second blu ray pick is another Turner film from the 80's, Prizzi's Honor.

A mafioso hitman, Jack Nicholson, falls head over heels for a mysterious lady, Turner, that he meets at a family wedding. Turns out that she too is a contract killer. The two begin a romance, but complications arise when they are both assigned a hit on one another.

This funny flick was directed by the legendary John Huston, displaying a comic touch that he wasn't always known for. Nicholson, showing a goofier side, is terrific. As is Turner making a great femme fatale. The two are almost upstaged however by the great supporting cast that includes Huston's daughter Anjelica, who took home a best supporting actress Oscar. And the terrific character actor William Hickey, who nabbed a best supporting actor Oscar nomination.

Prizzi's Honor would make for a great double bill with Married To The Mob. A very funny gangster comedy.