On Blu-Ray This Week: June 2 to June 8, 2008

This week, we’re offered – count ’em – 19 selections for your Blu-ray viewing entertainment. In-between historical conflicts, fictional wars, and titillating thrillers are collector’s editions of classics, TV series compilations, and a few laughs. Plenty as your choices are for the first week of June, however, are these Blu-ray high definition flavors worth the drive to your nearest movie retail shop? If the Metal Gear Solid movie is important to you, then one of these are most definitely worth a peek. More at the full story.

Kicking off the first week of Blu-ray viewing in June (previous week’s releases here) is a selection of war, thriller, comedy, and drama feature films, dotted with TV series compilations and a few limited edition rehashes for classics.

All 19 Blu-ray high definition movies are scheduled to appear on shelves by June 3, 2008, and among the one-and-a-half dozen lined up until June 8 is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Academy-award winning drama, There Will Be Blood.

Paul Thomas Anderson, who you might remember as one of the directors interested in making the Metal Gear Solid movie happen, tendered his version of life struggles during the Californian petroleum oil boom.

While we aren’t going to give any spoilers (the movie starring Academy award-winning actor Daniel Day-Lewis is best experienced than told), the movie is about oil tycoon Daniel Plainview and the most significant periods of his life while raising a son during those trying times. We’ll put it plainly, though: if you’ve never experienced the battle of love versus corruption, hope and deception, and ambition and greed, There Will Be Blood is a good piece to start with.

Another major title in the midst is Cloverfield. In this full feature film occupying a 50 GB Blu-ray platter, events turn for the worst for protagonist Rob (Michael Stahl-David) before he could leave his home for Japan. Threatened by an unforeseen danger, the world Rob lives in begins transforming into something other than Earthly, and he and his friends must find out what’s the cause of it all.

If that doesn’t tickle your fancy, then The Eye offers something closer to your scare tastes. Based off the Hong Kong film of the same title,  The Eye recreates the horrendous mysteries behind a blind girl’s visions and her actions to achieve the mysteries’ resolution.

Tamlyn Tomita and Jessica Alba star in this Hollywood remake. The Eye attempts to tie Chinese and American plots together but concludes in a slightly different way some of you’d remember from the original.

Not in the mood for fright nights? Keeping you on the edge of your seat but not out to give you a heart attack is the spy thriller The Recruit. You know the drill: Al Pacino stars as Burke who attempts to get intelligent Colin Farrell (Clayton) into the Central Intelligence Agency. There are unexpected twists when Clayton falls for leading woman Bridget Moynahan, but this time they’re re-rendered for 1080p glory.

Meet the Spartans offers to retell the story of the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae in a parody blending pop-culture  movie hits with what-ifs. What if King Leonidas had 13 men to fight the Persians with? What if the Transformers, Rocky Balboa, and Ghost Rider joined their cause? Meet the Spartans, the “unrated pit-of-death edition,” takes out a piece of multiple movie hits and gives them a jolly good spin – in Hell.

For history and war buffs, this week is a goldmine. The battle for air supremacy back in 1940 gets re-portrayed in a Hollywood production pitting the German Luftwaffe against the British Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain.

Or you could follow the 3rd Army’s General, George S. Patton, through a historical recount of his life in World War II, from his early days to the the liberation of Bastogne (if that’s what you’d call it). Moving on, The Sand Pebbles narrates the tale of the USS San Pablo during its patrols along the the Yangtze River in China, when anti-U.S. hostilities rise to an all time high and endanger the ship and its crew during their mission to save a U.S. missionary.

There are a dozen other titles to be had, and you can course through a complete list below:

• Cloverfield
• There Will Be Blood    
• Weeds: Season 3    
• Dirty Harry: Ultimate Collector’s Edition    
• Patton    
• Semi-Pro: Let’s Get Sweaty Edition
• The Eye
• Signs
• The Longest Day    
• Dirty Harry: Special Edition    
• A Bridge Too Far
• Battle of Britain
• Meet the Spartans: Pit of Death Edition
• The Sand Pebbles
• The Recruit
• Weeds: Season 1-3
• The Poseidon Adventure
• Final Days of Planet Earth
• Fearless Planet