Mike Spring
Recap
Review
What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – February 11th, 2025
We’re still in the slowest period of the year, the first quarter, but we do have one of the biggest box office blockbusters of the year to review, as well as a beloved TV show and a hidden gem of a documentary. Read on for the full details!
In This Week’s Column:
– Wicked (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
– Regular Show: The Complete Series (DVD)
– Nadia (DVD)
Wicked (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
The Movie:
I don’t know if you heard, but they made a movie out of Wicked.
I’m kidding, obviously. The media blitz/onslaught for the release of Wicked last year was one of the most unrelenting things I’ve seen in pop culture in quite some time. Of course, it worked, as Wicked went on to become a global juggernaut and one of the highest grossing movies of the year.
Based on a Broadway musical (that was itself based on a book), Wicked tells the story of how Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West became so… well, wicked. Incorporating the songs from the Broadway show, it’s a musical affair that runs almost three hours (and it’s only Part One!), so obviously it’s been expanded a bit from the stage play. To be fair, I’ve never seen the stage show so I can’t compare them directly, but I did enjoy Wicked quite a bit. It has some flaws for my money, but both Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo are outstanding, and Bridgerton standout Jonathan Bailey is a welcome addition. Even the songs – which are typically my least favorite part of most musicals – are pretty darn good here.
I would be remiss not to mention the production values as well. Of course, the movie cost something like $150 million to make, but every penny of that shows up on screen, from the sets to the make-up to the special effect to even the sound quality, this is a movie that looks and sounds utterly spectacular.
The 4K Video/Audio:
Wicked is the kind of movie 4K Ultra HD was made for. It’s bright and colorful, the way you would expect the magical land of Oz to be, and that’s captured in this transfer. Colors pop off the screen, image clarity is absolutely razor sharp, and contrasts are strong and bold. There’s an almost 3-D quality to the imagery that the best 4K releases have, and this one has it. The surround soundtrack is also equally impressive. While the focus is on the music and dialogue, the surround effects don’t get ignored. Everything is expertly blended together and the surround effects make sure your rear speakers are constantly active, whether that’s with ambient effects or musical accompaniment. Overall, a terrific effort from start to finish.
The Bonus Features:
- Sing-Along Version of the Film
- Making Wicked (45 minutes)
- Deleted and Extended Scenes (15 minutes)
- Commentary with director Jon M. Chu
- Commentary with Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo
- Welcome to Shiz (8 minutes)
- A Wicked Legacy (4 minutes)
- The Wonderful Wizard (4 minutes)
Digital Copy Included: Yes
The Wrap-Up:
You wouldn’t necessarily expect the director of G.I. Joe: Retaliation to be the first choice to helm a tentpole studio musical, but Jon M. Chu’s resume obviously has a lot of other movies that made him a good choice to helm this one, such as Crazy Rich Asians (which dealt with a similarly large cast of characters) and In The Heights (another musical). Regardless of his pedigree, he did a great job bringing a beloved property to life, and it’s easy to see why it was such a big hit.
Regular Show: The Complete Series (DVD)
The Show:
As much as I lament the passing of the late, great Cartoon Network, I do also have to admit that a lot of what became their signature shows over the last ten or fifteen years escaped me as a viewer. As in, I really just didn’t get it. And while I know Regular Show has a devoted legion of fans, this is one of those shows I could never really warm up to.
But with Regular Show: The Complete Series dropping on DVD, I suppose it was time to revisit it and see if my opinion might have changed. Ultimately, I still think it fits into Cartoon Network’s stock-in-trade ethos: weird for the sake of being weird, and I’m not generally a fan of that. So let me see if I can sum it up for you: there’s a talking bird and a talking raccoon-thing and they work in a park and they have friends. One of them seems to be a gumball machine and one is a ghost and and one is a yeti another is a guy with a gigantic head. So… ummm… yeah, that’s the gist of it. Having scoured the series with this new collection and taken a dive into numerous episodes, what I can say is that in every one, there were a couple of things that made me smile or even possibly muster a small chuckle, but honestly that’s kind of where it ended for me. I still just don’t find the show that funny or the characters that endearing. And some of the character voices are kind of grating for me, so that doesn’t help.
But I get that I am clearly not the targe audience for this new release. For those of you who are fans, this is a pretty good set. It gives you all eight seasons’ worth of episodes (over 200 in total!) plus Regular Show: The Movie, all on 20 discs. Unfortunately, Warner Home Video didn’t pony up for any extra features, but this compact box set is still easily the best way to find the entirety of the show in one relatively affordable place.
The Bonus Features: Sadly, there are no bonus features.
Digital Copy Included: No
The Wrap-Up: I’m not necessarily a fan of Regular Show, but I am a fan of TV series collections on home video. A Blu-ray option might have been nice (as would some extra features) but for fans of the show, this still seems like a must-have for your collection.
Nadia (DVD)
The Movie:
How does one go from being an Afghani refugee to one of the premiere soccer stars in the world? Normally I would say that I don’t know, but thanks to the new documentary Nadia, I have some idea.
The film documents the journey of Nadia Nadim, who was born in Afghanistan and whose father was tragically killed by The Taliban. Along with her mother and sisters she moved to Denmark in the aftermath, and she went on to become the striker for Denmark’s national soccer team and Paris Saint-Germain, an incredibly popular women’s team the world over. Oh yeah, and did I mention she wants to become a surgeon? This film tells us Nadia’s story, but it also follows her contemporarily as she tries to revisit her home country to learn more about where she and her late father came from. Sadly, it doesn’t happen due to international strife, but it’s easy to get a sense of who she is throughout the proceedings. And who she is is very, very impressive.
The film is the brisk and moves well, coming it at just about an hour and a half (which I personally think is the perfect length for a documentary.) With lots of interviews, footage of Nadia, clips from news reports and TV shows, and the like, it’s an all-encompassing story told very well.
The Bonus Features: As is typical with documentary features, there are no bonus features.
Digital Copy Included: No
The Wrap-Up:
Nadia was nominated for an International Emmy Award for Best Sports Documentary (even though it’s so much more than just a sports documentary), and it’s not hard to see why. It’s an engaging, moving movie about a young woman who has one heck of a story to tell, and a story that’s not done being told. She has a bright future ahead of her.
