Thoughts?

In case you’re wondering, that’s (from left, back row) Han Solo, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, (middle row) Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker and (front row) R2D2. No word on where C-3PO was.

As much as I love the blinding sharpness of Blu-ray, I haven’t double-dipped on any of my old DVDs.

Well, not yet anyway.

FIGHT CLUB, one of my favorite films, arrives on Blu-ray in a couple of weeks, and that purchase is going to be harder to resist than a directive from Tyler himself. Here’s a link to the official promo site, but beware: Choosing the option to log on to it via your Facebook account is apparently a giant pain in the ass.

PS: Here’s a link to the amazingly-still-active original movie site for FIGHT CLUB.

Quoth Variety:

After the Academy increased its best picture category to 10 films and tapped a pair of producers, it announced that there will be two hosts for the 82nd annual Academy Awards — Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin — the first time the show has had multiple hosts since the 1987 ceremonies.

Both men, of course, have hosted SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE several times, both have Oscar connections (Martin has hosted, Baldwin was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for THE COOLER) and — no coincidence here! — they both co-star in IT’S COMPLICATED, a comedy opening on Christmas Day. (The movie also stars Meryl Streep, who isn’t hosting, but certainly has her share of nominations.)

Since the beginning of the season — heck, since the first time we realized there was a show coming called MAD MEN that was set in the early 1960s — we knew that eventually the folks at Sterling Cooper would arrive at the infamous date of Nov. 22, 1963. Well, that episode aired Sunday night, and now our crack team of podcasters have weighed in.

Listen to the podcast here.

Can you name ‘em?

1. THE SHINING: Thanks to Kubrick’s masterful direction, Nicholson’s unhinged performance and numerous random factors — the pages of the novel, that scene with the guy in the bear suit, those twins! — I’d say this is one movie that gets scarier the more often you see it.

2. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: If you’ve never seen Tobe Hooper’s symphony of dread and horror, you might think it’s a non-stop gorefest. It’s not. Instead, it’s a perfectly paced, excrutiating experience. And yes, that’s a good thing.

3. THE STRANGERS: It’s relatively new, but this movie about a nightmarish home invasion does a better job building its tension than anything I’ve seen in years. When we were watching it, during the opening moments before anything had happened, my wife turned and said “I don’t think I can watch this.” I know exactly what she meant.

4. MULHOLLAND DR.: David Lynch’s movie isn’t a horror film, but the scene set at Winkie’s — an innocent-looking Los Angeles diner — might be the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in a movie … in any more. I posted a link to the clip here. Don’t worry if you don’t know anything else about the movie. It doesn’t matter.

 5. PINK FLAMINGOS: Again, this isn’t a standard horror movie, but there are things in John Waters’ cult classic that I wish I could somehow un-see. That’s pretty scary, isn’t it?

This week, the Movie Man column moves to Saturday’s GO section, and it’s taking Friday’s Video Vault along with it. For the inaugural Saturday column, I’m reviewing the brand spanking new Blu-ray disc of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic suspense film, NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

And boy oh boy, do those classic cross-country set pieces look great in hi-def widescreen.

Check out the column here.