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Not quite as busy a week as last, but I still managed to see five movies, which begins with the two I saw in theaters -- Melissa McCarthy's Tammy and Scott Derrickson's Deliver Us from Evil. At home I continued my Zatoichi journey with Zatoichi at Large, which was quite good, Werner Herzog's Land of Silence and Darkness, which might end up being the hardest review for one of his movies I've ever had to write, and then, last night, I watched all of This is the End after having previously only watched the beginning for the Michael Cera scenes. I'd forgotten how good the scene in Heaven at the end of that movie was, but I had remembered how the middle section tends to drag, especially on repeat viewings. Otherwise, I did finish reading Chris Pavone's "The Expats", which is a solid little thriller and...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 26, 2013

Price: Blu-ray/DVD Combo $224.95

Studio: Criterion

Shintaro Katsu relies on his blade in 1963's Zatoichi on the Road.

The colossally popular Zatoichi: The Blind Swordsman action-adventure films make up the longest-running action series in Japanese history and created one of the screen’s great heroes: an itinerant blind masseur who also happens to be a lightning-fast swordsman.

As this iconic figure, the charismatic and earthy Shintaro Katsu became an instant superstar, lending a larger-than-life presence to the thrilling adventures of a man who lives staunchly by a code of honor and delivers justice in every town and village he enters.

The films that feature him are variously pulse-pounding, hilarious, stirring, and completely off-the-wall.

This deluxe set features the string of 25 Zatoichi films made between 1962 and 1973, collected in one package for the first time.

Here’s a list of the films in the collection:

The Tale Of Zatoichi...

Criterion has announced its upcoming November 2013 titles and they include some highly coveted films, one of 2013's better films, an impressive box set and their new dual-format DVD/Blu-ray releases. To begin, it was a little bit of a shock to see they have abandoned releasing both DVD and Blu-ray versions of their film and instead will now release DVD/Blu-ray, dual-format editions. Note here it says dual format "editions", not "discs", which leads me to believe most releases will include both a DVD and Blu-ray disc. Consider in today's announcement the 27-disc box set of the Zatoichi films. This consists of nine Blu-ray discs and 18 DVD discs. On top of that Criterion confirms features will be available for on both DVD and Blu-ray formats. As far as this months titles are concerned, I'll begin with the upgraded Blu-ray release of Yasujiro Ozu's Tokyo Story, which was the December 2012 selection...