the running man

One of the most frustrating things for film fans of any genre is waiting for older films to get released on DVD or Blu-ray. The fans of the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man only have to wait until tomorrow.

While The Running Man is not exactly the height of substantial science fiction, it's interesting to see King's interpretation of a celebrity obsessed world in 2019 twenty-three years after the film was released. The story surrounds Arnold Schwarzenegger as a wrongly convicted man trying to survive a public education via a game show. Arnie is pictured above with game show legend Richard Dawson. You know, the original Family Feud?

It looks like it only has one annoying trailer at the beginning, unlike the usual 5 or more that every DVD and Blu-ray seem to have these days. Extras include two commentary tracks, one with director Paul Michael Glaser and producer Tim Zinneman and another with executive producer Rob Cohen, as well as two featurettes and a theatrical trailer. Sorry, no special Ahnold track.

Other sci-fi Blu-ray releases tomorrow include Halo Legends, Stargate Universe - SGU: Season 1.0, and The Time Traveler's Wife.

After an advance screening of Drew Barrymore's rollicking, entertaining, and heartfelt Whip It, which opens tomorrow, some real-life roller derby players were asked about the movie's realism. (Ellen Page plays a teenage beauty pageant contestant who gets involved in the sport.) They all chimed in: "We don't get to give anyone bloody noses!"

Yes, sports movies based loosely on real life and set in the modern era tend to take liberties with the levels of violence involved in their sport. But sci-fi movies tend to ratchet up the bloody-nosed action to incredible levels, taking murder for granted. Life is cheap in the future, I suppose. With images of Ellen Page in roller skates and a faux-Girl Scout uniform in mind, not to mention the thought of Drew Barrymore herself with a bloody nose, I set off in search of the very best future sports movies -- and discovered that relatively few of any quality have been made. Thus, consider this list a sketchy compendium of what's out there. What am I missing? What future sports are not properly represented?

1. Rollerball in Rollerball
An easy choice, featuring James Caan at the height of his hard-bitten, rueful stardom in the 1970s. Norman Jewison's film is a self-righteous sermon about the dangers of thrill seeking, and a broadside against sports and popular entertainment in general. But when you have such exciting action in a sport that combines a hopped-up version of roller derby with football, chaos, and murder, who's complaining?