Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Arriving in 2012 to rave reviews, the BBC series "The Hollow Crown" was intended to bring the works of William Shakespeare to a new audience, using the power of name actors to juice up a cycle of films that explored the dramatic highs and lows of royal power and madness. For "The Wars of the Roses," the production returns to the formula, staging "Henry VI, Part 1" (116:18), "Henry VI, Part II" (128:13), and "Richard III" (134:19) with a cast of Shakespeare devotees and industry veterans, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville, and Sally Hawkins. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1978's "Movie Movie" is meant to be throwback entertainment, replicating a filmgoing time of double features, where different genres were smashed together to provide an evening's entertainment to those looking to get lost in disparate screen adventures. And who better to mastermind a spoof/homage to the cinematic achievements of the 1930s than director Stanley Donen, helmer of "Singing in the Rain" and "On the Town." "Movie Movie" isn't out to wow with plot and expanse, more interested in packing in jokes and adoration for the production era, assembling two short efforts that cover the gamut of emotional responses and musical opportunities, bringing together a gifted cast to breathe life into a screen experiment that's ideal for those who personally value golden dreams of cinematic glamour and for those with short attentions spans. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As Studio Ghibli ends operations, one of their earliest efforts finally makes it to American audiences. Better late than never. 1991's "Only Yesterday" is the company's fifth feature and, for an animation house known for creating faraway lands and fantastical creatures, it's also one of their most human, turning to memory and regret to inspire an emotional journey of a woman who yearns to reclaim and reassess an earlier, simpler time in her life. Gorgeously animated in the distinct Ghibli style, director Isao Takahata manages to understand the erratic flow of childhood impulses and curiosity, while pinpointing the moment when nostalgia transforms into personal need. "Only Yesterday" is 25 years old, but it remains surprisingly relevant, warmly conceived and executed from beginning to end. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1962's "Five Miles to Midnight" has an unfortunate casting issue that's difficult to ignore. It's not that Anthony Perkins and Sophia Loren are unpleasant performers, far from it, but director Anatole Litvak makes quite a leap pairing them in what should be a tense domestic drama with thriller interests. Instead of conjuring suspense, "Five Miles to Midnight" takes a leisurely stroll around screen anxiety, with Loren and Perkins sharing stiff chemistry normally reserved for sibling characters, not a married couple. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Threads of time are knotted carefully by director Jia Zhangke in "Mountains May Depart," which attempts to explore the lives of three characters as they experience 25 years of Chinese cultural and economic development and their own maturity. Taking place in 1999, 2014, and 2025, the picture successfully creates a broad sweep of life, tracking emotional and physical growth in an unusual way. It's an emotional effort, though it commences with more subtlety than it concludes with, fighting off the artificiality of melodrama for the most part, ultimately growing too fatigued to better balance a disappointing third act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The cinema of writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an acquired taste, with his latest, "Cemetery of Splendor," taking a meditative look at weary, haunted souls and tentative personal connection. Those who've sampled pictures such as "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" and "Tropical Malady" should be prepared for the observational qualities of the helmer's work, with "Cemetery of Splendor" a fine addition to a career filled with artistic achievements and perpetual curiosity with the human experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While he doesn't command the respect his peers receive, director Lucio Fulci has made his mark on horror cinema. The Italian filmmaker has helmed his share of stinkers, but the ones that broke through and found an audience, including 1981's "The Beyond," were memorable excursions into screen violence and loopy artistry, while his attention to gory details turned him into a legend with the Rotten Cotton generation, creating some of the vilest imagery the genre could summon. 1990's "Cat in the Brain" (titled "Nightmare Theater" on the Blu-ray) isn't one of Fulci's finest pictures, but it's certainly his most bizarre. Instead of embarking on a fresh round of chilling events and hysterical characters, Fulci instead recycles prior accomplishments, stitching together old footage from his filmography to beef up a simplistic story of madness colored by exposure to moviemaking. "Cat in the Brain" is a weird picture, not always for the right reasons, but it certainly bears the Fulci brand, surveying all types of carnage and despair, often for no reason at all. It's a greatest hits package from the helmer, either explained away as a wild experiment or an unusually determined contractual obligation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Deadline – U.S.A." comes across just as relevant today as it was during its initial release in 1952. It's a journalism story about the death of a newspaper, with writer/director Richard Brooks cooking up a valentine to the art of reporting and editorial leadership, bringing on star Humphrey Bogart to portray professional might in the face of extinction. Certainly times have changed, with newspapers today fighting a different war with dwindling readership, but the core message of "Deadline – U.S.A." remains potent, showcasing the power of journalism as it reaches its final day of operation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his third directorial outing, Carl Reiner goes dark, real dark, for 1970's "Where's Poppa?" A pitch-black comedy from writer Robert Klane, Reiner works extremely hard to preserve the material's extreme sense of humor, trying to generate a swirling atmosphere of absurdity to help buffer the screenplay's wilder forays into taboo humor. Much of it is dated, but the effort is undeniably fun as times, watching stars George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Ron Leibman, and Trish Van Devere commit entirely, easing tonal digestion as they eagerly portray the escalation of insanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's nothing out to shock audiences in 1948's "Yellow Sky," which puts most of its effort into the basics of western entertainment. It's all about outlaws and moral choices, unruly men and tamed women, working up excitement in the middle of Death Valley National Park, which gives the picture an atmospheric authenticity. Visually, "Yellow Sky" is interesting to study, with director William A. Wellman securing bigness for a movie that's light on engrossing dramatics, finding western touches and creative achievements far more compelling that the unfolding story, which comes off mild and uneventful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In "Basket Case 2," the series developed into a tale of community, where Duane and his deformed brother Belial finally found a home with a group of "Unique Individuals," learning to temporarily silence their murderous appetites and learn the warmth of acceptance. There was even a little sex thrown in there too, giving writer/director Frank Henenlotter a narrative direction for 1991's "Basket Case 3: The Progeny," which tries to pay off the eye-crossing conclusion of the last film with a newfound desire to transform what was once a creepy, icky horror picture into a demented Saturday morning cartoon, loaded with creatures and chaos. While it's made strictly for fans of the franchise, presenting the faithful with ample screen time for ghoulish celebration, "Basket Case 3: The Progeny" definitely keeps up Henenlotter's interests in the macabre and zany, successfully advancing the saga of Duane and Belial into trials of fatherhood and human acceptance. This final chapter isn't as memorable as its predecessors, but the effort isn't lazy, working hard to disrupt expectations and stage ridiculousness, though it becomes increasingly clear that Henenlotter has run out of ideas for his creation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I suppose technically, formerly conjoined twins Duane and Belial died at the end of 1982's "Basket Case," but when has finality ever stopped a horror franchise from taking shape? The understandably unsettled siblings return to action in 1990's "Basket Case 2," which offers writer/director Frank Henenlotter ("Frankenhooker") an opportunity to expand his vision for brotherly love with a slightly larger budget and more polished technical achievements. While the sheer oddity of "Basket Case" is impossible to replicate, Henenlotter takes his creation to pleasingly broad extremes, cooking up a tribute to "Freaks," Tod Browning's 1932 shocker, to help provide dramatic direction for his follow up. Returning to the ways of grotesque characters, psychological collapse, and bizarre events, "Basket Case 2" is a largely successful sequel that brings the series into a new era, ready to explore its old bag of tricks. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Magazine publisher and genre enthusiast Don Dohler decided to try his luck as a movie director in the 1970s, with his debut, "The Alien Factor," a riff on the extraterrestrial terror pictures from the 1950s. Armed with a severely limited budget, Dohler elected to use his home community as a backlot, turning rural Maryland into a battleground for intergalactic war. "The Alien Factor" is undeniably shoddy in construction and muddled in tone, and it won't win any accolades for helming finesse, watching Dohler trip over himself trying to keep up with basic technical challenges, but for those who embrace the art of schlock, especially one that's not striving to be campy, the feature has its bottom-shelf charms. At the very least, Dohler keeps the malevolent creatures coming throughout the run time, proving his awareness of the film's appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Absolution" is a devious picture from 1978, continuing screenwriter Anthony Shaffer's inspection of evil and psychological gamesmanship, adding to an impressive filmography that includes "The Wicker Man" and "Sleuth." It's slow-burn cinema from director Anthony Page, who takes his time with Shaffer's subtle motivations and acts of defiance. Encompassing the pressures of religion, the cruelty of man, and the power of isolation, "Absolution" is an unexpected chiller with the most basic of ingredients, playing a convincing game of manipulation that leads to murder. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Grantchester: Season 2" is put into a difficult creative position from the very first episode. The previous year of crime-busting with Reverend Sydney (James Norton) and Detective Inspector Geordie (Robson Green) offered a more traditional take on small town sleuthing, playing up the dichotomy of religion and reality, following a priest working to share faith with his flock while witnessing horrors created by human impulse and frailty. "Season 2" doesn't particularly want to continue with the same old mix of criminal activity and sermonizing, turning to heightened dramatics to push through lukewarm material, giving the show an unpleasant soap opera vibe, only teasing grittiness and bitter characterizations. The humanity of "Season 1" has been dialed down for the follow-up year, making "Grantchester" a frustrating watch, providing only flashes of compelling chemistry between the leads, while the cases are set aside for a larger narrative arc. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

When people discuss the great New York City features of the 1970s, examples tend to gravitate toward classics such as "Taxi Driver" and "The French Connection." These are movies that weren't just set in NYC, they used NYC to convey a particular cesspool of crime and indifference — the city becoming a siren's song for the mentally damaged and the desperate. A vital addition to the list in 1974's "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," which also weaves urban illness into its filmmaking fabric, though it generally avoids introspection to pursue thriller intentions, bringing John Godey's successful novel to the screen. It's a tremendously effective picture, brilliantly cast and executed, with director Joseph Sargent investing in tight storytelling that doesn't have time to stop and consider its options. It's a splendidly snowballing effort, using the streets and bowels of the Big Apple to perfection as it details criminal activity and law enforcement confusion. Once it gets going, it doesn't stop, delivering a rare thrill ride during a production era where grit automatically equaled tight-jawed contemplation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1979's "Cuba" is director Richard Lester's attempt to fashion his own "Casablanca," boldly using elements from the 1942 classic to inspire another tale of tight-jawed love in a turbulent corner of the world. Not a helmer known for warmth, Lester keeps matters characteristically calm for this exploration of a country on the brink of revolution, showing more interest in the details of the land and its inhabitants than he does the lead characters, who often seem stuck without emotions as the picture investigates unrest and desire at the end of a political era. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

On a break from dramatic endeavors, director Abel Ferrara ("Bad Lieutenant," "King of New York") takes a moment to address the troubles brewing within Naples, Italy. It's a location the filmmaker is clearly interested in, making himself a participant in 2009's "Napoli, Napoli, Napoli," a documentary intended to dissect exactly what's gone wrong with the locals, with Ferrara visiting prisoners and community members to best illuminate the downfall of a once promising city. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

At this point, it's clear that whatever writer/director Terrence Malick wants to do with his movies, he's just going to do. There are no producers, stars, or low box office returns that can throttle his interest in esoteric journeys of sight and sound, returning to the screen with "Knight of Cups," which resembles nearly every film he's previously made. After years of dormancy, Malick has suddenly become the Woody Allen of impenetrable cinema, issuing odysseys into the mind and depths of space with surprising frequency, playing to his fan base with habitual interests and familiar technical achievements. On the Malickian scale of confusion and artfulness, "Knight of Cups" has a great deal of passion for itself. However, it's not something that's casually approached, with those unable to tune into Malick's point of view rewarded with another wandering spirit of a feature, and one that's content to recycle the helmer's particular brand of soul-searching. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It was supposed to be just another night on the highly successful "Innocence + Experience" tour, taking the band U2 to Paris for a concert intended for cable and internet broadcast. Unfortunately, plans for entertainment were quickly set aside to deal with the November 2015 Paris Terrorist Attacks, an event that shocked the world and forced U2 to rethink touring plans. Not wanting to disappoint loyal fans and preserve their reputation as one of most socially and politically-minded bands of all time, U2 returned to Paris three weeks later, refusing to bow down to terror-minded folk and put on a big time rock show to help heal a shattered city. "Innocence + Experience – Live in Paris" isn't a radical reinvention of the U2 live event, keeping to the essentials of stage presence and widescreen sound, but there's a special level of power to the show, a searing emotionality that runs through the whole endeavor, with Bono, The Edge, Larry Mullen Jr., and Adam Clayton trying their best to bring joy and catharsis to the world through their exquisite song catalog and a brilliant visual display. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com