Out on Blu-ray and DVD now are two of the best movies of last year whose names you didn’t hear at the Oscars. Despite Michael Shannon’s powerhouse lead performance in the psychological suspense drama ‘Take Shelter,’ he was somehow left out of the Best Actor race. ‘Martha Marcy May Marlene’ is also anchored by an incredibly soulful performance not nominated for an Oscar.
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‘Hell on Earth’ focuses on a group of young folks defending their home from an invasion. In Bohus’ previous ‘The Deadly Spawn,’ it was toothy leeches from outer space; Hell On Earth summons demons and zombies from hell.
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Lilly Scourtis Ayers’ film ‘Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love, and Death of a Punk Goddess,’ premiered at the 2011 Slamdance Festival and is out now on DVD, but it’s difficult to see who the interested parties might be.
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Film Noir Classics III, from Turner Classic Movies and Martin Scorsese’s The Film Foundation, is an impressive DVD box set of forgotten and overlooked film noirs.
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With the commercial Blu-ray release of ‘La Jetée’ and Chris Marker’s philosophical documentary ‘Sans Soleil’ by The Criterion Collection, appreciation of this intriguing and mysterious artist may reach a new level.
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It’s not a stellar week for home video, but you could do worse than these two slight but entertaining movies, out now on Blu-ray and DVD.
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‘Shut Up Little Man!’ is a bit of personal entertainment that, due to popular dissemination via cassettes (audio and video) in the pre-Internet age, grows beyond its beginnings between friends into a global phenomenon.
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Out on DVD and Blu-ray this week is ‘Drive,’ one of the best and most surprising movies of 2011, and ‘To Kill A Mockingbird,’ digitally remastered and fully restored from its original 35mm film in a 50th Anniversary presentation.
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Spanish surrealist filmmaker Luis Buñuel opens his 1967 classic Belle de Jour, out now on DVD and Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection, with a flogging.
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Justin Timberlake goes sci-fi in ‘In Time’ and Gus Van Sant showcases more young adults living with heavy problems in ‘Restless,’ this week on DVD and Blu-ray.
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Two gritty docudramas make their way to Blu-ray and DVD, but each take a different approach to worthwhile bonus content. This review is of the new Rachel Weisz thriller ‘The Whistleblower,’ and Steven Soderbergh’s Oscar-winning ‘Traffic.’
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Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle are the best odd couple of the year and ‘The Guard’ is a very funny black comedy. In the spotty ‘Higher Ground,’ Vera Farmiga plays a woman struggling with her devout Christianity over three decades of her life.
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‘Straw Dogs,’ out now on DVD and Blu-ray, is a remake of a controversial 1971 movie from Sam Peckinpah starring Dustin Hoffman. ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is a new horror movie produced by Guillermo del Toro.
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‘Branded to Kill’ is a hard-edged black-and-white crime movie featuring a rice-sniffing hitman, shot with unsettling camera angles, and unfolding like fever dream. Seijun Suzuki was fired for making this movie, and the new Criterion Blu-ray restores it to its full glory.
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The new Blu-ray Criterion transfer of Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Tokyo Drifter’ is a gorgeous pop-art fever dream.
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