Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVDs, as well as recommended deals of the week. If we were provided screener copies, we’ll have our own write-up, but if that’s not the case, one can find official descriptions from the distributors. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best films one can take home. Note that if you’re looking to support the site, every purchase you make through the links below helps us and is greatly appreciated.
Before Midnight (Richard Linklater)
The first two entries of the Before series offered the comfort of watching two people escape through each other; trading words of their anxieties, lost loves and general uncertainties of adulthood, making those both young and old nod their heads in some kind of agreement. Yet, with the third, that’s undeniably altered, as Céline and Jesse have now (spoiler alert) been together for nine years; their relationship now a circular movement of the same arguments and erotic tricks that, essentially, are what cynically leads to marriage being seen as just routine. But chalk it up to the Linklater–Hawke–Delpy trifecta to make this funny, gorgeous, and, even despite an arguably “ironic” happy ending, at least somewhat hopeful about love, no matter how tough it all may be. – Ethan V. (full review)
See Also: The Film Stage Show Ep. 60 – Before Sunrise, Before Sunset & Before Midnight, Romance In Europe: How Before Midnight Connects to Journey to Italy, Certified Copy & More, The Greatest Films Set In Real-Time
John Cassavetes: Five Films
John Cassavetes was a genius, a visionary, and the progenitor of American independent film, but that doesn’t begin to get at the generosity of his art. A former theater actor fascinated by the power of improvisation, Cassavetes brought his search for truth in performance to the screen. The five films in this collection—all of which the director maintained total control over by financing them himself and making them outside the studio system—are electrifying and compassionate creations, populated by all manner of humanity: beatniks, hippies, businessmen, actors, housewives, strippers, club owners, gangsters, children. Cassavetes has often been called an actor’s director, but this body of work—even greater than the sum of its extraordinary parts—shows him to be an audience’s director. – Criterion.com
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel)
A thought seems to run throughout Leviathan: “Why does this exist?” For all the impressive fish-gutting, water-bobbing GoPro cameras and incomprehensible fishermen mumbling, it seems to a degree difficult to decipher its “point” so to speak. Yet in its frequent spatial disorientation, taking us more than often too close for comfort, to the point that we’re never really observing (except for in the instance of one sleepy fisherman), but rather smashed against its subject, some kind of new visual language seems to be found, or rather searched for. Overall, it’s a film that’s abrasive musicality is, if not punk rock, then — maybe more appropriately with its clanging chains — heavy metal. – Ethan V.
Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn)
There’s little way to look at it: Only God Forgives is a thoroughly minor career entry — if not, however, a poor or overtly familiar one. While Nicolas Winding Refn often shows himself to be infatuated with the comic absurdity of violence — even the aftermath ofDrive’s elevator scene is worth a chuckle — its corresponding brutality is, here, taken to a different height, frequently imparting the sense of a darker-than-night comedy about the worst familial strain we could dare dream up. It works, for the most part, a soft register be damned. Credit, too, for avoiding the easy route: this is not the film most would’ve made after they landed themselves in multiplexes, even more so when one of the world’s most famous men is positioned as your central star. – Nick N. (full review)
See Also: Debating Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, The Film Stage Show Ep. 66 – Only God Forgives, Ranking the Films of Nicolas Winding Refn: From Pusher to Only God Forgives
The Uninvited (Lewis Allen)
A pair of siblings from London (Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey) purchase a surprisingly affordable, lonely cliff-top house in Cornwall, only to discover that it actually carries a ghostly price—and soon they’re caught up in a bizarre romantic triangle from beyond the grave. Rich in atmosphere, The Uninvited, directed by Lewis Allen, was groundbreaking for the seriousness with which it treated the haunted-house genre, and it remains an elegant and eerie experience, featuring a classic score by Victor Young. A tragic family past, a mysteriously locked room, cold chills, bumps in the night—this gothic Hollywood classic has it all. – Criterion.com
Rent: The Conjuring, The Way Way Back
Recommended Deals of the Weeks
(Note: new additions are in red)
Alfred Hitchcock: The Essentials Collection (Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Psycho and The Birds) (Blu-ray) – $37.99
The American (Blu-ray) – $6.24
Cape Fear (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Children of Men (Blu-ray) – $7.96
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Cool Hand Luke (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Contact (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Dark City (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Goodfellas (Blu-ray) – $8.89
Halloween (Blu-ray) – $8.79
Hugo (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Inception (Blu-ray) – $9.98
Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures (Blu-ray) – $39.97
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Memento (Blu-ray) – $9.98
Once Upon a Time in the West (Blu-ray) – $8.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $9.97
The Shining (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Side Effects (Blu-ray) – $12.49
Spring Breakers (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Sunshine (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (Blu-ray) – $7.79
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Truman Show (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Wanderlust (Blu-ray) – $7.35
Winter’s Bone (Blu-ray) – $9.97
Zodiac (Blu-ray) – $9.49
What are you picking up this week?