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. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best (or most interesting) 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.
The Big Short (Adam McKay)
Co-writer / director Adam McKay made a genuine Adam McKay film with The Big Short. The director of Step Brothers isn’t exactly known for drama, but his outrageous sense of humor serves this fierce, angry, high-stakes tale of outsiders. In exploring the recent financial crisis in a way that’s entertaining, funny, and shocking to watch unfold, The Big Short is the rare example of a film built entirely on exposition that can still work. – Jack G.
Brooklyn (John Crowley)
Presented with the tale of an Irish immigrant, one would perhaps expect a dreary and brutal film about the hardships of moving to America. In a way, John Crowley‘s Brooklyn is that movie, but, really, it’s so much more. While the Nick Hornby-scripted adaptation isn’t without its tough drama, Crowley’s picture is also full of kindness and laughs. In the 1950s, Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan) is moving to America, thanks to her wonderful sister (Fiona Glascott). Eilis leaves her sister, mother, and the small shop she hates working at to go to Brooklyn, where a job and home has been set up for her. Initially, she’s isolated and alone in her new home. She’s not particularly good at her job and doesn’t get along well with her housemates. Her feelings towards the city soon change when she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), who’s basically a total dreamboat with no flaws to speak of. Tony quickly falls for Eilis, and even his Italian parents are smitten by her sweetness. Soon after she falls in love with America and Tony, tragedy strikes and she must return to her small Irish town. Ultimately she’ll have to choose between two homes and two men, the other suitor played by Domhnall Gleeson. – Jack G. (full review)
Carol (Todd Haynes)
From the first note of Carter Burwell‘s magnificent score and opening shot of Edward Lachman’s ravishing cinematography — introducing a Brief Encounter-esque opening bookend — Todd Haynes transports one to an intoxicating world of first love and its requisite heartbreak. Carol excels at being many things: a romantic drama; a coming-of-age story; an exploration of family dynamics and social constructs of the time; an acting showcase the likes of which simply isn’t seen in today’s cinematic landscape — and that’s just on the first viewing. The film blossoms on further revisits as minuscule gestures and glances articulate a myriad of emotions, and as themes of male impediment and desire are subtly divulged. A harmonious, immaculate masterpiece, Carol is one of cinema’s finest love stories. – Jordan R.
The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)
The name John Frankenheimer became forever synonymous with heart-in-the-throat filmmaking when this quintessential sixties political thriller was released. Set in the early fifties, this razor-sharp adaptation of the novel by Richard Condon concerns the decorated U.S. Army sergeant Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), who as a prisoner during the Korean War is brainwashed into becoming a sleeper assassin in a Communist conspiracy, and a fellow POW (Frank Sinatra) who slowly uncovers the sinister plot. In an unforgettable performance, Angela Lansbury plays Raymond’s villainous mother, the controlling wife of a witch-hunting anti-Communist senator with his eyes on the White House. The rare film that takes aim at the frenzy of the McCarthy era while also being suffused with its Cold War paranoia, The Manchurian Candidate remains potent, shocking American moviemaking. – Criterion.com
Also Arriving This Week
Sisters (review)
Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine
Recommended Deals of the Week
A Clockwork Orange (Blu-ray) – $7.99
A Serious Man (Blu-ray) – $6.80
The American (Blu-ray) – $7.66
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Assassin (Blu-ray) – $14.99
Attack the Block (Blu-ray) – $8.38
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $6.50
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $10.30
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.63
Captain Phillips (Blu-ray) – $9.88
Casino (Blu-ray) – $7.90
The Conformist (Blu-ray) – $14.99
Dear White People (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.09
Good Will Hunting (Blu-ray) – $4.49
A History of Violence (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Heat (Blu-ray) – $8.12
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $13.79
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $8.00
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Magic Mike (Blu-ray) – $7.73
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $9.19
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.48
The Martian (Blu-ray) – $14.99
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Munich (Blu-ray) – $12.34
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $8.00
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Obvious Child (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Paddington (Blu-ray) – $10.00
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $9.45
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $6.48
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $6.23
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Re-Animator (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Road to Perdition (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Seven (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Blu-ray) – $5.88
Short Term 12 (Blu-ray) – $9.83
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $7.35
Sicario (Blu-ray) – $14.99
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $4.99
Snowpiercer (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Synecdoche, NY (Blu-ray) – $6.25
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $9.15
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Blu-ray) – $5.49
Volver (Blu-ray) – $5.95
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $6.97
What are you picking up this week?