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.
Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson)
Following Jack Nicholson’s breakout supporting turn in Easy Rider, director Bob Rafelson devised a powerful leading role for the new star in the searing character study Five Easy Pieces. Nicholson plays the now iconic cad Bobby Dupea, a shiftless thirtysomething oil rigger and former piano prodigy immune to any sense of responsibility, who returns to his upper-middle-class childhood home, blue-collar girlfriend (Karen Black, in an Oscar-nominated role) in tow, to see his estranged, ailing father. Moving in its simplicity and gritty in its textures, Five Easy Pieces is a lasting example of early 1970s American alienation. – Criterion.com
Hard to be a God (Aleksey German)
Yes, while perhaps a form of punishment cinema (trust me, search “Hard to Be a God… more like Hard to Sit Through” on Twitter), what separates this film is a certain openness, the ability to drift in and out of its hellish landscape of various synonyms for muck — shit, grime, etc. While the occasionally awkward fades to black are likely a result of the director’s death before completion, it only makes the experience feel more tangential, which, in this case, is very much a good thing. – Ethan V.
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (David Zellner)
One of the better directed films one is bound to see this year, David Zellner‘s Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is a tightly controlled, beautifully-shot oddity with a deeply felt performance from The Brothers Bloom and Pacific Rim star Rinko Kikuchi. Using the true story of one person’s obsession with a fabricated story, Kumiko may be peculiar, but it’s an ultimately powerful and tragic fable of passion. #TeamBunzo, indeed. – Jordan R.
Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe)
For all the expectations a Cameron Crowe tag is likely to set, Vanilla Sky seems almost intent on knocking (nearly all) of them down with blunt, shocking force — though, for better or for worse, much of the shock would often come from its 1997 Spanish source, Open Your Eyes. If deviations can’t be entirely indebted to a filmmaker straying outside their comfort zone, Crowe retools the ending into something clever and trickier, working his obsessions with popular culture into the story’s fabric rather fittingly. Which isn’t to suggest “subtly,” too. – Nick N.
While We’re Young (Noah Baumbach)
Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young is wise, funny, fiercely intelligent and always involving. It’s not just the director’s most complete film — it’s also his best, an even stronger, more ambitious creation than his last Toronto International Film Festival entry, Frances Ha. Here, aided by his most impressive cast to date — Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin, and Adam “Ad Rock” Horowitz (!) — Baumbach has pulled off something truly impressive. He has made a heartfelt comedy that is as humorous as it is emotionally relatable. – Chris S. (full review)
Also Arriving This Week
Danny Collins
The Gunman (review)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders
Recommended Deals of the Week
(Note: new additions are in red)
12 Years a Slave (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Adaptation (Blu-ray) – $7.99
A Most Wanted Man (Blu-ray) – $7.99
A Most Violent Year (Blu-ray) – $12.99
The American (Blu-ray) – $8.48
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Anna Karenina (Blu-ray) – $12.05
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Blu-ray) – $9.29
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $9.10
Black Swan (Blu-ray) – $6.75
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Casino (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Captain Phillips (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Children of Men (Blu-ray) – $8.45
Cloverfield (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Collateral (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Contempt (Blu-ray) – $11.75
The Counselor (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Descendants (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Do the Right Thing (Blu-ray) – $9.18
Drive (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Fly (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Gangs of New York (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Goodfellas (Blu-ray) – $8.08
Good Will Hunting (Blu-ray) – $7.50
The Graduate (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Grave of the Fireflies (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Grey (Blu-ray) – $8.57
Haywire (Blu-ray) – $7.64
Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray) – $7.88
The Illusionist (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $8.45
Jackie Brown (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Jane Eyre (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $10.99
Killing Them Softly (Blu-ray) – $7.88
L.A. Confidential (Blu-ray) – $8.49
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $8.71
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.99
The Ultimate Matrix Collection (Blu-ray) – $23.99
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $6.28
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Observe & Report (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Office Space (Blu-ray) – $5.88
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Public Enemies (Blu-ray) – $8.57
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Reality Bites (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Secret In Their Eyes (Blu-ray) – $6.60
Seven (Blu-ray) – $6.88
Seven Psychopaths (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $6.87
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $6.14
The Spectacular Now (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Spring Breakers (Blu-ray) – $9.93
Synecdoche, NY (Blu-ray) – $6.59
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $7.88
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $6.99
The Truman Show (Blu-ray) – $7.99
True Grit (Blu-ray) – $7.99
This is the End (Blu-ray) – $9.99
We Own the Night (Blu-ray) – $6.88
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $6.94
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $14.99
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Zero Dark Thirty (Blu-ray) – $9.99
What are you picking up this week?