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.
3 Films by Roberto Rossellini Starring Ingrid Bergman
In the late 1940s, the incandescent Hollywood star Ingrid Bergman found herself so stirred by the revolutionary neorealist films of Roberto Rossellini that she sent the director a letter, introducing herself and offering her talents. The resulting collaboration produced a series of films that are works of both sociopolitical concern and metaphysical melodrama, each starring Bergman as a woman experiencing physical dislocation and psychic torment in postwar Italy. It also famously led to a scandalous affair and eventual marriage between filmmaker and star, and the focus on their personal lives in the press unfortunately overshadowed the extraordinary films they made together. Stromboli, Europe ’51, and Journey to Italy are intensely moving portraits that reveal the director at his most emotional and the glamorous actress at her most anguished, and that capture them and the world around them in transition. – Criterion.com
See Also: Romance In Europe: How Before Midnight Connects to Journey to Italy, Certified Copy & More
While this set can easily be considered a cash grab by Warner Bros., following the conclusion of their successful Dark Knight trilogy, there is a bit more under the hood than expected. Aside from a 64-page book highlighting the making of Christopher Nolan‘s series, there’s an extensive documentary as well, featuring interviews with Guillermo Del Toro, Damon Lindelof, Michael Mann, Zack Snyder and more, as well as a conversation between Richard Donner and Nolan. For those that somehow don’t own any of the films in the series but, still, call themselves a die-hard fans and want to dive deeper into its creation, this one might be worth picking up — or, at least, putting on your Christmas list. – Jordan R.
See Also: Why the Ending of The Dark Knight Rises Fails the Trilogy, [Review] The Dark Knight Rises
Phase Two of Marvel’s cinematic universe begins with the character that started their astronomically successful multi-narrative platform—Iron Man. And while a line of text following the always-assured post-credits sequence states that “Tony Stark will be back,” the question remains whether or not actor Robert Downey Jr. will be under the helmet. It’s therefore no surprise to see the studio looking to end this trilogy with a bit of arc closure just in case as the progression from a once billionaire playboy to the monogamous boyfriend slowly accepting the new title of “world hero” he’s become is a wide chasm to span. Following closely after the events of The Avengers where Stark nearly died falling back to Earth through a wormhole in space, Iron Man 3 gets the job done. – Jared M.
See Also: The Film Stage Show Ep. 54 – Iron Man 3, [Review] Iron Man 3
Joe Toy (a convincing Nick Robinson) is fed up with his father’s (Nick Offerman) strict, character-building single parenting and is desperate to find a way to escape. After a brief night of partying, along with his friend Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and an odd, but endearing schoolmate named Biaggio (Gabriel Basso), he happens upon an undisclosed area in the woods and an idea sparks. In order to escape from his seemingly constrictive lifestyle he sets out to build a secret house, only for this small group of people, but as emotions get involved things begins to escalate. While The Kings of Summer could use some tightening, it is convincing declaration that Jordan Vogt-Roberts has a style like few other directors in the genre, and one can only hope he can bring new life to Hollywood’s conventional comedic landscape. – Jordan R.
See Also: [Sundance Review] The Kings of Summer
It’s neither an exhibition of criticism nor the reveal of some “shocking truth” behind a classic — but, at its heart, a touching story of cinephilia. That one word, for all the broadness it entails, is the key to understanding Room 237, a patchwork of thoughts and experiences belonging to the disparate set all clumped together solely because of one film; no matter how differently they may view it — and, boy, do some of them view it differently — it’s an invisible, indescribable, indestructible bond that any lover of the medium need not have described in a literal sense. It’s possible that one would remain enraptured by the film, regardless of what angle the thing is approached from, if only because Room 237 is so relentlessly entertaining and continually rewarding for the endless supply of odd-duck theories. A work as much the result of its participants as the fine juxtapositions orchestrated by director Rodney Ascher. – Nick N.
See Also: [Sundance Review] Room 237, The Film Stage Show Ep. 49 – Room 237 and Overreaching Critical Analysis, Rodney Ascher On Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, and His Documentary Room 237
In framing a coming-of-age story around kids with no real revolution to stage — early ’70s French youth hopelessly trying to make up for the “we blew it, man” of May ’68 — Something in the Air realizes the pains of maturing as both grasping those “in the now” emotions seemingly beyond our reach and the memories & standards entrenched in our still-limited past. With the director’s stand-in acting as a handsome cipher, absorbing supposedly radical politics and aesthetic standards — only to end up on the set of a Hollywood B-movie — it would seem that Assayas is critical of his generation, yet, being the sometimes gooey humanist he is, count on your eyes to water during a bittersweet closing few minutes set to Kevin Ayer’s “Decadence.” – Ethan V.
See Also: Olivier Assayas on Moving from Carlos to Something in the Air, Experience, and Inspiration, The Film Stage Show Ep. 54 – Something in the Air
Recommended Deals of the Weeks
(Note: new additions are in red)
Airplane! (Blu-ray) – $8.49
The American (Blu-ray) – $4.99
Cape Fear (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Cool Hand Luke (Blu-ray) – $8.93
Collateral (Blu-ray) – $8.05
Contact (Blu-ray) – $6.49
Dark City (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Fargo (Blu-ray) – $7.49
Goodfellas (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Hugo (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Inception (Blu-ray) – $8.90
Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures (Blu-ray) – $39.36
Memento (Blu-ray) – $9.98
Naked Gun (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Once Upon a Time in the West (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Raging Bull (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Seven (Blu-ray) – $10.49
Sid & Nancy (Blu-ray) – $8.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Terminator 2: Judgement Day (Blu-ray) – $5.00
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $9.83
The Thing (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Truman Show (Blu-ray) – $9.98
Wanderlust (Blu-ray) – $7.56
Wayne’s World (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Winter’s Bone (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Zodiac (Blu-ray) – $9.98
What are you picking up this week?