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.
Note: These include releases from last week as well.
The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)
Few film noirs bring us as intimately close to their antagonists than John Huston’s well-oiled The Asphalt Jungle. Although the marketing may sell it as Marilyn Monroe‘s break-out — she only briefly appears — the true star is Ben Maddow and Huston’s script from W. R. Burnett‘s book, a crackling, candid look at the criminal underbelly of a midwestern town. Huston directs the proceedings with such a even-keeled momentum that it results in one of the finest entries in the genre. New special features include a pair of fantastic interviews, one with historian Eddie Muller which opens up why the film wasn’t initially well-received and another with cinematographer John Bailey detailing the different studio house styles and the almost invisible way The Asphalt Jungle excels in the craft of photographer. – Jordan R.
The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel)
A group of wealthy, upper-class friends gather for a lavish dinner party, just as the waitstaff escape out the back door, plagued by a feeling of impending doom. There’s something terribly wrong about this dinner party, as any good Luis Buñuel fan would expect. As the guests gossip and snipe at each other, smiles never leaving their faces, the smell of fascism hangs in the air. When the party ends, the guests do not leave, feeling strangely compelled to remain inside this immaculate chateau, which will be slowly reduced to a foul and chaotic mess over the next few days. As civilization crumbles inside the room, men carefully remove their dinner jackets to sleep, attempting to hold onto some form of bourgeoisie normalcy. No different outside, a crowd of onlookers gather, bizarrely unable to enter the chateau’s courtyard for the same unknown reason. Sometimes The Exterminating Angel is deliriously funny, while at other times, Buñuel captures a dreadfully haunting tone, crafting images of immense strangeness and bewildering peculiarity. In his book, “My Last Sigh,” Buñuel recalled how at the time of its release, many critics wrongly interpreted a vast majority of the film’s meaning and imagery: “Everything was arbitrary. I only tried to evoke some sort of disturbing image.” – Tony H.
Mad Max: Fury Road: Black and Chrome (George Miller)
Do you wish to ride eternal shiny and chrome? Well, here’s your chance. George Miller’s dynamic blockbuster Mad Max: Fury Road is finally getting its long-rumored black-and-white edition, swaddled inside a swanky new quadrilogy bundle (or available as a two-film collection). The monochrome edition, which Miller himself has deemed “the best version” of Fury Road, screened in theaters last month in select cities, and the response has been strong. For those curious if it’s an actual improvement, Marcelo Pico wrote on Letterboxd, “If the losing of one of your five sense heightens your remaining senses, Black & Chrome’s removal of color heightens aspects of the movie that may have been overlooked or underappreciated during initial viewings. I’ve seen the unaltered movie five times and to me Black & Chrome delivers a welcomed new perspective into the movie’s plot and characters.” – Joseph F.
Roma (Federico Fellini)
If virtually all of Federico Fellini‘s filmography is both a celebration of Italian culture and a critique of its upper class, Roma presents the ultimate merging of these themes. A potent mix of the grotesque (the line-up at a brothel brilliantly transitioning to an absurd fashion show of religious clout) and gorgeous (is there more a stunning ode to a city than the finale, a nighttime motorcycle cavalcade through the city streets?), Roma can be unwieldy and unfocused, but it is a singular expression (in many forms) of the director’s outsider vision of his metropolis. The highlights for special features on this new Criterion edition includes a somewhat lifeless but informative commentary from Frank Burke, as well as an interview with the director who most owes a debt to Fellini, Paolo Sorrentino. – Jordan R.
Also Arriving This Week
Don’t Think Twice (review)
Heart of a Dog (review)
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer — 30th Anniversary
Howards End
Florence Foster Jenkins (review)
In Order of Disappearance (review)
Kicks (review)
Klown Forever (review)
Southside With You (review)
Spa Night (review)
Recommended Deals of the Week
99 Homes (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Aliens: 30th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray) – $9.96
The American (Blu-ray) – $7.14
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $6.88
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $6.19
Blue Ruin (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Bone Tomahawk (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.83
Carrie (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Casino (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Deep Blue Sea (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.39
Enemy (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Godzilla (Blu-ray) – $8.90
Gone Girl (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Greenberg (Blu-ray) – $5.10
Green Room (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Hail, Caesar! (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Haywire (Blu-ray) – $5.49
Heat (Blu-ray) – $8.90
Hell or High Water (Blu-ray) – $13.99
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $10.10
The Informant! (Blu-ray) – $7.89
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Inherent Vice (Blu-ray) – $10.75
Interstellar (Blu-ray) – $7.99
It Follows (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Jane Eyre (Blu-ray) – $6.16
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.99
John Wick (Blu-ray) – $7.75
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Knight of Cups (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Blu-ray) – $9.86
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $9.29
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Blu-ray) – $9.60
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $5.26
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Nebraska (Blu-ray) – $6.78
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $6.59
The Nice Guys (Blu-ray) – $12.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $5.99
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $7.67
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Piano (Blu-ray) – $7.34
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $5.96
The Searchers / Wild Bunch / How the West Was Won (Blu-ray) – $10.43
Selma (Blu-ray) – $9.92
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Blu-ray) – $8.39
Short Term 12 (Blu-ray) – $8.89
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $3.99
A Serious Man (Blu-ray) – $7.17
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Blu-ray) – $8.79
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Somewhere (Blu-ray) – $5.20
Sunshine (Blu-ray) – $7.51
Taxi Driver: 40th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (Blu-ray) – $7.51
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $5.86
The Third Man (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy (Blu-ray) – $8.97
To the Wonder (Blu-ray) – $9.89
Two Lovers (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Volver (Blu-ray) – $6.45
Waltz With Bashir (Blu-ray) – $6.50
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.46
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Witch (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Wolf of Wall Street (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Zero Dark Thirty (Blu-ray) – $9.90
What are you picking up this week?