This week on home video, we’ve got a couple of Oscar nominees, an acclaimed TV series, and Pixar’s mos recent offering, as well as some smaller films and a handful of classics newly release on Blu-ray. Read on for details:
FX’s award-winning series turned back the clock 30 years to focus on state trooper Lou Solverson (Patrick Wilson) and his investigation into a bloody turf war that erupted from a murder that went terribly awry. The season two set includes a look at the setting, a longer cut of the fictional Ronald Reagan films utilized in the season, interviews, and more.
Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, and Rachel McAdams star in this Certified Fresh Best Picture nominee about the investigative reporting team at the Boston Globe who uncovered widespread misconduct by the Catholic church in 2001. It comes with a short profile of the actual Globe reporters, a glimpse of the story, and a look at the state of journalism.
This Certified Fresh drama stars Gregg Turkington as an aging comedian who performs in a series of hostile clubs across the nation and meets some interesting folks along the way. The only special features listed are some deleted and extended scenes.
Oscar-nominated for Best Song, this documentary explores the state of the planet’s rapidly disappearing wildlife and the very human causes behind this mass extinction. The one bonus feature included is an almost hourlong look at endangered species and the groups making efforts to save them.
Pixar’s second release of 2015 is this Certified Fresh animated tale of an Apatosaurus on an Earth where dinosaurs never went extinct who gets lost far from home and finds his way back with the help of a feral human. Available in regular and 3D, it comes with lots of behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, and the Oscar-nominated short Sanjay’s Super Team.
Julia Roberts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Nicole Kidman star in this remake of the Oscar-winning Argentine film about a trio of investigators who are haunted and morally compromised by the murder of one of their daughters. Bonus features include a look at the book adaptation process, an interview with Roberts, and a commentary track.
Ron Perlman and Rupert Grint star in this conspiracy comedy about a CIA agent and a rock band manager who team up to help stage the fake moon landing. Information on extras is currently unavailable.
This week, we get two new releases of Fritz Lang films from Kino Classics, the first of which is this twisty espionage thriller co-written by Lang’s wife, Thea von Harbou. Included with this new hi-def transfer is a thoughtful documentary of the production of the film and the theatrical trailer.
The second Fritz Lang film from Kino is another collaboration between Lang and von Harbou, an uncommonly serious exploration of sci-fi that was also the director’s final film of the silent era. Special features include a new piano score and a 14-minute look at the film as one of the first serious treatments of the genre.
The Warner Archive Collection also gives us two new releases, namely a pair of collaborations between Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. The first is this iconic noir, in which literary gumshoe Philip Marlowe (Bogart) is hired to look into a mysterious man blackmailing a general’s daughter. Available on Blu-ray for the first time, the film comes with the original trailer, an alternate 1945 pre-release cut of the film, and a comparison between the two versions.
Also available for the first time on Blu-ray, this Bogie-Bacall mystery helmed by John Huston centers on a war veteran who takes on a ruthless local mobster (Edward G. Robinson) while visiting the widow of a fellow soldier in Florida. The only special feature listed is the original theatrical trailer.
And lastly, the first of two Criterion Collection releases this week is Mike Nichols’ Oscar-winning drama starring Dustin Hoffman as an unmotivated college grad and Anne Bancroft as the older married woman with whom he begins an affair. The new Blu-ray comes with a wealth of extras, including new interviews with Hoffman, screenwriter Buck Henry, and film historians, a doc on the film’s influence, screen tests, and more.
The second Criterion release this week is this drama from Antonio Pietrangeli that follows a young woman named Adriana (Stefania Sandrelli) in 1960s Italy over the course of several episodic interludes as she connects with different men. Bonus features include a new interview with Sandrelli, archival footage of her audition, and more.
