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.
Creed (Ryan Coogler)
Perhaps after one well-remembered surprise hit and five sequels of quality varying from passable to laughable disaster, no one expected much from Ryan Coogler’s new spin on the Rocky franchise. But Coogler freed himself of the burden of trying to follow its footsteps while doing exactly that. Creed is Hollywood filmmaking at its absolute zenith: a film that sets up archetypes and, without subverting them, turns them into breathing characters who don’t have character goals, but desires. Coogler sets up familiar scenarios and then gives a little bit of a twist: an unexpected camera angle emphasizes a minor point, a held beat allows us to feel the intimacy between people, and the long takes never show themselves off — only the drama on screen. Coogler obviously loves Stallone’s original, but he’s never exploitative; the iconic references become integral to its new characters, unlike in the latest installment of another awakening franchise. Readers, I’ll admit: I mocked people for discussing how much they cried during Creed before I saw it. But what I didn’t understand is how well Coogler builds our interest in the characters, so that creating an emotional response to discovering whether Michael B. Jordan’s emphatically determined newcomer can prove his worth is absolutely necessary to his work. Which is to say that Coogler does exactly what Hollywood films have been trying to do since their birth, and reminds us of their power. – Peter L.
Room (Lenny Abrahamson)
Free from the manipulation that a Hollywood picture might offer, Room is a masterfully crafted and wrenching portrait of Ma (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Tremblay), both giving affecting performances as a mother and son imprisoned in a small room. Carefully constructed by director Lenny Abrahamson, the room is the entire world for Ma and Jack until they are (spoilers!) liberated in a stunning escape. What follows is just as brilliant. Adapted by Emma Donohue from her novel, Room is a triumph and a tearjerker, confidently directed and masterfully acted. – John F.
Taxi (Jafar Panahi)
Paradoxically but not surprisingly, the filmmaking ban on Jafar Panahi has garnered him more attention as a director than he experienced during his first stint as a director — that is, the legal one. Nevertheless, the restriction of his art has led to superficially thematic similarities in his three films since the ban, all of which have to do with that ban itself. Still, to characterize the stark, probing This Is Not A Film alongside the urgent, depressing Closed Curtain and the lively, humorous Taxi is unfair. The legal situation of their maker aside, the films have little in common; reflexivity and transparency in production have long been mainstays of Iranian film. As such, Taxi should not be seen as a novelty or experiment. (And, unlike its predecessor, it really isn’t; it is overlooked more because of distribution models than anything else.) What we have is an illuminating meditation on cinema – what it is and can be, how it is nurtured and fostered, how it is distributed and recognized and treated, what powers and capabilities it can manifest – that uses its transparency and Panahi’s restrictions to further its case. Far from being blunt or didactic, as could so easily be the case, it continues to explore and complicate a constantly growing slate of issues. – Forrest C.
Youth (Paolo Sorrentino)
At first glance, Paolo Sorrentino’s Youth looks like another of the Great Beauty director’s idyll frolics in the fields of Fellini, demonstrating a sharp eye for visual beauty and aesthetic control while lacking a thematic substance. Although it does tend to veer wildly from one emotion to the next, spastically leap-frogging across stray, melancholic thoughts and trotting out a parade of game actors and actresses ready to play, the great strength of Youth is that it’s seemingly introspective meditation on aging, loss, and legacy is both sincerely heartfelt and imaginatively playful. Sorrentino’s playground (a health spa in the Alps) proves to be a perfect foil for the work of Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel, who each give one of the best performances of their career. Even as the film threatens to swoon and fall off the precipice of its own dreamy imaginings, it pulls back and delivers moments of grand loveliness and emotional heartbreak that draw the whole piece together. – Nathan B.
Also Arriving This Week
The Danish Girl (review)
Legend (review)
Miss You Already (review)
The Night Before (review)
Recommended Deals of the Week
A Clockwork Orange (Blu-ray) – $7.99
A Serious Man (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The American (Blu-ray) – $7.01
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $7.82
The Assassin (Blu-ray) – $14.99
Attack the Block (Blu-ray) – $9.59
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $8.69
Brokeback Mountain (Blu-ray) – $10.22
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $10.30
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.64
Captain Phillips (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Casino (Blu-ray) – $8.96
Dear White People (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Good Will Hunting (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Gravity (Blu-ray) – $8.00
A History of Violence (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Heat (Blu-ray) – $8.12
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $13.79
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Interstellar (Blu-ray) – $8.00
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.88
John Wick (Blu-ray) – $8.00
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.77
Looper (Blu-ray) – $8.80
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Magic Mike (Blu-ray) – $7.73
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $9.53
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.48
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Munich (Blu-ray) – $12.49
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $8.00
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Obvious Child (Blu-ray) – $9.99
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $6.48
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $6.23
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Re-Animator (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Road to Perdition (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Selma (Blu-ray) – $8.97
Seven (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Blu-ray) – $6.11
Short Term 12 (Blu-ray) – $9.89
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $5.99
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $4.94
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) – $5.50
Volver (Blu-ray) – $5.95
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $6.95
What are you picking up this week?