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.
The New World (Terrence Malick)
Terrence Malick is a filmmaker who has always valued photogenic artistry over narrative thrust, content to let his stories and characters wash over the audience like a crashing wave. There are few directors who indulge in such visual splendor, his creative aphorism seemingly being beauty for the sake of beauty. For Lubezki’s first collaboration with the director, The New World, it was also an opportunity for him to shoot (at least partially) on 65mm. The film is a lucid historical drama depicting the relationship between Captain John Smith and Pocahontas at the forming of the Jamestown Colony. What results is graceful and hypnotic-like images found in a rusted and long-forgotten time capsule. Working as a team, Malick and Lubezki formed a series of rules for their photography, which they referred to as “the dogma.” Among the rules — which, according to American Cinematographer, include employing natural light and avoiding lens flares and primary colors in the frame — the most important for Lubezki is to never underexpose their images. “We want the blacks. We don’t like milky images.” – Tony H.
Sing Street (John Carney)
Returning to Sundance after breaking out with his Oscar-winning, shoe-string romance musical Once, director John Carney is back on a victory tour of sorts with Sing Street. Imbuing the same love for music its emotional highs, this is a film more earnest in its pleasure-giving than his last feature, Begin Again. While the structure can be a touch too formulaic, it’s difficult to resist getting swept up in the music and its modest ambitions, for his new musical is acutely attuned to being a crowd-pleaser in all the right ways. – Jordan R. (full review)
Pioneers of African-American Cinema
“This collection of the works of America’s legendary first African-American filmmakers is the only one of its kind. Funded in part by a highly successful Kickstarter campaign, the packaged set includes no fewer than a dozen feature-length films and nearly twice as many shorts and rare fragments. Subject matter includes race issues that went unaddressed by Hollywood for decades,” Kino Lorber notes. Featuring films from Richard Norman, Richard Maurice, Spencer Williams, and Oscar Micheaux, it contains over 15 hours of newly restored selections.
Also Arriving This Week
Barbershop: The Next Cut (review)
Criminal
Hardcore Henry (review)
The Invitation (podcast discussion)
Recommended Deals of the Week
Top Deal: The Criterion Collection is currently 50% off at Barnes & Noble this month.
All the President’s Men (Blu-ray) – $7.90
The American (Blu-ray) – $5.65
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $6.49
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $6.53
Bone Tomahawk (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $8.68
Casino (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Conformist (Blu-ray) – $13.99
Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Dear White People (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Deer Hunter (Blu-ray) – $10.47
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.14
Far From the Madding Crowd (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Greenberg (Blu-ray) – $5.10
The Guest (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Heat (Blu-ray) – $8.29
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $10.59
The Informant! (Blu-ray) – $8.01
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Interstellar (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Iron Giant (Blu-ray pre-order) – $9.99
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Blu-ray) – $9.89
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Macbeth (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Mad Max: Fury Road (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $8.79
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.85
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $5.26
The Master (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $8.82
Moneyball (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Nebraska (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $7.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $6.99
Pan’s Labyrinth (Blu-ray) – $7.99
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $6.49
The Piano (Blu-ray) – $7.34
A Prophet (Blu-ray) – $7.72
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Raging Bull: 30th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray) – $10.97
Re-Animator (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Rio Bravo (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Road to Perdition (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Searchers / Wild Bunch / How the West Was Won (Blu-ray) – $10.06
Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Blu-ray) – $6.32
Short Term 12 (Blu-ray) – $9.89
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $6.79
A Separation (Blu-ray) – $6.80
A Serious Man (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Seven Psychopaths (Blu-ray) – $7.99
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $5.93
Somewhere (Blu-ray) – $5.20
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $9.19
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $7.02
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Volver (Blu-ray) – $5.95
Waltz With Bashir (Blu-ray) – $6.69
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The White Ribbon (Blu-ray) – $8.60
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $7.26
What are you picking up this week?