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.
Cemetery of Splendor (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
If it is by now redundant to say that Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who understands pronunciation troubles and insists people call him “Joe”) is truly in a class of his own, we might blame both the general excellence of his output — a large oeuvre consisting of features, shorts, and installations — and the difficulty that’s often associated with describing them in either literal or opinion-based terms. The further one gets into his work, however, the more his marriage of dense visual style with Thailand’s historical, spiritual, and mystical bedrocks will cohere. These images —often set in nature (with billowing winds and shaking trees adding to the atmosphere); almost always composed in long shot that emphasizes a self-conscious artificiality; and frequently running a few minutes each, sometimes several, to create a laid-back rhythm— are, for viewers Thai and non-Thai alike, a gateway to less-definitive thematic undercurrents. To put this in different terms for neophytes: observing his art is not at all unlike the intellectual stimulation of, say, confidently working through passages of a dense 19th-century novel. On a piece-by-piece basis, Cemetery of Splendour is a bit more straightforward than Joe’s other work. – Nick N. (full review)
Clouds of Sils Maria (Olivier Assayas)
Full of mystery and unforgettable imagery, the wondrous Clouds of Sils Maria finds three individuals – director Olivier Assayas and stars Juliette Binoche & Kristen Stewart – at the peak of their powers. As the cocky, wise-beyond-her-years assistant to a veteran actress, Stewart is more compelling, enigmatic and utterly relatable than ever before. Meanwhile, Binoche is typically enchanting as star Maria Enders. With its attention to character development and simmering emotional complexity, Clouds of Sils Maria is Assayas’s best film to date. At the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, where Clouds made its North American debut, Assayas called the drama “a reflection on the past,” one written as an homage to Binoche. As Maria states near film’s end, “I think I’m lost in my memories.” Rarely has a film about memory and its role in the creative process seemed so breathtakingly human. And rarely has one film featured performances as strong as those of Binoche and Stewart. – Christopher S.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Stanley Kubrick)
Stanley Kubrick’s painfully funny take on Cold War anxiety is one of the fiercest satires of human folly ever to come out of Hollywood. The matchless shape-shifter Peter Sellers plays three wildly different roles: Royal Air Force Captain Lionel Mandrake, timidly trying to stop a nuclear attack on the USSR ordered by an unbalanced general (Sterling Hayden); the ineffectual and perpetually dumbfounded U.S. President Merkin Muffley, who must deliver the very bad news to the Soviet premier; and the titular Strangelove himself, a wheelchair-bound presidential adviser with a Nazi past. Finding improbable hilarity in nearly every unimaginable scenario, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a subversive masterpiece that officially announced Kubrick as an unparalleled stylist and pitch-black ironist. – Criterion.com
Also Arriving This Week
Aferim! (review)
Eye in the Sky (review)
Rabin, the Last Day (review)
Francofonia (review)
Rams (review)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (review)
Recommended Deals of the Week
Top Deal: A selection of Clint Eastwood and Steven Spielberg Blu-rays are under $10 this week.
All the President’s Men (Blu-ray) – $7.80
The American (Blu-ray) – $6.16
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $5.91
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $8.77
Casino (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Conformist (Blu-ray) – $14.49
Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Crimson Peak (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Dear White People (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Deer Hunter (Blu-ray) – $10.48
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.32
Greenberg (Blu-ray) – $5.22
The Guest (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Heat (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $10.59
The Informant! (Blu-ray) – $8.06
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Interstellar (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Iron Giant (Blu-ray pre-order) – $9.99
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (Blu-ray) – $9.79
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Macbeth (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Mad Max: Fury Road (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Magic Mike XXL (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $9.19
The Man Who Wasn’t There (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.85
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.99
The Master (Blu-ray) – $12.58
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $8.06
Nebraska (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $7.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Obvious Child (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Pan’s Labyrinth (Blu-ray) – $7.99
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $9.97
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $5.75
The Piano (Blu-ray) – $7.34
Prisoners (Blu-ray) – $10.49
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Raging Bull: 30th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray) – $10.00
Re-Animator (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Rio Bravo (Blu-ray) – $8.62
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) – $6.43
Short Term 12 (Blu-ray) – $9.89
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $6.79
A Separation (Blu-ray) – $6.80
A Serious Man (Blu-ray) – $6.71
Seven Psychopaths (Blu-ray) – $6.99
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $6.00
Somewhere (Blu-ray) – $5.20
Steve Jobs (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Synecdoche, NY (Blu-ray) – $8.90
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $9.19
The Third Man (Blu-ray) – $9.89
They Came Together (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $6.37
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Blu-ray) – $6.14
Volver (Blu-ray) – $5.95
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Witch (Blu-ray) – $14.96
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $7.40
What are you picking up this week?