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. If we were provided screener copies, we’ll have our own write-up, but if that’s not the case, one can find official descriptions from the distributors. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best 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.
A Hard Day’s Night (Richard Lester)
Just as the majority of contemporary music will inevitably connect back to The Beatles in one way or another, so, too, does many a current film find at least some influence in A Hard Day’s Night, the Fab Four’s cinematic debut and, since its 1964 release, one of Richard Lester‘s greatest achievements. (As it so happens, one of the only titles in his oeuvre that could be said to supersede it would be their next collaboration, Help!) Though perhaps now known more by reputation than actual content, it still stands as many things: a terrific comedy, a rollicking musical piece (if not actually a “musical”), and deceptively simple document of the social order which its central figures quietly undermined through no more than 80 minutes of gallivanting and performing. – Nick N.
Enemy (Denis Villeneuve )
When one reads a synopsis for the late Nobel Prize-winning author José Saramago’s The Double you’ll find a very straightforward tale of doppelgangers. There’s the alpha, the pushover, and the innocent victims caught between; the insanity of seeing an exact replica in the flesh paired with the infinite possibilities such a discovery could mean. One is married; one has a girlfriend. The latter injects himself into the former’s world through curiosity, the first into the second’s purely for unfounded revenge and sexual desire. They exist together without looking deeper into what they are, pushing forward along a path of self-destruction you can see coming a mile away, and yet still find yourself captivated through the actions of those left from the wreckage. Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy (adapted by Javier Gullón) looks to amplify it further. – Jared M. (full review)
Faust (Alexander Sokurov)
Somewhere between a Rabelaisian paean to Earthly pleasures, complete with the drunken waltz of the camera, and a serious investigation to the failure of human desire for knowledge, Alexander Sokurov’s Faust is quite unlike any other cinematic event I’ve encountered this year. The film’s loose adaptation of Goethe’s masterwork sees no difference between its highly aspirations and its low humor—an opening CGI shot that sets up an epic mythology ends with a blurry shot of a flaccid (and dead) penis of a cadaver being examined for the progress of human knowledge. – Peter L. (full review)
Recommended Deals of the Weeks
(Note: new additions are in red)
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Adventureland (Blu-ray) – $5.00
The American (Blu-ray) – $6.01
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $6.94
The Big Lebowski (Blu-ray) – $9.96
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Casino (Blu-ray) – $8.99
City of God (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Django Unchained (Blu-ray) $12.02
Drag Me To Hell (Blu-ray) – $7.50
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Gone Baby Gone (Blu-ray) – $6.00
The Grey (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Hanna (Blu-ray) – $7.99
High Plains Drifter (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Hot Fuzz (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Hugo (Blu-ray) – $9.98
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Jackie Brown (Blu-ray) – $5.00
Jane Eyre (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Knocked Up (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Looper (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Master (Blu-ray) – $9.86
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Moonrise Kingdom (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Nebraska (Blu-ray) – $11.49
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $4.99
Office Space (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Only God Forgives (Blu-ray) – $11.65
Pain & Gain (Blu-ray) – $8,49
Public Enemies (Blu-ray) – $7.50
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $7.00
Raging Bull (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Reality Bites (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Seven (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Shutter Island (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Source Code (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Spring Breakers (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Blu-ray) – $12.99
The Wolf of Wall Street (Blu-ray) – $11.99
What are you picking up this week?