Every week we dive into the cream of the crop when it comes to home releases, including Blu-ray and DVD, as well recommended deals of the week. Check out our rundown below and return every Tuesday for the best films one can take home. Note that every purchase you make through the links below helps support the site and is greatly appreciated.
Boy (Taika Waititi)
Mostly thanks to Flight of the Conchords popularity at the time, Taika Waititi‘s Eagle Vs. Shark (starring Jemaine Clement) stirred some buzz stateside, but his latest feature Boy didn’t quite have the same effect. Premiering at Sundance three years, the coming-of-age drama went on to become the highest grossing New Zealand film, outclassing The World’s Fastest Indian. We got the film theatrically in the US early last year and now the sweet coming of age story is finally arriving on Blu-ray today. It’s a charming, genuine look at growing up with little means and a fascination for Michael Jackson.
The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
The Life of Oharu, Kenji Mizoguchi’s 1952 epic is perhaps the director’s most vivid use of the body as an expression of the emotions of melodrama, as it’s a particularly punishing and tragic melodrama which maneuvers through 17th-century Japanese society. The main character, played by Kinuyo Tanaka, is first seen as an old beggar wandering the streets. Through a flashback, we learn about her poor life: the man she loved was executed due to class differences, her secret work as a mistress bearing a son, a courtesan for a secretly bald wife, and even more tragic events, best left for viewers to discover. Like many of Mizoguchi’s films, there is little reprieve for the woman — yet there is also a sense of not coming to terms with injustice, but moving around it. – Peter L.
See Also: The Life of Oharu Hits Criterion: In Praise of the Body
Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine)
It’s only natural that Spring Breakers is hitting Blu-ray now, with Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring — another A24 release about contemporary American values filtered through the viewpoints of greedy teenage girls — currently playing nationwide. (Read our full-length comparison of the two films here.) Where Coppola opts for a clinical remove, though, Korine prefers jacked-up pizzazz, and the result is his most formally polished film to date. Gone are the seedy, micro-budget flavors of Gummo and Trash Humpers: Spring Breakers is all about compulsively digestible surfaces and fluid sequences that are so cool and savvy you can’t help but get drowned in their flow. While the film may be more problematic from an ideological standpoint — for me, it’s a less cogent satire than The Bling Ring, if only because I can rarely tell how Korine feels about his own subjects — its aesthetic thrills are more than enough. – Danny K.
See Also: [TIFF Review] Spring Breakers, The Film Stage Show Ep. 48 – Spring Breakers and Directors Going Mainstream, Live Fast, Die Young, Bad Girls Do it Well: The Bling Ring and Spring Breakers
Rent: Admission, Dead Man Down and The Gatekeepers
Recommended Deals of the Weeks
The American (Blu-ray) – $4.99
Annie Hall (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Another Year (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Baraka (Blu-ray) – $12.99
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Best of Warners Bros 50-Film Collection (Blu-ray) – $184.99
Blade Runner (30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition Blu-ray) – $14.99
Black Swan (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Blue Velvet (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Casino Royale (Blu-ray) – $10.03
Cool Hand Luke (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Collateral (Blu-ray) – $9.97
Die Hard (Blu-ray) – $10.89
The Departed (Blu-ray) – $9.15
The Descendants (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Drive (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Fight Club (Blu-ray) – $10.00
The French Connection (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Goodfellas (Blu-ray) – $8.95
Haywire (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Heat (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Illusionist (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Inception (Blu-ray) – $9.04
Magic Mike (Blu-ray) – $11.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Memento (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Miller’s Crossing (Blu-ray) – $8.77
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Network (Blu-ray) – $10.19
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Raid: Redemption (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Seven (Blu-ray) – $8.59
Somewhere (Blu-ray) – $8.49
Smashed (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Sound of My Voice (Blu-ray) – $9.99
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $7.99
The Thing (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Trainspotting (Blu-ray) – $7.79
The Truman Show (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Untouchables (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Young Frankenstein (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Zodiac (Blu-ray) – $7.99
What are you picking up this week?