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.
A Married Woman (Jean-Luc Godard)
A Married Woman is an often overlooked masterwork from Godard’s most productive period. The plot appears to be simple: Charlotte (Macha Méril) is a young married woman having an affair with an actor. When she discovers that she is pregnant, she must decide which man is the father and which man she will stay with. In Godard’s hands, however, the film, described as a film about a woman’s beauty and the ugliness of her world, is also a biting critique of consumer culture and the media constructed obsession with image. Subtitle Fragments of a film shot in 1964, in black and white, Godard creates a modernist collage that is beautifully shot by Godard’s longtime cinematographer Raoul Coutard. The Cohen Media Group is proud to present for the first time in the US this stunning new restoration from the original negative. – Official Synopsis
Manhunter (Michael Mann)
No Michael Mann film fits into its genre. There are crime pictures (Heat, Miami Vice), thrillers (The Insider, Collateral), a biopic (Ali), a horror film (The Keep), and historical epics (The Last of the Mohicans, Public Enemies) — all molds we can imagine, but none Mann seems interested in conforming to. Manhunter, a crime-thriller with direct horror overtones — the lattermost thanks to Thomas Harris‘s Red Dragon, upon which it’s based — eschews conventions, bringing forth the psychology of its characters through both sound and image. (For reference, look at this video essay from 2009.) What starts as an unsettling portrait eventually blossoms into an inescapable nightmare, but it’s the kind you’ll want to revisit again and again. Thanks to Netflix, that’s now possible. – Nick N.
The Player (Robert Altman)
Hollywood executive Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins) spends his days hearing screenwriter’s pitches, ideas for movies that mostly will never get made. (Buck Henry: “It’s The Graduate… Part 2!” Griffin replies: “Oh, good.”) Life should be a breeze, but with younger talent nipping at his heels, Griffin’s job is far from secure. It isn’t long before he’s receiving threatening anonymous notes from a scorned writer, which he investigates, leading to a violent confrontation in a cinema parking lot. Soon, Griffin learns it’s even harder to keep your job if you’re a murder suspect. Robbins plays Griffin with the perfect smearing of smarmy charm, a character who would be utterly loathsome were it not for his own sheer resourcefulness. We hate him, but watch with dizzying glee as Griffin wriggles himself out of harm’s way again and again. The murdered writer never liked happy endings; I wonder what he would make of The Player‘s closing shot. Despite the upbeat, Griffin Mill-esque tone of the scene, it’s a chillingly bleak conclusion. – Tony H.
Also Arriving This Week
Buster Keaton: The Shorts Collection 1917-1923
The Finest Hours (review)
Recommended Deals of the Week
All the President’s Men (Blu-ray) – $7.89
The American (Blu-ray) – $7.82
Amelie (Blu-ray) – $8.99
The Assassin (Blu-ray) – $11.99
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Blu-ray) – $8.46
Beginners (Blu-ray) – $6.45
Blue Ruin (Blu-ray – $9.49
Bone Tomahawk (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Brothers Bloom (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Cabin in the Woods (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Casino (Blu-ray) – $9.49
The Conformist (Blu-ray) – $14.49
Cloud Atlas (Blu-ray) – $6.79
Dear White People (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Deer Hunter (Blu-ray) – $10.43
Eastern Promises (Blu-ray) – $8.31
Ex Machina (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Guest (Blu-ray) – $9.99
A History of Violence (Blu-ray) – $9.69
Heat (Blu-ray) – $9.41
Holy Motors (Blu-ray) – $10.59
The Informant! (Blu-ray) – $8.07
Inglorious Basterds (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Inherent Vice (Blu-ray) – $12.99
The Iron Giant (Blu-ray pre-order) – $9.99
It Follows (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Jaws (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Blu-ray) – $9.69
The Lady From Shanghai (Blu-ray) – $8.99
Looper (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Lost In Translation (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Macbeth (Blu-ray) – $11.99
Magnolia (Blu-ray) – $9.19
Margaret (Blu-ray) – $9.49
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Blu-ray) – $6.48
The Master (Blu-ray) – $11.55
Michael Clayton (Blu-ray) – $7.88
Nebraska (Blu-ray) – $9.36
Never Let Me Go (Blu-ray) – $7.99
No Country For Old Men (Blu-ray) – $5.99
Obvious Child (Blu-ray) – $9.99
ParaNorman (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Pariah (Blu-ray) – $7.24
Persepolis (Blu-ray) – $5.79
Pulp Fiction (Blu-ray) – $8.50
Raging Bull: 30th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray) – $10.19
Re-Animator (Blu-ray) – $9.99
Road to Perdition (Blu-ray) – $8.79
The Searchers / Wild Bunch / How the West Was Won (Blu-ray) – $9.45
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) – $7.05
A Single Man (Blu-ray) – $6.00
Snowpiercer (Blu-ray) – $7.96
The Social Network (Blu-ray) – $9.96
Synecdoche, NY (Blu-ray) – $6.89
There Will Be Blood (Blu-ray) – $6.99
They Came Together (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Tree of Life (Blu-ray) – $7.07
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Blu-ray) – $5.72
Volver (Blu-ray) – $5.95
Where the Wild Things Are (Blu-ray) – $7.99
Whiplash (Blu-ray) – $9.99
The Wrestler (Blu-ray) – $7.08
What are you picking up this week?