The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

(2023) 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute, and decades before Coriolanus Snow became the tyrannical President of Panem, this prequel follows a young Coriolanus as he unites with Lucy Gray Baird in the 10th Hunger Games, and battles his instincts for both good and evil. Vitals: Director: Francis Lawrence. Stars: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Josh Andrés Rivera, Jason Schwartzman, Viola Davis. CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 157 min., Action Thriller, North American box office gross: $160.542 million, worldwide $322.542 million, Lionsgate. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: Commentary with producer-director Francis Lawrence and producer Nina Jacobson; “Welcome Back to Panem”; “The Music of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”; “The Costumes of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”; “The Casting of The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”; “The Hanging Tree” song by Rachel Zegler; “A Letter to the Fans.” Blu-ray adds “Predator or Prey: Making The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” 8-part documentary. Read more here.

The Marvels

(2023) Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel has reclaimed her identity from the tyrannical Kree. When her duties send her to an anomalous wormhole, her powers are entangled with super-fan Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel, and Carol’s estranged niece, astronaut Captain Monica Rambeau. Together, this unlikely trio must team up and work together to save the universe. Vitals: Director: Nia DaCosta. Stars: Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, Iman Vellani, Zawe Ashton, Gary Lewis, Seo-Jun Park, Samuel L. Jackson. CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 105 min., SciFi Action, North American box office gross: 84.500 million, worldwide $205.873 million, Marvel/Disney. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: “Entangled” behind-the-scenes featurette; “The Production Diaries”; deleted scenes; gag reel; commentary by co-writer/director Nia DaCosta and VFX Supervisor Tara DeMarco.
Read more here.

Priscilla

(2023) When teenage Priscilla Beaulieu meets Elvis Presley at a party, the man who is already a meteoric rock-and-roll superstar becomes someone entirely unexpected in private moments: a thrilling crush, an ally in loneliness, a vulnerable best friend. Through Priscilla’s eyes, Sofia Coppola tells the unseen side of a great American myth in Elvis and Priscilla’s long courtship and turbulent marriage, from a German army base to his dream-world estate at Graceland, in this deeply felt and ravishingly detailed portrait of love, fantasy, and fame. Based on the book “Elvis and Me,” by Priscilla Presley. Vitals: Director: Sofia Coppola. Stars: Cailee Spaeny, Jacob Elordi, Dagmara Dominczyk Ari Cohen, Tim Post. CC, MPAA rating: R, 113 min., BioDrama, North American box office gross: $20.864 million, worldwide $21.321 million, Lionsgate. Formats: Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: “Brushed with Beauty: Creating Priscilla’s Story”; “The Making of Priscilla: A Film by Liv McNeil”; theatrical trailer.
Read more here.

Hypnotic

(2023) A detective finds himself spiraling down a rabbit hole while investigating a series of reality-bending crimes mysteriously connected to his missing daughter. Aided by a gifted psychic, he is pursued by a lethal specter who he believes holds the key to finding his daughter – only to discover more than he ever bargained for.Vitals: Director: Robert Rodriguez. Stars: Ben Affleck, Alice Braga, JD Pardo, Dayo Okeniyi, Jeff Fahey, Jackie Earle Haley.
CC, MPAA rating: R, 93 min., Action Thriller, North American box office gross: $4.5 million, worldwide $16.0 million, Roadshow Entertainment. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital.

This Week’s Best Bets

In “Twilight” (1990 — Hungary), starring Péter Haumann, János Derzsi and Judit Pogány, after discovering the murdered body of a young girl deep in a mountainous forest, a hardened homicide detective pushes himself to increasingly obsessive ends in his quest to catch the serial killer — known only as “The Giant” — responsible for the crime. A much admired but long unavailable masterpiece by influential Hungarian auteur and regular Béla Tarr collaborator György Fehér, “Twilight (Szu¨rku¨let)” is at once an existential murder mystery and an expansive meditation on time and space. Stunningly lensed in rich blacks and cascading grays by DP Miklós Gurbánthe, the film is presented in its first-ever U.S. release in a brand new 4K restoration by the National Film Institute – Hungarian Film Archive and FilmLab, supervised by Gurbán. On Blu-ray from Arbelos Films … The seasons may change, but the follies of the heart are constant in “Eric Rohmer’s Tales of Four Seasons,” an ineffably lovely quartet of films by one of cinema’s most perceptive chroniclers of the pangs and perils of romance. Set throughout France, “Tales of the Four Seasons” is a cycle to stand alongside the director’s two earlier acclaimed film series, “Six Moral Tales” and “Comedies and Proverbs.” By turns comic and melancholic, breezy and richly philosophical, these bittersweet tales of love, longing, and the inevitable misunderstandings that shape human relationships probe the most complex of emotions with the utmost grace. “A Tale of Springtime” (1990, “A Tale of Winter” (1992), “A Tale of Summer” (1996), “A Tale of Autumn” {1998). On 4K UHD + Blu-ray special edition; one 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features. Read more here. From The Criterion Collection.

Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:

“Strange Way of Life” (2023) is a short film by director Pedro Almodóvar. After twenty-five years, Silva (Pedro Pascal) rides a horse across the desert to visit his friend Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke). A lifetime after their shared stint as hired gunmen, they celebrate their reunion. However, the next morning, it is revealed the trip is not to revel in the memory of their friendship. On DVD from Sony. Read more here … From bestselling author Alistair MacLean (“The Guns of Navarone,” “Where Eagles Dare”) comes “Fear Is the Key” (1972), a pulse pounding, rip-roaring rampage of revenge starring Barry Newman, the king of existential cool who had previously put the pedal to the metal in “Vanishing Point.” Mysterious drifter John Talbot (Newman) arrives in a small Louisiana town, picks a fight with local police and gets arrested. In court it is revealed he’s wanted for a number of violent crimes, but nothing is quite what it seems. Staging a daring escape, Talbot abducts seemingly random spectator Sarah Ruthven (Suzy Kendall) and hits the road at high speed for a journey filled with unexpected twists and turns: a crashed airplane, a sleazy private investigator, criminal enforcers, and an oil millionaire. It’s a journey toward truth and vengeance and Talbot won’t hit the brakes until he gets there. Director Michael Tuchner (“Villain”) delivers a crackerjack crime-thriller packed with great performances (including Ben Kingsley in his first movie role), an unforgettable score by Roy Budd (“Get Carter”), and stunt sequences coordinated by the legendary Carey Loftin (“Bullit,” “The French Connection”). “Fear Is the Key” is a white-knuckle winner that demands to be seen. In a Blu-ray debut from Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment. Read more here … In “A Creature Was Stirring” (2023), starring Chrissy Metz, Annalise Basso, Scout Taylor-Compton and Connor Paolo, Faith (Metz) keeps her troubled teenage daughter (Basso) on a tightly controlled regimen of experimental drugs, their only means of fending off a mysterious, terrifying affliction. But after two burglars attempt to rob the home on Christmas, they stumble upon a long-kept family secret — with monstrous consequences. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Well Go USA.

Foreign Films:

In 1977, fight choreographer Sammo Hung made one last film under his mentor, director Huang Feng (“Lady Whirlwind,” “Hapkido”) before graduating to the director’s chair himself with “The Iron-Fisted Monk.” That film was the rarely-seen martial arts ensemble thriller “The Shaolin Plot” (1977 — Hong Kong), which sees the pair reunite with Hong Kong heavy Chan Sing. Prince Daglen (Sing) is hellbent on completing his comprehensive collection of Chinese martial arts manuals and mastering each form against his opponents. With only two manuals left to obtain, he sends his most dangerous henchman, a renegade monk (Hung) armed with two golden cymbals acting as flying guillotines, to steal the manual of Wu-Tang. To steal the sacred texts of Shaolin, however, the wicked Daglen will have to infiltrate the temple himself. The stage is set for a clash between Daglen, his cronies and surviving Wu-Tang student Little Tiger (James Tien), alongside a lethal duo of Shaolin warrior monks (Casanova Wong and Kwan Yung Moon). Based on a story by legendary storyteller Ni Kuang (“The 36th Chamber of Shaolin”), “The Shaolin Plot” is a classic tale of martial arts intrigue and deception, combining the incoming new wave of action with the old, resulting in one of the most overlooked and underrated kung fu classics from one of the most prolific Hong Kong film studios of all time. 2K restoration from the original film elements by Fortune Star. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment. Read more here … In “Under The Fig Trees” (2021 — Tunisia), on a hot summer day, a crew of workers – men and women, young and old – arrive at dawn at a picturesque fig orchard in northwest Tunisia. We eavesdrop, through the sun-dappled leaves of the fig trees, on the young women stealing away precious moments from the foreman’s watchful gaze. Meanwhile, the older women, tasked with the careful job of packing the tender fruit, watch and reminisce together as well. They joke, argue, debate, gossip, flirt, all the while painting an unhurried but riveting portrait of everyday life in the rural society, where class, gender, and circumstance often don’t allow for such personal freedoms. Set over the course of a single day, and with a cast made up of an intergenerational ensemble of non-professional actors, the film is an elegant, understated tapestry of complex interactions [and] a pleasurable and immersive experience that ultimately reveals the ways in which sisterhood itself becomes an act of resistance. From Film Movement.

For the Family:

“The Canterville Ghost” (2023), with the voices of Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Freddie Highmore, Emily Carey, David Harewood, Meera Syal, Miranda Hart, Toby Jones and Imelda Staunton, is a modern reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s popular literary classic. A modern American family moves to their recently purchased country home, Canterville Chase in England, only to find it is haunted by a ghost. Effectively, Sir Simon de Canterville (Fry) has been haunting the grounds of Canterville Chase successfully for over 300 years, but he meets his match, Virginia Otis (Carey) when he tries to scare out the new arrivals. From Shout! Kids/Shout! Studios. Read more here.

Special Interest:

Featuring revealing interviews with all the main players and unseen archive released for the first time, the documentary “The Stones & Brian Jones” (2023) explores the creative musical genius of Jones, key to the success of the band, and uncovers how the founder of what became the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band in the world was left behind in the shadows of history. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Magnolia Home Entertainment.

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All DVDs and Blu-rays are screened on a reference system consisting of an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player w/SACD & DVD-Audio, a Rotel RSX-972 Surround Sound Receiver, and Phase Technology 1.1 (front), 33.1 (center), and 50 (rear) speakers, and Power 10 subwoofer.