Dune: Part Two

(2024) The next chapter of Frank Herbert’s celebrated novel “Dune.” Explores the mythic journey of Paul Atreides as he unites with Chani and the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. Facing a choice between the love of his life and the fate of the known universe, he endeavors to prevent a terrible future only he can foresee. Vitals: Director: Denis Villeneuve. Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem. CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 166 min., Sci Fi Action Adventure, North American box office gross: $265.0 million, worldwide $665.4 million, Warner. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: “Chakobsa Training,” “Creating the Fremen World,” “Finding the Worlds of Dune,” “Buzz Around the New Thopter,” “Worm-Riding,” “Becoming Feyd,” “A New Set of Threads,” “Deeper into the Desert: The Sounds of the Dune.” Read more here.

Imaginary

(2023) When Jessica moves back into her childhood home with her family, her youngest stepdaughter, Alice, finds a stuffed bear named Chauncey. As Alice’s behavior becomes more and more concerning, Jessica intervenes only to realize that Chauncey is much more than the stuffed toy bear she believed him to be. Vitals: Director: Jeff Wadlow. Stars: DeWanda Wise, Tom Payne, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun, Betty Buckley, Matthew Sato, Veronica Falcón. CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 104 min., Horror, North American box office gross: $27.444 million, worldwide $38.002 million, Lionsgate. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: Audio commentary by producer-cowriter-director Jeff Wadlow and executive producer-actress DeWanda Wise; “Meet Your New Imaginary Friends”; “Frills and Thrills” costume design; “Crafting the Beasts of Imaginary” effects; “Bringing Nightmares to Life” featurette. Read more here.

The American Society of Magical Negroes

(2024) A young man gets recruited into a secret society of magical Black people who dedicate their lives to making white people’s lives easier. Although initially enamored with his new powers, he begins to question the value of using supernatural means to do the very thing he’s felt obligated to do his whole life. Vitals: Director: Kobi Libii. Stars: Justice Smith, David Alan Grier, An-Li Bogan, Drew Tarver, Michaela Watkins, Aisha Hinds, Tim Baltz, Rupert Friend, Nicole Byer. CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 104 min., Comedy, North American box office gross: 2.480 million, worldwide $2.480 million, Universal. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: “Secret Society Members”; “Crafting a Magical Society”; “Speaking Your Truth”; feature commentary with director-writer-producer Kobi Libii. Read more here.

One Life

(2024) The true story of Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton, a young London broker who, in the months leading up to World War II, rescued 669 predominantly Jewish children from the Nazis. Nicky visited Prague in December 1938 and found families who had fled the rise of the Nazis in Germany and Austria, living in desperate conditions with little or no shelter and food, and under threat of Nazi invasion. He immediately realized it was a race against time. How many children could he and the team rescue before the borders closed? Fifty years later, it’s 1988 and Nicky lives haunted by the fate of the children he wasn’t able to bring to safety in England; always blaming himself for not doing more. It’s not until a live BBC television show, “That’s Life,” surprises him by introducing him to some surviving children – now adults – that he finally begins to come to terms with the guilt and grief he had carried for five decades. Vitals: Director: James Hawes. Stars: Anthony Hopkins, Lena Olin, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Flynn, Romola Garai, Jonathan Pryce. CC, MPAA rating: PG , 109 min., Bio Drama, North American box office gross: $1.713 million, worldwide $49.259 million, Decal Bleecker. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital.

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This Week’s Best Bets

Having brought British cinema into exalted realms of fantasy and imagination, Michael Powell took a dark detour into obsession, voyeurism, and violence with “Peeping Tom” (1960), a groundbreaking metacinematic investigation into the mechanics of fear. Armed with his killer camera, photographer and filmmaker Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) unleashes the traumas of his childhood by murdering women and recording their deaths — until he falls for his downstairs neighbor, and finds himself struggling against his dark compulsions. Received with revulsion upon its release only to be reclaimed as a masterpiece, the endlessly analyzed, still-shocking “Peeping Tom” dares viewers to confront their own relationship to the violence on-screen. On 4K UHD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features. Read more here. From The Criterion Collection.

Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:

In “The Gate” (1996), starring Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp and Christa Denton, when best friends Glen and Terry stumble across a mysterious crystalline rock in Glen’s backyard, they quickly dig up the newly sodden lawn searching for more precious stones. Instead, they unearth The Gate — an underground chamber of terrifying demonic evil. The teenagers soon understand what evil they’ve released as they are overcome with an assortment of horrific experiences. With fiendish followers invading suburbia, it’s now up to the kids to discover the secret that can lock The Gate forever. In Blu-ray Steelbook from Lionsgate … In “Destroy All Neighbors” (2024), starring Jonah Ray Rodrigues, Alex Winter and Kiran Deol, William Brown (Rodrigues), a neurotic, self-absorbed musician determined to finish his prog-rock magnum opus, faces a creative roadblock in the form of a noisy and grotesque neighbor named Vlad (Winter). Finally working up the nerve to demand that Vlad keep it down, William inadvertently decapitates him. But, while attempting to cover up one murder, William’s accidental reign of terror causes victims to pile up and become undead corpses who torment and create more bloody detours on his road to prog-rock Valhalla. From RLJ/Image Entertainment … In “The Lair of the White Worm” (1988), directed by Ken Russel and starring Hugh Grant, Amanda Donohoe and Catherine Oxenberg, James D’Ampton (Grant) returns to his country castle in England. Legend has it that James’s distant ancestor once slayed the local dragon — a monstrous white worm with a fondness for the sweet flesh of virgins. The young lord dismisses the legend as folklore, until archaeology student Angus Flint explores James’s property and unearths a massive reptilian skull and a pagan snake god’s ancient site of worship. When James’s virtuous girlfriend, Eve Trent (Oxenberg), suddenly disappears, James and Angus set out to investigate the foreboding cavern said to be the worm’s lair, where a centuries-old mystery begins to uncoil. In Blu-ray Steelbook from Lionsgate.

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Foreign Films:

The Horror comedy “The Coffee Table” (2022 — Spain), starring David Pareja, Estefanía de los Santos, Josep Riera, Claudia Riera and Eduardo Antuña, follows Jesus and Maria, a couple going through a difficult time in their relationship. Nevertheless, they have just become parents. To shape their new life, they decide to buy a new coffee table. A decision that will change their existence. From Cinephobia Releasing. Read more here … In the third and final chapter of director Kim Han-Min’s epic nautical trilogy, “Noryang: Deadly Sea” (2023 — South Korea), legendary Korean admiral Yi Sun-Sin (Kim Yun-seok) faces his final fight in the high-stakes naval battle that changed the very course of human history: the last major battle of the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–1598). On DVD, Blu-ray, from Well Go USA.

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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.