From the Big Screen:
“Bridge of Spies,” “Truth” and “The Last Witch Hunter.” For more information on other releases this week, see the Weekly Guide to Home Video Releases.
This Week’s Highlights:
Two offbeat foreign films head up this week’s top offerings. “The Beauty Inside” (2015 — South Korea), starring Han Hyo-joo, Park Seo-jun, Juri Ueno, Lee Jin-uk, Kim Joo-hyuck and Yu Yeon-seok, is a body-hopping romantic comedy that was the surprise sleeper hit of Cannes. The film depicts Woo-jin, who, every morning, wakes up in a different body. His age, gender, and nationality may change, but the one constant in his life is Yi-soo — the
From TV to DVD:
In “For Better or For Worse” (2015), opposites attract when Wendy, a wedding coordinator, and Marco, a divorce attorney, find their lives suddenly intertwined in this Hallmark Channel romance. Wendy is finally settling into the single life after struggling with the death of her husband; she’s taken over the family business of coordinating the town’s most beautiful and memorable weddings. Wendy’s business and values are challenged, however, when the charming and incredibly irritating Marco opens shop as a divorce attorney
Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:
- “All Hallows’ Eve 2” (2015): Andrea Monier, Damien Monier. Alone on Halloween, a young woman finds a mysterious VHS tape on her doorstep — a tape that shows a series of gruesome and ghastly tales that appear to be all too real (nine in all, each by a different director). A sinister,pumpkin-faced killer is using the videotape as a portal into our reality; and if he makes it through, this twisted trickster seeks only one “treat”: Blood. From RLJ Entertainment.
- “Badge of Honor” (2015): Mena Suvari, Jesse Bradford, Lochlyn Munro, Haylie Duff, Martin Sheen. A determined Internal Affairs detective investigates two narcotics detectives after a teenager is wrongfully shot dead in a violent drug bust. From Alchemy.
- “Big Stone Gap” (2015): Ashley Judd, Patrick Wilson, Whoopi Goldberg, John Benjamin Hickey, Jane Krakowski. It’s 1978 and the ever-ordinary Ave Maria Mulligan (Ashley Judd) leads a simple life. She lives with her mother, runs the pharmacy, directs The Trail of the Lonesome Pine Outdoor Drama, and hopes that her best friend will take their platonic friendship in a romantic direction. Ave Maria waits, and before she knows it, she turns 40. Now the old maid of Big Stone Gap, Ave Maria decides that happiness is for other people – that is, until a long-buried family secret throws her quiet life spectacularly off course. From Universal.
- “Extraordinary Tales” (2013): Five of Edgar Allan Poe’s best-known stories are brought to life in this heart-pounding animated anthology featuring Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Julian Sands, Roger Corman and Guillermo del Toro. Murderous madmen, sinister villains and cloaked ghouls stalk the darkened corridors of Poe’s imagination, as his haunting tales are given a terrifying new twist. Stories include: “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valedemar.” From Cinedigm.
- “Fight to the Finish” (2014): Shane Warren Jones, Tamara Rey, Jennifer Hale. A young amateur fighter makes an enemy with a hardened thug when he gets in-between his next-door neighbor and her abusive ex- boyfriend. As his personal life becomes threatened, he realizes he must finish the fight that he started, but this time he’ll settle it in the ring. From Lionsgate.
- “Freeheld” (2015): Julianne Moore, Ellen Page, Michael Shannon, Steve Carell. After detective Laurel Hester (Moore) is diagnosed with cancer, she learns that government officials won’t award her pension benefits to her domestic partner, Stacie (Page). Refusing to accept the officials’ decision, Laurel and Stacie lead a battle for equal rights in this movie that speaks to the power of love and the pursuit of justice. From Lionsgate.
- “Hellions” (2015): Chloe Rose, Robert Patrick. A teenager must survive a Halloween night from Hell when malevolent trick-or-treaters come knocking at her door. She must defend both body and soul from relentless hellions, dead set on possessing something she will not give them. From IFC Midnight/Scream Factory.
- “Home Invasion” (2016): Natasha Henstridge, Jason Patric, Scott Adkins, Kyra Zagorsky, Liam Dickinson. When a wealthy woman (Henstridge) and her stepson are targeted by a trio of expert thieves in her remote mansion, her only form of help comes from a call with a security systems specialist (Patric). But as the intruders become increasingly hostile and the connection wavers, will she trust him to be her eyes and navigate her to safety? From Sony.
- “Ladrones” (2015): Fernando Colunga, Eduardo Yanez. After a ruthless businesswoman steals land deeds from a community of Mexican families, two former thieves come out of retirement to steal them back. With a ragtag team that includes a spiritualist, a clumsy ranch hand, a struggling actor, and an amateur meteorologist, the modern-day Robin Hoods attempt a caper for the ages in this sequel to the smash hit “Ladron Que Roba a Ladron.” From Lionsgate.
- “Man Up” (2015): Simon Pegg, Lake Bell, Rory Kinnear. The romantic comedy follows Nancy (Bell), a charming, albeit awkward single woman determined to add spontaneity to her drab love life. When she’s mistaken for Jack’s (Simon Pegg) blind date, she decides to take fate into her own hands and just go with it, and she finds that giving love a chance can lead to the most unexpected of romances. From Lionsgate.
- “Martyrs” (2016): Troian Bellisario, Bailey Noble, Kate Burton. Ten-year-old Lucie flees from the isolated warehouse where she has been held prisoner. Deeply traumatized, she is plagued by awful night terrors at the orphanage that takes her in. Her only comfort comes from Anna, a girl her own age. Nearly a decade later and still haunted by demons, Lucie finally tracks down the family that tortured her. As she and Anna move closer to the agonizing truth, they find themselves trapped in a nightmare — if they cannot escape, a martyr’s fate awaits them. Retelling of the French 2008 horror cult film written and directed by Pascal Laugier. Fromn Anchor Bay.
- “Our Brand Is Crisis” (2015): Sandra Bullock, Billy Bob Thornton, Anthony Mackie, Joaquim de Almeida. A Bolivian presidential candidate failing badly in the polls enlists the firepower of an elite American management team, led by the deeply damaged but still brilliant strategist “Calamity” Jane Bodine (Bullock). In self-imposed retirement following a scandal that earned her nickname and rocked her to her core, Jane is coaxed back into the game for the chance to beat her professional nemesis, the loathsome Pat Candy (Thornton), now coaching the opposition. But as Candy zeroes in on every vulnerability — both on and off the campaign trail — Jane is plunged into a personal crisis as intense as the one her team exploits nationally to boost their numbers. From Warner.
- “The Rise of the Krays” (2015): Simon Cotton, Kevin Leslie, Phil Dunster, Danny Midwinter, Dan Parr. Twin brothers Reggie and Ronnie Kray got their start as amateur boxers and soon became London’s most feared and notorious gangsters. Told from the perspective of one of their closest friends, this crime drama is the story of their rise to power and their bloody and violent reign as London’s most infamous gangsters. From Lionsgate.
- “Rock the Kasbah” (2015): Director: Barry Levinson. Stars: Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Leem Lubany, Arian Moayed, Scott Caan, Danny McBride. A has-been rock manager from Van Nuys, California, stumbles upon a once-in-a-lifetime voice in a remote Afghan cave in this dramatic comedy inspired by stranger-than-fiction, real-life event. Richie Lanz (Bill
Murray), dumped and stranded in war-torn Kabul by his last remaining client (Zooey Deschanel), discovers Salima Khan (Leem Lubany), a Pashtun teenager with a beautiful voice and the courageous dream of becoming the first woman to compete on national television in Afghanistan’s version of “American Idol.” Richie partners with a savvy hooker (Kate Hudson), a pair of hard-partying war profiteers (Danny McBride and Scott Caan) and a hair-trigger mercenary (Bruce Willis) and, braving dangerous cultural prejudices, manages his new protege into becoming the next “Afghan Star.” From Universal. - “Suffragette” (2015): Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw. Powerful drama inspired by true events, about the women willing to lose
everything in their fight for equality in early-20th-century Britain. Galvanized by outlaw fugitive Emmeline (Meryl Streep), Maud (Carey Mulligan) joins the U.K.’s growing Suffragette movement alongside women from all walks of life who sacrificed their jobs, homes, children — and even their lives — for the right to vote. From Universal. - “Uncaged” (2016): Ben Getz, Kyle Kirkpatrick, Zachary Weiner, Garrett Hendricks, Paulina Singer, Gene Jones. After nights of sleepwalking and repeatedly waking up in the woods naked with no memory of the night before, a troubled teen straps a camera to himself and discovers a sinister truth: He is the unwitting heir to a monstrous family legacy of savagery, slaughter, and unrelenting horror from which death may be the only escape. From RLJ Entertainment.
- “Zombie Fight Club” (2014 – Taiwan): Jessica C, Andy On, Terence Yin, Michael Wong, Jack Kao, MC HotDog. An outbreak of zombies besets a building riddled with crime in a corner of the city. When one young woman (Jessica C) witnesses her boyfriend falling victim to the zombie horde, she must team up with a police officer (Andy On) in order to stay alive and escape the building. But ratcheting up the terror, an evil organization has begun pitting humans against zombies in a malicious killing game. From Scream Factory.
On the Indie Front:
In “Meadowland” (2015), starring Olivia Wilde, Luke Wilson, Juno Temple, Elisabeth Moss, Giovanni Ribisi and John Leguizamo, the hazy aftermath of an unimaginable loss causes married couple
For the Family:
The release of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937) marks the launch of The Walt Disney Signature Collection, a line spotlighting the studio’s finest animated features, available in Blu-ray/DVD Combos. Extras include “In Walt’s Words: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”; “Iconography” explores how the film influences pop culture, art, and fashion; “@DisneyAnimation: Designing Disney’s First Princess”; “The Fairest Facts of Them All: 7 Facts You May Now Know About Snow White”; “Snow White in Seventy Seconds”: a rap reimagining of the story; alternate sequence: “The Prince Meets Snow White” (never–before-seen story board sequence where the Prince meets Snow White). From Disney … In the animated “Batman: Bad Blood” (2016), when Batman goes missing, it takes the entire Bat “family” — including new additions Batwoman and Batwing — to keep the peace in Gotham City and unravel the mystery behind the Dark Knight’s disappearance. On DVD, Blu-ray Disc (includes an exclusive Nightwing figurine in a numbered limited edition gift set), Blu-ray/DVD
Special Interest:
Melvin van Peebles was a pioneer of rap music, a Tony-nominated playwright, a civil rights activist, an artist and a man whose groundbreaking impact on art, politics and pop culture remains as relevant as ever. Van Peebles was never deterred by opportunity that failed to knock; he’d simply build his own door and get on with it. After Hollywood rejected his early filmmaking efforts, his self-produced Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (which he wrote, produced, financed, directed, scored and starred in) earned more than $10 million at the box office and indelibly changed independent cinema forever. The documentary “How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)” (2015) chronicles the life of van Peebles and offers a wealth of archival footage stretching over the decades and a collection of lively interviews with a wide range of people, including Spike Lee, Gil Scott-Heron, Elvis Mitchell, St. Clair Bourne and Van Peebles’ sons Mario Van Peebles and Max Van Peebles. From Music Box
Films.