(2024) Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance. Vitals: Director: Kelly Marcel. Stars: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiorfor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach.
CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 110 min., Sci-Fi Action, Theatrical release date: October 25, 2024, North American box office gross: $138.2 million, worldwide $468.5 million, Sony.Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code Steelbook, VOD, Digital. Extras: "Venomous Laughs: Outtakes & Bloopers"; "Author of Mayhem: From Writer to Director"; "Venom’s Inner Circle." Blu-ray & 4K UHD adds deleted & extended scenes; "Bonded in Chaos: Tom Hardy"; "Venom Unleashed: The Action & Stunts"; select scene previs; "One Last Dance – Tom Morello x Grandson Music Video"; "Savor the Last Bite: The Venom Legacy"; "Brock Bottom: Mrs. Chen Interview." Read more here.
Smile 2
(2024) About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her past. Vitals: Director: Parker Finn. Stars: Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson. CC, MPAA rating: R, 127 min., Horror Thriller, Theatrical release date: October 18, 2024, North American box office gross: $68.940 million, worldwide $139.042 million, Paramount.Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Steelbook, VOD, Digital.
The Heretic
(2024) Two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant). Made to choose between belief and disbelief, they find themselves plunged into the darkest labyrinths of Reed's mind and a deadly game of cat-and-mouse in this twisted horror film.
Vitals: Director: Scott Beck and Bryan Wood. Stars: Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East.
CC, MPAA rating: R, 111 min., Horror, Theatrical release date: November 8, 2024, North American box office gross: $26.820 million, worldwide $37.858 million, A24.Formats: Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. Extras: Commentary with writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods; making-of featurette; six collectible postcards featuring on set photography by Kimberly French.
Read more here.
The Substance
(2024) A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. Demi Moore gives a career-best performance as Elisabeth Sparkle, a former A-lister past her prime and suddenly fired from her fitness TV show by repellent studio head Harvey (Dennis Quaid). She is then drawn to the opportunity presented by a mysterious new drug: THE SUBSTANCE. All it takes is one injection and she is reborn – temporarily – as the gorgeous, twentysomething Sue (Margaret Qualley). Vitals: Director: Coralie Fargeat. Stars: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.
CC, MPAA rating: R, 141 min., Horror Thriller, Theatrical release date: September 20, 2024, North American box office gross: $16.410 million, worldwide $56.468 million, Mubi.Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital.
Here
(2024) From the reunited director, writer, and stars of "Forrest Gump" (1994), this is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the human experience in its purest form. Directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Eric Roth and Zemeckis and told much in the style of the graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright star in this tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happens, right Here. Vitals: Director: Robert Zemeckis. Stars: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly.
CC, MPAA rating: PG-13, 104 min., Drama, Theatrical release date: November 1, 2024, North American box office gross: $12.222 million, worldwide $13.266 million, Sony.Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: "How We Got Here (The Making of HERE)"; deleted scenes.
Read more here.
The Damned:A 19th-century widow has to make an impossible choice when, during an especially cruel winter, a foreign ship sinks off the coast of her Icelandic fishing village. (Digital sales, VOD only)
Oh Canada:Famed Canadian-American leftist documentary filmmaker Leonard Fife (Richard Gere) was one of sixty thousand draft evaders and deserters who fled to Canada to avoid serving in Vietnam. Now in his late seventies, Fife is dying of cancer in Montreal and has agreed to a final interview in which he is determined to bare all his secrets at last, to demythologize his mythologized life. (Digital sales, VOD; DVD, Blu-ray release: February 4)
On Wheels: Lucas, a 13-year-old boy, is wheelchair bound after suffering an accident. Laís, a 12-year-old girl, helps her mother selling breakfast at a truck stop, in the small town where they live. The girl would love to meet her father, a truck driver who left when she was a child and never returned. Laís and Lucas become friends in school, and when she finds out where her father lives, the two set off on a trip. (Digital sales, VOD only)
Sonic the Hedgehog 3:Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails reunite against a powerful new adversary, Shadow, a mysterious villain with powers unlike anything they have faced before. With their abilities outmatched in every way, Team Sonic must seek out an unlikely alliance in hopes of stopping Shadow and protecting the planet. (Digital sales, VOD only)
January 24
Left at Wall:Inspired by the Robin Hood/Gamestop event that occurred in January of 2021, the film tells the story of a short sell attempt leading to the ultimate sibling feud. John Saber is a struggling Hollywood writer in constant competition with his Wall Street investor brother, Don. (Digital sales, VOD; DVD release: Day & date)
(2000) Sublime, grotesque and visually ravishing, Tarsem Singh's debut feature delivers on the extraordinary artistry of his work in music video and commercials as it takes the audience on a journey through the bizarre worlds inside the mind of a killer. When serial murderer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) falls into a coma with his latest victim still trapped in an unknown location and waiting to die, the FBI turn to psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) for help. Using an experimental technology she enters the dark dreamscape of Stargher's mind, attempting to learn his secrets before it's too late. But his unconscious is a twisted nightmare, a labyrinth that threatens to trap her inside his terrifying world forever. To save a life, she'll have to risk her own. With a script by Mark Protosevich ("I Am Legend"), and a supporting cast that includes Vince Vaughn and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, "The Cell" is a gripping, edge-of-the-seat thriller, filled with jaw-dropping imagery that will entrance and unsettle in equal measure. Formats: Blu-ray, 4K UHD. Extras: (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment). Read more here.
Dark Sanctuary: The Story of the Church
(2023) The story of the longest running Goth club in the US and the community of artists and misfits who called the Dallas club, "The Church, Their Sanctuary." A feature-length documentary about the historic Goth club that exposes the incredible, shocking history of one of the longest running such clubs in the U.S. as well as the world-renowned artists who performed there. Through interviews with music artists, local bands, and patrons, the film tells the story of the community that formed over nearly three decades of the legendary club's existence. The motto of The Church became "Enter Without Prejudice," meaning no matter who you are, how you look, how you dress, your sexuality, your gender identity, the color of your skin, your body type, all are welcome and embraced at The Church. Formats: Blu-ray, DVD, VOD, Digital. (Cleopatra Entertainment/MVD Entertainment).
The Grifters
(1990) A dark-hearted neonoir comes to a boil under the bright Los Angeles sun, in British director Stephen Frears’s rousing adaptation of the novel by dime-store bard Jim Thompson, a film that raises pulp to the realm of existential tragedy. A possessive mother (Anjelica Huston), her cynical son (John Cusack), and his scheming, seductive girlfriend (Annette Bening) are career swindlers circling one another in an elaborate emotional confidence game that grows increasingly perverse as love and trust turn to betrayal and Oedipal undercurrents rise to the surface. In Frears’s first Hollywood film, the ever-assured director and his trifecta of magnetic actors conjure a moody, unstuck-in-time vision of toxic Americana.
Formats: 4K UHD + Blu-ray, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, approved by director of photography Oliver Stapleton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio 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. Extras:Read more here. (The Criterion Collection).
Here
(2024) Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly. A generational story about families and the special place they inhabit, sharing in love, loss, laughter, and life. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: "How We Got Here (The Making of HERE)"; deleted scenes. (Sony). Read more here.
The Heretic
(2024) Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, Chloe East. Two young religious women are drawn into a game of cat-and-mouse in the house of a strange man. Formats: Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. Extras: Commentary with writer-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods; making-of featurette; six collectible postcards featuring on set photography by Kimberly French.
(A-24). Read more here.
A Legend
(2024 -- China) Martial arts comedy-fantasy-adventure with legendary martial arts icon Jackie Chan. While investigating the history of a newly discovered ancient artifact, a renowned archaeologist (Chan) unwittingly establishes a mystical connection with a heroic Han dynasty general, blurring the lines between past and present right as the general prepares to wage war against the brutal Hun army. Includes an English dub.
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, Digital. (Well Go USA).
The Return
(2024 -- UK/Italy/Greece/France) Director: Uberto Pasolini. Stars Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria. After 20 years Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca, where he finds his wife held prisoner by suitors vying to be king and his son facing death at their hands. To win back his family and all he has lost, Odysseus must rediscover his strength.
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. (Decal/Bleecker Street). Read more here
Rumours
(2024) Directors: Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, Guy Maddin. Stars: Cate Blanchett, Rolando Ravello, Charles Dance. A genre-hopping political-satire-turn-horror-comedy that follows leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies at the annual G7 summit as they attempt to draft a provisional statement regarding a global crisis.
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. (Decal - Bleeker Street).
Shelf Life
(1993) O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner. The lost film from legendary director Pasul Bartel. In a strange bit of appropriateness, the movie about three children stuck in a bomb shelter for thirty years was lost for three decades. The film never received a theatrical release after playing a few festivals. This status changed when a 35mm print was discovered, and at long last, viewers can the experience the final feature film from director Bartel. On November 22, 1963, Mr. and Mrs. St. Cloud hear about the tragic assassination of the President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Consumed with paranoia and believing that WWIII is now inevitable, they take their small children Tina, Pam and Scotty and hide with them in their fallout shelter, never to leave it again. By 1993, the parents had died but their three adult-children still live in the nuclear bomb shelter alone without any human contact. They've developed their own rules and rituals based on their fading memories of the life above, their old records that still work and whatever they catch on TV, when some station's signal reaches them now and then, for a few moments. Most of their day is spent in play sessions, in which they act out various common activities like going to school, eating out or staging musical numbers. They love to dance, sing and on occasion wrestle. Sometimes they even play their parents and reenact the parents' speeches to them. At one point, Tina and Scotty even pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend but in a quite innocent manner. They play many other bizarre games that only make sense to them and tell each other stories that are amalgams of things they heard about like the Bible, Superman or the Pledge of Allegiance. Scotty even has a make-believe superhero alter ego - Supercar. The movie uses vignettes to tell the story but there's also a thin central plot that revolves around the fact that Mom and Dad gave the only key to the vault with food to Pam. "Shelf Life" was originally a play, directed by Maryedith Burrell ("Fridays"), that ran at the Lex Theatre in Hollywood. Paul Bartel saw the play and arranged to shoot it as a movie with the original cast (who jointly wrote the script). Bartel used the camera to go beyond capturing the play and dug deeper into the bonds between the subterranean siblings. The movie is quite rare and was never released on VHS or DVD, although some bootleg VHS copies do exist. Bartel directed "Secret Cinema," "Private Parts," "Death Race 2000," "Eating Raoul," "Lust In the Dust" and "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills." He also acted in numerous films including "Rock ‘n’ Roll High School," "National Lampoon’s European Vacation," "Escape From L.A.," "Gremlins 2: The New Batch," "The Usual Suspects," and "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird." Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner, Philip Holahan, and Alex Mechanik; American Cinematheque Q&A with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner, and Alex Mechanik, moderated by Grant Moninger; Q&A with Tina, Pam, and Scotty (2023); trailer; teasers. (Liberation Hall/MVD Entertainment).
Smile 2
(2024) Naomi Scott, Rosemarie DeWitt, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Peter Jacobson, Ray Nicholson. About to embark on a world tour, global pop sensation Skye Riley begins experiencing increasingly terrifying and inexplicable events. Overwhelmed by the escalating horrors and the pressures of fame, Skye is forced to face her past. DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo Steelbook, VOD, Digital. (Paramount).
The Substance
(2024) Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid.
A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug: a cell-replicating substance that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, VOD, Digital. Extras: (Mubi).
Venom: The Last Dance
(2024) Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiorfor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Stephen Graham, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach. Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie's last dance.
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code, 4K Ultra HD/Blu-ray Combo + Digital Code Steelbook, VOD, Digital. Extras: "Venomous Laughs: Outtakes & Bloopers"; "Author of Mayhem: From Writer to Director"; "Venom’s Inner Circle." Blu-ray & 4K UHD adds deleted & extended scenes; "Bonded in Chaos: Tom Hardy"; "Venom Unleashed: The Action & Stunts"; select scene previs; "One Last Dance – Tom Morello x Grandson Music Video"; "Savor the Last Bite: The Venom Legacy"; "Brock Bottom: Mrs. Chen Interview." (Sony). Read more here.
DVD
Read more here.
small children Tina, Pam and Scotty and hide with them in their fallout shelter, never to leave it again. By 1993, the parents had died but their three adult-children still live in the nuclear bomb shelter alone without any human contact. They've developed their own rules and rituals based on their fading memories of the life above, their old records that still work and whatever they catch on TV, when some station's signal reaches them now and then, for a few moments. Most of their day is spent in play sessions, in which they act out various common activities like going to school, eating out or staging musical numbers. They love to dance, sing and on occasion wrestle. Sometimes they even play their parents and reenact the parents' speeches to them. At one point, Tina and Scotty even pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend but in a quite innocent manner. They play many other bizarre games that only make sense to them and tell each other stories that are amalgams of things they heard about like the Bible, Superman or the Pledge of Allegiance. Scotty even has a make-believe superhero alter ego - Supercar. The movie uses vignettes to tell the story but there's also a thin central plot that revolves around the fact that Mom and Dad gave the only key to the vault with food to Pam. "Shelf Life" was originally a play, directed by Maryedith Burrell ("Fridays"), that ran at the Lex Theatre in Hollywood. Paul Bartel saw the play and arranged to shoot it as a movie with the original cast (who jointly wrote the script). Bartel used the camera to go beyond capturing the play and dug deeper into the bonds between the subterranean siblings. The movie is quite rare and was never released on VHS or DVD, although some bootleg VHS copies do exist. Bartel directed "Secret Cinema," "Private Parts," "Death Race 2000," "Eating Raoul," "Lust In the Dust" and "Scenes From the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills." He also acted in numerous films including "Rock ‘n’ Roll High School," "National Lampoon’s European Vacation," "Escape From L.A.," "Gremlins 2: The New Batch," "The Usual Suspects," and "Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird." Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner, Philip Holahan, and Alex Mechanik; American Cinematheque Q&A with O-Lan Jones, Andrea Stein, Jim Turner, and Alex Mechanik, moderated by Grant Moninger; Q&A with Tina, Pam, and Scotty (2023); trailer; teasers. (Liberation Hall/MVD Entertainment). 
