The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE.
What’s new on DVD/Blu-ray/4K in March: ‘Poor Things’, ‘Aquaman’, ‘Ferrari’ and More!
NEW RELEASE WALL
Poor Things (Searchlight Studios): My pick for the best film of 2023, this multiple Oscar-winner (including one for Emma Stone’s already-legendary lead performance) brings Alasdair Gray’s novel to very vivid life as a darkly absurd journey of a woman’s creation of herself. (Or, as some of us referred to it during last year’s LA Film Critics Association voting meeting, “arthouse Barbie.”) Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest offers so much to multiple viewers, whether it’s the extraordinary cast (from Mark Ruffalo, allowed for once to be funny, down to the unpredictable pairing of Hanna Schygulla and Jerrod Carmichael as travel companions) or the breathtaking sights and sounds of the universe that Lanthimos and his team have created.
Also available:
Anyone But You (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment): Much Ado About Nothing gets a clever, R-rated updating, with a boost from the comedic and photogenic appeal of leads Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell.
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (Warner Bros. Discovery): Not even Jason Momoa is enough to stave off the slow death of superhero cinema, but he pours as much charisma as he can into this sequel.
The Color Purple (2023) (Warner Bros. Discovery): Overlooked by audiences and many awards-giving bodies, this ebullient adaptation of the Broadway musical (based on Alice Walker’s classic novel) should and will find a devoted fanbase among home viewers.
Ferrari (Decal/Neon): Michael Mann wisely limits this biopic to one eventful year in the life of the legendary automaker, played by Adam Driver, but it’s Penélope Cruz who steals the show as his long-suffering, not-to-be-trifled-with wife.
Good Burger 2 (Paramount Home Entertainment): Pull up to the window for this goofy sequel, which reunites Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell over a hot griddle.
The Iron Claw (A24/Lionsgate): Grown men shed tears over this sports saga of the “cursed” Von Erich family and their travails as they climbed the ladder of pro wrestling.
I.S.S. (Decal/Bleecker Street): This nifty little thriller strands a sextet of astronauts (including Ariana DeBose and Chris Messina) aboard the International Space Station, pitting the Russians against the Americans as nuclear war unfold on Earth below them.
Jobe’z World (Factory 25): This dark comedy (shot by indie stalwart Sean Price Williams) follows a drug courier around lower Manhattan as he dodges the police and the paparazzi after the death of a celebrity client dies.
Migration (Universal Pictures Home Entertainment): The latest animated hit from Illumination follows a family of birds as they trek south for the winter.
Suzume (Crunchyroll): Anime legend Makoto Shinkai returns with another unforgettable tale, this time following a teenage girl and a mysterious drifter who must seal off doors to other dimensions.
Wish (Disney Animation): Disney celebrated its centennial with this animated musical loaded with Easter eggs celebrating the studio’s many previous triumphs. One hundred years from now, this one probably won’t rank highly on that list.
NEW INTERNATIONAL
The Crime Is Mine (Music Box Films): French auteur François Ozon is famous for hopping from genre to genre over the course of his career, and if you’re a fan of his musical mystery 8 Women, you’ll be glad to know he’s back in the land of the whodunnit. This time, he takes us to the Paris theater scene of the 1930s, where a young actress has just been found innocent of murdering a producer. But is she? The answers will surprise you in this atmospheric tale, featuring a delightful ensemble led by Isabelle Huppert and Nadia Tereszkiewicz.
Also available:
A Balance (Film Movement): A documentary filmmaker begins to suspect her father is implicated in the bullying-related suicide that’s the subject of her movie in this Japanese drama.
Born to Fly (Well Go USA Entertainment): China puts its own spin on Top Gun with this saga of a talented pilot who tests the limits of both his aircraft and himself.
Driving Madeleine (Cohen Media Group): Before entering a nursing home, a 92-year-old woman hires a cabbie to take her on a tour of the events of her life, and it’s a day that changes both of their lives forever.
The Fox (Greenwich Entertainment): A young Austrian soldier and an injured fox cub form an impenetrable bond in the early days of WWII in this moving drama based on true events.
Inshallah a Boy (Greenwich Entertainment): Jordan’s Oscar entry was the festival-fave thriller about a widow pretending to be pregnant with a son to save her daughter and their home from the country’s patriarchal inheritance statutes.
Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Kino Lorber): This dreamlike tale – of a man taking custody of his young nephew and searching for the boy’s father – won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Mambar Pierrette (Icarus Films Home Video): Acclaimed Cameroonian documentarian Rosine Mbakam makes her narrative debut with this acclaimed portrait of a small-town seamstress trying to stay afloat.
Moja & Vesna (IndiePix Films): A ten-year-old Slovenian girl living in Australia tries desperate to mend family ties after the sudden death of her mother in this Berlinale hit.
Polar Rescue (Well Go USA Entertainment): Donnie Yen stars as a desperate father whose son is lost during a bitter snowstorm, with each passing hour making the child’s rescue seemingly more impossible.
Rebel (Yellow Veil Pictures): A Syrian mother in Belgium fights to keep her son from being recruited by ISIS in this gripping drama from directors Adil & Bilal.
Saint Omer (The Criterion Collection): This haunting courtroom drama follows a novelist who gets much more than she bargained for when she begins following a murder trial.
World War III (Deaf Crocodile): A day-laborer’s life is turned upside down when he is cast as Hitler in a film in Iran’s Oscar entry, a film that both satirizes its home country’s film industry and captures the struggle of the working class to be seen, heard, and understood.
NEW DOCUMENTARY
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (The Criterion Collection): Documentarian Laura Poitras (Citizenfour) follows acclaimed artist Nan Goldin in her quest to have museums and universities refuse the philanthropy of the Sackler family, who have plastered their names on institutions from coast to coast in an attempt to whitewash their crimes as the drug cartel that got generations of Americans hooked on opiates. Drawing on her own recovery from addiction, and implementing disruptive techniques she learned from ACT UP and other organizations, Goldin uses her art-world clout for good as she spotlights the sometimes-unholy alliance between arts entities and their corporate underwriters. It’s a blistering and empowering examination of the personal and the political.
Also available:
Another Body (Utopia): This harrowing film uncovers the world of “deepfakes,” where seemingly anyone’s head and body can be turned into hardcore porn that looks like the real thing.
Glory to the Heroes (Cohen Media Group): In the summer of 2023, French documentarian Bernard-Henri Lévy travels to Ukraine to capture both the courage and the heartbreak of a nation fighting back against Russian occupation.
Icons Unearthed: Star Wars (Mill Creek Entertainment): This six-part documentary series follows the George Lucas hit from the first draft of the screenplay all the way to the premiere.
Immediate Family (Magnolia Pictures): The director of The Wrecking Crew returns with another behind-the-scenes glimpse at the artists behind some of rock’s most unforgettable albums, this time focusing on 1970s session players. Interviewees include James Taylor, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Keith Richards, Don Henley, and many more.
Lynch/Oz (Janus Contemporaries): Imagery from and references to The Wizard of Oz wend their way through the entire filmography of David Lynch, as this lyrical video essay demonstrates.
Radioactive: The Women of Three Mile Island (First Run Features): Four homemakers who survived the Three Mile Island accident take their case against the nuclear power plant all the way to the Supreme Court.
Space: The Longest Goodbye (Greenwich Entertainment): This Sundance doc examines the human toll on the astronauts who will one day be sent on a years-long mission to Mars.
NEW GRINDHOUSE
Shivers (Lionsgate): One of David Cronenberg’s early breakthroughs gets the steelbook treatment with a new Blu-ray release. Denizens of a luxury apartment complex in the Montreal suburbs are infested with parasites that turn them into sex-crazed lunatics, and it’s up to a doctor to contain the unsettling outbreak before it spreads out to the world at large. In only his third theatrical feature, Cronenberg’s obsessions – and his skill at weaving a creepily taut thriller – are already fully in evidence.
Also available:
Anaconda (Mill Creek Entertainment): It’s your favorite saga of J.Lo versus a giant snake, now in a steelbook edition.
The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance): These three samurai classics — Killer’s Mission, The Fort of Death, Eight Men to Kill – are quintessentially ’60s, drawing from 007 and spaghetti Westerns in equal portions.
Carrie / Child’s Play (Scream Factory): Now in 4K, it’s the remakes of the classics, namely Kimberly Peirce’s 2013 take on Stephen King’s telekinetic heroine and the 2019 reboot of Chucky.
Dark Water (Arrow Video): Hideo Nakata’s supernatural thriller makes its 4K debut.
The Expendables 4-Film Collection (Lionsgate): Sylvester Stallone and the rest of the over-the-hill gang take off for new adventures in this tongue-in-cheek action franchise.
Hollow Man (Mill Creek Entertainment): Paul Verhoeven’s disturbing take on The Invisible Man, now in a collectible steelbook.
Huesera: The Bone Woman (XYZ Films): A pregnant woman seeks the protection of a coven of witches after a curse is placed upon her unborn child.
I Know What You Did Last Summer (Mill Creek Entertainment): A new steelbook release of this stylish teen thriller from screenwriter Kevin Williamson (Scream).
Kickboxer (Lionsgate): Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as a kickboxer who kickboxes.
The Last Slumber Party (AGFA): Restored from the original 16mm camera negative, this low-budget, New Orleans–shot 1988 slasher lives again.
One-Percent Warrior (Well Go USA Entertainment): Tak Sakaguchi stars as an aging action star who finds himself drawn in to the real thing when rival yakuza factions invade the set of his directorial debut.
The Ring Collection (Scream Factory): This box set features 4K versions of the American version of The Ring and its sequels.
Saw: 10-Film Collection – 20th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate): There’s a whole lotta Jigsaw in this elaborate box set, including 2023’s critically acclaimed Saw X.
Street Fighter (Mill Creek Entertainment): It’s the beloved, albeit fairly ridiculous, video-game adaptation – co-starring Kylie Minogue! – now in a steelbook.
NEW CLASSIC
Over the Edge (Shout Factory): Mishandled by its original distributor, this legendary youth-gone-amok drama took on the feel of an urban legend in the 1980s, when teens talked about it without necessarily having the chance to see it. Now, anyone can dig into Jonathan Kaplan’s searing look at teens driven by boredom to delinquency, as their parents craft a perfect suburbia that gives their kids nowhere to go and nothing to do. Matt Dillon made an unforgettable debut here, and the soundtrack is packed with era-specific hits. It’s a compassionate, but still brutal, examination of restless adolsecents.
Also available:
The Abyss / Aliens / True Lies (all 20th Century Studios): Three of James Cameron’s most ambitious and envelope-pushing films, now all available in 4K.
All That Money Can Buy (aka The Devil and Daniel Webster) (The Criterion Collection): A new digital restoration of William Dieterle’s adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét’s Faustian short story, this Criterion release spotlights the differences between the film’s various theatrical versions while also paying tribute to the film’s legendary Bernard Herrmann score.
Amélie (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment): The puckishly witty and romantic French import gets a new Blu-ray release, featuring a new interview with director Jean-Pierre Jeunet.
Animation Night in Canada, Vol. 1 (Canada International Pictures): Between 1965 and 1985, one of the world’s great sources of animated shorts was the National Film Board of Canada; this new collection offers 14 Oscar-nominated short subjects from that august organization, including “The Family That Dwelt Apart,” “The Big Snit,” and Norman McLaren’s “Pas de deux.”
Archangel (Zeitgeist Films): Guy Maddin’s grandly madcap valentine to silent cinema gets a new 4K restoration (and a new commentary by Maddin).
Brain Donors (KL Studio Classics): This modern-day take on the Marx Brothers – with an unhinged John Turturro in the Groucho role – falls into the “people who like this sort of thing will like this sort of thing” category. And those people will be thrilled that it’s being released on Blu-ray for the first time.
Changing Lanes (KL Studio Classics): Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson face off in a road-rage drama that’s sort of a spiritual predecessor to Beef.
Death Rides a Horse (KL Studio Classics): Lee Van Cleef and John Philip Law – who, between them, possess some of the most hypnotic eyes ever captured on film – clash violently in this spaghetti-Western classic; this new Blu-ray features an audio commentary from Alex Cox.
Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XVII / XVIII (both KL Studio Classics): Two new collections of the most stylishly smoky of subgenres; XVII offers a trio of films starring Edward G. Robinson (Vice Squad, Black Tuesday, The Nightmare), while XVIII spotlights City of Shadows, Crashout, and Finger Man.
A Fistful of Dynamite (KL Studio Classics): Sergio Leone’s final Western (also known as Duck, You Sucker) stars James Coburn and Rod Steiger and tackles many of the director’s favorite themes about this pivotal moment in history. This Blu-ray edition features multiple commentaries and featurettes, among other extras.
The Lincoln Conspiracy (KL Studio Classics): This Sunn Classics docudrama suggests that Oswald – sorry, John Wilkes Booth – didn’t act alone.
The Lion in Winter (KL Studio Classics): From old pros Katharine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole to young up-and-comers Anthony Hopkins and Timothy Dalton, this rousing historical drama offers lots of meaty dialogue and courtly treachery. (Plus, it’s a Christmas movie!)
The Little Girl Who Sold the Sun + Le Franc: Two Films by Djibril Diop Mambéty (Metrograph Pictures): The legendary director of Touki Bouki intended these films to be part of a trilogy, but he died tragically at the age of 53 before being able to complete the third. They nonetheless received acclaim as part of his indelible filmography.
Little Monsters (Lionsgate): This 1989 comedy starring Fred Savage as a kid who befriends the monster under his bed plays kind of like a gross-out-farce take on Labyrinth.
The Long Riders (KL Studio Classics): Walter Hill recruited a passel of famous acting brothers – the Quaids, the Carradines, the Keaches, the Guests – to play real-life siblings in this legendary Western about the James-Younger gang.
The Manchurian Candidate (KL Studio Classics): Not that one – it’s Jonathan Demme’s 2004 remake, making its 4K debut.
North Dallas Forty (KL Studio Classics): This blistering adaptation of Dan Wakefield’s novel takes an uncompromising look at the ruthless brand of capitalism underpinning pro sports, with Nick Nolte giving one of his finest performances as a football star facing down the end of his career.
Paint Your Wagon (KL Studio Classics): One of the overstuffed musicals that helped kill the genre for decades, this one’s notable for letting Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood do their own signing (while, for some reason, overdubbing Jean Seberg).
The President’s Analyst (KL Studio Classics): James Coburn stars as the titular shrink in this hilarious 1960s satire of politics, self-help, and who’s really running the country.
Rent-a-Cop (KL Studio Classics): More than a decade after Lucky Lady, Liza Minnelli and Burt Reynolds teamed up again for this action-comedy.
The Runner (The Criterion Collection): Writer-director Amir Naderi examines his own childhood in this lyrical 1984 drama about an orphan fending for himself on the streets and hoping for a better tomorrow.
The Shootist (Arrow Video): John Wayne capped off his screen career with this poignant Western about a legendary lawman facing down one last shootout.
Target (KL Studio Classics): Matt Dillon stars as a young man who finds dad Gene Hackman to be distant and annoying – until Dillon’s mom is kidnapped and he learns the truth about his father in this Arthur Penn thriller.
To Die For (The Criterion Collection): Nicole Kidman broke through to a whole new level with her performance as a charming sociopath who will do absolutely anything to fulfill her ambitions in Gus Van Sant’s dark comedy.
The Whip and the Body (KL Studio Classics): Mario Bava crafted this decadent romance between Christopher Lee and Daliah Lavi, with Lee’s perverse aristocrat returning from the dead to haunt his ancestral castle.
The Wind of Ayahuasca (Kino Classics): Nora de Izcue’s hallucinogenic drama captures the experience of an ayahuasca healing ceremony in a way no film before (and few films since) was able to manage.
NEW TV
The Soldier’s Tale (Kino Classics): Illustrator R.O. Blechman teamed with PBS’ Great Performances to create this animated adaptation of the Stravinsky work, and the results won an Emmy and remain essential viewing. In this fable, a soldier makes a deal with the devil but remains confident that he can come out ahead in the bargain, a metaphor for Stravinsky’s take on the dawn of the Soviet Union.
Also available:
Community/Happy Endings TV Two-Pack (Mill Creek Entertainment): Two sitcoms that absolutely reward multiple viewings, now available in one handy box set.
Great Pretender: Complete Series Deluxe Edition (Scream Factory): This beloved anime series makes its North American Blu-ray debut in a box set that includes a 192-page art book, collectible cards and more.
Monk: The Complete Fifth Season (KL Studio Classics): Tony Shalhoub returns as the beloved detective whose OCD is a feature, not a bug.
Paris Police 1905 (MHz Choice): This follow-up to Paris Police 1900 features more crime procedural set against the Belle Époque.