New to View: July 10
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise noted:
Mosaic (Blu-ray + digital)
Details: 2018, HBO Home Entertainment
Rated: TV-MA
The lowdown: A two-disc set that contains the six-part HBO limited series starring Sharon Stone, Garrett Hedlund, Beau Bridges and Paul Reubens.
The story follows Olivia Lake (Stone), a popular children’s book author and illustrator who success makes her a celebrity in the small mountain town in which she resides.
Lake disappears on New Year’s Eve. Her blood-soaked studio creates suspicions that targets the two new men in her life, Joel Hurley (Hedlund), an aspiring graphic artist, and Eric Neill (Frederick Weller), a charming stranger.
A four-year investigation follows efforts by local law enforcement and Neill’s sister.
The series shines a spotlight on the psychological impact of love and murder in a small town.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 DTS digital surround and Latin Spanish 2.0 DTS digital surround.
Don’t miss: A featurette, “Heart of Homicide: Big Murder in a Small Town” is the major bonus offering.
Beirut (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Release date: July 3
Details: 2018, Universal Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: R, violence, language, brief nudity
The lowdown: Jon Hamm stars in this thriller as Mason Skiles, a former U.S. diplomat sent to Beirut to negotiate a trade for the release of a terrorist leader believed to be held by Israeli secret police.
In exchange, a CIA agent who has been kidnapped, will be released.
Skiles, who has bad memories of previous times in Beirut, faces tough decisions about whom he can trust and what is the truth.
The movie, which received a 77 percent fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com, also stars Rosamund Pike and Dean Norris.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Dolby digital 2.0 DVS; English SDH and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English 5.1 Dolby digital and 2.0 Dolby digital DVS; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: A featurette on the story behind the movie and a behind-the-scenes featurette with Pike.
The French Way (Blu-ray)
Details: 1945, Kit Parker Films-MVD Visual Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: The legendary Josephine Baker stars in this French romantic farce set in World War II France.
The story centers on two young lovers who are forbidden to marry by their respective families.
Baker plays Zasu, a nightclub owner, who tries to smooth relations between the families, so the couple can wed.
The movie was filmed in 1940 but was not released until 1945. It was released in 1952 in the United States with some scenes cut or trimmed.
During the war, Baker aided the French Resistance while continuing to entertain.
The film is the 74-minute American cut, which differs from the original French release. The transfer has some audio and video flaws, but seeing Baker is the major draw.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; French LPCM monaural; English subtitles.
Women Who Kill
Details: 2017, FilmRise
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This satire about commitment centers on Morgan, played the movie’s writer-director, Ingrid Jungermann, and her ex-girlfriend, Jean (Ann Carr), who are locally famous true-crime podcasters who are obsessed with female serial killers.
The movie hints that Morgan and Jean still may harbor feelings for each other, but that stalls when Morgan meets Simone during her food co-op shift.
The infatuated Morgan quickly begins a relationship with Simone, ignoring warning from well-meaning friends that she should take it slow because Simone is a virtual stranger.
Morgan and Jean have a falling out when Jean provides proof that Simone may not be who she says she is. Morgan accuses Jean of trying to ruin her new relationship.
Soon, Morgan and Simone move into commitment territory, where Morgan begins to notice little red flags, and she begins to believe that, perhaps, Jean was right in her assumptions.
Morgan and Jean begin investigating Simone as if she was one of a podcast subject and discover some disturbing facts.
In the end, Morgan must make a choice that will impact her future.
The movie adds a morbid touch to a familiar romantic comedy situation.
Technical aspects: Widescreen picture; English Dolby digital surround; English SDH subtitles.
Future World (Blu-ray)
Details: 2018, Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Rated: R, violence, nudity, sexual content, drug use, language
The lowdown: James Franco stars in this feature set in a post-apocalyptic world where water and gasoline have long since disappeared.
A young prince from the oasis, which is one of the last known safe havens, must leave this safety to find medicine for his ailing queen, played by Lucy Liu.
Along the way, the prince comes into contact with a warlord (Franco) and his robot, which leads him on a journey through desolate wastelands.
The film received a limited theatrical release. At Rottentomatoes, seven reviews were posted — all negative.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH, English and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a behind-the-scenes featurette that includes an interview with Franco.
Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete First Season (Blu-ray)
Release date: June 19
Details: 1974-75, BBC Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A six-disc set featuring all 20 episodes that mark Tom Baker’s first season as the iconic Doctor Who.
Baker was the fourth doctor in the series that remains as popular today as when the character was first introduced.
Baker’s adventures include “Robot,” “The Ark in Space,” “The Santaran Experiment,” “Genesis of the Daleks” and “Revenge of the Cybermen.”
All have been restored and upgraded for this Blu-ray release.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 4:3 full-screen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: The set features hours of bonus materials including a new conversation with Baker, classic clips viewed by Baker, costars and the creative team, new making of documentaries for two of the stories, optional updated technical effects, the TV-movie version of “Genesis of the Daleks,” a look at the 1991 VHS release of “The Tom Baker Years, PDF production material and archival making of documentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, optional CGI effects, commentaries and rare footage.
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-in: The Complete Fifth Season
Details: 1971-72, Time Life
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This six-disc set features all 24 fifth-season episodes of this comedy skit series that definitely is a product of its time.
Anti-war, anti-Nixon and anti-establishment jokes dominate of course, as the series paints a cultural portrait of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The usual cast of characters, led by ringmasters Dan Rowan and Dick Martin, preside over the proceedings.
The ensemble cast includes Lily Tomlin, Richard Dawson, Ruth Buzzi, Johnny Brown, Gary Owens, Alan Sues and others.
Guest appearances include Johnny Carson, Steve Allen, Hugh Hefner, Johnny Cash, Henry Gibson, Gene Hackman, Vin Scully, Bill Russell, Carl Reiner, Rita Hayworth, Tiny Tim, Raquel Welch, Tony Curtis, Bing Crosby, Liza Minnelli, Vincent Price, Paul Lynde, Bob Hope, Joe Namath, Carroll O’Connor and John Wayne.
Technical aspects: 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English Dolby digital stereo; English closed-captioned subtitles.
24×36
Details: 2016, FilmRise
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A documentary that asks the question, “What happened to the illustrated movie poster? Where did it disappear and why?”
The film examines the history of movie posters from the earliest days of cinema, through an era when studio artists created posters to more recent times when posters have lost their imaginative touches and are simply comprised of heads of stars.
The movie also looks at a new breed of artists who use their talents to create posters that are homages to films that influenced them as children or fans of certain features.
This is a film that film buffs, especially poster collectors, can embrace.
Technical aspects: Widescreen picture; English Dolby digital.
Don’t miss: The major extra is a series of additional interviews.
A Ciambra (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, IFC Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Pio, a 14-year-old teen, wants nothing more than the respect of his older brother, whom he continually tries to emulate — including a dangerous career as a petty criminal.
When Pio’s father and brother are arrested, Pio is determined to step up and prove he can be the head of the family.
But, soon he is tested as to just how ready he is.
The movie, with Martin Scorsese serving as executive producer, paints a wonderful portrait of the complex social fabric of Southern Italy, where Italians, Romani and African migrants uneasily coexist.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Italian 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: A behind-the-scenes documentary, a featurette that looks at the movie’s showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, deleted scenes and a short film.
The Man Who Saw Too Much
Details: 2015, FilmRise
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A documentary that looks at the life and career of photographer Enrique Metindes who, even as a child, was obsessed with taking pictures of car accidents as well as the onlookers known as “rubber neckers” in his beloved Mexico City.
The movie looks at the six decades Metindes has spent photographing compelling works that captures the realism of human tragedy.
The film explores peoples’ morbid fascination with accidents.
Technical aspects: Widescreen pictures; Spanish Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Free and Easy
Details: 2017, FilmRise
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This Chinese import is part absurdist-offbeat comedy as well as a gentle caper movie.
The film is set in a town which houses a workerless industrial center. It involves a traveler offering a mysterious soap that will cost people to smell it, a couple of unenthused cops who make no effort to solve a simple case and a monk who is not whom he seems to be.
Writer-director Jun Geng focuses a critical light on authority, while showing affection for his offbeat characters.
The movie casts a satirical eye on a flawed system.
Technical aspects: Widescreen picture; Chinese Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Hotel Salvation
Details: 2017, Film Movement
Rated: Not much
The lowdown: This Indian feature centers on an overworked businessman who agrees to honor the final wishes of his father, by accompanying him to the holy city of Varansi.
Arriving, they check in to the Hotel Salvation, where residents are given two weeks to live out their final days or return home.
While the father embraces the pleasures of the premises, his son finds himself burdened by the series of obligations he left behind.
Eventually, father and son learn to appreciate each other and the world around them.
Technical aspects: 2.35:1 widescreen picture; Hindi 5.1 Dolby digital surround; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a short film, “Que La Nuit Soit Douce” (“May the Night Be Sweet”) and a making of featurette.
I Dream in Another Language
Details: 2017, FilmRise
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A young linguist travels to a remote Mexican village to record a dying, ancient indigenous language.
He runs into a problem when he learns the last two people who speak it are feuding and have not spoken to each other for 50 years.
The linguist decides to bring the two old friends together and convince them to share their language by talking to each other so he can obtain a recording of the language to study.
The plot provides a complication that hidden in the heart of the jungle is an old secret that is concealed in the language that makes it difficult to have the language spoken again.
Technical aspects: Widescreen picture; Spanish Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Blue Desert (IndiePix Films)
Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! (Blu-ray) (Arrow Video)
Don’t Swallow My Heart, Alligator Girl (FilmRise)
The Drew: No Excuses Just Produce (FilmRise)
I Am Another You (FilmRise)
Modern Life Is Rubbish (Cleopatra Entertainment-MVD Visual Entertainment)
Moss (DVD + VOD) (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Supergirl (FilmRise)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Darkness Reigns (Wild Eye Releasing)
The Lighthouse (Uncork’d Entertainment)
No Postage Necessary (Two Roads Picture Co.)
Traffik (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Jim Jeffries: This Is Me Now (Netflix, July 13)
Anglo Saxon Attitudes (Acorn TV, July 16)
Hidden (Acorn TV, July 16)
Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Area (HBO Home Entertainment, July 16)
Coming next week: I Feel Pretty
The Good Place: The Complete Second Season
I am a member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom and on Facebook. My movie reviews also can be found at Rottentomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.