New to View: July 18
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, July 18, unless otherwise noted:
The Last of Us: The Complete First Season (4K Ultra HD)
Details: 2023, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment-HBO
Rated: TV-MA, graphic violence, language
The lowdown: This HBO series, which recently received 24 Emmy Award nominations, is based on the popular 2013 video game, set in a post-apocalyptic world in which a fungal infection has transformed most of mankind into zombie-like creatures.
Society has collapsed and the remaining humans do what is necessary to survive.
Joel (Pedro Pascal), a survivor, is tasked with taking Ellie (Bella Ramsey), an immune teenager, across the dangerous, plague-ridden country to a place where her immunity could be the key to save mankind.
The four-disc set features all nine episodes plus a couple of hours of bonus features.
Technical aspects: 2160p ultra high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby Atmos and 7.1 TrueHD, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental options include two inside-the-episode featurettes, a look at adapting the video game for television and several featurettes about the making of the series, its cast and characters.
“The Ranown Westerns: Five Films Directed by Budd Boetticher” (4K UHD + Blu-ray)
Details: 1957-60, The Criterion Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A six-disc set that features five strong adult Westerns starring Randolph Scott and directed by Budd Boetticher that examine the moral ambiguities of various characters in the films.
The set includes “The Tall T” (1957), “Decision at Sundown” (1957), “Buchanan Rides Alone” (1958), “Ride Lonesome” (1959) and “Comanche Station” (1960).
In the movies Scott usually plays a loner who is either on a mission or rides into a situation in which he must use his wits to survive. Scott’s characters are mostly taciturn, keeping their motivations to themselves, which often put him at odds with other characters.
Also setting the films apart from other Westerns are the portrayals of the villains, or more accurately, antagonists. Most of them, like Scott’s characters, also have a code they follow.
In “The Tall T,” Scott is easy-going rancher Pat Brennan who, along with Maureen O’Sullivan’s Doretta Minns, the middle-aged daughter of a rich mining baron, who, along with her weak and sniveling husband, Willard (John Hubbard), is taken hostage by a trio of vicious stagecoach robbers, led by Richard Boone’s charming Frank Usher. His accomplices are portrayed by Henry Silva and Skip Homeier.
“Decision at Sundown” finds Scott’s Bart Allison and his partner, Sam (Noah Beery Jr.), riding into the corrupt town of Sundown to exact revenge on Tate Kimbrough (John Carroll), the man he believes responsible for his wife’s suicide.
In “Buchanan Rides Alone” Scott’s Tom Buchanan is a drifter who rides into corrupt Agry Town and soon finds himself railroaded for a murder. He also sides with a vengeful Mexican vaquero to help overthrow the rule of the brothers who hold the town in their grip. The film costars Craig Stevens and L.Q. Jones.
“Ride Lonesome” finds Scott as former lawman — now bounty hunter — Ben Brigade who captures a wanted killer, played by James Best, and plans to take him into a nearby town to collect his reward. His task is complicated by the arrival of a pair of outlaws, played by Pernell Roberts and James Coburn, who also seek the reward. The motivations of the main protagonists are surprising.
“Comanche Station,” the final film in the series, finds Scott’s Jefferson Cody, rescuing a white woman kidnapped by Comanches. His reasons may have nothing to do with the bounty offered for her return.
Before he can bring her to safety, he must contend with a trio of bounty hunters, played by Claude Akins, Skip Homeier and Richard Rust, who want the reward.
The Boetticher-Scott collaboration produced some of the best Westerns of the late 1950s and remain a pleasure to watch today as they were when initially released.
The visual and audio transfers are great, showcasing the rugged locales Boetticher liked to use in his films.
Technical aspects: 4K: 2160p ultra high definition and Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture (“The Tall T,” “Decision at Sundown,” “Buchanan Rides Alone”) and 2.35:1 widescreen picture (“Ride Lonesome,” “Comanche Station”); English LPCM monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus features include introductions to the films by filmmakers Martin Scorsese and Taylor Hackford; a featurette on the career of Scott; commentary tracks by film scholar Jeanine Basinger on “The Tall T,” film historian Jeremy Arnold on “Ride Lonesome” and Hackford on “Comanche Station”; archival interviews with Boetticher; an audio conversation with Boetticher; Super 8 home-movie version of “Comanche Station” and a 32-page booklet with essays about the films, Boetticher and Scott.
Hugo (Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray)
Details: 2011, Arrow Video
Rated: PG, thematic material, action violence, smoking
The lowdown: It may be difficult for some people to wrap their heads around the fact that Martin Scorsese, he of “Goodfellas,” “Raging Bull” and “The Departed,” directed this family friendly feature about Hugo (Asa Butterfield), an orphaned young boy, who lives secretly in the walls of a Paris train station.
But those who have followed Scorsese’s career and know of his interests in classic movies and film preservation will not be surprised that he helmed this adaptation of Brian Selznick’s award-winning novel.
The main crux of the movie is Hugo’s interactions with a bitter old man who runs a toy booth at the station.
I will not ruin the surprise by revealing anything else nor the identity of the old man, played by Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley.
I will recommend “Hugo.” It is a movie that children will enjoy, adults will admire and film buffs will cheer. It will surprise and delight you with its wonder and awe.
The 3D is outstanding and adds to the movie’s enjoyment. The two-disc set also features a standard 2D version of the movie. The movie garnered a 93 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 7.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track with filmmaker-writer Jon Spira; interviews with Selznick, director of photography Robert Richardson and composer Howard Shore; an assessment of the movie by film historian Ian Christie, who was on the set for most of the shoot; a visual essay by filmmaker-critic Scout Tafoya; a discussion of the life of the character portrayed by Kingsley; another featurette about Kingsley’s character and his life around the time in which “Hugo” is set; an archival making of featurette; an archival look at the life of Kingsley’s character; archival looks at the movie’s automation and special effects; and an archival piece focusing on costar Sasha Baron Cohen.
Are You Lonesome Tonight? (DVD)
Details: 2021, 2021, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A thriller that begins on a dark night in which Xeuming, a young driver, hits a pedestrian and flees the scene.
Desperate to assuage his feelings of guilt, Xeuming decides to approach the dead man’s wife, Mrs. Liang.
Meanwhile, the pedestrian’s body is found riddled with bullets. Chen, the detective in charge of the investigation, becomes obsessed with the case.
Years later, all three remain caught in a web of memories and lies, desperately seeking a truth that refuses to be revealed.
The movie takes its time showing viewers new information, but it is worth the wait and well done. The film garnered a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, where it was praised for its originality.
Technical aspects: 2.39:1 widescreen picture; Chinese 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A short film is the main extra.
The Great Train Robbery (Blu-ray)
Release date: June 13
Details: 1978, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: PG, violence, sexual situations
The lowdown: Sean Connery stars as roguishly charming gentleman thief Edward Pierce in this historical caper inspired by history’s first train robbery.
Pierce comes up with an idea to steal a fortune in gold bars from a railroad payroll car. To do so, he enlists the help of Agar (Donald Sutherland), a safecracker, and his beautiful femme fatale girlfriend, Miriam (Lesley-Anne Down).
The movie, directed by Michael Crichton, who adapted his own novel, is intricately plotted, as we follow Pierce’s precise planning for the theft and the other heists needed to get items necessary to successfully complete the robbery.
The film, which earned a 76 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is exciting and larcenous fun.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track by Crichton is the main bonus component.
Persian Lessons (Blu-ray & digital)
Details: 2020, Cohen Media Group
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A Frenchman, Gilles, is arrested alongside other Jews in 1942 by SS soldiers and deported to a camp in Germany.
He avoids execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This temporarily saves him. Gilles soon finds himself in a life-or-death situation when he must teach Farsi to Koch, the head of the camp, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran when the war is over.
Gilles manages to survive by inventing words in Farsi every day and teaching them to Koch.
Their relationship soon arouses the jealousy of other prisoners and SS guards.
As time passes, Koch’s suspicions of Gilles continues to grow and the prisoner realizes he will not be able to continue his masquerade much longer.
The movie, which garnered a 78 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is compelling and memorable with a very satisfying ending.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.66:1 widescreen picture; German, English, French, Italian and Farsi 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
End of the World (La Fin du Monde) (Blu-ray)
Details: 1931, Kino Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Abel Gance, best known for his massive silent epic, “Napoleon,” directed and stars in this feature, France’s first all-talking picture.
The movie is a multi-million-dollar production depicting an approaching apocalypse.
A comet on a collision course with Earth is discovered by a scientist whose brother is a poet. Both are in love with the same young woman. Gance plays the poet.
The brothers decide that this catastrophe could be the catalyst that could help men become brothers and put an end to war.
The reactions are diverse — some people turn to prayer, while others indulge in wild orgies.
The movie has its flaws, since it was Gance’s initial foray into sound. Consider the film a curiosity piece from a legendary filmmaker.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; French 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra consists of interviews author-filmmaker Laurent Véray, filmmaker Serge Bromberg, author Christophe Gauthier and sound restoration specialist Léon Rousseau.
Amor Bandido (DVD & digital)
Details: 2021, Cinephobia Releasing
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A thriller in which Joan, a naive 16-year-old schoolboy, falls madly in love with his older teacher, Luciana. Joan also happens to be the son of a wealthy and important federal judge, and the two have a rocky relationship.
Together they run off for a love nest weekend in a country house. But events turn sinister when Joan is kidnapped by a mysterious older man. The question is whether his teacher-lover is involved in the crime or can she help him escape.
This erotic feature from Argentina centers on sex, greed, money, politics and deceit.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra is a short making of featurette.
The Iron Prefect (Blu-ray)
Details: 1977, Radiance Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An Italian historical drama based on the true story of Cesare Mori who, in the mid-1920s, was sent to Sicily with the responsibility and power to clean up the mafia.
Mori was tasked by Benito Mussolini, who had come to power three years earlier, and was concerned with the immense sway the criminal organization held.
Mori, known as The Iron Prefect, approached organized crime on the island with uncompromising force. The mafia resorted to mass murder in an attempt to intimidate Mori, but their efforts failed.
The four years Mori was in Sicily resulted in the arrests of more than 2,000 mafiosi. He was removed in 1929 and appointed a senator in Rome, mostly because corrupt and high-ranking Fascist officials in Sicily who were involved with the criminal organization.
The film stars spaghetti Western favorite Giullano Gemma as Mori. The cast also includes Claudia Cardinale and Francisco Rabal.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; Italian and English (dubbed) LPCM monaural; English SDH and English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an archival interview with Gemma and director Pasquale Squitieri, an interview with Squitieri biographer Domenico Monetti, an appreciation of Gemma by filmmaker Alex Cox and a booklet with essays about the movie and the real Mori.
Deliver Us (Blu-ray)
Details: 2019, MHz Networks-Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This Danish crime-thriller centers on a group of people in a local community who have been affected by a crime without punishment.
The source of discontent in the community is a young man named Mike. He lacks morals and boundaries. He also is very intelligent and has the ability to threaten his victims physically and psychologically, zeroing in on their weak spots.
He also lacks an ounce of empathy.
Peter, on the other hand, is Mike’s opposite. He is the town doctor and father of a young boy whom Mike killed in a hit-and-run 18 months earlier. Mike got off scot-free.
Since then Peter has retreated further and further into himself. He is consumed by the legal systems lack of justice and obsessed with exacting revenge on Mike.
He quietly enlists a group of residents who feel the same. Together, they plan the seemingly perfect revenge murder to rid their community of this evil presence.
They soon discover that playing God has consequences.
This short television series shows what happens when people let their most primitive instincts take over. The two-disc set also is a story about love and how far people will go to protect those they cherish.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, widescreen picture; Danish audio; English subtitles.
Michael (Blu-ray & digital)
Details: 1924, Kino Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Many American buffs remember Walter Slezak as a fine character actor, adept at both villainous and sympathetic roles in drama and comedy, appearing in such movies as Alfred Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat,” “Cornered,” “Sinbad the Sailor” and “Bedtime for Bonzo.”
Few would be aware of his work in the German cinema of the 1920s.
That can be remedied with “Michael,” directed by filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer (“Vampyr”), who directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Thea von Harbou — the then-wife of filmmaker Fritz Lang.
Slezak stars as the lead character, an artist on the rise whose mentor, Zoret, is an aging artist in decline. In subtle ways, the movie hints at a love affair between the two men. But Slezak’s Michael is an insincere young man who is using Zoret’s affection for him for his own purposes.
A love triangle develops when Michael when the aristocratic Princess Zamikoff takes a shining to the young man, who quickly abandons the older artist.
The movie is filled with emotional detail and depicts the decline of a male-male relationship with frankness and subtlety.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; German intertitles; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track is the major extra.
Cracked (DVD)
Details: 2022, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A Thai horror movie about Ruja, a young woman who returns with her daughter, to Thailand from New York to settle her late father’s estate.
The inheritance includes two unexplained portraits of a bewitching woman that Ruja is informed are worth a fortune.
Desperate to sell the paintings, she hires an art restorer to prepare the canvases for sale.
However, the cracks in the paint begin to reveal long-hidden secrets and a strange phenomenon begins to emerge. Ruja and her daughter soon realize that their lives are in mortal danger.
The movie fails to take full advantage of its spooky premise, but still offers enough chills to please genre fans.
Technical aspects: 2.39:1 widescreen picture; Thai 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
The Bridges at Toko-Ri (Blu-ray)
Release date: June 20
Details: 1954, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An all-star cast headlined by William Holden, Grace Kelly, Fredric March and Mickey Rooney star in this Korean War military drama based on the novel by James A. Michener.
Holden portrays Navy pilot Harry Brubaker a war-weary World War II veteran who must return to active duty, while Kelly is his loving wife.
Brubaker agrees to fly a dangerous bombing mission over North Korea to knock out a strategic bridge.
The cast also includes Charles McGraw, Earl Holliman and Robert Strauss.
The movie’s special effects team was awarded an Academy Award.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track by filmmaker-historian Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin, author of “Combat Films: American Realism,” is the major extra.
The Cow Who Sang a Song into the Future (DVD & digital)
Details: 2022, Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A haunting and atmospheric tale with fantasy overtones that begins in a river in southern Chile, where fish are dying because of pollution from a nearby factory.
Rising up from the thousands of fish is the long-deceased Magdalena, gasping for air and bringing with her old wounds and a myriad of family secrets.
Naturally, Magdalena’s widowed husband is shocked. Her return also brings her daughter, Cecilia, and her children, back to the family’s dairy farm.
Magdalena’s presence resonates among the family members, initiating equal measures of laughter and despair. Cecilia’s eldest child, though, finds comfort in her grandmother’s love and unconditional understanding during a time of transition.
The film, which received an 88 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is a magical story of love and forgiveness that features sacred animals and cursed rivers.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; Spanish 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
The Abode (DVD) (Dark Star Pictures)
Fool’s Paradise (Blu-ray + digital) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Love Again (Blu-ray & DVD) (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
South Park: Seasons 21-25 Collection (Blu-ray & DVD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
What the Waters Left Behind: Scars (Blu-ray & DVD & VOD) (Cleopatra Entertainment)
Your Honor: Season 2 (DVD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
JULY 21
Mad Heidi (Blu-ray & digital & VOD) (Raven Banner Releasing)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
The Flash (Warner Home Entertainment)
Hidden Blade (Well Go USA Entertainment)
How I Met Your Father: Season 2, Part B, Episode 9 (Hulu)
Joke Man (Hellbox Films-Random Media)
Michael (Amazon-Kino Now)
Trace Part 1 & Trace Part 2 (Breaking Glass Pictures)
JULY 19
The Afterparty: Season 2, Episode 3 (Apple TV+)
The Deepest Breath (Netflix)
Hijack: Episode 5 (Apple TV+)
JULY 20
Black Sands (Viaplay)
JULY 21
Artists in Agony (Global Digital Releasing)
The Crowded Room: Episode 9 (Apple TV+)
Foundation: Season 2, Episode 2 (Apple TV+)
The Island (Saban Films)
Mother May I? (Dark Sky Films)
Stephen Curry: Underrated (Apple TV+)
Swagger: Season 2, Episode 5 (Apple TV+)
They Cloned Tyrone (Netflix)
JULY 24
BMF (Black Mafia Family): Season 2 (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Minx: Season 1 (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, 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 at ReelBob or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.