New to View: Aug. 15
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, Aug. 15, unless otherwise noted:
Asteroid City (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2023, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, brief nudity, smoking, suggestive material
The lowdown: Wes Anderson’s latest movie is an interesting cavalcade of sequences that basically do not mesh as a whole — which, like most Anderson features, means it is watchable and entertaining if somewhat chaotic and challenging.
What propels the movie is an all-star cast, including Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Liev Schreiber, Hope Davis, Stephen Park, Rupert Friend, Maya Hawke, Steve Carell, Matt Dillon, Hong Chau, Willem Dafoe, Margot Robbie and Jeff Goldblum.
Some of these headliners merely have a scene or two, but they make the most of their opportunities.
The story, set in 1955, basically, deals with a Junior Stargazer/Space Cadet convention in the middle-of-nowhere town of Asteroid City. This gathering of young geniuses is disrupted by world-altering events.
At times, the movie meanders before returning to its main story. But a majority of critics forgave Anderson’s self-indulgence, awarding the movie a 74 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
The digital transfer, especially the video quality, does spotlight the film’s artificial and stylized scenery.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 2.39:1 widescreen and 1.37:1 full-screen picture; English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 DVS and French and Spanish 5.1 DTS digital surround; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.37:1 full-screen picture; English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 2.0 DVS; English, Complex Mandarin, French, Korean and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus features include featurettes on the making of the movie, the building Asteroid City, and a look at the period costumes and classic cars and camera tricks used to create the city; a behind-the-scenes look at the hand-clapping country hoedown sequence; a behind-the-scenes look at the movie’s stars; and two exclusive digital extras — a look at Goldblum’s alien transformation and that of the scene-stealing road runner.
The Machine (Blu-ray + digital)
Details: 2023, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: R, strong violence, language, drug use, sexual references
The lowdown: Stand-up comedian Bert Kreischer, known as The Machine, stars in this movie based on his signature set in which he recounts his true experience with Russian mobsters while on a booze-laden college trip.
Now, 23 years later, that trip has come back to bite him on the butt as he and his estranged father, played by Mark Hamill, are kidnapped and taken back to Russia by the mob to atone for something the mobsters say Kreischer did.
Kreischer and his father retrace the tops of the comedian’s younger self, played by Jimmy Tatro, in the midst of a war within the crazy crime family. And while this is happening, Kreischer and his father attempt to find common ground in their often-troubled relationship.
The film, despite being based on a stand-up routine, does offer some fun moments, but overall, its appeal will rest mostly with fans of the comedian.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English audio description track and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, English, French and Spanish subtitles.
Aloners (DVD)
Details: 2021, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A Korean drama that looks at that nation’s situation of “honjok,” in which young people live alone and avoid social interaction.
The movie focuses on Jina, a top employee at a call center who, despite talking to customers all day, has shut out the world outside of her headset.
When asked to train a friendly and naïve new hire, Jina’s protective armor is tested. At home, she must navigate a constantly ingratiating new neighbor, and increasingly urgent phone calls from her father.
These situations have Jina teetering on the edge of an existential crisis, forcing her to confront why she has isolated herself for so many years.
The bittersweet, poignant movie, which garnered a 98 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, examines personal traumas of loss and alienation.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Korean 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A short film for Australia is the main extras.
Is Paris Burning? (Blu-ray)
Details: 1966, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An all-star cast is featured in this 173-minute saga directed by French filmmaker René Clément.
In late 1944, Hitler, knowing that the war is going badly, sends a top general to determine if the Nazis can hold the city. If not, Hitler orders that Paris be burned to the ground.
When it becomes clear, that the Germans cannot keep control of the city, the general disobeys orders, giving hope to French Resistance fighters inside and outside the city, as well as Allied troops advancing towards Paris.
The all-star cast includes Jean-Paul Belmondo, Charles Boyer, Leslie Caron, Jean-Pierre Cassel, George Chikiris, Alain Delon, Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, Gert Froebe, Yves Montand, Anthony Perkins, Simone Signoret, Robert Stack and Orson Welles.
The screenplay was written by Gore Vidal and Francis Ford Coppola, with a musical score by Maurice Jarre.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio and French 2.0 LPCM monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track by film historians Daniel Kremer and Howard S. Berger, the roadshow overture and the intermission and entr’acte music.
Junk Head (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, Synergetic Distribution
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This stop-motion animated feature is set in a dystopian future in which people have figured out how to live longer but have the ability to reproduce.
With the population declining, humanity sends Junk Head, an android, on a mission to chthonic depths to find a cure. Junk Head explores an underworld filled with monsters, nefarious enemies, while maintaining his grip on life and remembering his mission.
This is an imaginative, dark, violent and humorous sci-fi-like movie that is charming and unsettling.
Critics loved the movie, giving it a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; Alien dialect 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A making of featurette is the main extra.
The Day and the Hour (Blu-ray)
Details: 1963, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This romantic drama is set against a World War II backdrop in France.
Simone Signoret stars Thérèse, as a lonely and isolated woman who unwittingly gets involved with the Resistance. When British and American plans are shot down over France, Germans scour the countryside for the pilots.
En route to Paris, Thérèse discovers Allied airmen hiding among a truckload of goats. She reluctantly agrees to smuggle the pilots into neutral Spain. Along the way, she finds herself falling in love with Capt. Allan Morley (Stuart Whitman).
The movie also features Geneviève Page, Michel Piccoli and Reggie Nalder.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English, French and German 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track by film historian Samm Deighan is the main extra.
Strangers in the House (Blu-ray)
Release date: Aug. 8
Details: 1942, Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Legendary French actor Raimu stars as alcoholic former attorney Hector Loursat in this psychological murder-mystery adapted from the novel by Georges Simenon.
The disillusioned Loursat is living with his daughter in a large, but shabby mansion. One night, they hear gunshots from upstairs and discover a dead man lying on an old bed in the attic.
This film noir offers some twists and turns that culminates in a courtroom sequence that slows down the 95-minute movie a bit toward the finale.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; French 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra is a commentary track with film historians Howard S. Berger and Nathaniel Thompson.
Seire (DVD)
Details: 2021, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Korean folk tradition calls the 21-day period after childbirth “seire.”
During that time, a newborn is vulnerable to bad luck, curses and even evil spirits. These first three weeks are surrounded by many superstitions.
In this Korean horror outing, new mother Haei-mi carefully follows each superstition.
Her husband reluctantly plays along. However, when he attends the funeral of a former girlfriend, he unwittingly opens the door to dark supernatural threats.
The new mother is haunted by terrible nightmares, and she slowly begins to unravel the mystery behind the menacing events plaguing the family.
The movie, which garnered a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is a creepy and unsettling examination of the fear of fatherhood.
Technical aspects: 2.39:1 widescreen picture; Korean 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
The Doll and I Don’t Want to Be a Man (Blu-ray)
Details: 1918-19, Kino Classics
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A Blu-ray that features two early comedies directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
“The Doll” (1919) tells of an effete young man who must marry to inherit a fortune. Instead, he purchases a remarkably lifelike doll and marries it instead, not realizing the doll is actually the puppet-maker’s daughter in disguise.
In “I Don’t Want to Be a Man” (1918), a teenage tomboy, tired of being bossed around by her strict guardian, impersonates a man so she can have more fun. She soon discovers that the opposite sex has its own complications.
This gender-bending comedy was many years ahead of its time.
These movies details Lubitsch’s unrivaled gift for sexual innuendo and subversive comedy.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; silent with German intertitles; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Commentary tracks on both movies with author-Lubitsch expert Joseph McBride.
Last and First Men (Blu-ray)
Details: 2020, Metrograph Pictures-Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Tilda Swinton narrates this science fiction-fantasy-mystery set two billion years in the future when mankind is on the verge of extinction.
Basically all that remains are singular, surreal monuments erected during the communist era in the former Yugoslav republics.
The movie, filmed in 16mm black-and-white, is a testament to the late composer-musician Jóhann Jóhannsson, which imagines a world of surreal and phantasmagorical monuments that were once intended as symbols of unity and brotherhood.
The movie, which runs 71 minutes, is based on the cult 1930 science fiction novel by British author Olaf Stapleton.
The movie, which garnered a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is a poetic, yet tragic allegorical story of remembrance, ideals and the death of Utopia.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.66:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Wrong Reasons (Blu-ray)
Details: 2022, MVD Visual Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A masked man (James Parks) kidnaps a drug addicted punk singer (Liv Roush) that triggers a police investigation and also creates a media frenzy.
Filmmaker Kevin Smith was the movie’s executive producer, which features a solid punk-rock soundtrack.
The cast also includes David Koechner, Teresa Ruiz, Daniel Roebuck and Keith Coogan.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental options include an introduction by Smith, a commentary track with filmmakers and cast members, a question-and-answer session with director Josh Roush and producer-star Liv Roush, deleted scenes and outtakes and a short film by Josh Roush.
Kill Shot (Blu-ray)
Details: 2023, Well Go USA Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A wilderness guide, who also, as in movies of this sort, is a former Navy SEAL, and his client are on a hunting trip in Montana when they stumble upon a cache of stolen money.
Their discovery unwittingly makes them the obstacles standing between a dangerous terrorist group — is there any other kind? — and its lost cash.
The pair, eager to take some of the cash for themselves, learn too late how easy it is to make someone disappear in the vast Big Sky country.
The movie features a no-name cast and formulaic characters and situations.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Mavka: The Forest Song (DVD)
Details: 2023, Shout! Kids
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A fantasy feature in which Mavka, the soul of the forest, has been chosen by the supreme spirits to become its new guardian.
She soon faces a very difficult choice after meeting Lucas, a talented human musician who is hunting for a mysterious tree with the power to give life.
Mavka must decide between her duty to the spirits and her newfound love. The movie asks if humans and the forest can live in harmony or will greed destroy them both?
This is a family movie with a nice environmental message that also is entertaining.
Technical aspects: 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: A featurette and a music video comprise the extras.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Confidential Informant (Blu-ray + digital & DVD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
The Lincoln Lawyer: Season 1 (Blu-ray) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Ouija Shark 2 (Blu-ray) (Wild Eye Releasing)
AUG. 18
The Engineer (Blu-ray & DVD & digital & VOD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
FOR KIDS
Sesame Street: Abby & Elmo’s Amazing Adventures (DVD) (Shout! Kids-Sesame Workshop)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Billion Dollar Heist (Obscured Pictures)
The Blackening (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Caverna (Good Deed Entertainment)
Elemental (Walt Disney Home Entertainment-Pixar)
Filling in the Blanks (Gravitas Ventures)
Night of the Caregiver (ITN Studios)
No Hard Feelings (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Only Murders in the Building: Season 3, Episode 3 (Hulu)
AUG. 16
The Afterparty: Season 2, Episode 7 (Apple TV+)
Strange Planet: Episode 4 (Apple TV+)
AUG. 17
Fenris (Viaplay)
AUG. 18
Dark Windows (Brainstorm Media)
Foundation: Season Two, Episode 6 (Apple TV+)
The Monkey King (Netflix)
Snoopy Presents: One-of-a-Kind Marcie (Apple TV+)
Waking Nightmare (Terror Films)
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.