New to View: Oct. 10 Update
By Bob Bloom
The following Blu-rays and DVDs are being released on Tuesday, Oct. 10, unless otherwise noted:
The House (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2017, Warner Home Video
Rated: R, sexual references, language, drug use, violence, nudity
The lowdown: Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler star in this comedy about a couple who must take desperate measures after their daughter’s full-ride college scholarship falls through.
To raise cash, they open a Vegas-style casino in a friend’s house, turning their suburban neighborhood into a dangerous crime zone.
Despite the talents of Ferrell and Poehler, the movie failed to gain many laughs — or admirers.
At Rottentomatoes.com, “The House” received a low 17 percent fresh rating.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 5.1 descriptive audio and Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.40:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 5.1 descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus materials include a behind-the-scenes featurette with the cast improvising and horsing around, a look at how a suburban house was transformed into a casino, a gag reel, deleted and alternate scenes and a Lino-O-Rama offering.
Wish Upon: Director’s Unrated Cut (Blu-ray + DVD)
Details: 2017, BroadGreen Pictures
Rated: Unrated and PG-13, violence, disturbing images, language, adult themes
The lowdown: A young girl is presented with a mysterious music box by her father.
She soon learns that her every wish is coming true, but at a bloody price she is not able to fathom.
This combo set includes the theatrical as well as extended director’s cut of the movie, which is basically just one additional minute.
Some critics wished they had never seen the film since it garnered a poor 18 percent fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Spanish 5.1 DTS digital surround; English SDH and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.40:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a featurette with cast members sharing their wishes, a tour of the attic set with star Joey King, a featurette with the director and cast discussing development of a horror film, a motion comics featurette about previous owners of the box.
Dudes: Collector’s Edition (Blu-ray + DVD)
Details: 1987, Shout! Factory
Rated: R, language, violence
The lowdown: This feature directed by Penelope Spheeris is one of those movies with no middle ground — people either love it or hate it.
It’s a strange amalgamation of punk rock, Southern redneck and Wild West genres.
Jon Cryer, Daniel Roebuck and Flea star as three New York City punks taking a road trip to California. They cross paths with a vicious biker gang, led by a psycho.
They are rescued by gun toting Catherine Mary Stewart and an Elvis impersonator. Together, they pursue the biker gang to its inevitable conclusion.
The film’s soundtrack includes The Vandals, The Little Kings, Keel, Steve Vai and Jane’s Addiction.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English DTS-HD Master Audio stereo; English subtitles; DVD: 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English Dolby digital stereo; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include interviews with Spheeris, screenwriter J. Randall Johnson, Cryer, Roebuck, Flea, Stewart and producer Miguel Tejada-Flores and a vintage making of featurette.
American Horror Story: Roanoke: The Complete Season Six (Blu-ray)
Release date: Oct. 3
Details: 2016, Fox Home Entertainment
Rated: TV-MA
The lowdown: This three-disc set features all 10 season-six episodes of this popular chiller-thriller TV series.
The season features an all-star cast including Sarah Paulson, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kathy Bates.
These episodes were filmed in a true-crime documentary style and features “My Roanoke Nightmare,” a show within a show.
Paulson and Gooding play a married couple hoping to begin a peaceful new life in a rustic North Carolina farmhouse.
Being that this is “American Horror Story,” of course, they find murder, mayhem and madness. They must deal with a girl ghost, a giant swine, murderous nurse sisters and a sadistic cult leader called “The Butcher.”
So much for peace and quiet. Fans of earlier seasons of the series will not be disappointed in this outing.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental offerings include a question-and-answer session with cast members and filmmakers at the 20177 PaleyFest.
Michael Jackson: Searching for Neverland
Details: 2017, Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A Lifetime made-for-TV movie that looks at the last years of Michael Jackson is told through the eyes of his bodyguards, Bill Whitfield and Javon Beard.
Playing the King of Pop is Navi, a Jackson tribute artist who worked closely with the entertainer as his body double.
The movie basically covers the last two years of Jackson’s life and examines his relationship with his children and the turbulence that impacted his life.
Technical aspects: 1.78:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH subtitles.
House of Cards: The Complete Fifth Season
Release date: Oct. 3
Details: 2017, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: TV-MA
The lowdown: Washington power couple Frank and Claire Underwood (Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright) continue to keep tension mounting in Washington, D.C., and the White House.
The couple is the midst of a fierce presidential election as they also work on redefining their relationship and work hard to continue battling for control of the presidency.
Of course, the episodes include surprising power plays, betrayals and dark secrets.
Spacey and Wright remain a fascinating pair to watch as they do what they must to retain the power they have schemed so long to attain.
Technical aspects: 2.00:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, traditional Chinese, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Thai subtitles.
Meat (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, MPI Pictures
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A documentary that looks at the animals we eat, told by people who rarely hear from including a hunter, Josh James, who believes everyone needs to be educated about their food, to a family farmer who insists that money and profits are not his primary motivation.
What connects the stories told in this feature are the compassionate practices of food production that unite these people.
The feature makes the “farm-to-table” connection a more personal experience.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.90:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track with the producer-writer-director and the cinematographer-editor.
Vikings: Season 4, Volume 2 (Blu-ray)
Release date: Oct. 3
Details: 2016-17, Fox Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This multidisc set features the final 10 episodes of the series’ fourth season as betrayals and blood rule.
The episodes follow the return of Ragnar to Kattegat, which escalates tensions among his sons, especially after Ragnar and Ivan the Boneless march out to battle the Saxons.
There’s also consternation about a prophecy that says a woman will rule in Kattegat, adding more fuel to the boiling emotions that heat up the action in the North.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, French 5.1 DTS and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a series of behind-the-scenes featurettes that look at storylines and characters, commentaries on select episodes and deleted scenes.
Brigadoon (Blu-ray)
Release date: Sept. 26
Details: 1954, Warner Archive Collection
Rated: G
The lowdown: “Brigadoon” is what I call one of those could-have-been movies.
Director Vincente Minnelli and star Gene Kelly wanted to film this adaptation of the hit Broadway musical on location in Scotland.
Unfortunately, executives at MGM vetoed that proposal, so the film was shot on studio sound stages.
And despite Minnelli’s masterful use of composition, it was obvious the movie was made in Hollywood.
Now, that is not to take away from the majesty of the movie, filled with great songs and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe.
Imagine what Minnelli could have done if he had the highlands of Scotland as his canvas.
“Brigadoon” was one of the last great MGM musicals of the 1950s, a decade that featured “An American in Paris,” “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Band Wagon.”
“Brigadoon” is a made-on-demand Blu-ray from the Warner Archive Collection. It can be ordered at www.wb.com/warnerarchive or other online retailers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus offerings include outtakes of three musical numbers and an audio outtake of a fourth number.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes (Blu-ray + DVD)
Details: 2008, Scream Factory
Rated: R, sadistic violence and torture, graphic violence
The lowdown: A horror-thriller about a serial killer who terrorized upstate New York in the 1990s.
After his crime spree, the killer disappeared, leaving behind a disturbing collection of evidence for detectives — hundreds of videotapes that chronicled his stalking kidnapping, torture, murder and disposal of his victims.
This is one of those documentary-style features akin to “The Blair Witch Project,” “Quarantine” and others.
The movie uses interviews and footage from the killer’s tapes to tell its story.
Fans of the genre will probably be impressed by this rather gruesome feature.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English subtitles; DVD: 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English Dolby digital monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental features include interviews with filmmakers and cast members.
Full Confession (DVD-R)
Release date: Sept. 26
Details: 1939, Warner Archive Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Victor McLaglen won a best actor Academy Award for his performance in John Ford’s “The Informer” in 1935.
For the rest of his career, McLaglen played variations of the Irishman he portrayed in that film.
In “Full Confession,” he plays Pat McGinnis a brute with a sensitive side who gets into trouble for wanting to impress the love of his life.
He gets sent to prison on a minor charge to avoid a murder rap. In prison, he becomes the pet project of Father Loma (Joseph Calleia).
McGinnis, with the help of the priest, begins the process of being paroled. A near-fatal incident, though, brings a confession from Pat to Father Loma, who now knows that McGinnis committed a murder for which an innocent family man faces the electric chair.
The priest knows he cannot divulge what he knows, so he begins working on McGinnis’ soul to convince him to do the right thing.
The release, directed by John Farrow, is a made-on-demand DVD-R from the Warner Archive Collection. It can be found at www.wb.com/warnerarchive or other online dealers.
Technical aspects: 1.37:1 (4×3) full-screen picture; English Dolby digital monaural.
Other Blu-rays and DVDs being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Fallen (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
House by the Lake (DVD + digital) (Random Media)
T-Men (Blu-ray) (ClassicFlix)
FOR KIDS
SpongeBob Squarepants: The Complete Ninth Season (Nickelodeon-Paramount Home Entertainment)
DIGITAL DOWNLOADS and STREAMING
The 13th Friday (Uncork’d Entertainment)
Batman vs. Two-Face (Warner Home Video)
Christina P: Mother Inferior (Netflix)
The Emoji Movie (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
The Great Day (Under the Milky Way)
Lady-Like (Craftsmen Media Group)
One Percent More Human (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
War for the Planet of the Apes (Fox Home Entertainment)
Amityville: The Awakening (Dimension Home Entertainment, Oct. 12)
Bad Blood: The Movie (Level 33 Entertainment, Oct. 13)
Lore (Amazon Prime Video, Oct. 13)
Insecure: The Complete Second Season (HBO Home Entertainment, Oct. 16)
Coming next week: Girls Trip
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.