New to View: June 5
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, June 5, unless otherwise noted:
A Wrinkle in Time (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2018, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: PG, some peril, thematic elements
The lowdown: With students using their voices and minds to fight for what they believe, what is more natural than this magical adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s 1962 classic young people’s science fantasy novel?
In these divisive times — in which our leaders seem to prey and appeal to the more darker instincts of their constituents — a movie about warriors whose weapons are their minds and hearts is as welcome as a sunny summer day.
“A Wrinkle in Time” is a positive and sentimental journey about a young girl’s quest to find her father, who has been missing for four years.
It also is a story of her personal odyssey to discover her true self and unleash the potential we all have within us.
Director Ava DuVernay, working from an adaptation by Jennifer Lee and Jeff Stockwell, has crafted a fast-paced fantasy whose 109-minute running time seems to whiz by.
More importantly, DuVernay, Lee and Stockwell display respect and affection for the movie’s source material, realizing its impact on generations of schoolchildren, as L’Engle’s book is required reading in many classrooms.
“A Wrinkle of Time” is a contemporary fairy tale, a “Wizard of Oz”-like fantasy about courage, hope and — most importantly — love.
It’s a feature that you and your children should see. Hopefully, it will encourage young people to embrace who they are and ignore those who try to deter them from whatever path they set for themselves.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 2.0 descriptive audio and French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English, Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby digital and English 2.0 descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus features include a making of featurette, deleted scenes, bloopers, a commentary track and music videos.
Every Day (Blu-ray)
Details: 2018, Warner Home Video
Rated: PG-13, mature themes, teen drinking, language, suggestive material
The lowdown: The movie, based on a best-seller by David Levithan, tells the story of 16-year-old Rhiannon, who falls in love with a mysterious soul named “A,” who inhabits a different body daily.
Each day, Rhiannon and A struggle to find each other. However, the reality of their situation soon begins to take a toll, forcing them to make the most difficult decisions of their lives.
The movie is a bit bland, but still appealing as a majority of critics, who gave the movie a 63 percent fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com, believed.
Technical aspects: 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 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include director Michael Sucsy explaining how and why he flipped the novel’s perspective for the movie, a featurette with cast members explaining the difficulties of playing a single character and deleted scenes.
Peter Pan: Anniversary Edition: The Walt Disney Signature Collection (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 1953, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: G
The lowdown: “Peter Pan” is one of those Disney animated classics that, like its protagonist, never grows old.
It is a film you can watch over and over and continue to enjoy all the fun and adventure in Never Land.
The characters just fly off the screen and come to life as Peter, Wendy, Michael, John and the Lost Boys battle Captain Hook and his band of pirates.
“Peter Pan” is eternal, a movie that can be handed by from generation to generation and watched by generations.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, English 1.0 Dolby digital and Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English 1.0 Dolby digital and English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a featurette about Walt Disney and his love with flight, a conversation between voice performers Kathryn Beaumont (Wendy) and Paul Collins (John), a sing along, “Oke” versions of the songs “You Can Fly” and “Never Smile at a Crocodile,” as well as hours of bonus features from earlier releases of the movie.
The Great Silence: 50th Anniversary Restoration (Blu-ray)
Details: 1968, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This bleak spaghetti Western, which features a memorable score by Ennio Morricone, stars Jean-Louis Trintignant and Klaus Kinski in a battle between good and evil, though at times it is difficult to tell where those lines are drawn.
Trintignant plays Silence, a mute gunslinger, who stands between a gang of vicious and corrupt bounty hunters and a group of persecuted refugees, led by Kinski’s Loco.
The Blu-ray features the original Italian and English language tracks.
This influential Western was directed by Sergio Corbucci, who helmed “Django.”
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Italian and English Dolby digital stereo; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include two alternate endings, a tribute to Corbucci by Alex Cox, the 1968 documentary “Western, Italian Style” and a new essay about the movie.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
Details: 2005-08, Nickelodeon-Paramount Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A nine-disc set featuring the complete, popular animated series about 12-year-old Aang as the young Airbender who fulfills his destiny as being the long-lost Avatar.
Aang is helped in mastering the four elements needed to become the Avatar by his friends, Katara and Sokka.
This set follows the journey from a frozen iceberg to the battle at Ba Sing Se to the final showdown with the Fire Nation.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen pictures; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio and Spanish and French 2.0 Dolby digital (Books 1 & 2) and English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio (Book 3).
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include behind-the-scenes featurettes, commentary tracks and making of featurettes.
The Last Ship: The Complete Fourth Season
Details: 2017, TNT-Warner Home Video
Rated: TV-14, DLV
The lowdown: A three-disc set featuring all 10 fourth-season episodes of this popular TNT series.
The season’s arc includes Tom Chandler (Eric Dane) taking a “hero’s journey” reminiscent of Homer’s “Odyssey,” while Capt. Slattery (Adam Baldwin) and the crew of the Nathan James discover that the virus that has been plaguing the world now infects the world’s food crops, bringing mankind to the edge of global famine.
The ship travels the Mediterranean in search of a solution that can save the food supply.
This exciting series keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Technical aspects: Widescreen picture; English and French Dolby digital; English SDH and French subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include “Inside ‘The Last Ship’ ” and “The Last Ship’s Odyssey” featurettes.
The Midnight Man (Blu-ray)
Details: 2016, IFC Midnight-Scream Factory
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A supernatural thriller about two teens, Alex (Gabrielle Haugh) and her best friend, Miles (Grayson Gabriel), who discover a mysterious box hidden away in the attic of her grandmother’s mansion.
Inside the box are instructions for The Midnight Game, an ancient pagan ritual believed to summon the greatest fears of those playing.
Unfortunately, Alex and Miles do not take it seriously until they unleash the spirit of The Midnight Man, an unholy force that pits them against their darkest demons and dares them to survive.
Costarring in this movie are horror legend Robert Englund and Lin Shaye.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and stereo; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra is the original 2013 Irish feature film.
The Invaders: The Complete Series
Details: 1967-68, CBS DVD-Paramount Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Roy Thinnes stars as David Vincent in this Quinn Martin produced-series about an ordinary man who accidentally discovers that alien beings from a dying planet are infiltrating the Earth.
The main thrust of the series’ first season follows Vincent as he tries to convince a disbelieving world that the invasion already has begun.
His actions put a target on his back and make him the alien’s greatest threat.
In the second season, Vincent finds an ally in millionaire Edgar Scoville (Ken Smith) who, with some friends, help Vincent fight to save humanity.
The 12-disc set features all 43 episodes of the series. Among the guest stars are Ed Asner, Gene Hackman, Peter Graves, Dabney Coleman, Peggy Lipton, Barbara Hershey, Ted Knight, Suzanne Pleschette and Sally Kellerman.
Technical aspects: 4:3 full-screen picture; English Dolby digital monaural; English closed-captioned subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an extended 60-minute version of the pilot episode, an interview and episode introductions by Thinnes, commentaries on a few episodes and interviews with Thinnes.
Devil’s Gate (Blu-ray + DVD)
Details: 2017, IFC Midnight-Scream Factory
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This supernatural thriller takes place in the town of Devil’s Gate, N.D., where strange goings-on, including the disappearance of a woman and her son, arouse the interest of the FBI.
The main suspect is a religious fanatic, the husband and father of the missing duo.
The FBI agent and local sheriff arrive at the crumbling, booby-trapped farmhouse of the fanatic, which, as in movies of this ilk, is located in the middle of nowhere.
Once there, the law officers find more than they bargained for. The story, which takes place over 24 hours, features several twists and turns.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and stereo; English SDH and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English 5.1 Dolby digital and stereo; English SDH and Spanish subtitles.
Oh Lucy! (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An offbeat comedy about a bored Tokyo office worker, Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima), who life is changed when her niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna), convinces her to enroll in an English class.
There, she adopts a blonde-haired alter ego, whom she calls “Lucy,” and develops romantic feelings for her American teacher, John (Josh Hartnett).
But after John suddenly disappears, Setsuko follows his trail to Southern California, where family ties and past lives are tested.
This is a sometimes dark East-meets-West comedy that director Atsuko Hirayanagi expanded from a short film of the same name.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English and Japanese 5.1 Dolby digital and 2.0 stereo; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include deleted scenes and an interview with Hirayanagi.
Freak Show (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, Shout! Factory
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An offbeat comedy about Billy Bloom (Alex Lawther), a gender-bending teenager who has a razor-sharp wit as well as an outrageous, anything-goes fashion sense.
Billy’s life is drastically altered when his glamorous mother, played by Bette Midler, is forced to send her son to live with his straight-laced father, played by Larry Pine.
Billy finds himself as the new kid at an ultra-conservative high school, where he faces off against bullies who don’t understand him.
Billy decides to take a stand by challenging the reign of the school’s mean girl, played by Abigail Breslin), for the title of homecoming queen.
The movie is a tip of the hat to outsiders and nonconformists.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.40:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and stereo; English SDH subtitles.
Jericho: The Complete Series
Details: 2009-10, CBS DVD-Paramount Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This nine-disc set contains all 29 episodes of the two-season CBS series set in post-nuclear, small-town America.
The town’s citizens are isolated and, most of all, frightened. They begin turning on each other and creating violent rival sects.
Some people struggle to survive, while others find the strength they did not know they possessed to become heroes and leaders.
The series starred Skeet Ulrich, Lennie James, Esai Morales, Gerald McRaney, Pamela Reed and Richard Speight Jr.
Technical aspects: 16:9 widescreen picture; English 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English closed-captioned subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include deleted scenes, commentary tracks, an alternate unaired ending segment from the final season, a behind-the-scenes look at the series, a thank you to fans, a “100 Reasons to Watch ‘Jericho’ ” featurette, a table read, a napalm action sequence from season two, a train crash season from season two and cast members’ memorable moments featurette.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Altered Perception (SKD)
Astro (Sony)
Hooked (DVD + VOD) (Breaking Glass Pictures)
The Rake (DVD + digital) (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Monochrome (DVD + VOD) (Gravitas Ventures, June 6)
Our Blood Is Wine (Music Box Films, May 22)
FOR KIDS
Satellite Girl and Milk Cow (Blu-ray + DVD) (Shout! Factory)
RWBY: Volume 5 (Blu-ray + DVD + digital) (Rooster Teeth-Cinedigm)
The Steam Engines of Oz (Blu-ray) (Cinedigm)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
The Nursery (Uncork’d Entertainment)
Pacific Rim: Uprising (Universal Studios Home Entertainment)
211 (digital + VOD) (Momentum Pictures, June 8)
Silicon Valley: Season 5 (HBO Home Entertainment, June 11)
Coming next week: The Strangers: Prey at Night: Unrated
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.