New to View: March 19

By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, March 19, unless otherwise noted:

Mary Poppins Returns (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2018, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment)
Rated: PG, mild thematic elements, action
The lowdown: “Mary Poppins Returns” is a charming confection, and while it may not be supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, it provides enough merriment, music and magic to warm your heart and keep you smiling.
The movie may not be perfect in every way. However, it succeeds because director Rob Marshall remains within the parameters of expectations — a simple story in which PL Travers’ nanny again helps the Banks family rediscover and reawaken the joy in their lives.
New songs are introduced, which, seem to blur and run together. There’s no “A Spoonful of Sugar” or other ditties from the original, though, snippets of notes from some tunes can be discerned.
The film, set in Depression-era London, finds a grown-up Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) still living on Cherry Tree Lane. He is a widower with three young children. Michael’s sister, Jane (Emily Mortimer), like her late mother, is an activist; her cause is fighting for higher wages for workers.
The death of his wife has put Michael behind in payments on a bank loan, and he has five days to pay off the loan or lose his childhood house.
The family’s only hope is a certificate proving that the Banks own shares in the bank where Michael’s father, George, once worked — and where Michael now earns his living as a teller.
An old kite of Michael and Jane’s is the instrument that floats Mary Poppins back into the lives of the family.
Emily Blunt glides down to Earth on that kite’s string, and her presence ignites the movie.
The film is somewhat dark and sad, as Michael and his children deal with the void in their lives. Mary Poppins basically guides them to a place of acceptance and recognizing that, while some things are gone, they never are really lost.
“Mary Poppins Returns” is not lighter than air, but it is breezy enough to lift your spirits.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 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, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 2.0 descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus options include a four-part look at the making of the movie, a deleted song, a six-part behind-the-scenes look at various aspects of the film, deleted scenes and an option to play the movie in a sing-along mode.

Doctor Who: Tom Baker Complete Season Seven (Blu-ray)
Details: 1980-81, BBC Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: An eight-disc set featuring all 28 episodes of Tom Baker’s final season as the Fourth Doctor. The season featured seven story arcs: “The Leisure Hive,” “Meglos,” “Full Circle,” “State of Decay,” “Warriors’ Gate,” “The Keeper of Traken” and “Logopolis.”
The season was one of change for the series, with new writers, a new title sequence and theme arrangement, new directors, upgraded production standards and a new cast sharing the Doctor’s adventures.
The season also featured a final showdown between Doctor Who and his foremost nemesis, The Master.
An interesting aspect of the season is an alternate viewing option during the “Logopolis” storyline. The producers initially intended to film at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory, but instead, it took place at Crowsley Park, with model shots being used.
For this new Blu-ray, BBC Studios received permission to film at Jodrell Bank with a drone.
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: Supplemental materials include the restored and complete pilot for “K-9 and Company”; two new documentaries: “The Writers Room” and “Weekend with Waterhouse”; eight new “Behind the Sofa” editions; a new making of documentary and updated special effects for “Logopolis”; archival footage of Baker from the Panopticon 1993 convention; new commentaries moderated by Matthew Sweet; an interview with “K-9 and Company’s” Ian Sears; and PDF scripts, production notes and documentation.

Detour: Special Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1945, The Criterion Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This 69-minute Poverty Row thriller is considered by many film scholars as buffs as the epitome of the dark fatalism that was at the center of the film noir movement.
Tom Neal, a stalwart type and regular B-movie performer, is a down-on-his-luck pianist who finds himself with a dead body on his hands and with nowhere to run or hide.
Things get worse when he picks up a drifter named Vera, played by Ann Savage, and considered the most vicious femme fatale in cinema history. Vera is snarling and extremely conniving.
Director Edgar G. Ulmer, an auteur in his own right, working with a cast of little-known stars and a miniscule budget, turned his bargain-basement production values and a shabby, low-rent atmosphere.
At a short 69 minutes, “Detour” is looked upon as pulp poetry. This restoration, utilizing elements from prints found around the world, revives this haunting melodrama to its original splendor.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; English LPCM monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a 2004 documentary about Ulmer that includes interviews with Savage and filmmakers Roger Corman, Joe Dante and Wim Wenders; an interview with film scholar Noah Isenberg, author of “Edgar G. Ulmer: A Filmmaker at the Margins”; a look at the film’s restoration; and an essay about the movie.

House of Cards: Volume Six: The Final Season (Blu-ray)
Release date: March 5
Details: 2018, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: Not rated, language, violence
The lowdown: With Kevin Spacey tossed from the series because of the criminal allegations against him, this series limped through its final season without his President Frank Underwood.
Instead, Robin Wright, who played his wife, Vice President Claire Underwood, ascends to the Oval Office. As president, Claire Underwood, works to rally her allies and outfox those who oppose her.
This three-disc set features all eight episodes as you watch the nation’s first female president battles to preserve her legacy.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.00:1 widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH, English, French and Spanish subtitles.

Krypton: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray + digital)
Release date: March 5
Details: 2018, Warner Home Video
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This two-disc set features all 10 first-season episodes of the SyFy series set two generations before the destruction of Superman’s home world of Krypton.
The series centers on Seg-El (Cameron Cuffe), the grandfather of Superman, who must make a fateful decision — save his home world or let it be destroyed in order to restore the fate of his future grandson.
Seg-El is aided by Earthly time traveler Adam Strange (Shaun Sipos), who helps the House of El redeem its family honor and as well as helps Seg-El protect those he loves while saving the future of his legacy from super-villain Brainiac (Blake Ritson).
The show presents a strong foundation for the world of Krypton, displaying its social and economic fabric and explaining the history of the House of El, how it was disgraced and how Seg-El strives to regain the family’s ranking in Kryptonian society.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH and French subtitles.
Don’t miss: Among the extras are deleted scenes, a 2017 Comic-Con panel, a gag reel and featurettes on designing the world of Krypton and one discussing the creation of Kryptonian society, religion, the role of sigils and other facets of Kryptonian life and culture.

The Deadly Mantis (Blu-ray)
Details: 1957, Scream Factory
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: The success of Warner Bros. 1954 giant-ant feature, “Them!”, spawned many imitators, some schlocky (“The Beginning of the End” with poorly-matted giant locusts), “Tarantula,” “Earth vs. the Spider” and “The Deadly Mantis.”
In this opus, the aftershocks of an earthquake in Antarctica causes icebergs to crack in the Arctic, releasing a giant man-eating praying mantis that had been frozen alive for thousands of years.
Of course, not having eaten for millenniums, the big bug begins devouring everything in sight.
Air Force colonel Craig Stevens, paleontologist William Hopper and museum reporter-photographer Alix Talton, unite to battle this menace to mankind as it begins its journey south, finally winding up in New York’s Holland Tunnel.
The special effects are decent and the movie — at a brisk 79 minutes — gets the job done.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track with film historians Tom Weaver and David Schecter and a “Mystery Science Theatre 3000” episode devoted to the movie.

The Quake (Blu-ray)
Details: 2018, Magnolia Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, intense sequences of danger and destruction, injury images, language
The lowdown: This follow-up to the Norwegian disaster film, “The Wave,” finds geologist Kristian Eikjord (Kristoffer Joner) and his family living in Oslo, where Eikjord believes the ground beneath the city is ripe for a geologic disaster akin to the 1904 earthquake that destroyed the city.
And, of course, he is proven correct, as skyscrapers crumble and people tumble. In the midst of all the tremblers, Eikjord makes a dangerous attempt to help his wife, daughter and others escape a doomed skyscraper.
The movie focuses more on character and less on disaster special effects as in a Hollywood feature. The limited effects are well done and helps ramp up the thrills.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; Norwegian Dolby Atmos and English 5.1 Dolby TrueHD; English SDH, English and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: A series of behind-the-scenes featurettes and a look at the special effects comprise the major bonus components.

Becoming Astrid
Details: 2018, Music Box Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This Swedish drama that looks at the events in the early life of Astrid Lindgren, the author of the “Pippi Longstocking” books.
The movie follows teenage Astrid (Alba August), who lives a happy life with her family in rural Sweden. But Astrid is a restless girl who yearns to break free of her strict religious and conservative upbringing.
To that end, Astrid takes a job at a local newspaper, where she begins to discover her voice. Her writing attracts the attention of the paper’s married editor.
Soon, Astrid becomes pregnant and leaves for Denmark to have her baby in secret. Astrid has a son, whom she gives to a foster mother, Marie.
When Marie takes ill, Astrid takes custody of her son. She uses her imagination and storytelling abilities to connect with the boy, becoming the mother her child needs and the author who would become a spiritual mother to generations of children.
The story impressed critics, who gave the film a 96 percent fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com.
Technical aspects: 2.35:1 widescreen picture; Swedish 5.1 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Interviews with August and director Pernille Fischer Christensen and a press conference from the film’s Berlin premiere comprise the major bonus options.

Born in East L.A.: Collector’s Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1987, Shout! Factory
Rated: R, adult situations, language
The lowdown: Cheech Marin wrote, directed and starred in this comedy, the newest addition to the Shout Select series, that resonates in today’s political climate, as it looks at the plight of immigrants.
Marin plays Rudy, an American of Hispanic descent, whose looks get him in trouble during an immigration raid in a migrant worker factory.
Rudy is caught and since he has neither money nor his ID, he is deported to Mexico. To compound his dilemma, Rudy cannot speak Spanish.
Stranded in Mexico, Rudy is unable to contact his vacationing family or his new immigrated cousin, played by comedian Paul Rodriguez). Rudy then gets involved with various schemes — legal and illegal — to get back to Los Angeles.
The movie is pleasant and funny, allowing Marin to satirize the immigration system and its problems.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include a commentary track, interviews with Marin, Rodriguez and costar Kamala Lopez, production notes and the extended television cut of the movie.

Accident (Blu-ray)
Details: 2017, Well Go USA Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Four people steal a car for a night of fun.
But their prank soon becomes a nightmare after a crash that finds the foursome stuck at the bottom of a ravine in the overturned vehicle.
That, however, turns out to be the least of their problems.
The psychotic owner of the stolen car is very angry and will stop at nothing to retrieve his vehicle and its contents, including jeopardizing the lives of the people who “borrowed” it.
The feature seems to have had a very limited theatrical release before making its way to the home entertainment arena.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 (16×9 enhanced) widescreen picture; English DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.

Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
As You Like It (DVD + VOD) (Random Media)
Out of Love (Omnibus Entertainment)
Paparazzi (DVD & digital download & VOD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Red Room (DVD + VOD) (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Ritual — A Psychomagic Story (Omnibus Entertainment)
Strip Nude for Your Killer (Blu-ray) (Arrow Video)
Beyond Atlantis (VCI Entertainment, March 12)
The Long Goodbye: The Kara Tippetts Story (Ocean Avenue Entertainment, March 22)

FOR KIDS
Craig of the Creek: Itch to Explore (Cartoon Network-Warner Home Video)

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Amy Schumer: Growing (Netflix)
Titans: The Complete First Season (Warner Home Video, March 21)
Executive Stress: Series 1-3 (Acorn TV, March 25)
Murdoch Mysteries: Series 12, Episode 15 (Acorn TV, March 25)
Soundbreaking: Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music (Acorn TV, March 25)

Coming next week: Aquaman
     Second Act

I am a founding 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.