New to View: Jan. 25
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, Jan. 25, unless otherwise noted:
The Lover: Collector’s Edition (4K + Blu-ray)
Details: 1992, MPI Media Group-Capelight Films
Rated: R, sexual content
The lowdown: This adaptation of Marguerite Duras’ novel, set in 1929 French Indochina (now Vietnam), explores the relationship between a teenage French girl and an older, wealthy Chinese man.
Rather than being an exploitive feature, the movie, directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, is rich and romantic.
Jane March plays The Young Girl and Tony Leung portrays The Chinese Man — the characters go unnamed throughout the film.
They meet on a ferry and a smitten with each other. Soon, against all convention, they begin an affair. At the beginning of the movie, the girl — in a voiceover — says she is 15 but tells the man she is 17.
And while elements of the movie may be disturbing to contemporary — and more woke — audiences, “The Lover” is a drama about two people passionately following their hearts, despite the consequences.
The 4K transfer is rich, capturing most of the nuances of the original release.
The film received mostly positive reviews overseas, but was mostly criticized by American critics. But what do they know.
Technical aspects: 4K UHD: 2160p Ultra HD, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and German 2.0 LPCM monaural; English, French, German and Spanish subtitles; Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English and French 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and German 2.0 LPCM monaural; English, French, German and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus offerings include an archival making of featurette, a conversation between Duras and Annaud and unreleased scenes.
Last Night in Soho (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Release date: Jan. 18
Details: 2021, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: R, bloody violence, nudity, language, sexual content, drug material
The lowdown: Two fine young performers, Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy, star in this psychological thriller with time-traveling and supernatural elements, about Eloise (McKenzie), an aspiring fashion designer obsessed with the Swinging Sixties, who travels to London to study and fulfill her passion.
Eloise, whom everyone calls “Ellie,” is upset with the snobbish students at the residence hall so she moves into a bedsit owned by Ms. Collins (Diana Rigg, in her final role).
There, “Ellie” begins having dreams in which she is transported back to the 1960s. She sees Sandie (Taylor-Joy), who wants to be a singer.
As the movie progresses, Ellie becomes more involved in Sandie’s life, which had not turned out as the young singer dreamed.
The movie is an intriguing mixture that works most of the time. The supporting cast, abetted by a solid digital transfer, also includes Matt Smith, Rita Tushingham, Michael Ajao and Terence Stamp.
The movie earned a 75 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby Atmos, 2.0 Dolby digital DVS, Spanish 7.1 Dolby digital and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 2.0 Dolby digital DVS; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus materials include a behind-the-scenes featurette and deleted scenes.
Stage Fright (Blu-ray)
Details: 1950, Warner Archive Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Alfred Hitchcock directed this thriller, and while it is not considered as highly as “Vertigo” or “North by Northwest,” it remains a solid undertaking.
Set in the world of theater, the story is the “wrong man” motif, with Richard Todd being framed for a murder and Jane Wyman as the friend who undertakes the job of proving his innocence.
Wyman’s Eve Gill, an aspiring actress herself, takes a job as a maid to flamboyant stage star Charlotte Inwood (Marlene Dietrich), whose husband was the murder victim.
Hitchcock deftly juggles suspense and humor, as Wyman uses various disguises to help clear her friend.
The cast also includes Alistair Sim, Michael Wilding and Dame Sybil Thorndyke.
You can find “Stage Fright” at the Warner Archive Collection store on Amazon or at other online sellers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 (16×9 enhanced) full-screen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: A making of documentary is the main bonus component.
Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy (Blu-ray)
Release date: Jan. 18
Details: 2021, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, whose latest film, “Drive My Car,” has garnered much acclaim — and is Japan’s Academy Award entry for best international film — wrote and directed this feature that weaves together three stories about love, seduction and romance.
The movie spins ordinary encounters into a world of endless possibilities. The stories are linked memory, regret, deception and fate.
The audio and visual transfers are sharp, capturing the color palette from the feature.
For the lucky filmgoers who saw — and enjoyed — “Drive My Car,” “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” will not disappoint.
Critics agreed, awarding the movie a 98 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Japanese 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 5.1 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include a short bonus film, “The Chicken,” and an interview with Hamaguchi.
Song of the Thin Man (Blu-ray)
Release date: Jan. 18
Details: 1947, Warner Archive Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: For 13 years through six films William Powell and Myrna Loy had been entertaining moviegoers as married sleuths Nick and Nora Charles.
Nick, who enjoyed his cocktails more than solving murders, and Nora, who delighted in helping her husband close a case, were romantic, charming, wisecracking and smart.
In this, the last movie in the series, Nick and Nora are attending a charity gambling event aboard a ship when a bandleader is killed.
Red herrings abound and other killings are attempted before Nick unmasks the guilty party.
The modus operandi may be familiar, but watching it all unfold remains a delight.
The made-on-demand Blu-ray can be ordered at the Warner Archive Collection store at Amazon or at other online retailers.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 (16×9 enhanced) full-screen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: A cartoon and a “Passing Parade” short subject comprise the extras.
Dancing with Crime / The Green Cockatoo (Blu-ray)
Details: 1937, 1947, Cohen Film Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This double feature from the “Classics of British Cinema” series offers two early example of film noirs.
“The Green Cockatoo,” completed in 1937, but not released until 1940, was directed by legendary production designer William Cameron Menzies.
The 64-minute thriller is based on a story by Graham Greene and features John Mills, Robert Newton, Rene Ray and Charles Oliver.
Its focus is on a young woman who witnesses the murder of a racketeer and is sought by gangsters and the police. She is helped by a Soho entertainer, who is the brother of the victim.
“The Green Cockatoo” stars Richard Attenborough and Sheila Sim who, married in real life at the time, play a married couple who go undercover to investigate the murder of a friend who had links to black market criminals.
Appearing in uncredited roles are future stars Dirk Bogarde and Diana Dors.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen pictures; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Joy Womack: The White Swan (DVD)
Release date: Jan. 11
Details: 2021, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A documentary that follows the life of Joy Womack, the first American to graduate from the Bolshoi Ballet Academy’s main training program and the first American to sign a contract with the Bolshoi Ballet.
Womack left her home in Texas at 15 and moved to Russia, knowing she wanted to be a dancer. She did not know the language, nor did she meet all the physical requirements to enroll in the academy.
But through determination and dedication to ballet, she finally achieved her goal.
The film follows Womack’s personal and professional lives, her injuries, setbacks and challenges that led her to become a dancer with the Bolshoi Theatre Group and, later, the prima ballerina of the Kremlin Ballet, where she was the lead in “Swan Lake.”
From there, Womack left Russia to seek other opportunities.
The movie is a powerful testament about the human spirit and achieving one’s dreams. It earned a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English and Russian 2.0 Dolby digital; English closed-captioned subtitles.
Don’t miss: A behind-the-scenes featurette and interviews are the main extras.
Gomorrah: Third Season (Blu-ray)
Details: 2015-16, Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This four-disc set features the third season — all 12 episodes — of this Italian gangster series, in which there is a void to be filled in the Naples underworld.
The various factions, tired of fighting for control, facing pressure from police and seeing their finances drastically reduced, are ready to forge a peace. One group takes over North Naples and Rome, while another, led by a criminal leader who has returned from Bulgaria — where he had been exiled — forms a partnership with another faction and decides to take what he believes is rightfully his.
This is an interesting series, abetted by a solid digital transfer that features Italian and English audio tracks.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; Italian and English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Sleep (Blu-ray)
Details: 2020, Arrow Video
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This German horror feature is a movie to which you must pay attention because it freely mixes dreams and reality — and sometimes it is hard to discern which is which.
Marlene is tormented by nightmares of a place she has never been. What is more disturbing to her is that she learns the place is real. She decides to investigate.
Once there, she suffers a nervous breakdown and is admitted to a psychiatric ward.
Soon, her daughter, Mona, wanting to know what happened to her mother also finds herself in the village, named Stainbach, which has a dark history.
Mona tries to uncover what tormented not only her mother, but the residents of the idyllic village.
At times, the movie plays like a nightmarish fairy tale or a “Shining”-like haunted hotel chiller.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; German 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 LPCM monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a visual essay that looks at the meaning of ritual, fairy tales and masks; a commentary track with film critic and historian Kim Newman and author Sean Hogan; a look at the movie’s connection to dreams and folktale; an introduction to the movie by director Michael Venus; a look at how COVID-19 has disrupted various film festivals; deleted scenes; behind-the-scenes footage; a look and explanation of the sketches drawn by the character of Marlene; and an insert booklet.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Birds Like Us (DVD & digital & VOD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Gun & Run (DVD) (Paramount Home Entertainment)
Kamen Ride Zero-One: The Complete Series + Movie (Blu-ray & digital) (Shout! Factory)
Mahalia (DVD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
The Punisher: Steelbook (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + digital) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Two Deaths of Henry Baker (DVD & digital & VOD) (Saban Films)
FOR KIDS
Tom and Jerry Cowboy Up (DVD & digital) (Warner Home Entertainment)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes (Indiecan Pictures)
Confession (Uncork’d Entertainment)
Death of a Telemarketer (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Gintama: The Very Final (Shout! Kids-Eleven Arts)
Golden Voices (Music Box Films)
Neymar: The Perfect Chaos (Netflix)
Salt in the Soul (Giant Pictures)
The Time Guardians (Shout! Studios)
The Afterparty: Episodes 1-3 (Apple TV+, Jan. 28)
Rifkin’s Festival (MPI Media Group, Jan. 28)
Home Team (www.netflix.com/hometeam) (Netflix, Jan. 28)
The Legend of Vox Machina (Amazon Prime)
The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (www.netflix.com/thewomaninthehouse) — Netflix, Jan. 28)
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.