Update: New to View: Oct. 17
By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, Oct. 17, unless otherwise noted:
Barbie (4K Ultra HD + digital)
Details: 2023, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, language, suggestive references
The lowdown: Greta Gerwig’s smart and witty satire of gender roles, expectations and politics had me from its opening Stanley Kubrick-“2001: A Space Odyssey” riff to the movie’s bright and sassy finale.
The script by Gerwig and Noah Baumbach is an observant, charming and shrewd social critique that pokes fun at toxic masculinity, patriarchy and the general devaluing of women — in and out of the workplace.
Margot Robbie is funny and a slyly perplexed chronicler of the real world she discovers, to try to solve her existential crisis, outside of Barbie Land, while Ryan Gosling is dazzling as Ken who feels powerless and unappreciated in Barbie World, but deeply dives into what he perceives as a man’s world after experiencing life outside of his normal bright and plastic existence.
Gerwig’s movie, which garnered an 88 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, is gleeful and sharp-eyed. It will dazzle and surprise you with its charm and intelligence. It is one of the best movies of the year, with wonderful supporting performances by America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Michael Cera, Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir.
Do not be surprised if the movie earns plenty of recognition when awards season arrives.
Technical aspects: 2160p ultra high definition, 200:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby Atmos-TrueHD, English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 5.1 Dolby digital descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus components include six featurettes, including a “Welcome to Barbie Land,” “Becoming Barbie,” “Playing Dress-Up,” “Musical Make-Believe,” “All-Star Barbie Party” and “It’s a Weird World.”
The Last Voyage of the Demeter: Collector’s Edition (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2023, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: R, bloody violence
The lowdown: Horror fans, and especially those familiar with the Dracula legend, are aware of the significance of the merchant ship, the Demeter. It was the vessel that carried the vampire’s coffins from Carpathia to England, arriving with its entire crew dead.
This movie supposedly tells the story behind that incident.
The movie’s challenge is creating interest, suspense and tension in an event many are familiar with and already know the outcome.
“Demeter” features the usual jump cuts, but it’s main problem is stretching one chapter from Bram Stoker’s novel into a 119-minute movie. It finds it difficult to provide any surprises, but the film does its best to offer some scares.
The cast includes Corey Hawkins, Liam Cunningham, Aisling Franciosi, David Dastmalchan and Javier Botet as Dracula. The movie garnered a 49 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.35:1 widescreen picture; English Dolby Atmos, 2.0 DVS, Spanish 7.1 Dolby digital plus and French 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles; DVD: 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English, French and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital and English 2.0 DVS; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus options include a commentary track with director André Øverdal and producer Bradley J. Fischer, deleted scenes and an alternate opening, a behind-the-scenes look at reimagining Dracula, a making of featurette and a look at the visual effects.
Haunted Mansion (Blu-ray + DVD + digital)
Details: 2023, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, thematic elements, scary action
The lowdown: Another overblown Disney movie inspired by its theme-park attraction. Oh, well, inspiration comes from various sources.
The story centers on a woman and her son who hire a rather shabby crew of so-called spiritual experts to help rid their home of supernatural squatters.
Considering the talented cast, which includes Rosario Dawson, LeKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Dan Levy, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jared Leto, Hasan Minhaj and Chase W. Dillon, the movie could have been cleverer, but its settles just to be a long advertisement for the attraction.
A majority of critics felt the same, giving the movie a 37 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 Dolby digital 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 Dolby digital descriptive audio; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a making of featurette, a look at where characters appear in the movie and on the ride, deleted scenes and bloopers.
“Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers” (Blu-ray)
Details: 1925-32, The Criterion Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: When film buffs hear the name Tod Browning, they conjure the image of a filmmaker who dealt not so much in horror, but in the macabre.
His movies featured characters, many of them criminals, con men, outcasts or outsiders, with deformities, either real of disguised.
This set features three of those movies — “The Mystic” (1925), “The Unknown” (1927) and, his piece de resistance, “Freaks” (1932).
“The Mystic” is a gangster story about an American gangster who imports a band of Hungarian gypsies to help with his embezzlement and swindling scheme. The movie features exotic sequences involving the gypsies seances.
And, like many of Browning’s movies, it is a story of redemption as con man Michael Nash (Conway Tearle) develops a moral conscience after falling in love with Zara (Aileen Pringle), one of the gypsies hired to help get the fortune of a gullible heiress, played by Gladys Hulette.
“The Unknown” (1927) is one of the best of Browning’s silent-film collaborations with Lon Chaney, “The Man of a Thousand Faces.”
From 1925 to 1929, the pair worked together on eight movies.
The movie’s circus background was prime meat for Browning, who as a teenager and young man, had worked in circuses and carnivals.
Chaney plays “Alonzo the armless,” a Gypsy knife thrower appearing as a double amputee who throws his knives with his feet.
Unknown to everyone, Alonzo has arms, but binds them to his sides when performing his act.
Alonzo desires Nanon, a young Joan Crawford, but she has a pathological aversion to any man’s embrace. Alonzo’s yearning drives him to extreme actions that end in tragedy for the performer.
“Freaks” (1932) is one of the most controversial movies in cinematic history. Produced by MGM, studio head Louis B. Mayer hated it. The movie turned out to be Browning’s most notorious and bizarre work.
Browning cast actual carnival sideshow professionals in the story of Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova), a haughty and greedy trapeze artist, who seduces, marries and then tries to murder sideshow midget Hans (Harry Earles), in order to inherit his fortune.
Hans is saved and he and his fellow “freaks” exact a terrible revenge on Cleopatra.
This set is a must-have for fans of Browning offering a trio of movies that you soon won[t forget.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.37:1 full-screen picture; English LPCM monaural and English intertitles; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Bonus components include commentaries on “Freaks” and “The Unknown” and an introduction to “The Mystic,” all by film scholar-author David J. Skal; an interview with author Meghan Abbott about Browning and pre-Code horror films; an archival documentary on “Freaks”; a reading by Skal of Tod Robbins short story, “Spurs,” which was the basis for “Freaks”; a prologue to “Freaks” added to the movie in 1947; a program on the alternate endings to “Freaks”; video gallery portraits from “Freaks”; a 2019 podcast by critic Kristen Lopez’s about disability representation in “Freaks”; and an essay about the movie.
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Ultimate Collector’s Edition (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + digital)
Release date: Oct. 10
Details: 1937, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment
Rated: G
The lowdown: Even after 86 years, Disney’s first feature-length animated film remains “the fairest of them all.”
The movie may look quaint to younger audiences accustomed to computer animated movies, but it remains a timeless and enjoyable celebration of love and goodness.
The fairy tale about a beautiful princess, an evil and jealous queen, the seven dwarfs who protect Snow White and the love-struck prince who searches for and rescues her still grabs at your heartstrings.
This newest release of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — and many have been issued and reissued over the years — is an 4K Ultra HD upgrade that is part of the Disney 100 celebration.
“Snow White” was the feature that began Disney’s run of classic animated features such as “Pinocchio,” “Dumbo,” “Fantasia,” “Peter Pan,” “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” that, in turn, spurred a new generation of movies such as “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin” and “The Lion King.”
Technical aspects: 4K: 2160p ultra high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 Dolby digital descriptive audio, French 5.1 DTS-HDHR and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles: Blu-ray: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, 2.0 Dolby digital descriptive audio, French 5.1 DTS-HDHR and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Many of the extras are featurettes that had been included on previous releases, including how Snow White’s design influenced other Disney characters and an alternate the prince meets Snow White sequence.
“Douglas Fairbanks double feature” — The Three Musketeers and The Iron Mask (Blu-ray)
Details: 1921, 1929, Cohen Film Collection
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: After the success of “The Mark of Zorro,” Douglas Fairbanks new course in Hollywood was set.
Between 1920 and early 1929, he only starred in one film that was not a swashbuckler-historical drama.
In 1921, Fairbanks starred in an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers.” He played, D’Artagan, of course, as dueled, cavorted and laughed with the trio of Musketeers — Porthos (George Siegmann), Aramis (Eugene Pallette) and Athos (Leon Bary).
D’Artagan and the Musketeers work to thwart the machinations of Cardinal Richelieu (Nigel De Brulier), who attempts to concentrate power by threatening the queen, Anne of Austria (Mary MacLaren), who is in love with the English Duke of Buckingham (Thomas Holding), but remains true to her husband, King Louis XIII (Adolphe Menjou).
The Musketeers undertake a dangerous mission to save the queen’s honor for which they are successful.
Eight years later, Fairbanks returned to the role of D’Artagan, now older and wiser, in “The Iron Mask.” It is the familiar legend of The Man in the Iron Mask, believed to be the twin brother of King Louis XIV.
The film returns many characters from “The Three Musketeers” including De Brulier’s Richelieu, Bary’s Athos and Marguerite De La Motte as Constance, D’Artagan’s lover.
“The Iron Mask” contained a couple of short sound sequences involving D’Artagan.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English intertitles and 5.1 DTS-HD musical score.
The Desperate Hours (Blu-ray)
Details: 1955, Arrow Video
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This thriller was Humphrey Bogart’s penultimate feature. It was released on Oct. 12, 1955, Bogart, who was battling cancer, died Jan. 14, 1957 — about 15 months later.
Despite his illness, Bogart gave a hardened performance as Glenn Griffin, an escaped convict who, with his younger brother, Hal (Dewey Martin), and fellow escapee Sam Kobish (Robert Middleton), invade the suburban home of Daniel Hilliard (Fredric March) and his family.
The escapees only plan to stay until midnight as Griffin is awaiting his girlfriend, who will meet him with some money he has hidden away.
When she does not arrive, the criminals’ stay is extended for days. Hilliard, to protect his wife, teenage daughter and young son, is powerless to alert the police.
As he continually complies with his captors demands, Hilliard tries to plot a way of escape for himself and his family.
Bogart’s character is nearly a throwback to the kind of hard-nosed crooks he played some many times in his early years at Warner Bros.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English LPCM monaural; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: Among the extras are an interview with Catherine Wyler, daughter of the film’s director, William Wyler; an appreciation of the movie; and a commentary track by film historian Daniel Kremer.
The Night of the 12th (DVD)
Details: 2022, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A French thriller about a recently promoted police captain who becomes obsessed with investigating the brutal murder of a young woman named Clara in the French town of Grenoble.
To the captain, evidence points to the attack being premeditated — and the violent nature of the crime suggests revenge.
All the evidence points to a scorned former lover. The puzzle is figuring out which one. The captain and his team methodically dig through the details of Clara’s life, uncovering her secrets while endeavoring to unmask the killer.
The gritty mystery also poses questions about the male-dominated world of law enforcement and their ability — and willingness — to handle violent crimes against women.
At Rotten Tomatoes, the movie earned an impressive 94 percent fresh rating.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 widescreen picture; French 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: “Harbor,” a short film about an English teacher and her colleague who must make a decision when they inadvertently smuggle a teenage refugee who is hiding among their students on a ferry bound for England.
Passion (Blu-ray)
Details: 2008, Film Movement
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A young Japanese couple’s dinner celebration with friends goes wrong with the emotional turmoil unleashed once a prior infidelity is revealed in this drama written and directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi (“Drive My Car”).
The movie displays Hamaguchi’s textured insights into modern relationships.
The bulk of the movie follows the impact on the couple as the revelation tests their devotion with remarkable clarity that leads to a devastating finale.
The movie earned a 100 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; Japanese 2.0 DTS-HD stereo; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include an introduction by Hamaguchi and a video essay about the movie by film and theater writer Kenji Fujishima.
The Best of Times (Blu-ray)
Details: 1986, Kino Lorber Studio Classics
Rated: PG-13, sports violence, language
The lowdown: Kurt Russell and Robin Williams star in this so-so comedy about a couple of middle-aged men who want to recapture their youth and atone for a botched play in a high school football game.
Williams’ Jack Dundee has spent years regretting the catch he dropped. He convinces his friend, former quarterback Reno Hightower (Russell), to help him reunite all the players from their old team and replay the game.
This is a nostalgic fantasy that is hit-and-miss, with formulaic situations and obvious satiric observations.
The cast also includes Pamela Reed, Donald Moffat and Holly Palance.
The movie, which garnered a 31 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes, was written by Ron Shelton (“Bull Durham).
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.85:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English SDH subtitles.
Don’t miss: A commentary track with Shelton and director Roger Spottiswoode is the main extra.
Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match (4K Ultra HD + digital)
Details: 2023, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
Rated: R, bloody violence, language
The lowdown: This animated feature begins in 1980s Hollywood where action star Johnny Cage is working hard to become an A-list actor.
But when his costar, Jennifer, disappears from the set, Johnny finds himself introduced into a world filled with shadows, danger and deceit.
As Johnny begins a bloody journey, he quickly discovers that Los Angeles has some devils in its midst. He faces off against an evil secret society plotting a dastardly scheme. Johnny soon must fight the bloodthirsty warriors of Netherrealm — a battle that is just beginning.
Can Johnny, working with other Kombat legends, save humanity — and his career. You’ll have to watch it to see.
Technical aspects: 2160p ultra high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and Spanish 5.1 Dolby digital; English SDH, French and Spanish subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include a commentary track and a “What Would Johnny Do” featurette.
Other titles being released on Tuesday, unless otherwise indicated:
Brothers in Arms: WWII in HD and Vietnam in HD (DVD) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Evangelion: 3.0 + 1.1: Thrice Upon a Time (4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray) (GKids-Shout! Studios)
Landfill (DVD & VOD) (Indican Pictures)
Rabbit Hole: Season One (DVD) (Paramount Home Entertainment)
Three Blind Mice (DVD & digital) (Uncork’d Entertainment)
The Unknown Country (Blu-ray & DVD) (Music Box Pictures)
The Walking Dead: The Complete Collection (Blu-ray) (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
Aliens Uncovered: Las Vegas (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Anonymous Sister (Gravitas Ventures)
Baby, Don’t Cry (Good Deed Entertainment)
The Best of Times (Kino Now)
Douglas Fairbanks double feature: The Three Musketeers and The Iron Mask (Kino Now)
The Edge of the World (Kino Now-Amazon)
The Haunting Lodge (Gravitas Ventures)
Justice League x RWBY: Superheroes & Huntsmen, Part Two (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
Shaky Shivers (Cineverse-Screambox)
Sri Ash: The Warrior (Shout! Studios)
OCT. 18
Invasion: Season 2, Episode 9 (Apple TV+)
Living for the Dead (Hulu)
The Morning Show: Season 3, Episode 7 (Apple TV+)
OCT. 20
The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra (IndiePix Unlimited)
Killher (Dark Sky Films)
Kiss Me Kosher (Menemsha Films)
Lessons in Chemistry: Episode 3 (Apple TV+)
Night of the Hunted (Shudder)
The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple TV+)
Robert Irwin: A Desert of Pure Feeling (Kino Now-Obscured Pictures)
Sick Girl (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Still Up: Episode 7 (Apple TV+)
Waiting for the Light to Change (Freestyle Digital Media)
OCT. 23
Condition of Return (Stonecutter Media)
Fear the Walking Dead: Season 8, Part B (Lionsgate Home Entertainment)
Sexpectations (Bitmax)
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.