Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Blu-ray Highlights: Week of August 20th, 2017 – Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang

With one of the biggest blockbusters of the year hitting Blu-ray and UHD this week, you’ll have to forgive other studios for stepping out of the way. If Marvel’s new space epic isn’t your thing, we also have some classic art films and a bunch of TV box sets on deck.

Which Blu-rays Interest You This Week (8/22/17)?

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New Releases

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2‘ – As one of the few movies I actually saw in the theater this year, I’m relieved to report that James Gunn’s sprawling sequel is just a quirky and delightful as the original. It’ll also undoubtedly make splendid eye candy as Disney’s first Ultra HD Blu-ray release. Of the options available, Best Buy has the best overall package with a UHD/Blu-ray/3D SteelBook. Unfortunately, that edition has been sold out online for months, but Best Buy sometimes makes new stock available the day of release, so be sure to check back early Tuesday morning.

Catalog Titles

Having previously released his cult classic ‘Repo Man’, the Criterion Collection reteams with director Alex Cox for a new 4k restoration of ‘Sid & Nancy‘, his acclaimed trek through the 1970s punk rock scene by way of a bio-pic about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious (played by Gary Oldman in a blistering performance).

After that, Criterion gets perhaps a little more sedate with ‘La Poison‘, a 1951 French dark comedy about a man plotting the perfect crime to murder his wife.

Long inexplicably absent from the format, the Coen brothers’ Palme d’Or-winning Hollywood satire ‘Barton Fink‘ finally makes its North American Blu-ray debut courtesy of Kino. I’d have preferred to see the movie licensed to Criterion, who surely have put more work into a new video master, but this disc will do for fans until that eventually happens.

Shout! Factory adds to its Shout Select line with a 15th Anniversary Edition of the feel-good Maori coming-of-age drama ‘Whale Rider‘.

Arrow Video released the schlocky ’80s splatter flick ‘Society‘ on Blu-ray in 2015 and now offers it in a new SteelBook.

Weird fact: Nora Ephron wrote the screenplay for the 1990 Mob comedy ‘My Blue Heaven‘ based loosely on research her husband Nicholas Pileggi had done for ‘Goodfellas’, which was released to theaters one month later. One of these movies turned out to be a classic, and the other is a mostly-forgotten Steve Martin dud. (Hint: Steve Martin isn’t in ‘Goodfellas’.) Someone at the studio apparently considers it worthy of a Blu-ray release through the Warner Archive, though.

Television

The TV scene is hopping this week. Marvel prepares for the debut of its Netflix team-up series ‘The Defenders’ with the first season of ‘Jessica Jones‘ and the second season of ‘Daredevil‘.

Also available are the second seasons of ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead‘, ‘Lucifer‘ and ‘Supergirl‘, as well as the seventh season of ‘The Walking Dead‘.

My $.02

I tried to preorder Best Buy’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ UHD/3D SteelBook, but it sold out online in a blink. I’m hoping more copies become available tomorrow. If not, I was able to get a preorder in place for the UK edition, which is the same SteelBook case but without the UHD disc. All things considered, I’d rather get the more comprehensive Best Buy package and cancel the Zavvi order. We’ll have to see how that works out.

I already have copies of ‘Barton Fink’ and ‘Sid & Nancy’ for review. (I would have bought them regardless.)

That’s about all I need this week. What are your plans?

10 comments

  1. Chris B

    I loved the first season of Ash vs. Evil Dead and can’t wait to watch the second. My Blue Heaven is something I’ve meant to see for years but never got around to, will pick it up if the price is decent.

    • David W

      If you are a fan of the movie series and a fan of call backs to prior events and references to classic horror movies, then you will love this season. I certainly did. If you did not see the movies then a lot of the more subtle references may be missed which will take away some of the enjoyment. This is definitely as season for the fans of The Evil Dead series.

      • Chris B

        I’m a fan of the trilogy although Army of Darkness is my personal favorite of the three. Normally I don’t really watch TV shows but this is one series me and my wife both love being that we’re fans of the films and the show is so fast-paced and hilarious. Really looking forward to it.

  2. Csm101

    I’ll be picking up Ash vs. Evil Dead season 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy uhd/ 3d combo pack. I wish the artwork were different for the GOTG as I don’t find baby Groot all that amusing. I wish he’d grow up already. That’s all for new releases aside from a couple of movies from the Twilight Time sale.

  3. Deaditelord

    As a huge Evil Dead fan (I know… shocking right) Ash vs Evil Dead is a no-brainer purchase for me. I also preordered the Guardians of the Galaxy UHD/3D combo pack from Best Buy so that’s probably been delivered by now. Outside of those two titles, not much interests me which is probably a good thing since I decided to go ahead and preorder an Xbox One X console yesterday.

  4. Just came back from a trip to the UK and bought ‘Electric Dreams’ for £9.99, an 80’s movie I have never seen (but am very eager to see). It includes ‘Together In Electric Dreams’ by Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder, one of my favorite songs of all time. The Blu-ray is very recent (2017), and includes new interviews with director Steve Barron (who also did a-ha’s groundbreaking ‘Take On Me’ video, and the first Turtles movie), the screenwriter, and stars Lenny Von Dohlen and Virginia Madsen. Nice!

    Also picked up ‘The Nice Guys’ for £5.

  5. I was delighted to get home yesterday and find that Best Buy actually delivered a preorder to me on release day. The GotG steelbook is fantastic! Sadly, i was disappointed when I went to redeem the code and it only gave me the HD version. On the other hand, it is nice that Disney Anywhere supports way more platforms than Ultraviolet seems to (or at least platforms I care about).

    I will probably watch it tonight after I finish Catching Fire in Dolby Vision (for some odd reason, it was the only Hunger Games movie that redeemed in UHD, the others gave me HDX versions)

  6. Even though I don’t have a 4K TV with HDR, I’m tempted to get GOTG2 in UltraHD just so I can watch it on my father’s LG OLED TV. I can’t think of another movie that would make that beautiful screen pop with eye candy.

  7. GOTG2 4K Steelbook is waiting for me to make the trek to pick it up from the store, some 30 or so miles away.
    Wishlist: Both Hercules movies + Whale Rider.

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