The Emoji Movie

Blu-ray Highlights: Week of October 22nd, 2017 – Cut the Crap

Let’s not monkey around. We’ve got a bunch of new Blu-rays to look at this week. Some will make you smile. Others will stink. Some are just plain inconvenient. They’re all going to war for your shopping dollar.

Which Blu-rays Interest You This Week (10/24/17)?

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New Releases (Blu-ray)

The Emoji Movie‘ – As if ‘The Angry Birds Movie’ and ‘Trolls’ weren’t shameless enough cash-grabs, here comes a movie based on those dumb cartoony icon things that everybody insists on foisting into all their text messages and social media posts these days. Critics were nearly unanimous that such a thing does not need to exist (neither do emojis, frankly), but of course that didn’t stop it from making money.

War for the Planet of the Apes‘ – I expected Fox to drag out the ‘Apes’ reboot series at least as long as the original franchise, but the studio is calling this third entry the finale of a trilogy. I wasn’t much impressed with ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ and never watched further. Supposedly the second one was better. Most fans who bothered to see it were satisfied with the concluding chapter, but the movie got lost in a sea of other sequels this summer and its box office was down significantly from ‘Dawn’. I expect that it will do better on home video, where it’s available in 2D, 3D or Ultra HD.

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power‘ – I get that Al Gore’s trying to make the title a pun about being a sequel to his documentary ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, but calling it ‘An Inconvenient Sequel’ just kind of makes it sound like the movie probably doesn’t need to exist. Anyway, climate change is still bad. Don’t do climate change.

Annabelle: Creation‘ – The prequel/spinoff to ‘The Conjuring’ gets its own prequel to tell us exactly where that creepy evil doll came from. If that’s a burning question you were dying to know the answer to, just wait until the pre-pre-prequel that gives us the origin story of the horse that supplied her doll hair.

Personal Shopper‘ – Kristen Stewart reunites with her ‘Clouds of Sils Maria’ director Olivier Assayas, once again playing the put-upon assistant to a wealthy person. The twist this time is that the movie is also a ghost story. Reviews were mixed for both the film itself and Stewart’s performance specifically.

UHD

Arriving simultaneously on Blu-ray and Ultra HD are ‘The Emoji Movie‘ and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes‘.

Warner breaks out the holiday classics ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving‘ and ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas‘ to standalone UHD releases, but the ‘Peanuts: Holiday Collection‘ from a couple weeks ago is a better value.

If the stress of the holiday season makes you want to watch family members punching each other in the face repeatedly, Lionsgate scratches that particular itch with the brother-vs.-brother MMA drama ‘Warrior‘.

Catalog Titles

Unsurprisingly, Fox has taken advantage of the opportunity to bundle the latest three ‘Apes’ movies into a ‘Planet of the Apes Trilogy‘ box set.

GKIDS continues rolling out it Hayao Miyazaki reissues with the animator’s 1984 ‘Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind‘ and 1986 ‘Castle in the Sky‘.

Sean Penn’s 1991 directorial debut ‘The Indian Runner‘ makes its way to Blu-ray from Kino, as does the goofy 1982 action comedy ‘They Call Me Bruce?‘.

Unseen in its original CinemaScope aspect ratio for decades, the 1955 Alan Ladd film noir thriller ‘Hell on Frisco Bay‘ receives a new restoration for the Warner Archive.

Getting into the Halloween spirit, the Warner Archive also offers the 1981 slasher ‘Night School‘.

Arrow Video breaks out a standalone copy of the splatterific ‘Blood Feast‘, previously bundled in the expensive ‘The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast‘ box set.

For classier scares, the Cohen Media Group resurrects ‘Frankenstein’ director James Whale’s 1932 chiller ‘The Old Dark House‘, starring Boris Karloff.

My $.02

‘Hell on Frisco Bay’ sounds interesting. I’ll put that and ‘The Old Dark House’ on my wish list. I also still need to evaluate which of the Hayao Miyazaki titles are worth upgrading.

I’ll probably give the new ‘Planet of the Apes’ trilogy another chance someday, but not today.

Do any of this week’s titles get a Thumbs Up from you?

13 comments

  1. Chris B

    I was lukewarm on the first Apes movie but loved the second one (you really should watch it asap Josh, huge step-up). I have yet to see the third, but as of now don’t own any of them. That trilogy box set will make a nice addition to my shelf.

    I thought the Annabelle movies were Insidious spin-offs? 🤔 I can’t keep all these
    Hollywood jump-scare fests straight…

    I’d like to see Personal Shopper, I loved Assayas’ mini-series Carlos and am looking forward to checking out more of his work. I believe this one popped ip on Netflix Canada recently so Ill bump it to the top of the list…

  2. Bolo

    If they don’t make any more, ‘War for The Planet of the Apes’ was a satisfying conclusion. If they do make more, I’d probably prefer they jump ahead a few hundred of the years to when the apes have established their own civilization.

    I sold off my blu of the first film and will buy the 4K trilogy set.

  3. NJScorpio

    I also agree that the first of the new Apes trilogy was good, but the 2nd was significantly better, with the 3rd being (as was said) as satisfying conclusion. The trilogy is like a big budget hidden gem. Nobody expects them to be as good as they are.

  4. Lord Bowler

    I’ll be picking up the War for the Planet of the Apes. I have the other two and I enjoyed both.

    Other than that, I’ll pick up movies from previous weeks.

  5. The ‘Peanuts: Holiday Collection’ from a couple weeks ago is a better value if you want these specific specials (plus ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’), but the advantage to the separate editions is that each also comes with a couple of bonus episodes.

    I don’t see any difference between the episodes on the stand alone editions and the boxed set I pick up – each disc seems to have the title movie, plus two bonus episodes, which match the ones included in the boxed set. The covers look exactly the same. It looks like these are litterally like someone pulled the discs out of the boxed and individually wrapped them.

    https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/916ch%2B-VxFL._SL1500_.jpg

    As for other things, I might pick up Planet of the Apes. Not really sure, I might just rent it, I don’t own any of the previous ons, but I did enjoy them.

    I see nothing else of interest this week.

  6. Csm101

    War for the Planet of the Apes 3d. I’m hoping to get Annabelle on a Black Friday sale. Blood Feast goes as a wish list item and Personal Shopper maybe a Criterion sale blind buy.

  7. Timcharger

    “Let’s not monkey around. We’ve got a bunch of new Blu-rays to look at this week. Some will make you smile. Others will stink. Some are just plain inconvenient. They’re all going to war for your shopping dollar.”

    “Do any of this week’s titles get a Thumbs Up from you?”

    They can’t all be winners, nor can every week get over 10 minutes of writing time.
    🙂

  8. Timcharger

    “Anyway, climate change is still bad. Don’t do climate change.”

    Lyin’ news. Fake news. I just watched proof about cold coming, not warming. Previously, it never snowed before in my city, President’s Landing. Winter is here, says all the scientists at the Citadel. Stop lyin’. Sad!

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