You thought you got all the Marvel superheroes you could take last week? One of the few who’s not (yet) part of the Avengers team follows right on their heels to both Blu-ray and Ultra HD.
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Deadpool 2 – Despite looking like more of the same from the first movie, audiences were still eager for Ryan Reynolds’ smartass “Merc with a Mouth.” The irreverent R-rated superhero sequel was another smash hit. The Blu-ray and Ultra HD editions include both the theatrical cut and a new unrated extended version called the Super Duper $@%!#& Cut, which leaves me questioning which expletive the “$@%!#&” is supposed to represent. None of them sound quite right. Is there a joke about this in the movie? Whatever the case, Best Buy has SteelBooks for both formats.
Action Point – Repeating a formula that worked in his hit Bad Grandpa, Johnny Knoxville strings together a bunch of Jackass-style stunts around a fiction narrative. This one’s about a dumbass who runs his own low-rent theme park with dangerous rides. Knoxville claims that he was injured more times during the making of this movie than anything he’d ever done before. That effort may have been in vain because no one was particularly impressed. The comedy was drubbed by critics and was a box office flop.
First Reformed – Paul Schrader had been coasting on his reputation as the screenwriter of Taxi Driver for a number of years. His recent works as a director consisted of a couple Nicolas Cage DTV thrillers and the Lindsay Lohan debacle The Canyons. His latest feature, however, scored some of the strongest reviews of his career and has in fact been hailed as Schrader’s masterpiece. Ethan Hawke stars as a small-town priest facing a crisis of faith brought on by his counseling of a man who believes the world is heading rapidly toward Armageddon. Hawke’s performance has also been singled out for praise.
UHD
In addition to the day-and-date release of Deadpool 2 on its own, Fox also offers a bundle of both Deadpool movies in 4k.
Anticipating Amazon’s upcoming reboot series, Paramount upgrades the Jack Ryan: 5- Film Collection to Ultra HD. The first three of these movies (you know, the good ones) were poorly served by subpar transfers on Blu-ray, so one would hope the studio has taken the opportunity to properly remaster them, as was the case with the Mission: Impossible franchise recently. (Unfortunately, the included Blu-rays are almost certainly the crappy old discs.) Although breakout standalone copies of each movie were announced initially, those have disappeared from retailer listings and were presumably postponed, which means that you’ll have to be patient if you can’t countenance owning The Sum of All Fears or Shadow Recruit.
Catalog Titles
The Criterion Collection edition of the classic Ernst Lubitsch comedy Heaven Can Wait (the 1943 version with Gene Tierney and Don Ameche) should make a good pairing with the label’s recent release of A Matter of Life and Death, which has a similar premise.
Also from Criterion is Susan Seidelman’s 1982 punk music drama Smithereens.
Kino has a very interesting slate this week which includes Special Edition reissues of Stephen Sommers’ goofy monster flick Deep Rising, the notorious Bruce Willis erotic thriller Color of Night, and David Lynch’s surreal road movie Wild at Heart. Deep Rising and Color of Night were previously released on Blu-ray only as part of budget double-features from Mill Creek, while Wild at Heart had a pricy Limited Edition from Twilight Time that went out of print a few years ago.
Speaking of Twilight Time, the label’s newest additions are John Cassavetes’ 1980 crime drama Gloria starring his wife Gena Rowlands, the 1972 heist thriller The Hot Rock with Robert Redford, the 1969 military dramedy The Virgin Soldiers, and the 1992 action flick Rapid Fire. The latter was marketed as a breakout star vehicle for Bruce Lee’s son Brandon Lee, who would sadly die young on the set of his next movie.
The Mill Creek Psycho Biddy Double Feature I mentioned a couple weeks ago was apparently pushed back to late September. This allows the Scream Factory standalone release of William Castle’s Strait-Jacket to come out first, alongside a separate copy of Castle’s The Tingler.
Television
It’s a busy week for TV content. Nobable box sets include the first season of AMC’s The Terror, the third season of NBC’s Blindspot, the third (final) season of Starz’s Ash vs. Evil Dead, the fourth season of Fox’s Gotham, the fifth season of Cinemax’s Strike Back, the eight season of The Walking Dead, and a complete series collection of Showtime’s Masters of Sex (delayed from earlier this month). Those should keep you busy for a while!
My $.02
Because I take my job as an eminent taste-maker very seriously, I am currently hard at work reviewing Color of Night, which is just as deliriously awful as I remembered. Too bad the Blu-ray’s not much of an improvement over the old Mill Creek disc.
I’m also scheduled to review Wild at Heart, which I’ll compare against the Twilight Time copy.
I plan to purchase the Deadpool 2 SteelBook. Heaven Can Wait will go on my wish list for a Criterion sale. I’ll probably wait for the Jack Ryan UHDs to get broken out so I can pick up just the first three. If I can find the time, I’ll also try to rent First Reformed at some point.
How much $@%!#& will you buy this week?
Luke Hickman
I pre-ordered the Jack Ryan collection from Best Buy for $50. I enjoyed both The Sum of All Fears and Shadow Recruit, but even if you don’t like/want to own those two, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to buy the first three films for $50 when they’re released individually. You might as well pick the collection set now.
DaMac80
Yeah for $50 I I basically consider the last two freebies. Also I thought Shadow Recruit was okay, so not upset about having it.
Best Buy hasn’t shipped my order yet though, which is annoying.
Luke Hickman
Mine hasn’t shipped yet either.
I’ll be honest, I don’t get the disdain for either Shadow Recruit or The Sum of All Fears. I think most people simply didn’t give SR a chance, but rewatching TSoAF reveals that it’s much better than memory serves.
DaMac80
Yeah I wrote something similar below. I think a lot of people hate modern releases in older franchises on spec.
Also Best Buy sent me a delay email, but I was able to switch to in-store pickup. Supposedly they have it at my local store today.
Julian
‘Snow Dogs’ (https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/573/snowdogs.html) above actually links to ‘Show Dogs’ on Amazon.
Josh Zyber
AuthorHow the hell did you ever notice that?
I’ve fixed the Amazon link, though I’m not sure that the disc is actually being released this week. The Amazon listing doesn’t have a release date and the price is absurdly high. I think this is probably a Disney Movie Club exclusive released earlier that Amazon happened to get some stock of.
Julian
‘How the hell did you ever notice that?’ => I clicked on ‘Snow Dogs’ to see if it really was the Cuba Gooding Jr. movie. I could hardly believe they would release that movie on Blu-ray (haven’t seen it, not judging it, but reception was lukewarm). Now I demand ‘Richie Rich’ on Blu-ray.
Chris B
I’ll pick up Wild at Heart at some point. I have the old Kino DVD that looks ok during the daytime scenes but pretty noisy and during all the nighttime stuff. I’ll grab Rapid Fire at some point during a future Twilight Time sale. Ash Vs. Evil dead is great fun, I’ll pick up the third season probably around black friday or boxing day and binge-watch over the holidays.
Josh, I get your criticisms of The Sum of All Fears, but what’s wrong with Shadow Recruit? It’s not a great movie by any means but it’s enjoyable enough. The fact they updated Ryan’s backstory to tie into 9/11 was a nice way to make the character feel more contemporary and Costner actually stole scenes as Pine’s grizzled CIA mentor. Not to mention Keira Knightley who’s always great. Why didn’t you like it?
Josh Zyber
AuthorI actually haven’t seen Shadow Recruit, but it was a box office flop and doesn’t seem to be very well liked by fans, which is why I suspect many would rather buy the first three movies without it.
Deaditelord
Shadow Recruit may have been a box office flop, but it is not a terrible film. In fact, I was kind of disappointed -although not surprised – that they never made a sequel and this coming from someone who likes the first three Jack Ryan films.
DaMac80
Similar to Predators a few weeks ago I think the hate for Shadow Recruit is mostly about it being a modern movie in an older franchise. People tend to hate those on impulse. It’s a solid modern spy thriller.
Even Sum of all Fears I find entertaining, despite it being really dopey and poorly cast.
Csm101
I’ll be picking up Deadpool 2 uhd. I’ve ordered Rapid Fire from Screen Archives. At a lower price, I might eventually pick up Deep Rising. I already own the cheap double feature one. I’ve never seen Wild at Heart and am curious about it. I saw Color of Night in theaters when it came out, but I don’t remember much about it except for the apron scene. Maybe at a good price I’ll pick it up. I’ll more than likely pick up Ash vs. Evil Dead season 3 as I own the other two seasons.
Deaditelord
I pre-ordered the Jack Ryan Collection and plan on picking up Deadpool 2 tomorrow. I was not aware that Rapid Fire was coming out so I’m going to buy that too. Ash vs Evil Dead I’ll buy when it goes on sale.
Lord Bowler
I pre-ordered Deadpool 2 (SteelBook)
I’ll be picking up:
Deep Rising
Rapid Fire (Twilight Time)
The Walking Dead: The Complete Eighth Season (SteelBook)
I may pick up these as a blind buy. I loved the first iteration of Strike Back and this season is Reboot with an all new cast.
The Terror: The Complete First Season
Strike Back: Season Five
C.C.
I have the HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER steelbook – and I remember the transfer looking very good.
(I haven’t watched it in years, though).
Can’t speak to the other Jack Ryans.
Bolo
‘Color of Night’ is hilarious. It really takes sleazy 90’s neo-noirs to their ridiculous conclusion. That’s my only sure purchase this week. A couple of rentals in there (never got around to catching ‘Deadpool Returns’ in cinemas), but I’m happy to save my money until next week.
Josh Zyber
AuthorYou may want to hold off on that Color of Night purchase until my review is finished. For the Director’s Cut of the movie (really, the only version worth watching), the old Mill Creek double-feature with Playing God has similar video quality (really bad) but better audio.
Bolo
Thanks for the heads up.
Josh Zyber
AuthorWhat the Kino disc offers is the theatrical cut of the movie with slightly better video and audio (still not great, but better). But if you’re going to watch a movie as bad as Color of Night, it kind of has to be the extended version with extra nudity and skeezy sex.
Bolo
So is it branching? Does the audio only get worse during the scenes that were cut from the theatrical release?
I’m not sure which cut of this I’ve seen. But I remember some of the biggest laughs coming from how the steamy scenes just didn’t know when to end. I’m almost certain it was the inspiration for how they handled such materiel in ‘Team America’.
Josh Zyber
AuthorNo branching. Theatrical Cut and Director’s Cut on separate discs. Different transfers. Theatrical Cut looks mediocre and sounds OK-ish. Director’s Cut looks and sounds terrible. Even the old Mill Creek double-feature disc had better audio (similar to Theatrical Cut here).
I believe all previous home video releases of the movie were the Director’s Cut. This is the first time the Theatrical Cut has been released on video. So there’s that. Both versions of the movie also have (separate) audio commentaries, which I believe are new.
Julian
Or ‘The Room’.
Josh Zyber
AuthorHere’s my full review for Color of Night:
https://bluray.highdefdigest.com/60158/colorofnight.html
Bolo
Thanks for the review, mate. Pity this edition’s AV is so lousy. It’s probably the final physical media release for this film. I checked the run time on the streaming service I use, and it is the theatrical cut that I saw and found very enjoyable. I will check out the director’s cut at some point, but at least the cut I know I like has the better AV presentation (although by your account, still not good at all).
DaMac80
Deadpool 2 on 4K and the Jack Ryan collection for me. Seems like Jack Ryan might have been subtly delayed for a week though, on my forums everyone is saying theirs hasn’t shipped yet and neither has mine.
EM
Scream and Scream again: Strait-Jacket and The Tingler.
Adam Tyner
Just Deadpool 2 on Ultra HD Blu-ray and the third season of Ash vs. Evil Dead for me. I might grab the Jack Ryan collection at some point down the road, though.
Will Schuster
Man why are Twilight Time releases so damned expensive?!
William Henley
Nothing is a MUST BUY this week, but I will probably eventually pick up Deadpool in 4k, and God’s Not Dead. The animes are also tempting
The Jeffster
The Hot Rock is with Robert Redford, not Paul Newman.
Josh Zyber
AuthorLooks like I got my wires crossed there. Fixed now, thanks.