Tyler Perry's Acrimony

Blu-ray Highlights: Week of June 24th, 2018 – Endless Acrimony

This week brings us an odd assortment of new Blu-rays. The lengthy list of discs is heavy on back catalog releases with almost no new movies of significance. Tom Cruise fans get quite a bounty, though.

Which Blu-rays Interest You This Week (6/26/18)?

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New Releases (Blu-ray)

Tyler Perry’s Acrimony‘ – Having last worked with him in 2009’s ‘I Can Do Bad All by Myself’, Taraji P. Henson returns to the Tyler Perry movie factory to star in a revenge thriller about a faithful wife who gets rather pissed off when she discovers that her husband is a cheating dog. Perry writes and directs, but apparently couldn’t find a way to work his Madea character into this one. Like most of his productions, the movie wasn’t screened for many critics and fared poorly with those who did see it, but played well to its target audience and made a comfortable profit.

The Endless‘ – Co-directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, responsible for the 2014 rom-com/monster flick mashup ‘Spring‘, aim for a less comedic type of cult film with their follow-up. Two brothers return to the UFO cult they left years earlier hoping for closure, only to get caught in the middle of some pretty weird shit that forces them to question their beliefs. Although the movie didn’t get much of a theatrical release, critics were generally impressed.

Escape Plan 2: Hades‘ – About the only thing 2013’s prison thriller ‘Escape Plan’ had going for it was the long-awaited team-up between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone. Schwarzenegger couldn’t be bothered to return for the sequel, so Dave Bautista steps in for him. Stallone is back, but reportedly has minimal screen time. Although Stallone claims that a third movie is currently in development, the fact that this one is going direct-to-video isn’t a good sign.

UHD

In anticipation of the new entry, Paramount upgrades all five of the previous ‘Mission: Impossible‘ movies to Ultra HD. This is especially good news for the first three, which were inexplicably limited to lossy Dolby Digital audio on Blu-ray and now finally move up to lossless Dolby TrueHD (no Atmos, sadly, except on ‘Rogue Nation’). The one that will benefit the most is, ironically, the franchise’s least-loved. The old Blu-ray edition of ‘M:I-2’ suffered a lousy video transfer and desperately needed a remaster. Unfortunately, I believe the regular Blu-ray discs in each package are just the old copies and haven’t been updated.

For the hell of it, Paramount also bumps Cruise’s first ‘Jack Reacher‘ movie up to 4k as well.

Unrelated to any of that, Sony finally releases the UHD edition of ‘Groundhog Day‘ from Best Buy exclusivity into general retail.

Catalog Titles

You have to love that the Criterion Collection can find room for both Swedish art film legend Ingmar Bergman and Baltimore trash auteur John Waters in the same week. I almost cannot fathom watching Bergman’s somber rape revenge drama ‘The Virgin Spring‘ and Waters’ high camp ‘Female Trouble‘ back-to-back, but now I kind of want to.

Another weird pairing comes from the Warner Archive, which uses the excuse of the new (if instantly forgettable) remake to bring the Blaxploitation classic ‘Super Fly‘ to Blu-ray alongside, of all things, Sergio Leone’s 1961 sword-and-sandals epic ‘The Colossus of Rhodes‘.

Arrow Video continues its recent New Zealand cinema kick with 1984’s ‘Vigil‘, the debut feature from director Vincent Ward. The label will also release Ward’s ‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ next month. I can only hope this is leading toward his very underrated ‘Map of the Human Heart’ soon.

Also from Arrow is Abel Ferrara’s gritty black-and-white vampire tale ‘The Addiction‘.

Scream Factory ventures back to 1944 for the classic horror sequel ‘The Curse of the Cat People‘, produced by Val Lewton and directed by Robert Wise.

If you missed out on the Twilight Time limited edition copy of the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan rom-com ‘Sleepless in Seattle‘ before it sold out, Sony takes back the rights to issue its own copy.

Television

The first season of DC’s ‘Black Lightning‘ makes its way to disc from Warner Bros.

Author Ray Bradbury once famously disparaged the 1980 TV miniseries adaptation of his short story collection ‘The Martian Chronicles‘ as “just boring.” Kino hopes you’ll give it a second look anyway.

If that’s not your speed, Kino also has a second volume of ‘The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection‘.

My $.02

Even though I haven’t upgraded to 4k yet, I’m tempted by all of this week’s ‘Mission: Impossible’ UHD discs, especially the first three, which should be notable improvements over their Blu-ray counterparts. I may need to wait for the prices to come down, though.

‘The Curse of the Cat People’, ‘The Virgin Spring’, ‘Female Trouble’, ‘Vigil’, and ‘The Addiction’ will all go on my wish list for some later time.

Where will you throw your dollars this week?

21 comments

  1. Bolo

    ‘Super Fly’ is the only for sure purchase for me.

    ‘Gemini’ is a definite renter for me. Missed it in cinemas and I like neo noirs.

    I found ‘Jack Reacher’ pretty hilarious when I saw it in cinemas but never bought it. I might pick it up on sale eventually.

  2. Csm101

    I forgot to check for Superfly, but put me down for that one as well. I’ve been waiting for The Virgin Spring for a long time now. Just in time for the B&N sale. I’m very interested in Mission: Impossible for the upgrade, but maybe I’ll wait for a sale. I never picked up part MI3 so I’m also very interested. Part 2 on the other hand. It’s been a long time. I suppose I could give it another go.

  3. Chris B

    I’m excited to see The Endless, I really enjoyed Spring and the trailers for this one have an H.P. Lovecraft vibe. For those of you who have region-free players, Arrow Video is releasing the movie on Blu Ray next week in the UK and is including Moorehead and Benson’s previous film Resolution (which ties into The Endless apparrently) as a bonus feature. So that’s the one I’ll be picking up.

    The Addiction sounds cool and will go on my wish-list for a future sale.

  4. DaMac80

    Really didn’t have the money this week for five UHDs but I had to get the Mission movies anyway. They just shipped from Amazon and I’m super excited. Had to cancel Super Fly and Jack Reacher for budget reasons but put them on the ol’ wishlist for next time. Interested to see The Endless and Escape Plan 2 on streaming at some point.

  5. The Curse of the Cat People: yes! For Val Lewton fans.

    The Virgin Spring: I guess I have to.

    All Bradbury fans note: The Martian Chronicles is painfully poor, and slow at it, too.

  6. Lord Bowler

    I liked the original Escape Plan, so I may pick up ‘Escape Plan 2: Hades’ if I see if for a discounted price. Because it is going direct-to-DVD, I wouldn’t pay too much for it. I was watching for it to come to theaters, didn’t know it was direct-to-video.

    I may pick up ‘Black Lightning: The Complete First Season’ if there’s a sale on DC TV Shows.

    I don’t know if I’ve seen ‘A Breed Apart’ (Shout! Factory), but I love Rutger Hauer movies and may blind buy this as It’s one I’ve never seen and it’s before his Direct-to-video era.

  7. Deaditelord

    I plan to pick up all the Mission:Impossible movies this week except for the third movie, which I dislike immensely due to how it chickens out by (spoiler) revealing that Julia wasn’t executed but rather one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s flunkies wearing a mask to look like Julia (or something to that effect, it’s been a long time since I saw it in theaters). What a load of BS…

    Lupin the Third is a definite purchase too and I might pick up the other 4K releases when they go on sale.

    • Josh Zyber
      Author

      That’s kind of a weird complaint, given that every single one of these movies includes a similar fake-out scene where a character is revealed to be wearing a mask. That’s a major staple of the series going back to the original TV show. M:I-3 even sets it up very carefully with the early reveal of the portable mask-making device.

  8. Deaditelord

    Usually when the masks are used there is at least a somewhat plausible explanation why the character would want to trick someone. I don’t remember the reason given to explain the switch (it’s been too long since I’ve seen the movie), but to me there is no reason why Seymour Hoffman’s character wouldn’t use the real Julia in that situation so the whole “hey, she is still alive” moment just feels like it a huge cop out.

    • Bolo

      I’ve seen the first four and I don’t really care for them. The first one was a passable 90’s blockbuster. DePalma brought a stylish flow to the proceedings, but it’s nothing I would go out my way to revisit today. Tom Cruise is charismatic and there’s usually one good infiltration sequence per film, but that’s about all this series has to offer. Mostly bad plots built around the same tropes (the hero getting framed and going rogue to prove he’s innocent and save the world) with weak villains and not much chemistry among the good guys.

      Frankly, I’m surprised at the series’ enduring popularity. But that being said, there must be something audiences like enough to keep these films successful, so if you’ve got nothing to do, might as well check them out. I’m probably in the minority on this series.

    • Timcharger

      “I have never seen a ‘Mission: Impossible’ movie. Seems like I’m missing out.”

      No one responded with?!
      Julian, your mission if you choose to accept it is to watch the films in this franchise…
      …this message will self-destruct…

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