The Oscars have come and gone, and our Recommendation of the Week is a movie that was nominated for three acting Academy Awards, The Master.
First Release
- The Master (DVD and Blu-ray)
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (DVD and Blu-ray) (Release Date March 1)
- Chasing Mavericks (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Holy Motors (DVD and Blu-ray)
- How to Survive a Plague (DVD)
- Company of Heroes (DVD and Blu-ray)
Re-Release
- The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Extended Edition (2011) (DVD and Blu-ray) (Release Date March 1)
- Chronicle of a Summer (1961) (DVD and Blu-ray)
- The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) (DVD and Blu-ray)
- Sansho the Bailiff (1954) (Blu-ray)
- The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) (Blu-ray)
The Master (DVD and Blu-ray) *Recommendation of the Week*
Written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams
The Master has plenty to make film fans salivate with excitement. It is written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood and stars Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams who were all nominated for Oscars for their performances.
Freddie Quell (Phoenix) is a former naval officer and World War II veteran who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Freddie has had trouble holding down a job and succumbed to alcoholism. But Freddie ends up being taken under the wing of a charismatic cult leader, Lancaster Dodd (Hoffman), and he quickly rises up the ranks of Lancaster's organization.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: 86% (excellent)
Entertainment Fuse Score: 8.4/10 (read our review)
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): Content 4 stars, Video 5 stars, Audio 4 stars, Extras 2.5 stars, Replay 3.5 stars (out of 5). Recommended.
The Twilight Saga has two offerings this week: the DVD and Blu-ray release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, as well as an extended edition of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. Other highlights are the art-house French movie Holy Motors and the Oscar-nominated documentary How to Survive a Plague, whilst the Criterion Collection is re-releasing two foreign movies from the 50s and 60s.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (DVD and Blu-ray) (Release Date March 1)
Directed by Bill Condon
Written by Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephanie Meyer (novel)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Michael Sheen
The Twilight Saga has made over $3 billion worldwide. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 is the grand finale and is considered by many as the best movie of the series.
After the events of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Bella (Kristen Stewart) has turned into a vampire and given birth to a human-vampire hybrid child, Renesmee. Jacob (Taylor Lautner) has turned his attention away from Bella and has fallen in love with Renesmee, despite the fact that she is a little girl. But the Volturi, led by Aro (Michael Sheen, Frost/Nixon), see the child as an abomination and a threat, leading to the Cullens, the Quileute tribe, and all Cullens’ allies to band together to stop the most powerful vampires in existence.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 48% (average)
Entertainment Fuse Score: 4.0/10 (read our review)
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: The cast and filmmakers take you behind the scenes in a 7-PART MAKING-OF DOCUMENTARY and show you what it was like to shoot Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and Part 2 back to back in TWO MOVIES AT ONCE. Get even more insight into the film with director Bill Condon’s AUDIO COMMENTARY, or just watch your favorite scenes with the JUMP TO EDWARD and JUMP TO JACOB features.
Amazon Price: $14.96 (DVD), $19.96 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Chasing Mavericks (DVD and Blu-ray)
Directed by Curtis Hanson, Michael Apted
Written by Kario Salem, Brandon Hooper
Starring: Jonny Weston, Gerard Butler, Leven Rambin, Elisabeth Shue, Abigail Spencer, Taylor Handley
Chasing Mavericks is a biographical movie about Jay Moriarity (Jonny Weston), a teenage surfer who discovers the legendary Maverick waves not only exist but only miles from his home and he gets a surfing legend, Frosty Hesson (Gerald Butler), to teach him how to ride the waves.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: 33% (poor)
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $12.99 (DVD), $17.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Holy Motors (DVD and Blu-ray)
Written and directed by Leos Carax
Starring: Denis Lavant, Édith Scob, Eva Mendes, Kylie Minogue
The highly surreal Holy Motors was one of the biggest art house movies of 2012, being Leos Carax's (Pola X) first movie for 13 years. It features the talents of Eva Mendes and pop singer Kylie Minogue and competed for the Palme d’Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. Holy Motors follows Mr. Oscar (Denis Lavant) over the course of a day in Paris.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 90% (excellent)
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: International Trailer; U.S. Trailer
Additional Blu-ray Special Features: "Drive In" - The Making of Holy Motors; Interview with Kylie Minogue; International Trailer; U.S. Trailer
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $33.96 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
How to Survive a Plague (DVD)
Directed by David France
Written by David France, Todd Woody Richman, Tyler H. Walk
How to Survive a Plague is an Oscar-nominated documentary that focuses on two organizations, ACT UP and TAG, and their respective efforts during the AIDS epidemic.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 100% (excellent)
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $19.99 (DVD)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Company of Heroes (DVD and Blu-ray)
Directed by Don Michael Paul
Written by David Reed
Starring: Tom Sizemore, Neal McDonough, Vinnie Jones, Jürgen Prochnow, Chad Michael Collins
Company of Heroes is a straight-to-DVD war movie about a platoon of American soldiers that ends up behind enemy lines after the Battle of the Bulge and have to stop a Nazi super bomb program, capture a defecting German scientist, and get back home safely.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: N/A
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Deleted Scene; In The Trenches: Filming Company Of Heroes; Fabricating World War II
Amazon Price: $14.99 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 Extended Edition (DVD and Blu-ray) (Release Date March 1)
Directed by Bill Condon
Written by Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephanie Meyer (novel)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner
As well as the release of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 on DVD and Blu-ray “Part 1” is getting re-released with eight minutes of extra footage as Bella and Edward finally get married but Bella becomes pregnant with a hybrid human-vampire child.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes): 24% (very bad)
Entertainment Fuse Score: 4.0/10 (read our review)
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Includes both extended and theatrical versions included; Audio commentary with Bill Condon; Includes digital copy of the film
Amazon Price: $14.96 (DVD), $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Chronicle of a Summer (1961) (DVD and Blu-ray)
Directed by Edgar Morin, Jean Rouch
The first movie being re-released by the Criterion Collection this week is Chronicle of a Summer, a documentary made by sociologist Edgar Morin and anthropologist and filmmakers Jean Rouch who ask Parisians the seemingly simple “are you happy” and ends up being a wider examination of political issues and French society in the early 60s.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: N/A
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: New high-definition digital transfer of the Cineteca di Bologna restoration of the film; Un été + 50 (2011), a seventy-three-minute documentary featuring outtakes and new interviews with codirector Edgar Morin and some of the film’s subjects; Archival interviews with codirector Jean Rouch and Marceline Loridan, one of the film’s subjects; New interview with anthropology professor Faye Ginsburg, organizer of several Rouch retrospectives; New and improved English subtitle translation; PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by scholar Sam Di Iorio
Amazon Price: $24.99 (DVD), $33.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
The Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) (DVD and Blu-ray)
Directed by Jean Renoir
Written by Burgess Meredith (screenplay), Octave Mirbeau (novel)
Starring: Paulette Goddard, Burgess Meredith, Hurd Hatfield, Francis Lederer
The 1946 version of The Diary of a Chambermaid is the first adaptation of Octave Mirbeau’s 1900 novel of the same novel. Paulette Goddard stars at Celestine, a newly hired maid who ends up working for a wealthy family and uses her charms to disrupt them.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: N/A
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $19.99 (DVD), $24.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
Sansho the Bailiff (1954) (Blu-ray)
Directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
Written by Fuji Yahiro, Yoshikata Yoda (screenplay), Mori Ōgai (short story)
Starring: Kinuyo Tanaka, Yoshiaki Hanayagi, Kyōko Kagawa, Eitarō Shindō
The other re-release from the Criterion Collection this week is the highly regarded Japanese movie Sansho the Bailiff. Set in Medieval Japan a compassionate governor is forced into exile and his wife and children are left behind. When his wife and children try to join him they get separated by slave traders.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (excellent)
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: Restored high-definition digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack; Audio commentary by Japanese-literature professor Jeffrey Angles; Video interviews with critic Tadao Sato, assistant director Tokuzo Tanaka, and legendary actress Kyoko Kagawa, on the making of the film and its lasting importance; PLUS: A book featuring an essay by film writer Mark Le Fanu and two versions of the story on which the film was based: Ogai Mori’s 1915 “Sansho Dayu” and a written form of an earlier oral variation
Amazon Price: $33.86 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) (Blu-ray)
Directed by Joel Coen
Written by Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi
Starring: Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Paul Newman
Last but not least is re-release of the Coen Brothers’ comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. Tim Robbins stars as Norville Barnes, a naïve business school graduate who he ends up as the fall guy for a stock market scheme where he is made the president of Hudsucker Industries so the board of directors deliberately devalue the company’s stock price.
Critics Rating (Rotten Tomatoes: 56% (average)
Entertainment Fuse Score: N/A
DISC DETAILS
DVD Special Features: N/A
Amazon Price: $19.99 (Blu-ray)
Score (DVDTalk.com): N/A
