Although Amy Adams may have been snubbed of an Academy Award nomination for her performance as a linguist who decodes an alien language in Arrival, the film Arrival remains one of 2016’s most unexpected surprises. It leads off an, um, out of this world batch of new releases. Here’s a rundown of what DVDs and Blu-rays are now available.
After a dozen massive alien spaceships lock themselves in a fixed hover over different points around the globe, the U.S. government tasks linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) with making contact with one of the UFOs, establishing communication with the occupants…and finding out their intentions. As tensions mount planetside, can Banks escape the ghosts of her troubled past and make a breakthrough? Director Denis VIllenueve’s intriguing sci-fi thriller co-stars Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma.
Misfit high school junior Nadine’s (Hailee Steinfeld) outsider status is even more noticeable thanks to the fact that her older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner), is a popular jock. Nadine finds her world truly crashing down around her when the unthinkable happens and her best (and, kind of, only) friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), and Darian begin dating. Kyra Sedgwick and Woody Harrelson co-star in this quirky coming-of-age seriocomedy.
Not long after he captured the junior middleweight belt in 1991, boxer Vinny Pazienza (Miles Teller) was involved in a horrific car wreck…and the doctors agreed that he’d be lucky to walk again, let alone fight. Defying medical orders, he maintained his workout regime, Halo brace and all…and in just over a year, he made one of the most remarkable comebacks in the history of the sport. Hard-hitting true sports story co-stars Aaron Eckhart, Katey Sagal, Ciarán Hinds, Ted Levine.
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk
During the 2004 Thanksgiving holiday, 19-year-old-soldier Billy Lynn (Joe Alwyn) and his squad mates were brought home from Iraq for a victory tour to celebrate their heroism in battle. Over the course of a football game where he’s being feted, his response to the swirl of hype and message management around him interweave with stunning flashbacks to the true circumstances of his combat experience. Ang Lee’s visually arresting adaptation of the Ben Fountain novel co-stars Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, and Steve Martin.