There’s a lot of fantastic new releases making their Blu-ray and DVD debuts this week! Here’s a rundown of what movies you’ll want to add to your collection. Take a look!
Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
The Jumanji video gamers and their adventurous avatars (Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan) return in this action-packed sequel. This time, the game is on the fritz, players inhabit different characters, and two old geezers (Danny DeVito and Danny Glover) get sucked into the world of Jumanji, all of which makes for an even wilder ride that leads to the ultimate boss fight with sinister villain Jurgen the Brutal (Rory McCann). With Nick Jonas, Alex Wolff.
Richard Jewell (2019)
In July 1996, during Olympics-related festivities in downtown Atlanta, security guard Richard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) found a live pipe bomb–and his efforts to clear the area before its detonation kept a tragedy from being worse. However, the choices of the FBI to initially regard him as a person of interest, and of media outlets to stoke the fires of suspicion, rewarded his heroism with a private hell. Clint Eastwood’s fact-based tale co-stars Kathy Bates, Sam Rockwell, Jon Hamm, Olivia Wilde.
A Winter Princess (2019)
Event planner Carlie (Natalie Hall) didn’t talk much about home to her colleagues at the British Columbia ski resort–because she was actually princess of a postage-stamp kingdom, and the family was waiting for her to end the walkabout and assume her royal duties. Asked to steward the lodge’s anniversary party before she left, she found herself collaborating with the boss’s cute brother (Chris McNally)…and thereafter rethinking her plans. Warming Hallmark tale co-stars Lara Gilchrist, Casey Manderson.
Force 10 from Navarone (1978)
British commandos Maj. Mallory (Robert Shaw) and Sgt. Miller (Edward Fox) find their assignment to take out a treacherous German spy leading to them teaming with American officer Lt. Col. Barnsby (Harrison Ford) and escaped prisoner Sgt. Weaver (Carl Weathers) on a desperate mission to destroy a vital supply route bridge in Nazi-held Yugoslavia. All-star follow-up to “The Guns of Navarone” also stars Franco Nero, Barbara Bach, Richard Kiel.
The Stalking Moon (1969)
On his final detail, retiring frontier scout Sam Varner (Gregory Peck) encountered a stranded group of Apache women–with kidnapped settler Sarah Carver (Eva Marie Saint) and her half-breed son amongst them. He agrees to help them find safe passage to her home…but it’s a decision he’ll have cause to regret as the boy’s father, a dreaded warrior, cuts a bloody swath across the plains in pursuit. Robert Forster, Russell Thorson, Lonny Chapman co-star; Robert Mulligan directs.
Black Christmas (2019)
The bustling campus of Hawthorne College has slowed down for the holidays…except at the sorority house of Mu Kappa Epsilon, where the camped-in residents have only begun to party. Though a mysterious serial killer starts picking off the women he corners alone, he’ll find that the surviving sisters won’t take this victimization lying down. Second and very contemporary redo of the 1974 seasonal shocker stars Imogen Poots, Lily Donoghue, Aleyse Shannon, Brittany O’Grady, and Cary Elwes.
Bamboozled (Criterion Collection)(2000)
In his most controversial work to date, filmmaker Spike Lee sharply skewers racist imagery in American pop culture and its effect on society. TV network executive Pierre Delacroix (Damon Wayans) tries to get out of his contract by proposing a minstrel-style variety series featuring black actors in blackface. Much to his dismay, the show, fronted by dancers Womack (Tommy Davidson) and Manray (Savion Glover), becomes a hit. Jada Pinkett Smith, Michael Rapaport also star.
Superman: Red Son (2020)
How would the Cold War have unfolded if that rocket from the doomed planet Krypton had not landed in the USA…but in the USSR? Watch as the Man of Steel (voiced by Jason Isaacs) fights to advance the Soviet cause worldwide–and enters into a decades-long duel with American researcher Lex Luthor (Diedrich Bader). First fully-animated feature-length take on the 2003 “Elseworlds” series also features the voices of Amy Acker, Paul Williams, Phil Morris, Roger Craig Smith.
Cannibal Apocalypse (1980)
In Atlanta, a group of commiserating Vietnam vets come to realize that they returned home with something even worse than their memories–a dormant cannibalism virus that can be transmitted by bite. The soldiers find themselves the objective of a government manhunt as the infected turn the city’s streets into an abattoir. Italian-made mix of gore and social commentary from cult director Antonio Margheriti stars John Saxon, Tony King, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Elizabeth Turner. AKA: “Cannibals in the Street,” “Invasion of the Flesh Hunters.”
Intrigo: Death of an Author (2020)
Widowed Stockholm translator David (Benno Fürmann) was eager to get to work upon the final manuscript of an esteemed German novelist completed before his suicide at sea. His enthusiasm would transform into dread as the narrative starts to reveal uncanny parallels to his own life…including a murderous secret he thought he had buried. Disturbing thriller adapted from the Håkan Nesser novella also stars Tuva Novotny, Michael Byrne, Veronica Ferres, and Ben Kingsley.
The Intrigue: The Forgotten Films of Writer & Director Julia Crawford Ivers (1916)
This collection of surviving works from the multi-hyphenate pioneer opens with the Ivers-scripted spy saga “The Intrigue” (1916), where a European countess (Lenore Ulrich) goes undercover to stop a naive American engineer (Cecil Van Auker) from putting his weapons technology on the open market. Florence Vidor co-stars; Frank Lloyd directs. Ivers directed and scripted “A Son of Erin” (1916), where the dreams of a poor Irishman (Dustin Farnum) to become a New York cop are hit with cold water after he emigrates. The Ivers-written “Ben Blair” (1916) offers Farnum in the title role of a conflicted cowboy determined to make his father pay for his mother’s death; Ivers’ primary collaborator William Desmond Taylor directs. Also included is the one extant reel from writer-director Ivers’ “The Majesty of the Law” (1916).
Clay Pigeon (1971)
If decorated Vietnam veteran Joe Ryan (Tom Stern, who also co-directed) thought for one minute he was done serving his country, he was sorely mistaken. Recruited by a government agent (Telly Savalas), war hero Ryan is tasked with going undercover in a daring effort to bring down Neilson (Robert Vaughn), Los Angeles’ most dangerous and ruthless drug lord. John Marley, Burgess Meredith, Ivan Dixon, and Peter Lawford co-star in this explosive action saga.
Tom & Jerry Golden Collection, Vol. 1
Tom and Jerry play their hilarious games of “cat and mouse” in this delightful compilation of the popular cartoons made by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera for M-G-M. Featuring 37 theatrical shorts, this two-disc set includes “Puss Gets the Boot,” “Sufferin’ Cats,” “Puttin’ on the Dog,” “Mouse in Manhattan,” “Springtime for Thomas,” “The Cat Concerto,” “Professor Tom,” and more.
For a rundown of all of this week’s new releases, click here.