Halloween is many months away, but we celebrate all things horror year-round. You’ll have to wait until March 27 for the intense horror-thriller The Executioners, arriving on DVD, Digital and On Demand from Lionsgate.
It’s worth the wait.
When four friends go on a retreat to a secluded lakeside cabin, they soon realize they’re not alone. Masked intruders try to take them hostage, but as they fight back, the friends get a taste for something more than the will to survive. Will their fate be as victim or executioner?
Save the date: The animated family adventure Hedgehogs arrives on DVD and Digital February 13 from Lionsgate. Watch for it. Awarded the Dove Seal of Approval, the film follows a mischievous hedgehog named Bobby (voiced by Anthony Padilla of Smosh) and a pigeon named Hubert on a wild journey.
In this outrageous family adventure, Web superstars @jennxpenn (Jen McAllister) and the Smosh duo (Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox) join forces with comedy legends Jon Heder and Chevy Chase. The laughter begins as a mischievous hedgehog named Bobby leaves his wilderness home and joins Hubert, a featherbrained pigeon, on a wild, unpredictable journey. They make their way to the big city, where stressed-out humans are losing their minds. Bobby and Hubert must calm the nervous citizens by being their cute, cuddly selves.
DVD SPECIAL FEATURES
“Bringing the Characters to Life: At the Recording Studio with Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox (Creators of Smosh), Jon Heder and Jenn ‘@jennxpenn’ McAllister” Featurette
PBS Distribution is ready to thank him for the memories. They have just released American Masters: This is Bob Hope on DVD and Digital HD. During his eight-decade career, Hope was the only performer to achieve top-rated success in every form of mass entertainment: vaudeville, Broadway, movies, radio, television, popular songs and personal appearances, including his annual USO Christmas military tours and hosting the Academy Awards more times than anyone else.
A comedy innovator, Hope invented the topical monologue that later became a late-night TV staple and comedy tropes like talking while backing up. He refined a spontaneous, conversational, improvisational style of comedy as a vaudeville master of ceremonies that created a blueprint for acerbic stand-up comics.
Written, directed and produced by John Scheinfeld, the documentary presents a candid look at a remarkable life. With unprecedented access to Hope’s personal archives, including writings voiced by Billy Crystal and clips from Hope’s body of work to reveal a gifted individual who recognized the power of fame, the documentary presents Hope’s handling of celebrity with extraordinary wit and grace, becoming a model for public service in Hollywood.
The program features new interviews with Woody Allen, Dick Cavett, Margaret Cho, daughter Linda Hope, Kermit the Frog, film critic/historian Leonard Maltin, Conan O’Brien, Tom Selleck, Brooke Shields, Connie Stevens and biographer Richard Zoglin (Hope: Entertainer of the Century). Edited to evoke the fast, fun pace of Hope’s classic monologues, clips include highlights from numerous TV specials, his Pepsodent radio shows and classic films like TheCat and the Canary, My Favorite Blonde, his iconic Road pictures with Bing Crosby, and The Big Broadcast of 1938, featuring his signature song “Thanks for the Memory.”
As the world struggles with the current refugee crisis, a powerful new film serves as a timely look at a family besieged by war who finds peace across an ocean. It’s called Red Trees, a film with “of-the-moment resonance” (The Hollywood Reporter), arrives on Cohen Media Group Blu-ray and DVD, as well as digital platforms, on January 23. Save the date. It’s important.
Award-winning filmmaker Marina Willer creates an impressionistic visual essay as she traces her father’s journey as a member of one of only 12 Jewish families to survive the Nazi occupation of Prague during World War II. Photographed by Oscar nominee César Charlone, the film travels from war-torn Eastern Europe to the color and light of South America and is told through the voice of Willer’s father, Alfred (narrated by Tim Piggot-Smith), who witnessed bureaucratic nightmares, transportations and suicides but survived to build a post-war life as an architect in Brazil.
Sophia Cowley of Film Inquiry says, “With Red Trees, Marina Willer does something both intimate and daring. Its vivid shots ensure the entire film plays out like a series of moving paintings.” “In many ways, this is the most powerful anti-fascist film you will see this or any other year,” wrote Louis Proyect ofCounterpunch.org.
CMG’s Blu-ray and DVD of Red Trees include an interview with director Willer.
Manhattan is a great city . . . wonderful people, super stores and all the love that’s in the air. It can also be a deadly, frightening city. Remember Cloverfield? Producer J.J. Abrams’ and director Matt Reeves’ monster hit arrives on 4K Ultra HD for the first time ever.
The flick thrilled critics and audiences alike with its shocking, first-person video account of a horrifying attack on Manhattan by an unknown—and seemingly unstoppable—force. Relive the mysterious and thrilling story with the sensational picture quality only 4K Ultra HD can deliver.
Need more thrills and chills? Opt for 10 Cloverfield Lane, a two-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo pack with a digital copy. Producer J.J. Abrams’ and director Dan Trachtenberg’s chilling and intense thriller debuts on 4K Ultra HD.
Starring John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, the film follows a young woman who survives a catastrophic car crash only to wake up in a survivalist’s underground bunker. He claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable, but as his increasingly suspicious actions lead her to question his motives, she’ll have to escape in order to discover the truth.
Both films from Paramount Home Media Distribution will be released January 23. It’s worth the wait. Trust us.
Images from his paintings have become part of our collective imagination and are instantly recognizable and include pieces such as “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, “The Astronomer” and “The Geographer”. The artful documentary Vermeer, Beyond Time (Public Media Distribution, LLC ) explores the life and work of one of the most loved, influential, and well-known artists, Johannes Vermeer. The film is narrated by actor Steve Martin.
In the program, French filmmaker Jean-Pierre Cottet adopts an imaginative and sensitive approach to Vermeer, focusing on not only his work, but also his family life. Cottet looks at Vermeer’s conversion to Catholicism, his artistic contemporaries, and the wider world of the short lived Dutch Golden Age of the 17th century.
In 1675, overwhelmed by poverty, physically weakened, and humiliated, Vermeer dies at the age of 43. Soon afterwards, his paintings are sold to cover his debts, and Vermeer disappears from memory. His rediscovery some 200 years later has seen his popularity soar, claiming both our hearts and our admiration.
Sequels are sometimes as good (if not better) than the flick they follow. Witness the crime-thriller Rise of the Footsoldier Part II, the follow-up to 2007’s cult hit Rise of the Footsoldier. Save the date: Part II arrives on DVD, Digital and On Demand on February 20 from Lionsgate.
Rise of the Footsoldier Part II follows football-hooligan-turned-professional-criminal Carlton Leach, who’s still mourning the loss of his friends and is convinced that it’s only a matter of time before he’s next. For him, the only way out is to go back in and work his way back up the criminal ladder . . . but the higher he gets, the more violent the jobs become, until his quest for power turns into an obsession. With life and family on the line, can he hold his nerves together one last time in order to get out alive?
The doctor’s prescription is in. What doctor? Dr. Who. Simon Guerrier’sDoctor Who: The Book of Whoniversal Records (Harper Design, $19.99)is a celebration of the greatest–and strangest–achievements from the brilliant, impossible world of Doctor Who. From the biggest explosion in the universe to the first human to time-travel; from the longest fall through space to the shortest life-form that ever lived, the book will answer all your burning questions about the last of the Time Lords and his adventures through time and space. Packed with captivating high res images featuring behind-the-scenes action, facts, and figures, this book is the ultimate must-have for Doctor Who fans.
If a photo is worth 1,000 words, we share 2,000 works with you. Enjoy!
From “DOCTOR WHO: THE BOOK OF WHONIVERSAL RECORDS”From “DOCTOR WHO: THE BOOK OF WHONIVERSAL RECORDS”
It’s no accident that we stumbled across some great news, especially since we are fans of the underground British comic Toxic! (It was a weekly comic published by Apocalypse Ltd. from March 28, 199 to October 24, 1991, a total of 31 issues. What’s a die-hard fan to do?
Watch the movie. , A deadly hit-man becomes an accidental hero in the pulse-pounding action-thriller Accident Man based on Toxic! It’s available on DVD and Digital February 6 from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
This darkly humorous and stylishly violent adaptation stars Scott Adkins as Accident Man, a stone-cold killer who must face off against a rogue’s gallery of ruthless assassins in order to uncover the truth about his ex-girlfriend’s murder. Co-starring Ashley Greene, David Paymer and action fan favorites Ray Park, Ray Stevenson and Michael Jai White, Accident Man hits its target with a lethally entertaining combination of explosive fight scenes and hilarious moments.
Killer bonus features include audio commentary with star/producer/co-writer Scott Adkins and co-writer Stu Small and two making-of featurettes. In “Assassin’s Roll Call,” meet the crew of assassins that make it their mission to make their kills look like accidents and hear from director Jesse V. Johnson, Scott Adkins and the cast on how they made every fight look like a work of art in “Violent Ballet: Filming the Fights.”
Cohen Film Collection starts the New Year off with another gem: Merchant Ivory Productions’ modern classic Heat and Dust, now on Blu-ray, DVD and digital platforms. The 1983 multi-generational drama—about the clash between modern-day India and its past Raj era of British rule, and starring Julie Christie and Greta Scacchi—has received a striking new 4K digital restoration.
Merchant Ivory’s magnificent film moves effortlessly between the vibrant world of modern India and the magnificent splendors of the Raj. Cross-cutting between two generations, the acclaimed film by the longtime team of director James Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala is a sprawling epic of self-discovery and a lush evocation of the prismatic and sensuous beauty of India.
As she searches for answers to the mystery surrounding a long-ago affair between her aunt Olivia (portrayed by Greta Scacchi) and an Indian prince (Shashi Kapoor), Anne (Julie Christie) becomes immersed in the local culture, the pull of the past simultaneously leading her into a clearer view of her own future. Jhabvala adapted her own novel to great effect, and Richard Robbins created the haunting score. The film earned the Merchant Ivory team nine BAFTA nominations and a Palme d’Or nomination at Cannes for director Ivory.
Cohen Film Collection has given Heat and Dustlavish treatment on disc. The two-disc DVD includes a feature-length audio commentary track; the film’s original trailer as well as its 2017 re-release trailer; and the the rarely shown 1975 Merchant Ivory film Autobiography of a Princess, starring James Mason.
The two-disc Blu-ray includes all of the above plus an interview with producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, composer Richard Robbins, and cast members Greta Scacchi and Nickolas Grace; the featurette Remember Heat and Dust; a new conversation between Ivory and filmmaker Chris Terrio; and a new on-stage Q&A with co-star Madhur Jaffrey.
The flick thrilled critics and audiences alike with its shocking, first-person video account of a horrifying attack on Manhattan by an unknown—and seemingly unstoppable—force. Relive the mysterious and thrilling story with the sensational picture quality only 4K Ultra HD can deliver.