This week, we see the release of some new releases, with the final season of Mad Men and Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope being the standouts in a pretty unremarkable field. But hey, if you’ve been clamping at the bit to buy San Andreas or the final season of The Following, your time is now (also, if you are in the latter group, then I’m afraid I must report you to the proper authorities). Catalog titles are where this week really shines, though. Warner Bros. in particular is releasing quite a few of them, including the stone-cold classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the damn-good Witness, the reportedly quite-solid Matchstick Men, the thoroughly, brilliantly silly The Core, and the amusing Team America: World Police (please note that, bafflingly, the Blu-Ray of Team America leaves off all of the DVD’s supplementary features).
Elsewhere, Disney is finally releasing Aladdin on Blu-Ray in the States (it was only available overseas for the longest time), PBS has restored Ken Burns’ landmark documentary series The Civil War, Criterion has finally gotten to releasing The Brood (plus the intriguing-sounding A Special Day, starring the incomparable duo of Sophia Loren and Marcello Masttroianni), the John Woo-Jean-Claude Van Damme classic Hard Target can finally be purchased individually, and we get new restorations of Manos: The Hands of Fate, Edward Scissorhands and… Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I don’t know who was demanding the latter, but they should stop by the Master and Torgo’s place.
Aladdin (Diamond Edition) (Disney)
Aladdin: The Return of Jafar / Aladdin and the King of Thieves (Disney)
Along Came a Spider (Warner Bros.)
Bates Motel: Season Three (Universal)
Billy Elliot the Musical Live (Universal)
Black Widow (Twilight Time, limited to 3000 copies)
The Brood (Criterion)
Call Me Lucky (MPI)
The Civil War (25th Anniversary Edition) (PBS)
Class of Nuke ‘Em High III: The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid (Troma)
Company Business (Kino Lorber)
The Core (Warner Bros./Paramount, available exclusively on wbshop.com)
Count Yorga, Vampire (Twilight Time, limited to 3000 copies)
Devil in a Blue Dress (Twilight Time, limited to 3000 copies)
Dope (Universal)
Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas (Grinchmas Edition) (Universal)
Edward Scissorhands (25th Anniversary Edition) (Fox)
Escape from Alcatraz (Warner Bros.)
Escape to Witch Mountain (Disney)
15 Minutes (Warner Bros.)
The Firemen’s Ball (Arrow, UK-only but region-free)
The Following: The Complete Third and Final Season (Warner Bros.)
The Gallows (Warner Bros.)
Hard Target (Universal)
Heroes: The Complete Series (Universal)
The Human Centipede 3 [Final Sequence] (Shout Factory)
John Carpenter’s Vampires (Twilight Time, limited to 3000 copies)
Kiss the Girls (Warner Bros.)
The Land Before Time (Universal)
Mad Men: The Complete Collection (Lionsgate)
Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 2 (Lionsgate)
Malone (Kino Lorber)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Warner Bros.)
Manos: The Hands of Fate (Synapse Films)
Matchstick Men (Warner Bros.)
Mosquito (20th Anniversary Edition) (Synapse Films)
The Phantom of the Opera (Kino Lorber)
Requiescant (Arrow)
Return from Witch Mountain (Disney)
The Return of Count Yorga (Shout Factory)
San Andreas (Warner Bros.)
Scissors (Kino Lorber)
Scream and Scream Again (Twilight Time, limited to 3000 copies)
Shattered (Kino Lorber)
A Special Day (Criterion)
Sudden Death (Universal)
Team America: World Police (Warner Bros./Paramount)
Tomorrowland (Disney)
Witness (Warner Bros./Paramount)