And lo, literally every single studio joined together and decided to make up for the last few mediocre weeks all at once. If you like film or TV of any kind, then chances are this week will be a goldmine for you, with a variety of quality options at your fingertips. Starting with Criterion’s two offerings, we get the long-overdue Blu-Ray of Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, along with the similarly overdue Blu-Ray of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, whose gorgeous color scheme and chaotic sound design will finally be available in their fullest versions. Moving onto the other boutiques, Olive finally does right by Orson Welles’ Macbeth, with two versions of the film, new restorations of both, actual bonus features, and, best of all, subtitles, and they also release the likes of Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes and the early Powell and Pressburger gem One of Our Aircraft is Missing. Kino may do even better, releasing Andrzej Zuwalski’s swan song Cosmos, Elia Kazan’s great noir Boomerang, Robert Siodmak’s great noir Cry of the City, and Otto Preminger’s great melodrama Daisy Kenyon. Shout Factory delivers the goods too, giving us the 1985 Volker Schlondorff movie of Death of a Salesman, starring Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich and featuring Michael Ballhaus cinematography, and David Cronenberg’s possible masterpiece Dead Ringers, in two aspect ratios (although sadly without the commentary from the long-OOP Criterion DVD). Synapse gives us the gorgeous new restoration of Dario Argento’s Phenomena. Milestone gives us a collection of Shirley Clarke’s work on Blu-Ray. Fer chrissakes, even Twilight Time does good work, releasing Robert Wise’s great noir (I think I’ve officially used that phrase more in this entry than I have in all the others combined) I Want to Live!, John Huston’s Moby Dick, The Boston Strangler, Pretty Poison, and Moscow on the Hudson.
But wait, there’s more! Disney is already doing 3D double-dips of The Jungle Book and The Force Awakens, with new special features on both (most notably a J.J. Abrams commentary on Force), in addition to releasing Finding Dory. HBO is releasing the latest season of the dragons show that deprived Steven Soderbergh of his rightful additional golden statues while, most importantly, giving us the complete series package for Looking. And Sony and Paramount do their own great TV releases, giving us season 2 of Better Call Saul and the complete animated series of Star Trek. And, of course, Warner Bros. encourages the consumer to get up and slam now, for they’ve got a real jam going down with their 20th anniversary release of Space Jam, which, fitting for the film, is just a lazy repackaging of the existing Blu-Ray with ugly new Steelbook artwork.
Army of One (Anchor Bay)
The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years (Universal Music, on Friday)
Better Call Saul: Season Two (Sony)
Boomerang (Kino)
The Boston Strangler (Limited Edition to 3000) (Twilight Time)
Carrington (Olive)
Coffee and Cigarettes (Olive)
Cosmos (Kino)
Cry of the City (Kino)
Daisy Kenyon (Kino)
Dead Ringers (Shout Factory)
Death of a Salesman (Shout Factory)
Dreams (Criterion)
Finding Dory (Disney)
Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season (HBO)
Hannie Caulder (Signature Edition) (Olive)
The House on 92nd Street (Kino)
I Want to Live! (Limited Edition to 3000) (Twilight Time)
J’accuse (Olive)
The Jungle Book 3D (Collector’s Edition) (Disney)
Looking: The Complete Series and The Movie (HBO)
Macbeth (Signature Edition) (Olive)
The Magic Box: The Films of Shirley Clarke.1927-1986: (Milestone)
Man on Fire (Kino)
Mia Madre (Music Box)
Moby Dick (Limited Edition to 3000) (Twilight Time)
Moscow on the Hudson (Limited Edition to 3000) (Twilight Time)
One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (Olive)
Phenomena (Limited Edition to 3,000) (Synapse)
Pretty Poison (Limited Edition to 3000) (Twilight Time)
Punch-Drunk Love (Criterion)
Space Jam (Warner)
Star Trek: The Animated Series (Paramount)
Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens 3D (Disney)
Time After Time (Warner Archive Collection)