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OnVideo's Weekly Guide to Home Video Releases
Battlefield 2025: Weekend campers, an escaped convict, young lovers and a police officer experience a night of terror when a hostile visitor from another world descends on a small Arizona town. (VOD only)
Inmate #1: The Rise of Danny Trejo: This feature documentary reveals the extraordinary life journey of Hollywood's most unlikely hero -- Danny Trejo, from a life of hard drugs and armed robberies to Hollywood red carpets and mentoring addicts. (Digital only)
The Medicine: Can an ancient Amazonian plant medicine help heal mankind? The Medicine reveals the hidden mysteries of one of nature's most powerful and controversial healing remedies- Ayahuasca. (Digital, VOD only)
Mighty Oak: Tells the story of Gina, a band manager who struggles after losing her brother/lead singer in a fatal car accident while traveling to a gig. A decade later, Gina meets a 10-year-old music prodigy named Oak (played by newcomer Tommy Ragen, a real-life prodigy whose music inspired the screenplay), who seems to possess the same qualities as Gina’s late brother, inspiring her to pull her life back together and try to reunite the band with Oak as its new front man. (Digital only)
Slay the Dragon: Centering on the work of Michigan activist Katie Fahey and the organization, “Voters Not Politicians,” this documentary shows how gerrymandering — the practice of redrawing electoral maps to serve a single party — poses such a great threat to our democracy. Although gerrymandering has been around for over a century, in today’s hyper-partisan political environment it has been taken to unprecedented extremes, fueled by the elimination of corporate campaign contribution limits and the availability of vast amounts of personal information. (DVD release: Day & date)
Where Sleeping Dogs Lie: A dark dramatic comedy that follows two brothers and a childhood friend through one long night as they find themselves in a tragic twist of events during a botched robbery. (Digital, VOD only)
Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly: Human rights become profoundly personal when dissident artist Ai Weiwei's monumental exhibition on Alcatraz inspires thousands of visitors to connect with prisoners of conscience worldwide. (In Virtual Cinemas only)
Deany Bean Is Dead!': A down-on-her-luck woman tries to win back her ex-boyfriend at his engagement party without revealing that her recently strangled boss is in the trunk of her car. (VOD only)
Relic: A daughter, mother and grandmother are haunted by a manifestation of dementia that consumes their family's home. "Relic" had its World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019 to critical acclaim, praising the film as a fresh and terrifying twist on the notorious haunted-house tale. (VOD, digital only)
Belzebuth
(2019) Joaquín Cosio, Tobin Bell, Tate Ellington. Special Agent Emanuel Ritter leads a police investigation into a series of shocking deaths. But after a priest from the Vatican finds a link between the murders and an ancient demon, a descent into horror ensues. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. (RLJE Films).
Blood and Money
(2020) Tom Berenger, Kristen Hager, Paul Ben-Victor, Mark Sivertsen. A retired veteran (Berenger) hunting in the Allagash backcountry discovers a dead woman with a duffle bag full of money. He soon finds himself in a web of deceit and murder. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. (Screen Media Films).
Digimon Adventure: Last Evolution Kizuna
(2020-- Japan) Available for the first time in North America, this new movie features the last adventure of Tai and Agumon. Features both versions - English voice cast and the original Japanese audio with English subtitles. Now on the cusp of adulthood, Tai and his DigiDestined friends discover that with age their bonds with each of their Digimon will ultimately break. How does it end for Tai, Agumon and the others?
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray/DVD Combo. (Shout! Factory).
Disclosure
(2019 -- Australia) Mark Leonard Winter, Geraldine Hakewill, Matilda Ridgway, Tom Wren, Greg Stone. Drama follows two couples who go to war over an allegation of child-on-child abuse. Australian documentary-maker Emily and her journalist husband Danny are reeling from an allegation of abuse their 4-year-old daughter Natasha has made against a local politician's 9-year-old son, Ethan. Ethan’s parents, Joel and Bek, arrive unannounced at Emily and Danny's house intent on convincing the couple that Natasha's allegation is a fabrication. Accusations, arguments, and the ultimate search for leverage turn their civil conversation into a vicious confrontation. Formats: DVD. (Breaking Glass Pictures).
Parts Unknown
(2019) William DeCoff, Alexandra Cipolla, Sarah Michelle. The world of wrestling meets the bloody battlefields of horror. After losing their livelihoods, a crazed family of disgraced professional wrestlers embarks on a spree of murder and carnage to satisfy a deal made with a demonic entity from another dimension. Formats: DVD, Digital. (Wild Eye Releasing).
The Prince
(2019 -- Chile) Juan Carlos Maldonado, Alfredo Castro, Gastón Pauls. A prison drama set in a repressive 1970s Chilean prison. During a night of heavy drinking, 20-year-old Jaime unaccountably stabs his best friend. He is sent to jail for murder and there, alone and afraid, he comes under the protection of a tough older inmate known as “The Stallion.” The unlikely pair begin a clandestine romance but violent power struggles inside the penitentiary threaten their bond. A story of survival and love that takes its inspiration from Jean Genet’s "Un Chant d’amour" and Fassbinder’s "Querelle" in its affecting exploration of masculine aggression, conflicting loyalties and pent-up sexual desires. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. (Artsploitation Films).
Proximity
(2020) Ryan Masson, Highdee Kuan, Shaw Jones, Christian Prentice, Don Scribne. Isaac (Masson), a young NASA scientist, is investigating a meteor crash site, when he encounters — and is abducted by — extraterrestrials. Awaking three days later with no personal recollection of what happened, but with the event recorded on his camera, he attempts to share his discovery with the world. Faced with both believers and skeptics, Isaac becomes obsessed with finding incontrovertible proof, plunging him into a journey that encompasses both the other-worldly ... and the deadly. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, VOD, Digital. Extras: Audio commentary with writer-director Eric Demeusy, "Seeing The Craft: The Making Of Proximity," outtakes, trailer. (Shout! Studios).
Sorry We Missed You
(2019 -- UK) Kris Hitchen, Debbie Honeywood, Rhys Stone, Katie Proctor, Ross Brewster, Charlie Richmond. The British working class is once again the empathetic subject of Ken Loach's wrenching, intimate family drama that exposes the dark side of the so-called "gig economy." Ricky, a former laborer, and his home-attendant wife Abby -- who lost their home in the 2008 financial crash -- are desperate to get out of their economic distress. When an opportunity comes up for Ricky to work as his own boss as a delivery driver, they trade in their only asset, Abby's car, for a shiny new white van and the dream that Ricky can work his way up to someday owning his own delivery franchise. But the couple find their lives are quickly pushed further to the edge by an unrelenting work schedule, a ruthless supervisor and the needs of their two teenage children. Capturing the sacred moments that make a family as well as the acts of desperation they need to undertake to make it through each day, this universal story is skillfully and indelibly told with unforgettable performances and a searing script by Loach's long-time collaborator Paul Laverty. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary with director Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty; "Making Sorry We Missed You"; deleted scenes; gallery; paintings by Aidan Doyle; theatrical trailer. (Zeitgeist Films).
VHYes
(2019) Mason McNulty, Kerri Kenney, Thomas Lennon, Mark Proksch. A bizarre retro comedy shot entirely on VHS, the film takes us back to a simpler time, when 12-year-old Ralph mistakenly records home videos and his favorite late night shows over his parents’ wedding tape. The result is a nostalgic wave of home shopping clips, censored pornography, and nefarious true-crime tales that threaten to unkindly rewind Ralph’s reality.
Formats: DVD, Blu-ray. (Oscilloscope Laboratories).
© 1996 -- 2020 OnVideo. All rights reserved July 5, 2020 (ISSN 1094-3676). |
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Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and Branch (Justin Timberlake) discover that their kingdom is only one of six different Troll tribes scattered over six different lands devoted to six different kinds of music: Funk, Country, Techno, Classical, Pop and Rock. But a member of hard-rock royalty, Queen Barb, aided by her father King Thrash, wants to destroy all other kinds of music to let rock reign supreme. With the fate of the world at stake, Poppy and Branch, along with their friends, set out to visit all the other lands to unify the Trolls in harmony against Barb, who's looking to upstage them all. Vitals: Director: Walt Dohrn. Stars: Voices of Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Kelly Clarkson, Rachel Bloom, Jamie Dornan, Kenan Thompson, James Corden, Ozzy Osbourne, Anderson.Paak, Sam Rockwell, J Balvin, Anthony Ramos.
2020, CC, MPAA rating: PG, 90 min., Animated Family Adventure, Box office gross: $2.792 million before COVID-19, Universal.
Extras: "Dance Party Mode": Viewers are introduced to dance moves to learn while they watch the film, lyrics to sing along, and surprises featuring their favorite characters; "Tiny Diamond Goes Back to School original short film;" Trolls Dance Academy" compilation of how-to-dance pieces from Dance Party Mode (Pop, Waltz, Country, Funk, KPop, Reggaeton); "Trolls World Tourist Map" "tourist guide's" view of the six realms that make up Trolls Kingdom: Trolls Village, Symphonyville, Lonesome Flats, Vibe City, Volcano Rock City, Techno Reef); deleted scenes; "Trolls Perfect Harmony"featurette on the cast and crews favorite types of music; "Trolls World Tour Backstage" behind-the-scenes making of featurette; commentary.
Black Rainbow
(1989) Mike Hodges ("Flash Gordon," "Get Carter") wrote and directed this supernatural chiller as a meditation on the human race's ability to destroy the world, a gothic tale of suspense and the occult, guaranteed to send shivers down your spine. Martha Travis (Rosanna Arquette) is a travelling clairvoyant on the road with her sceptic father (Jason Robards). During a séance Martha communicates a message from a dead man to his wife in the audience. Shocked, the wife insists her husband is still alive. Later that evening the husband is killed by a ruthless assassin. As Martha foresees more and more tragic events journalist Gary Wallace (Tom Hulce) follows the pair in pursuit of a hot story ... with catastrophically eerie results. Sent direct to cable by its struggling distributor on initial release, "Black Rainbow" unfairly never got the exposure it deserved. Brand new restoration from the original negative approved by writer-director Mike Hodges, with original stereo 2.0 PCM uncompressed audio and 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio Surround Sound options. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary by film historians Kat Ellinger and Samm Deighan; archival audio commentary by Mike Hodges; "Message in a Bottle" archival making-of documentary; archival featurettes "8 Minutes," "Disasters," "Seeing the Future," "Behind the Rainbow" featuring interviews with Hodges, Arquette, Robards, producer John Quested, including behind-the-scenes imagery; trailer;
reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Nathanael Marsh; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Booklet featuring new writing on the film by author Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Mike Hodges and more illustrated with stills. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).
Inferno of Torture
(1969 -- Japan) Exploitation legend Teruo Ishii ("Horrors of Malformed Men") delivers one of his most extreme visions of violent eroticism in this, the sixth in his abnormal love series. Tattoos and torture await women forced into servitude in Ishii's "Inferno of Torture." Unable to repay a local lender, Yumi (Yumika Katayama) takes up an offer to serve as a geisha for two years with a promise of freedom once her debt is repaid. She quickly realizes that this is less a house of geishas than an extremely cruel brothel specializing in supplying western visitors with tattooed playthings. Taken under the wing of one of the leading tattoo artists vying for a coveted spot in the Shogun's good graces through his work, Yumi's body becomes a battleground as a rival artist becomes determined not to lose his spot at the top. When the madam, Otatsu (Mieko Fujimoto) trains her eye on the blossoming relationship between the benevolent artist Horihide (Teruo Yoshida) and his model, she makes sure than her stay is less than hospitable, inspiring the torturous inferno of the title. Following Ishii's legendary "Shogun's Joy of Torture" and "Orgies of Edo," the prolific filmmaker still manages to turn up the heat in this incredibly violent and salacious entry in a filmography unlike any other. From the film's opening scene depicting some of the most perverse violence ever captured on screen, through to the shock ending that will leave the audience's mouths agape, there's nothing quite like "Inferno of Torture." Tender romance clashes with vile sadism as a sea of tattooed female flesh floods nearly every frame of this film depicting Japan's Edo period as only Ishii could. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary by Japanese cinema expert Tom Mes; "Erotic Grotesque Nonsense & the Foundations of Japan’s Cult Counterculture," a condensed version of Jasper Sharp's Miskatonic Institute lecture; trailer;
reversible sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Jacob Phillips; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Chris D. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).
The War of the Worlds
(1953) A mysterious, meteorlike object has landed in a small California town. All clocks have stopped. A fleet of glowing green UFOs hovers menacingly over the entire globe. The Martian invasion of Earth has begun, and it seems that nothing -- neither military might nor the scientific know-how of nuclear physicist Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) -- can stop it. In the expert hands of genre specialists George Pal and Byron Haskin, H. G. Wells's end-of-civilization classic receives a chilling Cold War-era update, complete with hallucinatory Technicolor and visionary, Oscar-winning special effects. Emblazoned with iconographic images of 1950s science fiction, "The War of the Worlds" is both an influential triumph of visual imagination and a still-disquieting document of the wonder and terror of the atomic age. Formats: DVD, Blu-ray, with new 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray; new alternate 5.1 surround soundtrack, created by sound designer Ben Burtt and presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray. Extras: Audio commentary from 2005 featuring filmmaker Joe Dante, film historian Bob Burns, and author Bill Warren; "Movie Archaeologists," a new program on the visual and sound effects in the film featuring Burtt and film historian Craig Barron; "From the Archive," a new program about the film's restoration featuring Barron, Burtt, and Paramount Pictures archivist Andrea Kalas; audio interview with producer George Pal from 1970; "The Sky Is Falling," a 2005 documentary about the making of the film; The Mercury Theatre on the Air radio adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" from 1938, directed and narrated by Orson Welles; radio program from 1940 featuring a discussion between Welles and H. G. Wells, author of the 1897 novel "The War of the Worlds," trailer; an essay by film critic J. Hoberman. (The Criterion Collection).
Zombie For Sale
(2019 -- South Korea) An infectiously funny slice of modern Korean cinema where "Train to Busan," "The Quiet Family" and "Warm Bodies" collide to create a memorable rom-zom-com from first time director Lee Min-jae. When the illegal human experiments at Korea's biggest pharmaceutical company go wrong, one of their "undead" test subjects escapes and ends up in a shabby gas station owned by the Park family - a band of misfits spanning three generations who hustle passers-by to make ends meet. When the Park family uncover their undead visitor, he bites the head of their household, who instead of transforming into an undead ghoul becomes revitalised and full of life. The family then hatch a plan to exploit this unexpected fountain of youth, allowing locals to pay to be bitten too, until things go wrong. With a cabbage-munching zombie who prefers ketchup over blood, and a dysfunctional family that gives the Kim family of "Parasite" a run for their money, "Zombie for Sale" will warm the deadest of hearts and breathe some new life into the zombie genre. Formats: Blu-ray. Extras: New audio commentary with filmmakers and critics Sam Ashurst and Dan Martin; Q&A with director Lee Min-jae from a 2019 screening at Asian Pop-Up Cinema in Chicago, moderated by film critic and author Darcy Paquet; "Eat Together, Kill Together: The Family-in-Peril Comedy" new video essay by critic and producer Pierce Conran exploring Korea's unique social satires; making-of featurette; behind-the-scenes footage;
original trailer; reversible sleeve featuring original and newly-commissioned artwork by Mike Lee-Graham; FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Josh Hurtado. (Arrow Video/MVD Entertainment).
