New on Disc: '3 Bad Men' and more …

3 Bad Men (Blu-ray)

Kino Lorber, Western, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars George O’Brien, Olive Borden, Lou Tellegen, Tom Santschi.
1926. John Ford’s finest silent movie, and his last Western until Stagecoach, is a jewel on any count and one that looks forward to the director’s more mature achievements.
Extras: The Blu-ray includes a commentary from Joseph McBride, author of the spectacular Ford biography Searching for John Ford.
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A Taste of Honey

Criterion, Drama, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Rita Tushingham, Dora Bryan, Murray Melvin, Robert Stephens.
1961. Director Tony Richardson’s opened-up movie of young Shelagh Delaney’s stage play A Taste of Honey can be enjoyed in the same manner as any movie that was ahead of its time.
Extras: Includes an essay by scholar Colin MacCabe, recent interviews with stars Murray Melvin and Rita Tushingham, Richardson and Delaney in archival pieces; a look-back at Joan Greenwood helping to spearhead the original stage production; a portrait of cinematographer Walter Lassally; and the full 1956 documentary short Mamma Don’t Allow.
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'Now You See' Exclusives

Target and Best Buy 'Now You See Me 2' Blu-rays

Lionsgate's Now You See Me 2 was the retailers' choice for the big exclusives among the Sept. 6 titles.

Target offered a special Now You See Me 2 Blu-ray combo pack with special box art and an exclusive bonus DVD containing 30 minutes of content: "The Horsemen Return" featurette and a "NYSM2 On-Set Diary" featurette.

Best Buy offered the movie's Blu-ray combo pack with special Steelbook packaging. Best Buy also offered the first film with a Steelbook case for $12.99.

Best Buy also offered a Steelbook for Warner's The Flash: The Complete Second Season.

Walmart offered a DVD set of Sony Pictures' Money Monster with a DVD of The Ides of March.

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New on Disc: 'Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words' and more …

Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words

Criterion, Documentary, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR.
2015. Stig Bjorkman’s exceptional Ingrid Bergman documentary turns out to be the kind of near-miraculous filmed portrait that can emerge when its subject was one of those individuals who apparently saved everything over a long period (or had friends who did).
Extras: Includes an interview with Bjorkman and an extension of the feature’s remarkable group interview with Berman daughter Isabella Rossellini, Autumn Sonata co-star Liv Ullmann and Sigourney Weaver (they were on stage together) where everyone is informal and relaxed.
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Wild in the Streets

Olive, Comedy, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, ‘R.’
Stars Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook.
1968. This yarn about a rock star who becomes a California senator on his way to the presidency was a bona fide mid-level hit when it opened, but in an age of celebrity politicians it’s possibly more interesting now than it was at the time.
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Best Buy Offers Special 'Arrow' Steelbook

Best Buy's 'Arrow' Steelbook

Best Buy is selling an exclusive Blu-ray edition of Warner's Arrow: The Complete Fourth Season with a steelbook case.

The special packaging is just about the only retail exclusive linked to any of the Aug. 30 new releases.

Best Buy will also have a steelbook case for the upcoming Blu-ray of Warner's The Flash: The Complete Second Season, due Sept. 6.

Also, Best Buy will have an exclusive steelbook for Disney's Captain America: Civil War Blu-ray, arriving Sept. 13. Fans can preorder the exclusive steelbook version now.

Best Buy continued its promotion for a free $10 gift card with $50 in spending on select TV seasons on disc. The retailer also offered a three-for-$20 deal on select Blu-rays.

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Exclusives Caught Between a Walker and a 'Huntsman'

'Walking Dead: Season 6' covers at Best Buy and Target

All three of the major retailers offered exclusive promotions tied to Universal's The Huntsman: Winter's War and Anchor Bay's The Walking Dead: Season 6.

For Huntsman, Best Buy offered exclusive steelbook cases for the Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray editions. Target offered the movie with a 28-page booklet. And Walmart offered more than 30 minutes of exclusive bonus content.

With the latest "Walking Dead" season, Best Buy offered an exclusive lenticular Blu-ray cover. Best Buy also offered special lenticular covers on previous season as well. Target offered an exclusive steelbook case, while Walmart had an exclusive bonus disc with more than 70 minutes of footage from the Madison Square Garden fan premiere event.

For Lionsgate's Roots remake, Walmart offered the DVD and Blu-ray with two exclusive extras running more than 40 minutes.

Best Buy offered a metalpak case with the first season of Anchor Bay's "Ash vs. Evil Dead" on Blu-ray, and lenticular box art for Paramount's NCIS: Season 13. Best Buy also touted a deal for a free $10 gift card with the purchase of $50 or more of select TV seasons.

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New on Disc: 'Rawhide' and more …

Rawhide (Blu-ray)

Kino Lorber, Western, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Tyrone Power, Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe, Jack Elam.
1951. Though a sizable chunk of Rawhide (including several of its best scenes) takes place indoors at a stagecoach way station, the picture does convey the impression that its relatively small cast is trapped and imperiled in the middle of nowhere — with its “good guys” (who include a woman and a girl toddler) receiving minimal help beyond their own desperate efforts to combat a four-man band of prison escapees. Nothing that happens here departs too markedly from what we’ve seen in other hostage Westerns, but this is still a stagecoach movie written by the guy who wrote the screenplay for Stagecoach (Dudley Nichols).
Extras: Includes a before-and-after primer on Rawhide’s 2007 restoration; interviews from the standard DVD; a Susan Hayward featurette; and a look at Lone Pine, Calif., whose geographical location and mountain/desert locales made it ideal for the may Westerns that were shot there.
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A Cry in the Night

Available via Warner Archive       
Warner, Drama, $21.99 DVD, NR.
Stars Edmond O’Brien, Brian Donlevy, Natalie Wood, Raymond Burr.
1956. A Cry in the Night is a grimy black-and-white hybrid of a police procedural and twisted domestic drama where both plot-central families are having a dysfunctional time of it, and there’s something about it that gets a little under the skin the way that sleazy melodramas with name casts can sometimes do.
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Raising an Eyebrow at 'Angry Birds'

(L-R): Walmart's and Target's 'Angry Birds Movie' exclusives

Several exclusives arrived at retail Aug. 16, some of them based on Sony Pictures' The Angry Birds Movie.

For the animated adaptation of the popular mobile phone video game, Target offered a special "Red Edition" with fuzzy-eyebrow packaging, wearable eyebrows and more than 20 minutes of exclusive bonus content. In additionn, Target offered an instant $5 saving swith the purchase of the movie with a Lego "Piggy Plane" attack set (priced at $19.99).

Walmart offered a gift set containing the Blu-ray combo pack with a plush doll of the Red character.

Among other titles, a few retailers had some exclusives in the form of special early availablility. Best Buy had the Blu-ray of Paramount's South Park: Season 19, available everywhere else Sept. 6. Amazon.com had Sony Pictures' Community: The Complete Series boxed set, which comes with a "yearbook" guide book.

Best Buy offered a $10 gift card with the purchase of $50 or more on select TV seasons.

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New on Disc: 'Zelig' and more …

Zelig (Blu-ray)

Available via ScreenArchives.com
Twilight Time, Drama, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars Woody Allen, Mia Farrow.
1983. Carried to an extent by a one-joke premise that a 79-minute running time keeps from wearing out its welcome, this black-and-white production deals with a literal human chameleon who manages to insinuate himself into just about every major political and pop culture event between the Jazz Age and the Depression/Third Reich early 1930s.
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’Neath the Arizona Skies

Olive, Western, $14.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR.
Stars John Wayne, Sheila Terry, Shirley Jean Rickert, Yakima Canutt, Gabby Hayes.
1934. As one of 16 low-budget “Lone Star” Western releases that John Wayne ground out between 1933 and 1935, ‘Neath the Arizona Skies must be one of the cheapest-looking movies to have rated a Blu-ray release. Still, this is Wayne in his formative years, so by definition a fun view.
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'Killing Joke' Available in Special Retail Exclusive Packaging

Best Buy's 'Killing Joke' Blu-ray with comic book

Retailers gave fans a few packaging options when choosing to pick up Warner's Batman: The Killing Joke.

Warner released the movie as a DVD, a Blu-ray combo pack and a Blu-ray with a Joker figurine.

Best Buy offered a deluxe version of the figurine gift set that also included a version of the Batman: The Man Who Laughs graphic novel.

Target offered the Blu-ray combo pack with a steelbook case.

Target also had exclusive covers for Sony Pictures' The Blacklist: The Complete Third Season DVD and Warner's Blindspot: The Complete First Season Blu-ray.

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Finding Exclusives Like a 'Boss'

Walmart's 'The Boss: High-Roller Edition'

A few stores had exclusive promotions tied to Universal's The Boss, a comedy with Melissa McCarthy that arrived on shelves July 26, shortly after the theatrical debut of her Ghostbusters remake.

Best Buy offered a free T-shirt with the film's logo with purchase of The Boss Blu-ray. The shirt was offered on its own for $9.99.

Walmart offered a special "High-Roller Edition" Blu-ray with 30 minutes of exclusive bonus materials.

Among other offers, Best Buy had a 3-for-$20 deal on recent Blu-ray releases, and an $8 Jason Bourne movie coupon with the purchase of select titles.

Target offered Warner's Batman v Superman with a six-pack of Dr. Pepper.

 

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