This Week on Blu-ray: February 8-14

For the week of February 8th, we have a pair of new releases from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, first up is Christopher Landon's comedy-horror Freaky, starring Vince Vaughn, Kathryn Newton, Alan Ruck, Katie Finneran, and Uriah Shelton. Released theatrically in November 2020, Freaky managed to top the box office for two weeks in a row on its way to bringing in over $9 million at the domestic box office and over $15 million globally, despite the coronavirus pandemic. Our review of the Blu-ray from Martin Liebman has high praise for the disc's sound: "Universal's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack for Freaky delivers the goods. The track is abundantly spacious and expertly balanced. The track's depth is prominent. Bass is regularly intense, whether in support of score or action, and often a balanced combination of the two. Music plays with seamless stage presence, immersing the listener with super clear notes and well defined stage presence, dominant along the front but not at all timid about back end stretch. Action elements – various thuds, squishy gore, a revving table saw – are all finely detailed and perfectly placed". The disc also comes with several short featurettes and an audio commentary with Christopher Landon.

Then from Universal is Ric Roman Waugh's film Greenland, starring Gerard Butler, Scott Glenn, Morena Baccarin, and David Denman. This film also saw a theatrical release in 2020, but was unable to find a domestic release date and ended up getting a VOD release. Internationally, however, the film was released in several countries throughout Europe and Asia, where the film has a total of over $47 million so far. Greenland comes to Blu-ray with a DTS-HD MA 7.1 audio track deleted scenes, a short featurette and an audio commentary with Ric Roman Waugh and Producer Basil Iwanyk. A review of the disc is available here.

Also this week, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will upgrade Neill Blomkamp's Elysium to 4K UHD. The sci-fi action thriller stars Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Sharlto Copley, Alice Braga and Diego Luna and was Blomkamp's follow-up to his Oscar-nominated hit District 9. Elysium debuts on UHD Blu-ray with HDR picture and Dolby Atmos audio track, as well as several new extras on the UHD disc, including the 30-minute featurette "Exoskeletons, Explosions, and the Action Choreography of Elysium" Reviewing the new disc, Martin Liebman says: "The UHD's 2160p resolution reveals sharper object detail up close and at distance as well. Facial close-ups offer the most obvious, and most substantial, of the textural improvements. While refinements are not drastic, the improvements to clarity are readily evident in fine skin textures such as pores, lips, eyelashes, and facial scruff, not to mention applied makeup and tattoos. More richly defined and more aggressively sharp and clear textures are also the norm even at distance, including practical landscapes on Earth where tattered structures, dirt, and debris are commonplace both inside and outside. On Elysium, the textural output to the more refined environments and smoother surfaces are readily apparent, even if they're not so texturally dense as those found on Earth. Outer space shots of the Elysium platform show greatly improved textural clarity and nuance even in digital effects shots".

Other new releases this week include Shout Factory's Russian horror film Sputnik from first-time director Egor Abramenko. Synopsis: Due to her controversial methods, Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), a young doctor, is on the precipice of losing her medical license. Her career may not be over, though. After she's recruited by the military, she is brought to a secure science research facility to assess a very special case, that of a cosmonaut who survived a mysterious space accident and has returned to Earth with a unique condition: there's something living inside of him that only shows itself late at night. The military has nefarious plans for it. Tayiana wants to stop it from killing. And the creature itself thrives on destruction. A review of the disc is available here.

Next up, Paramount Home Media Distribution has Mark Osborne's The Little Prince, featuring the voices of Jeff Bridges, Marion Cotillard, Benicio Del Toro, Paul Giamatti, and Rachel McAdams. A French-Italian animation production, the film was released internationally in 2015 and was set for a theatrical release in the US in early 2016, but was dropped at the last minute. Now, some five years later, Paramount has finally delivered a domestic home media release for the film. The Blu-ray contains an English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track, and extras including a 25-minute Making of featurette. A review of the disc is available here.

From Well Go USA this week, we have Teng Cheng and Li Wei's animated film Jiang Ziya. Synopsis: Atop the ruins of war, top commander JIANG ZIYA is given the task to banish the Nine-tailed Fox Demon who threatens all mortals' very existence. When he discovers the Nine-tailed Fox's life linked to the soul of an innocent girl, he is faced with a challenging decision - follow the will of heaven or find his own path to righteousness. Both Mandarin and English tracks are available, and Jeffrey Kauffman's review is quite enthusiastic about the picture and sound quality.

Finally for new releases this week, we have two from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. First up is Tara Miele's film Wander Darkly, starring Sienna Miller, Diego Luna, and Beth Grant. Synopsis: In Wander Darkly, a traumatic accident leaves a couple, Adrienne (Sienna Miller) and Matteo (Diego Luna), in a surreal state of being that takes them on a disorienting journey through the duality of their shared moments. By reliving fond recollections from the beginning of their romance while also navigating the overwhelming truths of their present, they must rediscover the love that truly binds them together. Writer-director Tara Miele offers a profound new perspective on the delicate nature of relationships with this emotionally moving story about a couple who must reflect on their past in order to face their uncertain future.

Then from Lionsgate, it's Ken Mok's comedy The Right One, starring Nick Thune, Cleopatra Coleman, Iliza Shlesinger, Trezzo Mahoro, and Leanne Lapp. Synopsis: In this heartfelt and hilarious rom-com, Sara, a novelist struggling with writer's block needs inspiration—and finds it when she serendipitously meets Godfrey, a down-on-his-luck oddball who constantly changes personas in order to cope with a traumatic past and avoid reality. Just as Godfrey begins to open up to Sara, he discovers that she's been using him as inspiration for her next novel, and he vanishes from her life. Did Sara just lose the man of her dreams, or will she be able to find him and make things right?

In catalog news this week, the Criterion Collection has a new edition of Alan J. Pakula's thriller The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels, Hume Cronyn and Earl Hindman. The second installment of Pakula's "Paranoia Trilogy", which began with Klute and ended with All the President's Men, The Parallax View features Beatty as Joe Frady, an investigative reporter who witnesses the murder of a prominent senator, then three years later, is compelled to dig into the killing as his fellow witnesses begin to die mysteriously. Taken from a new 4K master and presented with an unompressed LPCM mono audio track, the film also comes with Criterion's usual in-depth extra material, including archive interviews with Pakula as well as a new interview with his assistant. A new program on cinematographer Gordon Willis and a new introduction to the film by filmmaker Alex Cox. In his review of the disc, Svet Atanasov awarded the maximum five stars for both picture and audio quality, saying in part: "the strength of this master easily shows because the original cinematography blends all types of different visuals with evolving stylistic characteristics and yet the main areas we scrutinize in our reviews remain impressive. So, large panoramic shots and carefully lit close-ups can look equally great, plus the lighting choices are essentially irrelevant. Also, the master is beautifully graded...once you sit down to view the film you will also recognize that different ranges of unique highlights are fully retained as well...Image stability is outstanding. Finally, the entire film looks very, very healthy".

Finally this week, Paramount also have two new entries to their Paramount Presents lineup of Blu-rays. First in spine order is Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown, starring Orlando Bloom, Kirsten Dunst, Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, and Bruce McGill. Presented in a brand new 4K master, supervised by writer/director Cameron Crowe, and new HD extras, including over 20 minutes of new deleted and extended scenes, as well as a Filmmaker Focus featurette with Cameron Crowe. Then the next entry in the Paramount Presents series is a newly remastered version of Arthur Hiller's Love Story, starring Ryan O'Neal and Ali McGraw as two Harvard students from different backgrounds who fall in love. Released just after the film's 50th anniversary in December 2020, this remastered edition is taken from 4K master and contains another of the Presents series' trademark Filmmaker Focus featurettes, this time with Leonard Maltin.