Posted December 31, 2023 08:44 PM by Sean Greenwood
For the week of January 1st, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment will release on Blu-ray Alexander Payne's The Holdovers, starring Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Carrie Preston, Brady Hepner and Ian Dolley.
Description: From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) — and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).
Universal's Blu-ray of The Holdovers contains a DTS-HD MA 3.0 (LCR) audio track. Extras include an alternate ending, deleted scenes and the featurettes The Cast of The Holdovers and Working with Alexander.
New on Blu-ray from Lionsgate Home Entertainment is Neil Burger's The Marsh King's Daughter, starring Ben Mendelsohn, Daisy Ridley, Garrett Hedlund, Caren Pistorius, Gil Birmingham and Brooklynn Prince.
Description: In the tense thriller The Marsh King's Daughter, a woman with a secret past will venture into the wilderness she left behind to confront the most dangerous man she's ever met: her father. In the film, Helena's (Daisy Ridley) seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King (Ben Mendelsohn), the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.
Lionsgate's Blu-ray of The Marsh King's Daughter contains audio commentary with Neil Burger, a making of featurette and a theatrical trailer.
New from Crunchyroll is a Blu-ray for Masato Jinbo's The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie (映画 五等分の花嫁), starring Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Ayane Sakura, Kana Hanazawa, Ayana Taketatsu, Miku Itou and Inori Minase.
Description: Heading into their third year of high school, the girls are still waiting for their beloved tutor to choose one of them—until Futaro reveals that he'll decide by the end of their school festival. But is three days really enough time to make up his mind?
Crunchyroll's Blu-ray of The Quintessential Quintuplets Movie contains both Japanese (with English subtitles) and English: Dolby TrueHD 5.1 tracks. Extras include promo videos, commercials and textless opening and ending songs.
Coming from the Criterion Collection is a 4K UHD upgrade for Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959), which contains Pather Panchali (পথের পাঁচালী) (1955), Aparajito (অপরাজিত) (1956) and Apur Sansar (অপুর সংসার) (1959). All three films are sourced from 4K masters and presented with LPCM Mono audio and optional English subtitles. Blu-ray copies of the films also contain Criterion's extras, such as audio recordings of director Satyajit Ray from 1958, interviews with actors Soumitra Chatterjee, Shampa Srivastava, and Sharmila Tagore, camera assistant Soumendu Roy and film writer Ujjal Chakraborty, footage of Ray receiving an honorary Oscar in 1992, documentaries, programs on the restorations and more.
Coming to Blu-ray from Radiance Films is Pietro Germi's The Facts of Murder (Un maledetto imbroglio) (1959), starring Pietro Germi, Claudia Cardinale, Franco Fabrizi, Cristina Gaioni, Claudio Gora and Eleonora Rossi Drago. Sourced from a new 4K master prepared by L'Immagine Ritrovata at the Cineteca di Bologna, Radiance presents The Facts of Murder with Italian: LPCM Mono audio and optional English subtitles. Extras include a new interview with Pietro Germi expert Mario Sesti, a documentary about Pietro Germi, The Man With the Cigar in His Mouth (2005), and What's Black and Yellow All Over? All Shades of Italian Film Noir, a visual essay by Paul A. J. Lewis. For a full disc breakdown, read Jeffrey Kauffman's Blu-ray review.
Coming to Blu-ray from Kino is Roger Vadim's Please, Not Now! (La Bride sur le cou) (1961), starring Brigitte Bardot, Joséphine James, Mireille Darc, Edith Zetline, Michel Subor and Jacques Riberolles. Kino's Blu-ray contains an audio commentary by film historian Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
Coming from MGM are two catalog titles from director Arthur Hiller: Popi (1969), starring Alan Arkin, Rita Moreno, Reuben Figueroa, Miguel Alejandro, Arny Freeman and Joan Tompkins, and Romantic Comedy (1983), starring Dudley Moore, Mary Steenburgen, Frances Sternhagen, Robyn Douglass, Ron Leibman and Alexander Lockwood. Both films are making their worldwide debuts on Blu-ray.
Finally this week, coming to Blu-ray from Shout Factory is James Fargo's Forced Vengeance (1982), starring Chuck Norris, Mary Louise Weller, Michael Cavanaugh, David Opatoshu, Frank Michael Liu and Bob Minor. Sourced from a new scan of the interpositive, Shout's Blu-ray of Forced Vengeance also includes a theatrical trailer.