Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Also reviewed: Kings of Leon, Sting, and Icona Pop. Plus: a thematic list of all the other prominent new releases and reissues, including The Complete Waitresses and a big box of Nirvana’s In Utero.

Oscar again made the safe choice for 2012’s Best Picture, choosing Ben Affleck’s blandly competent Argo, virtually ignoring the most provocative film of the year, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. More egregious is that Anderson’s tour de force only garnered Academy nominations in the acting categories. One can’t help but wonder if the film’s Oscar fate would have been different if the subject was any other cult than Hollywood-chic Scientology. One also suspects Argo will occupy a place in film history closer to How Green Was My Valley, Ordinary People, and Driving Miss Daisy than to Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, or Do the Right Thing.

The small screen serves up some big drama in these three TV-on-Blu-ray releases, from Liberace to slave revolt to big-city vigilante justice.

Peter Jackson gave the world a beloved, wildly successful film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, culminating in a record-breaking Oscar sweep, so of course, he was the obvious choice to helm the Hobbit prequels. But whereas the Rings trilogy made a newbie like me love it with its epic thrills and fascinating characters, An Unexpected Journey seems to be in love with its own familiar world and everyone in it. We meet a younger Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit happily minding his own business when the wizard Gandalf drafts him for a dangerous quest.

Father and son Miyazakis craft another touching tale, Helen Mirren shines as a capable cop, and all hell breaks loose in an offbeat World War II gorefest.

Steven Spielberg’s long-rumored dream project—bring- ing the factual, Holocaust-set book Schindler’s Ark to the screen—finally arrived to great acclaim in 1993, culminating in Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Picture, and more. Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) is a clever civilian businessman and a bit of a cad who achieves a fortune by manufactur- ing pots and pans for the German army during World War II. His secrets? World-class schmoozing and an unpaid legion of Jewish laborers. He has no love of the Nazis or their agenda, but as he bears witness to their escalating atrocities, he is reluctantly moved to become a champion of his ill-fated workforce. His steps are small at first, ultimately leading to the creation of a list of more than 1,000 names of people to be kept at his factory instead of sent to concentration camps or gas chambers. This decision winds up costing Schindler all of his vast wealth, but his selfless act made history. It’s a profound tale told with great passion and indelible images.