With the Oscar’s fresh in our minds, we have a pretty good slate of releases this week including one of the most talked about films of the year, Whiplash. These are your new releases for February 24, 2015.
First up this week is the release of one of the more surprising wins of this year’s Oscars, Big Hero 6. This was definitely not the favorite over How to Train Your Dragon 2 or The Boxtrolls but it walked away with the statue. It is the story of Hiro Hamata, a young boy who has lost his brother Tadashi and is left only with his brother’s invention, Baymax, a medical robot, and his brother’s school friends to find the man responsible for Tadashi’s death.
Big Hero 6 is fully deserving of the Oscar even if it did underperform at the box office. It is a beautifully animated film full of rich characters and a wonderful relationship between Hiro and Baymax. And the way it deals with coping with loss is brilliant and genuine, giving it a great moral for the kid audience. But in addition to all of that it has great humor and spectacular action. It really was underappreciated at the box office but hopefully with Oscar under its belt it will find a whole new audience on home video.
Next up is the Blu-ray debut of a staple of the VHS rental store days, New Year’s Evil. When the host of a televised punk rock show on New Year’s Eve receives calls from a mysterious killer, she is horrified to find he is killing someone at midnight at each of three time zones and planning to save her for last.
New Year’s Evil is not as well-known as other 80s slasher movies for good reason. It just isn’t as good. But it does have some solid plot twists, a great 80s aesthetic that serves as quite the time capsule of 1980, and some of the most ludicrous scenes of any slasher movie of the time. For horror nostalgia buffs wanting to return to that era of horror, New Year’s Evil fills the ticket. And the new transfer is very impressive as well with a great selection of special features.
Lastly this week we say farewell to one of the best cult shows on TV, Sons of Anarchy. With the release of Sons of Anarchy: The Final Season, we find Jax Teller (Charlie Hunnam) trying once and for all to settle all scores and get the club to where he wants it, but along the way many secrets are revealed, lives are lost and relationships forever changed.
Sons of Anarchy: The Final Season really encapsulates everything that made the show such a success. The cast is phenomenal, the plots insane and complex, the action raw and the violence harsh. But somehow show creator Kurt Sutter always managed to keep viewers caring about the ragtag group of antiheroes and the final season did not disappoint, it went out with style. I will dearly miss tuning in to Sons of Anarchy every week.
As I mentioned, this is also the week to check out Oscar winner J.K. Simmons in Whiplash, Jason Bateman and friends reunite for Horrible Bosses 2, and the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray of the animated classic Watership Down.
Until next week movie lovers.
DVD and Blu-ray Releases for Tuesday February 24, 2015
A Girl’s Best Friend
American Gigolo*
Area 51: Sci-fi Action Triple Feature
Beyond the Lights
Big Hero 6
Black Sunday*
Blood Red
Dangerously Close
Dragonheart 3: The Sorcerer’s Curse
Eat Drink Man Woman*
Fellini Satyricon – Criterion Collection*
Final Prayer
Gene Autry Movie Collection 9
Grace
Green Street Hooligans Underground
Horrible Bosses 2
Horse Camp
Julius Jr.: Pirates and Superheroes
Midsomer Murders Set 25
Mountain Men: Season 3
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Adventures of the Cutie Mark Crusaders
New Year’s Evil*
Serangoon Road
Sons of Anarchy: The Final Season
The House of Last Things
The Majestic*
The Master
The Night They Raided Minsky’s*
VANish
Watership Down – Criterion Collection*
Whiplash
Wild Orchid*
Zardoz*
Zombieworld
*Catalog Blu-ray debut