Can we talk about this week’s home entertainment releases? Joan Rivers delivers some outrageous stand-up comedy in Joan Rivers: Don’t Start With Me, and Woody Allen returns to Europe with Alec Baldwin, Ellen Page and Jesse Eisenberg in To Rome With Love (above).
Meanwhile Liam Neeson gives kidnappers what for in the Istanbul-set Taken 2, and James Franco delves into the world of porn as a cokehead lawyer in About Cherry. And if you’ve got a case of Oscar fever, Volker Schlondorff’s Academy Award-winning The Tin Drum gets a Blu-ray release from Criterion Collection.
($39.99 Blu-ray, $29.98 DVD; 20th Century Fox)
In this inevitable sequel to the surprise action hit Taken, Liam Neeson returns as former CIA agent Bryan Mills, who is the one kidnapped this time—leaving his daughter to come to his rescue. Contrived and silly, this critic-proof thriller is still tasty popcorn fare. The Blu-ray edition includes both an extended and theatrical version, alternate ending and deleted scenes.
($29.98 Blu-ray, $24.98 DVD; MPI Home Video)
In this first directorial effort from Stephan Elliott, high schooler Angelica (Ashley Hinshaw) flees her Los Angeles home and ends up working in San Francisco’s porn industry. The film is peppered with familiar faces, including James Franco as a cokehead lawyer, Heather Graham as a porn director, Dev Patel as Angelica’s friend-without-benefits, and Lili Taylor as her mom.
Joan Rivers: Don’t Start With Me
($19.98 DVD; Entertainment One)
She might be 78 years young, but Joan Rivers’ latest no-holds-barred stand-up special still makes Kathy Griffin sound downright tasteful. Cracking wise about Angelina Jolie, blind people, children, Michael Jackson—and of course, herself—Rivers makes it clear she still’s got it in spades.
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($35.99 Blu-ray, $30.99 DVD; Sony)
Hot on the heels of Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen returns with another magical European rom-com. This time Allen himself plays a retired opera director obsessed with an Italian that can sing amazingly (but only in the shower), Alec Baldwin revisits his younger self (Jesse Eisenberg), and Penelope Cruz is a prostitute posing as a dutiful wife. Typical with Allen’s catalog, DVD extras are almost nonexistent.
($39.95 Blu-ray; Criterion Collection)
Disgusted by the rise of the Nazis, a precocious German boy with a glass-shattering shriek freezes his aging process so he will never join adults’ ranks. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, director Volker Schlondorff’s adaptation of Gunter Grass’ 1959 novel is a darkly comic and sometimes outrageous rumination on war and society. (In the 1990s, the Oklahoma City Police Department banned the film on obscenity grounds.) The extras on this first Blu-ray edition include a new interview with Schlondorff, commentary from film scholar Timothy Corrigan, vintage TV excerpts, new English subtitles, and more.
ALSO OUT ON DVD
The Intouchables
Won’t Back Down
Detropia
Randal Oulton
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