For the week of September 19th, Walt Disney Home Entertainment will release Taika Waititi’s Thor: Love and Thunder, starring Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, and Jaimie Alexander. The fourth film for the Asgardian god of thunder is the 29th in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and also featured the return of Portman as Jane Porter. Shot in Sydney Australia in 2021, Thor: Love and Thunder opened in July 2022 to mixed reviews, but still managed to top the box office in its opening weekend with over $144 million. So far, the film has grossed over $343 million domestically and over $759 million globally, making it currently the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2022.
Disney’s 4K UHD release of Thor: Love and Thunder features the film’s Dolby Atmos audio and HDR picture. Extras on the bundled Blu-ray include a filmmaker audio commentary, deleted scenes, a gag reel and three featurettes. In addition to standard packaging, a Best Buy Exclusive SteelBook and a Walmart Exclusive with Enamel Pin will also be available. For full disc breakdowns, read Martin Liebman’s 4K UHD review and Blu-ray review.
New this week from the Criterion Collection is a Blu-ray and 4K UHD release for Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal, starring Riz Ahmed, Olivia Cooke, Mathieu Amalric, Jamie Ghazarian, and Paul Raci.
Description: In Sound of Metal, a tale of sound, fury, and self-discovery, Riz Ahmed delivers an intensely committed performance as the volatile Ruben, who has found new purpose as a drummer in a noise-metal duo, playing blistering live shows with his singer girlfriend, Lou (Olivia Cooke). When Ruben suddenly loses much of his hearing, he is launched on a profound odysseythrough denial, anger, grief, and, gradually, acceptanceas he comes to understand what it means to live as a deaf person and to discover deafness as not a disability but a rich culture and community. Through stunningly immersive, Academy Awardwinning sound design, director Darius Marder invites us to experience the world as Ruben does, capturing a sonic spectrum in which silence comes in a thousand shades.
Criterion’s disc releases of Sound of Metal feature a 4K master supervised by Marder and cinematographer Daniël Bouquet and DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, with HDR on the 4K UHD disc. Extras on the Blu-ray include a new conversation between Marder and filmmaker Derek Cianfrance, a program on the film’s sound, a music video, featurette and trailer.
New this week from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment is a Blu-ray for Rob Zombie’s The Munsters (2022), starring Jeff Daniel Phillips, Daniel Roebuck, Sheri Moon Zombie, Richard Brake, and Jorge Garcia.
Official description: From writer/director Rob Zombie comes the strangest love story ever told. Lily is just your typical 150-year-old, lovelorn vampire looking for the man of her nightmares . . . that is until she lays eyes on Herman, a seven-foot-tall, green experiment with a heart of gold. It’s love at first shock as these two ghouls fall fangs over feet in this crazy Transylvanian romance. Unfortunately, it’s not all smooth sailing in the cemetery as Lily’s father The Count has other plans for his beloved daughter’s future, and they don’t involve her bumbling beau, Herman. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll howl at the moon as The Munsters make their way to Mockingbird Lane!
Universal’s Blu-ray of The Munsters (2022) contains an audio commentary with Rob Zombie and an hour-long behind-the-scenes featurette.
New this week from Paramount Home Media Distribution is a Blu-ray for Mayor of Kingstown: Season One (2021-2022). The three-disc set contains all ten episodes and over two hours of extras, including Behind the Story segments for each episode, a making of and other featurettes.
Also coming this week from Paramount is a 4K UHD upgrade for Byron Haskin’s The War of the Worlds (1953), starring Gene Barry, Ann Robinson, Les Tremayne, Robert Cornthwaite, and Sandro Giglio. Taken from an existing 4K master and presented with Dolby Vision HDR and DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, archival extras include two audio commentaries, a making of featurette and a featurette on H.G. Wells, the original 1938 Mercury Theatre radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds and the film’s theatrical trailer. Also included in the release is a Blu-ray of Rudolph Maté’s When Worlds Collide (1951), starring Richard Derr, Barbara Rush, Peter Hansen, John Hoyt, Larry Keating and Rachel Ames, which is unavailable separately at this time. Extras on the Blu-ray of When Worlds Collide include a trailer.
New this week from Well Go USA is a Blu-ray for Randolph Zaini’s action thriller Preman: Silent Fury, starring Paul Agusta, Farell Akbar, and Tubagus Ali.
Description: After his son witnesses a brutal murder by a notorious crime boss, a deaf Indonesian gangster is thrust into the fight of his life when he takes on his dangerous former alliesincluding a sociopathic assassinin order to protect his child.
Extras on Well Go USA’s Blu-ray of Preman: Silent Fury include a trailer.
Finally for new releases this week, Lionsgate Home Entertainment has a Blu-ray for James Clayton’s Bullet Proof (2022), starring Vinnie Jones, James Clayton, and Philip Granger.
Studio description: Vinnie Jones (Snatch) plays Temple, a sadistic mob boss, in this gritty, white-knuckle action ride. After stealing millions in cash from Temple’s drug-dealing hideout, a thief finds a stowaway in his getaway car Temple’s pregnant wife, Mia! Desperate to reclaim his cash and his unborn son Temple sends out a squad of hit men and bounty hunters to bring in Mia and the thief. Speed, cleverness, and good aim give the duo a brief advantage, but how long will their luck hold out?
Turning to catalog titles, Arrow Video has a Blu-ray this week for Tomu Uchida’s A Fugitive from the Past (飢餓海峡) (1965), starring Rentarô Mikuni, Sachiko Hidari, Kôji Mitsui, Yoshi Katô, Sadako Sawamura and Susumu Fujita. Making its home video debut outside of Japan, A Fugitive from the Past is presented in HD with uncompressed original Japanese mono audio and optional English subtitles. Extras include a 26-minute introduction by writer and curator Jasper Sharp, as well as six scene-specific audio commentaries by leading Japanese film scholars. A theatrical trailer, Tomu Uchida filmography and an image gallery round out the extras. Reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman awards both the film and the Blu-ray extras a perfect five stars. For a full disc breakdown, read Jeffrey’s Blu-ray review.
Also this week, Sony Picutres Home Entertainment has a 4K UHD upgrade for Jim Gillespie’s I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997), starring Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, Freddie Prinze Jr., Muse Watson and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras. Arriving for the film’s 25th anniversary, Sony’s 4K UHD disc features a new 4K master from a scan of the original camera negative, a new Dolby Atmos track in addition to the original 5.1 audio and six new deleted scenes and an alternate ending, as well as interviews with Gillespie and Watson. An included Blu-ray features legacy extras, such as filmmaker’s commentary, the short film Joyride and featurettes.
Then from Kino Lorber comes a 4K UHD upgrade for Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges (2008), starring Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Ralph Fiennes, Clémence Poésy, and Thekla Reuten. Kino presents In Bruges from a new 4K master which was approved by cinematographer Eigil Bryld, and features Dolby Vision HDR on the 4K UHD disc. The included remastered Blu-ray contains the archival extras from previous Blu-ray editions, including featurettes, interviews, deleted and extended scenes and more.
Finally this week, Shout Factory has a 4K UHD upgrade for Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead (2013), starring Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore. Presented as a single-disc 4K UHD edition, Shout’s release of Evil Dead contains both the theatrical and unrated cuts of the film in 4K with Dolby Vision HDR. Archival extras include audio commentary, five featurettes, trailers and TV spots.
