Author: Jason Zingale

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “The Gentlemen” Guy Ritchie’s last two films weren’t terrible by any means, but they were major departures from his usual schtick, so it’s nice to see him return to familiar territory with “The Gentlemen,” a British gangster flick that’s brimming with the kind of sharp, rat-a-tat dialogue that he built his career on. Though it starts off incredibly slow, laying the groundwork…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Just Mercy” After making a name for himself with the 2013 indie darling “Short Term 12,” director Destin Daniel Cretton has failed to build on that success. His 2017 follow-up “The Glass Castle” was an incredibly forgettable adaptation of the bestselling memoir of the same name, and this tame and formulaic legal drama isn’t much better. It’s a perfectly fine movie that…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” Endings are hard, and even more so when you’re dealing with one of the biggest film sagas in cinema history, so it’s not surprising that “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” falls short of expectations. In fact, it’s a fairly messy movie with some questionable narrative choices and an apparent disdain for Rian Johnson’s “The Last…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “1917” War may be hell, but director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins turn it into something strangely beautiful with this visually stunning World War I drama about a pair of British soldiers sent on a dangerous mission across enemy lines to deliver an urgent message that could save thousands of lives. Designed to look like one long, uninterrupted take, “1917” is…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Richard Jewell” It’s been a while since Clint Eastwood made a truly great film, and though “Richard Jewell” does little to change that, it’s certainly one of his better movies in quite some time. Like a lot of his recent work, “Richard Jewell” is not only based on a true story but one that’s about a real American hero, and Eastwood doesn’t…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Bombshell” Jay Roach’s fictionalized account of the women who brought down Fox News executive Roger Ailes is a timely look at sexual harassment in the workplace as told through the lens of one of the most famous scandals to come out of the #MeToo movement. All three leading women (Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie) are outstanding in their respective roles,…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Dark Waters” On the surface, “Dark Waters” sounds like the prototypical Oscar film. It’s an issue movie that’s based on a real-life David-and-Goliath story and stars Academy favorites Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hathaway. Yet it was completely shut out of awards season. So what went wrong? It’s not very memorable, for starters, despite a strong lead performance by Ruffalo. In fact, while…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Knives Out” Writer/director Rian Johnson follows up his trip to a galaxy far, far away with this wildly enjoyable murder mystery featuring what is arguably the best ensemble cast of 2019. Though not every actor is given equal screen time, they all thrive in their respective roles, particularly Ana de Armas, Chris Evans and Daniel Craig as a sort of Southern-fried Hercule…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Jojo Rabbit” This coming-of-age dramedy about a young Nazi sympathizer who’s forced to rethink everything he’s been taught when he discovers a Jewish girl hiding in the walls of his house doesn’t exactly sound like a movie that’s ripe for satire. However, what makes “Jojo Rabbit” work as well as it does is the way that writer/director Taika Waititi injects humor into…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Ford v Ferrari” With the exception of his Wolverine movies, “Walk the Line” might just be James Mangold’s most successful film, so it’s nice to see the director dive back into the world of biopics, flawed as they may be, with “Ford v Ferrari.” Though it doesn’t do much to stray from the typical biopic formula, it’s a compelling tale of ingenuity,…