December 16th, 2019
The first two installments of our Holiday Gift Guide had plenty of first-run releases and several TV on DVD releases. This installment includes limited releases and foreign imports. The list of classics isn’t up to the usual standards for the same reasons the TV on DVD list was rather short. Streaming is taking over that part of the market. Did you know The Criterion Collection has their own streaming service? So does Magnolia Pictures. On the one hand, that’s a lot of amazing movies for one price. On the other hand, as a fan of physical media, I’m not happy streaming is becoming so popular. There are still some great smaller titles worthy of the season.
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December 11th, 2019
As Christmas rapidly approaches, the number of home market releases shrinks. That said, we do have three $100 million hits on this week’s list, Hustlers, It: Chapter Two, and Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. All three are worth picking up, but Hustlers and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice are Pick of the Week contenders, with the former winning out.
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October 3rd, 2019
It’s a great week for home market releases with a couple of monster hits coming out. Spider-Man: Far From Home was already named Pick of the Week when it came out on VOD and the DVD / Blu-ray / 4K lives up to that title. Meanwhile, Toy Story 4 is the best release of the week, but it is only coming out on VOD and I don’t like giving the Pick of the Week title to VOD releases. This leaves Maiden and That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime: Season One, Part 1 as the Pick of the Week contenders. It is a close race, but the latter has better extras on its Blu-ray and that was the tiebreaker.
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September 11th, 2019
There are two monster hits coming out this week, Aladdin and John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum, and this has scared away almost all of the competition. Fortunately, John Wick is amazing and a clear Pick of the Week contender. There was only one other film in contention for that title, Echo in the Canyon. Granted, I like Parabellum more, but it was already awarded the Pick of the Week when it hit VOD, so Echo in the Canyon gets the honor this week.
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January 16th, 2019
The big fall releases are starting to come out on the home market. This week we get Halloween, which was a $100 million domestic hit. However, it is not among the best films on this week’s list. There are three Pick of the Week contenders on the week’s list. There’s the award-nominated Indie film, Madeline’s Madeline, the classic Notorious, and Bad Times at the El Royale, for which I finally got the review done. It was a coin-toss, but in the end, Madeline’s Madeline on Blu-ray won.
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September 5th, 2017
There are a few first-run releases coming out this week, but none of them did well enough in theaters and / or with critics to bother with above the fold, so to speak. There is one exception, The Big Sick, but it is only coming out on VOD this week. I’m hoping a Blu-ray screener is on its way. As for the Pick of the Week contenders, they are, in alphabetical order, Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas on DVD, Mr. Mom on Blu-ray, and Rebecca: Criterion Collection on Blu-ray. In the end, I went with the Alfred Hitchcock classic as the Pick of the Week.
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June 27th, 2017
It’s a really slow week on the home market. (Next week is even worse. ) The Fate of the Furious is the biggest release of the week, but it is only coming out on Video on Demand, so I would wait. The biggest release of the week is Power Rangers, but it feels like a pilot to a TV show and not a self-contained movie. The best new release of the week is T2: Trainspotting and the Blu-ray Combo Pack. That said, if you don’t have Home Movies yet, then buy the Complete Series right now.
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March 21st, 2017
It is an interesting week on the home market with Rogue One: A Star Wars Story dominating the competition. However, it is only coming out on Video on Demand and doesn’t come out till Friday. As for Tuesday releases, there are a few contenders, but no film that immediately jumps out as the Pick of the Week. If you go with quality, extras, and overall audience appeal, then Sing on Blu-ray Combo Pack comes out on top. I would also definitely checkout Insecure: Season One and Lifeboat, if you don’t already own the latter.
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April 13th, 2016
It is a very slow week on the home market. The only first-run release is The Forest, which earned a single-digit Tomatometer Score. The best-selling release of the week is Justice League vs. Teen Titans which continues to prove animated D.C. is better than live-action D.C. As far as Pick of the Week contenders are concerned, there are a few releases that interest me, including Suspicion on Blu-ray. However, I went with The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun on Blu-ray. I will admit it dances deep into the Style over Substance territory, but it's a style I have really got into.
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February 15th, 2016
There's no major release this week. I was tempted to give Spectre the Pick of the Week honor, but the screener arrived too late to get the review done over the weekend. None of the big releases are worth the Pick of the Week title. There are a number of smaller releases that are worth considering for Pick of the Week, including The Kid, which tops the list.
On a side note, this week's list is a little shorter than I would have liked, because the people who run Amazon are morons. They've changed the New Releases page, again, making it even harder to find a list of new releases for the week. Additionally, there are some films, like Black Mass, that weren't on the list of releases for this week before the changes were made. I understand why physical stores reorganize every once and a while, because if people have to walk to the store to find something, they are more likely to buy something else on a whim. However, these people physically walked to the store, so if they don't buy what they came for, it will be a wasted effort. On the other hand, people go to Amazon by clicking a button. Making it harder to find new releases for that week won't make it more likely they will buy something else. It means they are more likely to not buy anything at all.
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December 4th, 2015
It's a very busy weekend with way too many limited releases. Because of this, we had to be a little more selective with what films made the cut to appear in our column. Chi-raq is opening the widest and should earn the most over the weekend. However, there are more than half-a-dozen films on this week's list earning overwhelmingly positive reviews. Some of these might pick up some major Awards Season nominations.
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May 11th, 2015
It is a typical summer week on the home market with little to no prime releases. The biggest release of the week is Still Alice, which earned $18 million in theaters. That's not bad for a limited release. It is better than some of the wide releases that came out earlier this year. Fortunately, the Blu-ray is also the best new release of the week and it is the Pick of the Week. In fact, it isn't even close as there are no other contenders for that title.
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January 27th, 2015
It is a really bad week for the home market with a lot of filler on the first page of the new releases on Amazon.com. Fury is the biggest release, but there are not enough extras on the DVD or Blu-ray to be a contender for Pick of the Week. The Book of Life, on the other hand, has a loaded DVD or Blu-ray Combo Pack and is a contender. The only other real contender is The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness on DVD. In the end, I went with The Book of Life.
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May 19th, 2014
Grand Piano is a thriller that opened in limited release earlier this year. Thrillers rarely do well in limited release and this film proved to be no exception. Despite earning amazing reviews, the film opened below the Mendoza Line and disappeared in a matter of weeks. Granted, it was also playing on Video on Demand, so the theatrical numbers were an after thought. This week, it comes out on the home market, but will those who passed on it in theaters want to check it out now?
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March 11th, 2013
Hitchcock opened in limited release earning an per theater average of nearly $17,000 in 17 theaters. It went on to make more than $6 million in total, including more than $1 million during its biggest weekend. This is an impressive run compared to most limited releases. However, Hitchcock was expected to be a player during Awards Season and many thought it would be able to expand wide, or at least semi-wide. Granted, there were a lot of Oscar hopefuls that opened during the same time period. Did this one just get lost in the crowd? Or was there a reason it missed admittedly high expectations?
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January 25th, 2013
There were plenty of new releases to chart this week, but none of them were able to top the Blu-ray sales chart. In fact, most missed the top ten. This left Ted on top for the second weekend in a row with 558,000 units / $13.93 million giving it totals of 1.86 million units / $39.92 million after two. These are amazing Blu-ray totals for a comedy.
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December 15th, 2012
We are getting closer and closer to Christmas and we are getting to the crunch time for gift shopping. After checking out first run releases and franchise box sets in Part I and TV on DVD releases in Part II, this week we look at limited releases, classics, and foreign films. Some are pretty obvious choices, as we had a few limited releases that broke into the mainstream during their theatrical releases, but there are also a few more films that slipped beneath the radar the last time around. The biggest of these is...
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October 30th, 2012
It's not a great week on the home market. The best first run release is The Campaign, but while the movie is good, the DVD and the Blu-ray Combo Pack don't have enough extras. There are a few limited releases that piqued my interested as far as Pick of the Week was concerned. Safety Not Guaranteed on DVD or Blu-ray, Ruby Sparks on DVD or Blu-ray, and Polisse on DVD were all contenders. However, in the end I went with Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection. The Blu-ray box set is awesome.
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