New DVD/BluRay/Streaming Releases This Week

Three new releases of note this week!!
However....not a good week for releases.
Lets Start with:

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Directed by: Peter Jackson
Screenplay: Fran Walsh; Philippa Boyens; Peter Jackson; and Guillermo Del Toro
Starring: Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman
Based on the book of J.R.R. Tolkien



Ugh!! Are they still walking??!! If they just have called Uber this would have been done a couple parts ago!!
Well I am not going to go through the plot, if you do not know the plot by now you are not interested anyway.
Jackson made the decision to break down the book into three parts for the movie release. I can understand that....we see many beloved books being cut apart too much to fit into a 2 hour film. However I think here three parts was over kill. To me, it became almost exhausting for the viewer. At one point in the theatre I put my hand up and made a circular motion, a symbol to move things along. Move the story!! Often I felt like I was watching a film of people watching. Which is a shame because I like the storyline, so it goes back to my original thought of ...maybe two parts could have told the story and moved it along at a better pace.
Positives: Jackson has always been good at casting and here he was successful again with Freeman. You love him and hope for the best for him, which is very important in this long story.

Well it was a good finish to the series connecting it to the Lord Of The Rings Series.
I will give Battle of The Five Armies 3 out of 5 stars, better than average. I would give The Hobbit Three Part Series 2 1/2 out of 5 stars. It just felt long and exhausting.


Moving on to:
Into The Woods
Directed by: Rob Marshall
Screenplay: James Lapine
Starring: James Corden; Anna Kendrick; Emily Blunt; Tracey Ullman; Johnny Depp; Chris Pine; and Meryl Streep
Based on the musical by James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim



An allstar cast!! Every single actor/actress in this musical are fantastic.
The film starts out so strong. Taking fairy tales and twisting them all over the place!! I am watching this in the theatre thinking, the story line is real good, the music is real good, I am in, this is really fun. Then right at the half way mark a giant shows up and just stomps on the film. The second half is a mess and rather sad.
An odd decision by Disney to procure the rights for this moderately successful musical. I am thinking their thought process is...it plays like a Disney fairy tale. Still it is just odd, especially somehow after losing out on the rights to Wicked to Universal Studios, which had Disney written all over it. It just feels that what they got here was a B side to Wicked (Still to be honest, Universal still does not know what to do with Wicked as it sits there. At least Disney made this musical).
Well 2 1/2 of 5 for Into The Woods. Right down the middle for a musical that only had a good half.


And finally this week:

Unbroken
Directed by Angelina Jolie
Screenplay by Joel and Ethan Cohen; Richard Lagravenese and William Nicholson
Starring Jack O'Connell
Based on the book by Laura Hillenbrand



After a plane crash in WWII, Olympian Louis Zamperini spends 47 days in a raft with two fellow crewmen before he's caught by the Japanese navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp.
A very difficult watch. Jolie made a decision here to be to honest. She decided to not only show us the torture that Louis went through but to show us over and over and over. Yes it is all true. However very hard to sit and watch. So much torture, it almost made you want to get up and leave the theatre. I know he was tortured, I know!! Zamperini ( Well played by Jack O'Connell) is a hero and I wanted to see more of other parts of his life also. I cannot recommend this movie but I really really urge you to find the book by Hillenbrand it expands more on his unbelievable life.
Sadly 2 stars out of 5 for Unbroken.

A quick note. A better film cut from the same cloth The Railway Man starring Colin Firth. About another hero Eric Lomax. It is available through Netflix. In other words I recommend reading Unbroken and watching The Railway Man.


Well as always thanks for your time.