This Week on Blu-Ray: September 13th 2016

<p>Welcome to another installment of This Week on Blu-ray&comma; where I tell you what the big releases are and whether they’re worth getting&period; Now that the generic opener is out of the way&comma; let me give you the bad news&period; <em>Captain America&colon; Civil War<&sol;em> isn&&num;8217&semi;t the best movie to come out this week&period; You&&num;8217&semi;re gonna have to read on to find out what that is&period; But the good news is that the new Captain America is out and unlike most comic book movies&comma; I actually enjoyed this one&period; You can hear Logan Schultz&comma; Christopher Cross and I <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;film-fallout-podcast-14-captain-america-civil-war&sol;">talk about the film<&sol;a> and understand my psyche a little better along the way&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Next up&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ve got the sequel to the surprise hit&comma; <em>The Conjuring<&sol;em>&period; Director James Wan crafted one hell of an effective genre film with the first and I&&num;8217&semi;m curious to see if <em>The Conjuring 2 <&sol;em>can hold up to the expectations&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve heard good and bad&comma; like most people&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ll just have to find out by watching it&period; Then again&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;ve heard this one focuses on jump scares a little more and that&&num;8217&semi;s just cheap&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;112782" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-112782" style&equals;"width&colon; 970px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-112782 size-full" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;09&sol;08001538&sol;The-Conjuring-2-Nun-06-12-16&period;jpg" alt&equals;"The-Conjuring-2" width&equals;"970" height&equals;"545" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-112782" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Conjuring 2&comma; Warner Bros&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>If you&&num;8217&semi;re a fan of James Cameron&&num;8217&semi;s early work &lpar;The Terminator&comma; The Abyss&rpar; and for some reason you don&&num;8217&semi;t already own <em>Aliens<&sol;em>&comma; maybe now is the time to get it with a brand new 30th Anniversary Edition&period; For people who already own the film on Blu-Ray&comma; I regret to inform you that there&&num;8217&semi;s only one additional featurette entitled The Inspiration and Design of Aliens&period; Sure&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s got a cool new cover and art cards&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s probably not worth the extra money&period; Save your double dip for a future film&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now here&&num;8217&semi;s a film that I had modest hopes in&colon; <em>De Palma<&sol;em>&excl; I wrote a little <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;de-palma-review&sol;">review<&sol;a> to let you all know that it was worth a VOD rental unless you&&num;8217&semi;re a huge De Palma fan who must own everything&comma; then you can buy it today&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s hard to deny how rare it is to have a filmmaker sit down and talk all about their work&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s probably easier to edit it into a bite size documentary for people who barely know the basics of the director&period; If there&&num;8217&semi;s anything strong on this release&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s the damn nice looking cover&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>If the documentary can&&num;8217&semi;t crave your Brian De Palma fix&comma; maybe Scream Factory&&num;8217&semi;s collector&&num;8217&semi;s edition of <em>Raising Cain <&sol;em>will&period; Said to be among his worst films&comma; <em>Raising Cain <&sol;em>is getting the full treatment with two cuts of the film&comma; theatrical and director&&num;8217&semi;s cuts&comma; new interviews with the principal cast including John Lithgow&comma; and a couple new featurettes&period; If I was a bigger fan of De Palma&&num;8217&semi;s work&comma; I would surely get this release&comma; but sadly I&&num;8217&semi;m not&period; And with this movie we end our streak of cool covers&period; This one&&num;8217&semi;s a hot mess&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Continuing on with our catalogue titles is Synapse Films&&num;8217&semi; remaster of Dario Argento&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Tenebrae&period; <&sol;em>I&&num;8217&semi;ll admit that I&&num;8217&semi;ve only seen one Argento film&comma; <em>Suspiria<&sol;em>&comma; but I absolutely loved it&period; I&&num;8217&semi;ve heard the blu-ray&&num;8217&semi;s from Synapse Films can be a little pricy&comma; but I&&num;8217&semi;ve seen some good reviews on this restoration so far&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve got a new restoration&comma; a feature length documentary on the history of the Giallo sub-genre&comma; and a few other nifty features&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;112783" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-112783" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-large wp-image-112783" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;09&sol;08001612&sol;chrysanthemum-1600x900-c-default-1024x576&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum&comma; Criterion&rpar;" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"563" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-112783" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum&comma; Criterion&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Last but not least with the catalogue is the Criterion Collection&period; After buying <em>Sansho the Bailiff <&sol;em>and <em>The Life of Oharu&comma; <&sol;em>I told myself I was done with Kenji Mizoguchi&&num;8217&semi;s films&period; His artful melodrama&&num;8217&semi;s are incredibly well made&comma; but they really don&&num;8217&semi;t hit anything for me&period; If you enjoyed either of those prior films mentioned&comma; be happy knowing that his 1939 masterpiece&comma; <em>The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum<&sol;em> is now available&period; Unfortunately&comma; this film&comma; like last week&&num;8217&semi;s film&comma; comes with very few special features &lpar;an interview with a film critic on the evolution of the director&&num;8217&semi;s style and an essay&rpar;&comma; but maybe the film can sell you on its own&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Now it&&num;8217&semi;s time for our movie of the week&excl; <em>Popstar&colon; Never Stop Never Stopping<&sol;em> is the film I needed but didn&&num;8217&semi;t know it&period; In the middle of the generally awful summer movie season&comma; we got a gem of a film that went underseen&period; Loved by those who watched it&comma; hated by those who then lost their right to an opinion&comma; <em>Popstar <&sol;em>is the funniest and one of the smartest films of the year&period; And having some of the most clever music I&&num;8217&semi;ve heard in a movie in years only helps its case&period; Now get on watching it&comma; you filthy scoundrels&excl; That’s it for This Week on Blu-ray&period; Next week&comma; we get to talk about McConaughey&comma; Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles&comma; an old Disney classic&comma; and the sequel to one of the most overrated comedies of the last few years&period; Let me know if I gave any of these films too much crap and we can debate like savage animals about it&comma; until next time&&num;8230&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;