We here at Substream love to give you our fresh takes on the best new theatrical and VOD releases, but what if you love something enough to want to own a physical copy? This is our rundown of this week’s best new releases on DVD and Blu-ray, so that you know what films to add to your home video library.
Arrival
When mysterious spacecraft touch down across the globe, an elite team is put together to investigate—including language expert Louise Banks (Amy Adams). Mankind teeters on the verge of global war as everyone scrambles for answers—and to find them, Banks will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.
The Edge Of Seventeen
Everyone knows that growing up is hard, and life is no easier for high school junior Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), who is already at peak awkwardness when her all-star older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) starts dating her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until the unexpected friendship of a thoughtful boy (Hayden Szeto) gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all.
Christine
Christine (Rebecca Hall), always the smartest person in the room at her local Sarasota, Florida news station, feels like she is destined for bigger things and is relentless in her pursuit of an on-air position in a larger market. As an aspiring newswoman with an eye for nuance and an interest in social justice, she finds herself constantly butting heads with her boss (Tracy Letts), who pushes for juicier stories that will drive up ratings. Plagued by self-doubt and a tumultuous home life, Christine’s diminishing hope begins to rise when an on-air co-worker (Michael C. Hall) initiates a friendship which ultimately becomes yet another unrequited love. Disillusioned as her world continues to close in on her, Christine takes a dark and surprising turn.
Tharlo
Tharlo is an orphan who lives a simple life but could a brief encounter with a woman in his local town change his life forever?
King Cobra
It’s 2006, YouTube is in its infancy, and internet porn is still behind a paywall. Taking the stage name Brent Corrigan, a fresh-faced, wannabe adult video performer (Garrett Clayton) is molded into a star by Stephen (Christian Slater), a closeted gay porn mogul who runs the skin flick empire Cobra Video from his seemingly ordinary suburban home. But as Brent’s rise and demands for more money put him at odds with his boss, he also attracts the attention of a rival producer (James Franco) and his unstable lover (Keegan Allen) who will stop at nothing to squash Cobra Video and steal its number one star.
London Town
Experience the music and energy of the 1970s punk underground. When 15-year-old Shay (Daniel Huttlestone) hears the music of The Clash for the first time, it’s a revelation, opening up a new world of social consciousness and anti-establishment defiance beyond anything he’s known in his dead-end London suburb. Drawn into the heart of the city’s burgeoning punk scene, he forges two relationships that will change his life, falling in love with rebellious cool girl Vivian (Nell Williams) and finding an unexpected connection with none other than The Clash’s electrifying frontman, Joe Strummer (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).
The Tree Of Wooden Clogs
NEW TO THE CRITERION COLLECTION: A painterly and sensual immersion in late nineteenth-century Italian farm life, Ermanno Olmi’s The Tree of Wooden Clogs lovingly focuses on four families working for one landowner on an isolated estate in the province of Bergamo. Filming on an abandoned farm for four months, Olmi adapted neorealist techniques to tell his story, enlisting local people to live as their own ancestors had, speaking in their native dialect on locations with which they were intimately familiar. Through the cycle of seasons, of backbreaking labor, love and marriage, birth and death, faith and superstition, Olmi naturalistically evokes an existence very close to nature, celebrating its beauty, humor, and simplicity but also acknowledging the feudal cruelty that governs it. Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1978, The Tree Of Wooden Clogs is intimate in scale but epic in scope—a towering, heart-stirring work of humanist filmmaking.
