This week’s major home entertainment release is Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, but there are other items of interest including a reasonably-priced DVD edition of the second series of the revived Doctor Who series starring David Tennant, as well as a bloody contemporary crime film from mainland China.
 
Theatrical Releases
 
This week’s major release is Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (New Line, “PG-13,” 161 min., $28.98, BD/Combo $35.99, 3-D BD/Combo $45.95), the second film in Jackson’s trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  While it earned nearly a billion dollars at the worldwide box office, The Desolation of Smaug still came up nearly $75 million short of the total earned by its predecessor An Unexpected Journey, in spite of the fact that critics preferred Smaug, giving it a 75% positive rating versus just 65% for Journey.  Perhaps there is just the onset of Hobbit fatigue brought on by the fact that Jackson is turning Tolkien’s modest volume into a trilogy, but if so, it’s too bad since Smaug represents a step up from Journey.  Jackson’s “additions” to the Tolkien saga actually shine here.  They might not have worked on the page, but they function quite well on the screen.  
 
Since Jackson shot almost all of the film in ultra-high definition, it is definitely worth acquiring the film on Blu-ray.  The Blu-ray combo set includes a full disk of extra features, mostly in high definition, though the deleted scenes included in this release are pretty pedestrian.  Don’t be surprised if New Line/Warner Bros. releases a Desolation of Smaug Extended Edition in November chock full of more interesting scenes that didn’t make it into the theatrical release just as the studio did for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  I realize that the economics of these special effects-heavy fantasy films are daunting, but do they justify the wholesale exploitation of the audience, first by bloating the source material into a trilogy of lengthy movies, and then by releasing multiple home entertainment versions  of each film with different running times.  Still, in spite of this gnawing doubt and an hour or two of superfluous Orc combat designed to placate the insatiable action movie fan, in the final analysis it is great to see Tolkien’s stories brought to life in such a masterful way, though those with a low tolerance for bombast might want to give Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy a wide berth—and those fans who want more than the theatrical version would be well-advised to wait for the Extended Edition later in the year.
 
Also out on Tuesday is August: Osage County (Anchor Bay, “R,” 119 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), a big screen adaptation of Tracy Letts’ play about a dysfunctional family.  The primary reason to put a “shoutfest” like this on screen appears to have been to secure yet another Academy Award nomination for Meryl Streep.  She and the rest of the cast that includes Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, and the now nearly ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch, are excellent, but the film never loses its stage bound origins and appears to be crafted (like the similar artificially searing Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf) as a vehicle for showy high decibel performances that work on stage far better than they do on screen.
 
Horror movie fans will have to make do with Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (Paramount, “R,” 84 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), the fifth film in the “found footage” Paranormal Activity series.  The Marked Ones represents a marked departure from the previous films in the series in that the film’s “found footage” comes in the form of old video tapes, and the protagonists are young Hispanics (though the film is in English). 
 
Grudge Match (Warner Bros., “PG-13,” 113 min., $28.98, BD $35.99) sounds like a comedy since it features a boxing match between over-the-hill screen pugilists Sylvester Stallone (Rocky) and Robert DeNiro (Raging Bull), but in spite of the presence of the always funny Keven Hart, this film is as much drama as comedy and is so much the worse for it. 
 
In many ways this week’s most interesting offering is Jia Zhangke’s A Touch of Sin (Kino, “Not Rated,” 133 min., $29.95, BD $34.95), an intense episodic film based on four different stories of violence and corruption in contemporary China.  A Touch of Sin, which was nominated for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, draws on the wuxia tradition, though it remains firmly grounded in its real life stories and presents its graphic violence in quick brutal bursts that are definitely not for the faint of heart.  The four storylines are only loosely connected.  They all feature different characters from different sections of China who only interact tangentially, but together they paint a disturbing portrait of a country that is still battling the kind of corruption and violence that often accompany rapid social and economic change. 
 
First comes the story of an angry miner, who threatens the mayor of his Northern Chinese village who has sold off the local coal mine to a sleek oligarch.  After the miner publicly insults the coal baron and is brutally beaten, he goes “postal” and gets his revenge with a shotgun.  The other three cases involve a mass murderer based on Zhou Kehua, who specialized in strong arm robbery and may have killed as many as nine of his victims before he was apprehended in 2012, the story of young woman who in 2009 killed a local party bigwig who was attempting to rape her, and finally the Foxconn suicides, which took place in 2010 and involved 14 employees of the tightly run electronics factories that produce iPhones and HP computers who attempted to commit suicide (11 were successful) in reaction to long working hours and the treatment of mainland Chinese workers by their largely Taiwanese supervisors.  This is not a pleasant film to watch, and the glimpses of China’s varied regions while very interesting, are far from picturesque.  It is not at surprising that this difficult and powerful film has not yet been cleared for exhibition in China.
 
TV on DVD
 
The BBC continues to re-issue the revived Doctor Who series in budget-priced, DVD-only, half-season sets.  Doctor Who: The Second Series, Part 1 (BBC, 325 min., $19.95), which is due on Tuesday includes 7 episodes from the second series of the revived series starring David Tennant (the 10th Doctor).  The second half of Series 2 is due in May at the same reasonable price point.
 
David Tennant also provides the narration for Earthflight: The Complete Series (BBC, 360 min., $34.98, BD $39.98), a six-part nature documentary that consists mostly of footage from ultralight planes and drones flying with migrating birds as well as from tiny cameras mounted on the birds’ backs.  The result is a fascinating “bird’s eye” view of our planet.
 
Geek viewers might also want to check out the Fearnet cable series Holliston: The Complete Second Season (Image Entertainment, 220 min., BD $19.98), which includes all the second season episodes of the groundbreaking horror series set in Holliston, Massachusetts.  Included in this collection are the series’ first animated episode as well shows featuring guest appearances by Seth Green and Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn.
 
Animated offerings include the single-disc Ben 10: Omniverse—Vol.4, Duel of the Duplicates (Warner Bros., 118-min., $14.97), which includes 5 episodes from the Ben 10: Omniverse cartoon series, and the single-disc Pound Puppies: A Perfect Match (Shout Factory, 120 min., $9.99).
 
Vintage TV releases include the 1968 Andy Griffith Show spin-off Mayberry R.F.D.: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros., 480 min., $29.98).  This is the first time that this series starring Ken Berry, George Lindsay (Goober), and Jack Dodson (Howard Sprague) has ever been available.  Despite solid ratings, this show was cancelled because CBS felt the network was getting to “old” and “rural” in its viewership.  Other vintage releases include the Barbara Stanwyck-starring western The Big Valley: Season 2 (Timeless Media, 1500 min., $19.97), and The Bobby Darin Show (MPI, 420 min., $39.98), which includes all 13 episodes of the 1973 series starring the ill-fated crooner, who died the same year.
 
Anime
 
It is a very light week with Naruto Shippuden: Set 18 (Viz Media, “17+,” 300 min., $44.82), which contains episodes 219-231 complete and uncut with both English and Japanese soundtracks.  Naruto has been consistently one of the top manga and anime properties in the North American market.


Tom Flinn

The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.