There are five release days in July, which typically means that one week will get short shrift—and with July Fourth falling this week it is easy to understand why the studios aren’t debuting any big releases on Tuesday.  Still there is a complete set of one of the most influential sitcoms of early 1960s, a handful of interesting documentaries, and a Blu-ray edition of the classic science fiction film Things to Come.
 
Classics on Blu-ray
 
William Cameron Menzies 1936 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ visionary Things to Come (Criterion, “Not Rated,” $39.95) is a science fiction classic that few have seen in anything approaching a decent print.  As is the case for many “public domain” films dozens of crappy versions of this legendary film have been released, but until now it has been impossible to view the film in anything close to an acceptable version.  Criterion’s Blu-ray is not as sharp as some of the recent high def versions of golden age movies.   There are some scratches and contrast issues with the Blu-ray, but it is a huge improvement over what we have seen before with four minutes of footage that were cut out of previous American versions.  The film itself is notable more for its wonderful “retro future” art deco designs than for its often stiff acting and pompous dialogue.  Its “progressive” vision of an antiseptic future run by the technocrats of “Wings Over the World,” is less interesting (and arguably less influential) than its prediction of the horrors of World War II and its chilling post-apocalyptic section where society has devolved into a feudal state with local warlords ruling with whatever weapons that could be salvaged from the pre-war Twentieth Century era.
 
Theatrical Releases
 
Unless you like documentaries this week’s selection of new movie releases is pitiful.  Six Souls (Anchor Bay, “R,” $24.99, BD $24.99), which stars the talented Julianne Moore as a psychiatrist and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as a patient with multiple personalities (most of which are murder victims) might be the best bet, but this psycho thriller never even got a domestic theatrical release (typically a very bad sign).
 
Canadian director Ruba Nadda’s Inescapable (MPI, “R,” $24.98, BD $29.98) is a grainy thriller set in Syria that suffers from poorly executed action scenes and an unwieldy combination of family drama and political thriller that could muster only a 19% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
 
Director P.J. Hogan’s Mental (Universal, “Not Rated” $19.98, BD $26.98) is one of those quirky comedies about the mentally ill that some will find inspiring and others insufferable.  A strong cast (Toni Collette, Liev Schreiber) can’t save this film which gets the “5 wheels of Cheddar Award” as the cheesiest indie film of the year so far.
 
The situation is a lot more promising for those who fancy documentaries.  Eugene Jarecki’s The House I Live In (Virgil Films, “Not Rated,” $14.99) looks at the enormous cost and abject failure of America’s “War on Drugs,” which President Richard Nixon initiated back in 1971.  Michael Apted’s 56 Up (First Run Features, “Not Rated,” $29.95) continues the director’s periodic examinations of the lives of seven ordinary Britons.  Andre Ujica’s The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (Kino Lorber, “Not Rated,” $29.95) uses footage from the Roumanian National Archives to document the ruthless Stalinist dictator’s personal variation on the cult of personality. 
 
With Serena Williams still very much in the hunt for a Wimbleton championship, Maiken Baird and Michelle Major’s Venus and Serena (Magnolia Home Ent., “PG-13,” $26.98, BD $29.98) provides a behind-the-scenes look at the two remarkable sisters from the mean streets of Compton who made it to the top of the tennis world.  This documentary follows the sisters during the turbulent year of 2011 when Venus was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and Serena was coming back from a severe injury. 
 
TV on DVD
 
There’s not much happening in the TV category either.  The best releases are all of the vintage variety led by The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: The Complete Series (Shout Factory, 3600 min., $139.99), a massive 20-disc box set of classic sitcom that was adapted from a 1951 anthology of short stories by Max Shulman.  This series, which featured an excellent cast led by Dwayne Hickman (Dobie), Bob (Gilligan’s Island) Denver (as the hilarious beatnik Maynard G. Krebs), Frank Faylen (Dobie’s dad), and Florida Friebus (his mom), aired from 1959-1963.  Dobie was the typical American teen male rendered hapless and helpless by his hormones and incapable of overcoming the wiles of a succession females headed by the gold-digging Thayla Menninger (Tuesday Weld), who was determined to use her spectacular looks to lift her entire clan out of poverty.  Weld is brilliant in the role and a young Warren Beatty also has a superior turn as Dobie’s rich antagonist Milton Armitage (who was replaced by Steve Franken’s memorable Chatsworth Osborne, Jr. after Beatty left the series).  Dobie Gillis features the kind of character-driven comedy and post-modern tropes such as Dobie directly addressing the audience that make it far less dated than most sitcoms of its era.

Another vintage sitcom that has aged well is The Dick Van Dyke Show: The Complete 4th Season (Image Entertainment, 800 min., BD $59.98).  In fact this show is one of the few from its era to rate the Blu-ray treatment (at least so far).  This set contains all 32 episodes from 1964-1965 including the famous episode “Never Bathe on Saturday” in which Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) gets her toe caught in the bathtub spout.

For fans of 1990’s teen dramas there is Party of Five: The Complete Fifth Season (Sony, $45.99), a DVD-R release of the critically-acclaimed series, while for kids there is The Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Season 3 (Shout Factory, 940 min., $19.93), a boxed set of the Americanized super sentai series that was a big hit here in the 1990s.

The only other release is Last Resort: The Complete Series (Sony, 588 min., $38.99), which includes all 13 episodes of the 2012 ABC network military action adventure series about a submarine commander who refuses to nuke Pakistan that was cancelled after just one season (2012).
 
Anime
 
Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere Season 2 (Sentai Filmworks, “14+,” 325 min., $59.98, BD $69.98) includes all 13 episodes of the second anime series adapted by Sunrise in 2012 from a series of science fiction novels by Minoru Kawakami.  Set in a far distant future when mankind has fled Earth only to return to a planet that is uninhabitable except for Japan where pocket dimensions are created around Japan to house the entire human population.

Also due this week is Hanasaku Iroha Blossoms for Tomorrow Set II (NIS America, “13+,” 308 min., $69.98), which collects the second half of the2011 series from P.A. Works about a teenage girl who inherits a Taisho era hot spring inn and has to learn how to deal with both customers and employees, and Natsume’s Book of Friends Season 4 Premium Edition (NIS America, “13+,” 325 min., $69.98), which collects the final season (2012) of the supernatural comedy/drama anime based on the shojo manga series created by Yuki Midorikawa.  Both of the NIS releases come with full color 28-page hardcover art books filled with sketches and interviews.

This week’s other new release is the single-disc Ruin Explorers (Maiden Japan, “13+,” 120 min., $19.98), which collects the 4 action-packed OVAs produced in 1995 by Animate that focuses on the adventures of two female treasure hunters (Fam and Ihrie), who are searching for the legendary Ultimate Power.

Tom Flinn

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