This week’s home entertainment releases include four very different and interesting theatrical films including the “leggiest” movie musical of all time, Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, the final film from master thespian Daniel Day-Lewis, and one of Ridley Scott’s most interesting recent films, plus the third season of the time-traveling romantic fantasy Outlander and the first DVD release of the 1995 The Mask animated series.

Theatrical Movies

This week’s most successful film at the box office is the musical The Greatest Showman (Fox, “PG,” 105 min., $29.98, BD $34.98, 4K $39.98).  In the fifteen years that I have been analyzing box office returns for ICV2 I have never seen a film debut with $8.8 million and earn over $173 million here in North America as this one did.  The Greatest Showman demonstrated the best movie “legs” since Titanic, thanks to a memorable performance from Hugh Jackman as P.T. Barnum.  Those who enjoy upbeat, old school musicals will not be disappointed by The Greatest Showman, but “musical-averse” viewers should give this one a wide berth.

Those who enjoy serious movies will have several new options this week including Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game (Universal, “R,” 141 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), which is based on a true story and provides a great role for Jessica Chastain, who dominates this tale of an enterprising young woman who arranges underground high stakes poker games.  Molly’s Game crackles with Sorkin’s trademark dialogue, and if the real life story doesn’t allow for a lot of character development, who really cares as long as the zingers and cracks keep coming.

Also of great interest is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread (Universal, “R,” 130 min., $29.98, BD $34.98, 4K $37.98), which stars Daniel Day-Lewis in what is supposedly the intense actor’s swan song.  Future audiences might find Day-Lewis’ work as mannered as we now view the performances of the 1930s most serious actor, Paul Muni, but right now it is difficult to imagine an actor who brings more intensity to a characterization than Day-Lewis—and his work in Phantom Thread, which takes place in the world of U.K. high fashion in the 1950s, is the equal of any in his oeuvre.

Attitudes toward the super-rich may be changing as financial inequality increases.  Hollywood has never been too kind to the tycoons of industry anyway, so it’s no surprise that the title of a movie about the kidnapping of the grandson of billionaire J. Paul Getty, Ridley Scott’s All the Money in the World (Sony, “R,” 133 min., $30.99, BD $34.99) gives off a whiff of impotence and implied criticism.  But this movie is perhaps most famous for its troubled production during which Kevin Spacey, who played the oil billionaire, was replaced by Christopher Plummer, a process that involved reshooting all of Spacey’s scenes, and which created a second scandal when it was revealed that Mark Wahlberg was paid a million dollars for doing the retakes, while the female actors in the cast worked for scale during the do-over.  All the fuss over the film’s troubled production has obscured the fact that All the Money in the World is a well-made film that once again demonstrates Scott’s considerable talents as a filmmaker.

For action movie fans there is Proud Mary (Sony, “PG,” 89 min., $30.98, BD $34.98), which stars Taraji P. Henson in a predictable saga about a hitwoman, whose life is changed when she meets a young boy that she has orphaned.  The critics disliked Proud Mary, which has just a 29% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences, for whom the film’s plot meant less than its copious action and the charisma of its star, gave Proud Mary a solid “B+” CinemaScore.

TV on DVD

This week’s top release is Outlander: Season 3 (Sony, $45.99, BD $55.99, Collector’s Ed. $65.99), which collects the 13-episode third season of the time-traveling fantasy romantic drama.  The Collector’s Edition comes in a special box and includes a full color art pamphlet as well as an Outlander novel.

The other items of interest due out this week are both animated collections.  The Mask: The Complete First Season (Warner Bros., 325 min., DVD-R, $24.98) collects the first season of the Saturday morning animated spin-off from the live-action Jim Carrey film The Mask, which was itself a fantasy largely inspired by the surreal antics of Tex Avery cartoons.  This series has never been available on DVD before (only 2 episodes were included with DVDs of the live-action Mask movies), and is fondly remembered by many who enjoyed the show’s zany antics in the mid-1990s.

While The Mask animated series was a lot of fun, if you haven’t seen the original Tex Avery cartoons, Warner Bros. has reissued Tex Avery’s Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Collection (Warner Bros., DVD-R, $24.99), so why not enjoy the original surreal visions of Tex Avery himself?  No one yet has even come close to matching the zany Avery magic, which is on full display in his Droopy cartoons, which were made for MGM.

For those who enjoy dark, acerbic comedy there is Danny McBride’s Vice-Principals: The Complete Series (HBO, $19.98), which collects all 18 episodes that follow the ridiculous scheming and intrigue among the administrators of North Jackson High School, which is nestled in the suburbs of a Southern city.

The only overseas offering this week is The Coroner: Season One (BBC, 450 min., $29.98), which collects the 10-episode first season that follows the adventures of a forty-something woman who returns to her seaside home town to become the coroner where she investigates murders and suicides in conjunction with a local cop who just happens to have been her former boyfriend.

Anime

This week’s anime releases include ACCA: 13-Territory Inspection Dept.—The Complete Series (Funimation, “TV-14,” 300 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98), which collects the 12-eipsode bureaucratic drama based on the seinen manga series by Natume Ono (published here by Yen Press).  Set in a Kingdom that is separated into 13 autonomous departments, the series follows the second-in-command of the Inspection agency charged with rooting out corruption in each of the 13 regions, who learns in Episode One that his agency is about to be abolished.

Also due on Tuesday are Puzzle & Dragons X Part 2 (Funimation, “TV-PG,” 325 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98), which includes episodes 14-26 of the 2016 anime from Studio Pierrot that is based on the Ninetendo game, which in turn is a spin-off of the Puzzle & Dragons mobile game, the first mobile game to gross $1 billion in revenue (its current total gross is more than $6 billion); and Super Lovers: Season 2 (Funimation, “TV-MA,” 275 min., Subtitles Only, BD/DVD Combo $64.98), an 11-episode 2017 series from Studio Deen based on the shonen-ai (literally “boy love”) manga by Miyuki Abe.

Those who enjoy action-packed anime should check out the Ajin: Demi-Human Season 2 Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, “TV-M,” 300 min., 59.98, BD $69.98, Limited Ed. $99.98), which includes the 12-episode second season of 2017 series from Polygon Pictures that is based on the manga by Gamon Sakurai (published here by Vertical) about teenager, who discovers he is Ajin (immortal), and then finds that the government is conducting cruel experiments on some of the Ajin, actions that create a backlash in the form of a terrorist campaign that the Ajin hero of this saga wants to stop. The Limited Edition includes an art booklet, art cards, and movies #2 and #3 of the Ajin anime movie trilogy, which was released before the anime TV series debuted in 2016.  The production and entertainment value of Ajin: Demi-Human can be gauged by the fact that Netflix acquired the series.