At last the pace of home entertainment releases picks up a bit with a Benedict Cumberbatch-voiced Grinch, a superior caper film from the director of 12 Years a Slave, a superb biographical film featuring an Oscar-worthy performance by Rosamund Pike, and a very interesting anime film that will interest fans of Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli films.

Theatrical Movies

After a very lean January there comes a whole bunch of interesting releases this week led by Illumination Entertainment’s very successful ($240 million earned here in North America) Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch (Universal, “PG,” 86 min., $29.98, BD $34.98, 3D $39.98), which features the vocal talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, Rashida Jones, and Kenan Thompson.  One wonders why Universal put The Grinch out now, rather than waiting for the next holiday season, but this serviceable holiday film comes with three new mini-movies.

Those who enjoy stylish genre films are in for a treat with Steve McQueen’s Widows (Fox, “R,” $29.98, BD $34.98, 4K $39.98), a heist thriller with four female protagonists who have to band together to pull off a major job in order to settle the debt left by their dead husbands.  Gillian Flynn adapted the film from a U.K. TV series and the result is sophisticated and superior entertainment from the director of 12 Years a Slave.

Another excellent film out this week is A Private War (Universal, “R,” 111 min., $22.98, BD $29.98), Matthew Heineman’s biographical film based on the life and exploits of war correspondent Marie Colvin.  Rosamund Pike is brilliant as Colvin, and this film pulls no punches about the grim realities of modern day warfare.

For those who enjoyed Steig Larsson’s Millennium books featuring the formidable Lisabeth Salander, The Girl in the Spider’s Web (Sony, “R,” 115 min., $29.98, BD $34.98) is the fifth film to star the tattooed heroine and the first based on a book that wasn’t written by Larsson (who died in 2004).  While not as successful as the previous “Girl” films, The Girl in the Spider’s Web is a competent and entertaining thriller.

Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers (Fox, “R,” $29.98, BD $34.98) is a dark comedy set in Gold Rush California that the critics loved (85% positive on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes).  Unfortunately audiences were not impressed and the movie bombed, but it’s not an easy road for any sort of a western these days, and “revisionist” westerns like the Sisters Brothers tend to do better on video than in the theaters (which is why there are so few of them produced in the 21st Century).

TV on DVD

This week’s domestic TV offerings don’t hold all that much of interest for geek viewers, unless they are interested in a serious look at the golden age of porn in New York City, which is examined in great detail in The Deuce: Season 2 (HBO, $44.98, BD $59.98), the penultimate season of the series starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Franco.

There are a couple of “complete series” editions of previously released material of interest, especially The Americans: The Complete Series (Fox, $59.98), which contains all six seasons of the Cold War spy series; and Six: The Complete Series (A&E, 779 min., $39.99), which collects the History Channel’s series about the famous Seal Team Six that was sent after Osama Ben Laden.

For super sentai fans there is Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel: The Complete Season (Lionsgate, 528 min., $19.98), which collects the 25th season of Power Rangers, which aired here in 2018.

This week’s top overseas offering is 800 Words: Season 3, Part 2 (Acorn Media, 363 min., $49.99), a quirky, humorous and heartwarming family drama set in a picturesque New Zealand coastal town.

Anime

This week’s top release is Masaaki Yuasa’s Lu Over the Wall (Shout Factory, “PG,” 112 min., $16.97, BD $26.99), an animated fantasy feature film about a shy young boy’s encounter with a mermaid that is reminiscent of Miyazaki’s work (especially Ponyo), but also features some very interesting technical innovations including the use of Adobe Flash scans to provide the “in betweening” connecting hand-drawn key animation cels.

This week’s other new anime releases include Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card: Part 1 (Funimation, “10+,” 275 min., BD/DVD Combo $64.98), which includes the first 11 episodes of the 2018 anime series from Madhouse directed by Morio Asaka that is the sequel to the original Cardcaptor Sakura also directed by Asaka from 1998-2000.  Both series are based on the shojo manga by Clamp.

Also due out this week is the previously solicited Re: Zero—Starting Life in Another World, Season 1, Part 2 (Funimation, “TV-MA,” 325 min. BD/DVD Combo $64.98), which collects 13 episodes of the 2016 White Fox anime based on the dark fantasy light novel series by Tappei Nagatsuki, a prime example of the “isekai” fantasy subgenre in which the protagonist is transported to a different parallel world.

{IMAGE_10)}For fans of classic anime this week’s top release is Yoshiyuki Tomino’s 1980 mecha-heavy space opera Space Runaway Ideon (Sentai Filmworks, 1158 min., BD $69.99), which he made for Sunrise immediately after completing his groundbreaking Mobile Suit Gundam.  This set includes all 39 episodes of the anime as well as two 1982 films based on the series. The heavy drama (and tragedy) in the plotline of Space Runaway Ideon had a definite influence on Hideaki Anno’s Neon Genesis Evangelion.  This classic series has long been unavailable with previous editions fetching big bucks in the aftermarket, so it is great that this series will be available at a reasonable cost.