This week’s home entertainment releases include three very successful 2019 releases, the R-rated horror film It: Chapter Two, Quentin Tarantino’s stylish Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and the Jennifer Lopez-starring true crime film Hustlers, plus a trio of Seth Macfarlane-related TV releases, as well as a glorious new transfer of Satoshi Kon’s classic anime feature film Millennium Actress.

This week’s movie offerings feature three films from 2019 that all earned over $100 million at the box office here in North America.   The biggest release is Andy Muschietti’s It: Chapter Two (Warner Bros., “R,” 169 min., $28.98, BD $35.98, 4K $44.98), which earned $209 million here in North America.  The Losers Club is all grown up in this sequel that takes place 27 years after Chapter 1.  Chapter Two did well, but suffered in comparison with its predecessor, which had a few more shocks.   With its nearly 3-hour running time Chapter Two feels a bit padded, but it is a quality production enlivened by strong performances from Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, James McAvoy, and Bill Skarsgard, who returns as Pennywise.

Quentin Tarantino fans should be excited by the release of his ninth feature, Once Upon A Time Hollywood (Sony, “R,” 161 min., $30.99, BD $38.99, 4K $45.99), Tarantino’s paean to old Hollywood, which is set in 1969 and features strong performances from Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie.  Tarantino evidently has such affection for Tinseltown in the late 1960s that he can’t help but rewrite history (as he did with the ahistorical Inglorious Basterds), and the result is a kind of wish fulfillment ending that saps the energy of what had been to that point a wonderful behind-the-scenes look at movie and TV show making in the 1960s with meticulously crafted faux TV series and movies made with obvious affection (and full of inside references).  But hey, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with all its flaws is still one of the best movies of this, or any other recent year.

The underrated (as an actor) Jennifer Lopez is the animated force behind Hustlers (Universal, “R,” 111 min., $29.98, BD $34.98, 4K $44.98), a true story based on a New York Magazine article about a group of strippers, who become a band of flesh-baring Robin Hoods as they fleece their Wall Street fat cat clients during the 2008-2010 recession.

For pop music fans there is Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (Greenwich Entertainment, 93 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), a well-produced and affecting documentary about the legendary American chanteuse, and for those who enjoy serious art films there is An Elephant Sitting Still (Kimstim, (Not Rated), 230 min., $29.98, BD $39.98), a four-hour look at the interlocking lives of a number of characters from the lower rungs of Chinese society, who live in an industrial city in North China and are left behind by an increasingly prosperous (and selfish) society.

TV on DVD

There is some good news this week for geek viewers who enjoy the work of Seth Macfarlane.  Macfarlane’s science fiction series, The Orville: Season 2 (Fox, 590 min., $29.98), represents a character-driven improvement over Season 1 (which didn’t turn out that badly anyway if one can appreciate a Trek-influenced dramedy).  The big problem is that this series should be released on Blu-ray to take advantage of its strong (for TV) visuals—with network series broadcast in high definition, a DVD doesn’t cut it anymore, at least for visually ambitious TV series.  The problem is that demand for hard copy (BD or DVD) TV releases has dwindled and Hollywood, which just a decade ago was making money hand over fist selling TV shows on disc, but the category is in big trouble now—and shows like The Orville suffer for it.

Also due on Tuesday is another Macfarlane-created property The Family Guy: Season 17 (Fox, $29.98), which finds the Griffin family finding the humor in all sorts of contemporary political and cultural issues including a 2-episode arc in which Peter ends up as Trump’s press secretary. 

In addition Mcfarlane stars as Brian Lewis in the far more politically ambitious (and polarizing) The Loudest Voice in the Room (Showtime, 350 min., $39.98), a hard-hitting look at the career and work of Roger Ailes, the founder of Fox News, who is played in this miniseries to great effect by Russell Crowe.

The only other American series is the final season of the USA corporate law series Suits—Suits: Season 9 (Universal, 439 min., $39.98).

The best overseas offering of the week is Doc Martin: Season 9 (Acorn Media, 362 min., $39.98), which stars Martin Clunes as the irascible small town doctor who practices in the postcard-perfect seaside Cornish town of Port Wenn, which is populated by a (mostly) loveable collection of eccentric characters.

Two other U.K. series are on tap this week: the Caribbean-set mystery series Death in Paradise: Season 8 (BBC, 440 min., $39.99); and the G.K. Chesterton adaptation, Father Brown: Season 7 (BBC, 450 min., $39.98).

Anime

This week’s best offering is not new, it is a new hi-def restoration of Satoshi Kon’s 2001 anime masterwork Millennium Actress (Shout Factory, “PG,” 87 min., $26.99).  In this award-winning film (Kon’s best), two documentary filmmakers interview a famous actress, whose stories of a 30-year career are a fascinating mixture of memory and reality blurring the line between cinema and life.

There are two subtitles-only releases this week: Minoru Ohara’s 12-episode martial arts anime Gakuen Basara Samurai High School (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., Subtitles Only, BD $59.98); and the Seitokai Yakuindomo Seasons 1&2 + Movie Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 710 min., Subtitles Only, BD $79.98), which contains the 2010 and 2014 13-episode anime series from GoHands, plus a 60- minute 2017 anime movie all based on the four panel slice-of-life comedy manga by Tozen Uiije about girls’ school that goes coed with a gender ratio of 28 males to 524 females.

Though it’s not an anime, this is the best spot to list the UltraSeven Complete Series Steelbook Edition (Mill Creek, 1208 min., BD $49.99), which collects the third entry in the Ultra Series of tokusatsu science fiction TV series created by Eiiji Tsurubaya.  This successor to Ultraman aired in Japan in the late 1960s, and is presented in its original Japanese format (with English subtitles) in this new hi-def restoration of what was the thematically wildest of all the Ultra shows.  No word if the “banned  12th episode” that featured an alien scarred by a nuclear explosion and was never shown in Japan, will be included in this collection—it was not  in the previous “complete series” DVD edition put out by Shout Factory in 2012.