There are a lot of great home entertainment releases this week including the latest season of Game of Thrones, Oscar hopefuls Birdman, St. Vincent, and The Theory of Everything, plus the DVD debut of the Action Man cartoon series, and the best Studio Ghibli movie in years, The Tale of Princess Kayuga.

Theatrical Movies

With the Oscars coming up there’s lots of action in this category with the release of several Oscar hopefuls including Alexander Inarritu’s Birdman (Fox, “R,” 120 min., $29.98, BD $39.98), a wonderful complex dark comedy about a once mighty Hollywood actor played by Michael Keaton, who is trying to resurrect his career with an appearance on Broadway as his life keeps unraveling.  Though the protagonist of Birdman like Keaton, who played Batman in Tim Burton’s films, portrayed superheroes on screen, Birdman is a character study and definitely not a superhero film.   Birdman features wonderful cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki, who along with Inarritu pulls off some of the most spectacular long takes in the history of cinema.

A much more conventional Oscar contender is St. Vincent (Anchor Bay, “PG-13,” 102 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), a slice-of-life saga about an old curmudgeon played by Bill Murray, who befriends the 12-year-old son of a single mother (Melissa McCarthy).  This is the kind of comic saga that’s been a movie plot staple since The Champ, which starred Wallace Beery and Jackie Coogan, brought home an Oscar back in 1931, but St. Vincent remains intriguing almost entirely because of Murray’s nuanced portrayal.  Those who don’t care for Murray’s antics should stay away, but his fans will be rewarded with one of his best performances.

Yet another movie with Oscar buzz that is due out this week is The Theory of Everything (Universal, “PG-13,” 248 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), a movie biography of astrophysicist Stephen Hawking starring Eddie Redmayne, who gives an extraordinary performance in a film that is much more of a romance (and an overcoming adversity drama) than a science lecture or an exposition of Hawking’s cosmological insights.

The most controversial film due out this week is The Interview (Sony, “R,” 112 min., $14.99, BD $19.99), the Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy about a farcical attempt to kill the dictator of North Korea.  In reaction to news about the movie, North Korea hacked into Sony’s computers and released all sorts of embarrassing emails and managed to derail the movie’s theatrical release.  Sony finally did give the movie a limited release, but immediately undercut theater owners who were showing the movie, by releasing it on Video on Demand.  In spite of the fact that Sony is pricing this movie like it was a direct-to-DVD throwaway, it does have a wacky charm along with lots of bathroom humor and completely stupid stuff.

There is a similar “stupid humor” vibe to Dumb and Dumber To (Universal, “PG-13,” 220 min., $29.98, BD $34.98), which isn’t as good as the original, but it also isn’t as bad as its 29% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes might suggest.  Bottom line, if you really liked the original Dumb and Dumber, you will enjoy the sequel at least enough to rent it.

TV on DVD
This week’s top TV release is the most pirated current television series, the HBO megahit Game of Thrones: The Complete Fourth Season (HBO, 450 min., $59.98, BD $69.98).  This epic adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s symphony of fantasy-tinged feudal intrigue has to be just about the best example of epic fantasy ever brought to the small screen—and the production values of the series are so high (the final two episodes looked great even when blown up for an IMAX release) that it really is worth to spring for the Blu-ray edition.  In addition to the epic events of Season 4, the new BD edition includes loads of fascinating extras including “The Fallen” a roundtable discussion with some of the characters who met their demise in Season 4, and another 30-minute documentary about the filming of the epic “Battle for the Wall” sequences.

The most recent Doctor Who Christmas Special, Doctor Who: Last Christmas (BBC, 60 min., $14.98, BD $19.98), features the latest incarnation of the Timelord played by Peter Capaldi in one of the best Christmas Specials yet—an intriguing blend of an Alien-like horror story (those crabs really do resemble the facehuggers) and a heart-warming Christmas tale.

The majority of this week’s other TV releases are vintage animated shows led by Action Man: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 565 min., $9.98), which includes all 26 episodes of the 1990s animated series created by DIC Entertainment that are appearing on DVD for the very first time here.  The 1980s Dungeons & Dragons animated series has been previously released in 2005 and 2009, but now Mill Creek is doing it one season at a time, starting with Dungeons & Dragons: Beginnings (Mill Creek, 240 min., $9.98), which is available at a very attractive price.

Also releases of interest in the same vein include the 1998 Fox cartoon Godzilla: The Series-The H.E.A.T. Is On (Mill Creek, 214 min., $9.98), He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: Adventures in Eternia (Mill Creek, 240 min., $9.98), which collects 10 early He-Man episodes, the 1990s series Jumanji: Season 1 (Mill Creek, 286 min., $9.98), the 1980s space opera show Starcom: The U.S. Space Force-The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 287 min., $9.98), Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego (Mill Creek, 240 min., $9.98), and Wish Kid: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, 292 min., $9.98), which collects all 13 episodes of the early 1990s series that featured the voice of Macaulay Culkin, who was then at the height of his Home Alone fame.

Anime
This week’s top anime release is The Tale of Princess Kayuga (GKids, “PG,” 276 min., $29.98, BD/DVD Combo $34.98), the new Studio Ghibli film from Isao Takahata, who created the classic Grave of the Fireflies.  The Tale of Princess Kayuga, which is based on the Japanese folktale “The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter,” is a yet another masterpiece of hand drawn animation from Studio Ghibli.  Highly recommended for those who enjoy the Ghibli masterpieces like Totoro, Nausicca, and Spirited Away, The Tale of Princess Kayuga is one of the best Ghibli production in years.

Also due this week is the 17th Pokemon movie, Pokemon The Movie: Dancie and the Cocoon of Destruction (Viz Media, DVD $19.97).  This is the first movie in the Pokemon XY series and should be of interest to the young fans of the Pokemon card and video games.  The movie was shown on the Cartoon Network on November 8, 2014.

This week’s other major release is Hozuki’s Coolheadness: Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 325 min., $49.98, BD $59.98), which collects the 13-episode 2014 series from Wit Studio based on the darkly comic supernatural manga series by Natsumi Eguchi that was simulcast by Crunchyroll.  Like the simulcast version, the Hozuki’s Coolheadness discs will be subtitles only.

--Tom Flinn

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