Blu-rays of the Week 

(Warner Archive)

Spaghetti western master Sergio Leone’s first directorial credit was for this bloated and campy 1961 swords-and-sandals epic set on the ancient Greek isle where rebel heroes battle tyrannical rulers, all before the gaze of the huge statue—one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—guarding the harbor. 

Indifferent acting and cheesy spectacle notwithstanding, there’s a frisson of excitement when the colossal structure is sent to its doom in a devastating earthquake. The film looks fine in hi-def; lone extra is an audio commentary.

Edward II 

(Film Movement Classics)

Derek Jarman’s 1991 adaptation of Christopher Marlowe’s classic play about the lascivious king of England is marked with the director’s eclecticism, his brandishing of obvious anachronisms and his glee at tweaking an established entry in the theater canon with his own unmistakable stamp.

Unsurprisingly starring one of Jarman’s discoveries, Tilda Swinton, it works effectively, with several moments of sheer visceral pleasure. There’s a good hi-def transfer; lone extra is a retrospective featurette.

Oh Lucy! 

This gentle Tokyo-set character study, a sympathetic depiction of a lonely middle-aged woman who decides to enroll in an English-language course taught by an American, takes a long time to get where it’s going. Though Josh Hartnett is not my idea of an intelligent expat, the Japanese roles are all persuasively performed, particularly Shinobu Terajima in the lead.

Director Atsuko Hirayanagi presides over a small-scale comedy drama about ordinary people. The hi-def transfer is fine; lone extra is a Hirayanagi interview.

Terminal 

(RLJE Films)

Wherein Margot Robbie proves that her sex appeal and talent—enough for two characters here—can ride roughshod over even the most ridiculously plotted story of double crossings, killings, and torture.

Robbie plays a greasy-spoon waitress and a glamorous femme fatale, while Simon Pegg looks completely lost amidst the convoluted goings-on and Mike Myers comes out of semi-retirement to play a bald villain who gets his comeuppance in a pointlessly torture-porn sequence. It looks impressive on Blu-ray; extras are cast and writer-director Vaughn Stein interviews.

DVDs of the Week 

(Icarus/KimStim)

Austrian iconoclast Nikolaus Geyrhalter has made several eye-opening, thought-provoking documentaries over the past couple of decades, and this set collects six of them, all worth seeing for the director’s artfully composed, brilliantly shot and often unsettling images.

Included are his stark but beautiful 1999 look at the ruined area surrounding Chernobyl, Pripyat; the massive four-hour epic Elsewhere (2001); his masterpiece, 2005’s Our Daily Bread, whose Blu-ray version allows viewers to better appreciate the pristine compositions of animal factory workers; 2011’s Abendland; 2015’s Over the Years; and 2016’s haunting Homo Sapiens.

The Workshop 

(Strand)

Master director Laurent Cantet—whose The Class, Time Out and Human Resources are among the best French imports of the past 20 years—returns with another incisive and pertinent study of class and generational differences. Marine Hands gives a finely shaded portrayal as Olivia, a novelist from Paris who holds summer writing workshops for a diverse group of teenagers at a coastal town.

Ethnic and class divisions become more pronounced among the group, and Olivia finds herself drawn to Antoine, an outsider whose talent is hidden by his extremist views. Cantet’s understated direction works wonders with the talented young performers, especially in their supercharged classroom arguments.

Blu-rays of the Week 

(Cohen Media)

In French provocateur Francois Ozon’s free adaptation of a story by Joyce Carol Oates, a beautiful young woman (Marine Vacth) falls in love with her handsome shrink (Jeremie Renier), which is only the beginning of a strangely enveloping erotic thriller that showcases Ozon’s creepy-slash-stylish aesthetic.

Vacth is tremendous in what amounts to a dual role, as she more than consolidates her terrific debut in Ozon’s Young and Beautiful a few years back. There’s a quality hi-def transfer; lone extra is an interview with Ozon and Vacth.

Designing Woman 

(Warner Archive)

This glitteringly empty 1957 romantic comedy has a first-rate pedigree—director Vincente Minnelli, stars Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall, composer Andre Previn—which helps immensely as it travels a well-worn path for two hours, driven by George Wells’ clever (but Oscar-winning?!?) script.

Silly moments are balanced by funny ones, and some grandly overdone supporting performances by Dolores Grey, Chuck Connors and Mickey Schaughnessy. The film looks great on Blu; lone extra is an interview with costume designer Helen Rose.

The Great Silence 

An Italian western set in snowswept mountain country, Sergio Corbucci’s 1968 genre classic has oodles of atmosphere, fine star turns by then-heartthrobs Jean-Louis Trintingant and Klaus Kinski, and fantastic photography by Silvano Ippolitti.

Still, that this was an obvious influence on Quentin Tarantino’s execrable The Hateful Eight is reason enough to knock it down a peg, however entertaining it is. The restored hi-def print is spectacularly grainy; extras are an Alex Cox intro; a 1968 documentary, Western Italian Style; and two alternate endings.

Man in an Orange Shirt 

(PBS Masterpiece)

Patrick Gale’s scattershot script for this two-part film dramatizes how gay men dealt with oppressive British laws in the 1940s as well as their relative freedom in today’s world. Despite strong acting—especially by Laura Carmichael as a post-war wife who discovers that her husband is in love with his best male friend—it never truly coheres, as the difficulties encountered in the earlier half smother relatively carping contemporary problems.

Even the connections (two paintings, particularly) don’t provide much enrichment. The hi-def transfer is excellent; extras are on-

set interviews.

Orange Is the New Black—Complete 5th Season 

This show jumped the shark a couple of seasons back, so opening with the prison riot that erupted at the end of season four is a chance for the series to slow down and take stock of how it should go forward, and that means a renewed focus on characters rather than “characters,” at least for the first few episodes.

The acting remains sharp and the writing is choppy but often witty, which is enough…some of the time. The hi-def transfer is first-rate; extras include a gag reel, featurettes and commentaries.

Pacific Rim: Uprising 

(Universal)

In this frantic sequel which mindlessly repeats what made the first movie dopey fun, a bunch of wisecracking and bickering young pilots come together to help save the world—again!—as gargantuan good robots battle more malevolent monsters. Despite zippiness in the heavily CGIed action sequences, there’s nothing to suggest that we will ever need another Pacific Rim sequel.

The highly digitized film looks terrific on Blu; extras include deleted scenes with director’s commentary and several featurettes.