Welcome to Mandatory and ComingSoon’s weekly Binge & Buy, a digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD column for the week of Feb. 26! Here, you’ll find detailed write-ups of different titles released this week, including a number of new movies, reissues, combo packs, and TV seasons, none of which you can live without in 2019. Click each highlighted title to purchase through Amazon!
Photo: Walt Disney Pictures
New Movies on Blu-ray/DVD
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Ralph and fellow misfit Vanellope risk it all by traveling to the internet in search of a part to save her game. When Vanellope embraces this thrilling new world, Ralph realizes he may lose the only friend he’s ever had.
Mary Queen of Scots
This biopic explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16, widowed at 18, Mary defies pressure to remarry and instead returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. By birth, she also has a rival claim to the throne of Elizabeth I (Margot Robbie), who rules as the Queen of England.
Between Worlds
In the desolate world of highway truckers, a strange and dark miracle occurs when Billie suffers a near-fatal motorbike accident.
The Possession of Hannah Grace
Working the graveyard shift in the morgue, Megan experiences horrifying visions and suspects a corpse is possessed by a demonic force.
Rampant
A darkness looms over ancient Korea: murderous creatures known as Night Demons have overrun the country. Returning from a long imprisonment abroad, Prince Ganglim discovers that it will take the strength of his entire kingdom to stop the bloody rampage spreading across the nation.
Photo: The Criterion Collection
Criterion Corner
To Sleep With Anger
Charles Burnett’s beautiful, poetic masterpiece is novelistic in its narrative density and richness of characterization. Harry Mention, an enigmatic drifter from the South, comes to visit an old acquaintance named Gideon, who now lives in South-Central Los Angeles.
Photo: Walt Disney Pictures
Reissues
The Little Mermaid (4K)
Ariel, the fun-loving and mischievous mermaid, is enchanted with all things human. Disregarding her father’s order to stay away from the world above the sea, she strikes a bargain with a devious sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for legs. But can she also win a prince’s heart?
Desert Fury
Eddie Bendix and his henchman, Johnny Ryan, two gangsters in the gambling trade, return to a small desert town outside of Reno. Years ago, Eddie had left town under suspicion of murdering his wife and after running into some trouble in Las Vegas, Eddie now hopes to get involved with the local gambling house whose proprietor is his ex-flame Fritzi Haller.
The Midnight Man
Screen legend Burt Lancaster stars as Jim Slade, a former Chicago policeman who has just been released from prison for shooting his wife’s lover. He’s offered and takes a job as a campus night watchman at Jordon College. When a coed, the daughter of a prominent senator, is murdered and the local sheriff tries to pin the crime on a creepy night janitor, Slade decides to start his own unauthorized investigation that takes the lid off the hornet’s nest.
The Mole People
Three archaeologists come upon an unusual race of albino beings who shun all forms of light and have mutant mole men as their slaves. Because of their “magical cylinders of fire,” (what we know as flashlights), these archaeologists are treated like gods until they try to liberate the mole people.
The Vengeance of She
She used her beauty to bring kingdoms to their downfall and men to their knees! A young beautiful woman named Carol (Olinka Berova) is plagued by hallucinatory voices calling her “Ayesha,” and is drawn by a mysterious force toward the east.
Year of the Dragon
A Vietnam vet turned New York City cop (Mickey Rourke) vows to bring down a Chinatown crime lord (John Lone) in Michael Cimino’s underrated action epic.
Wild Rovers
Lifelong ranch hand Ross Bodine decides cowpunching is no kind of life. So he and a raw cowboy half his age rob a bank to get the cash each needs to improve his lot. An indignant posse is soon in pursuit.
Starsky & Hutch
Here comes the fuzz! Starsky takes the wheel, Hutch rides shotgun, and comedy runs wild in this hilarious twist on the landmark buddy-cop TV show. Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson bring a playful chemistry to the roles of undercover detectives Starsky and Hutch.
Willard
A lonely, awkward misfit tormented by his boss on a daily basis turns to rats for friendship…and revenge.
Next of Kin
When a young woman inherits a creaky retirement home, she’ll find herself in a waking nightmare of murder, madness and a legacy of evil that may be inescapable.
Invasion of the Blood Farmers
In 1972, a team of New York City exploitation outlaws descended on bucolic Westchester County with eight-and-a-half bottles of stage blood to make a movie about a Druid cult seeking to resurrect their dead queen.
Dracula’s Fiancee
While searching for the earthly remains of Count Dracula, a professor and his young assistant are thrown into a surreal parallel universe of darkness and decay when they encounter supernatural creatures: a jester and his vampire lover, a she-wolf, sorcerers, and a sensuous baby-eating ogress!
Wacko
Mary Graves’ older sister was murdered on a Halloween night prom by a power-mowing maniac. Since then, Mary keeps seeing little lawnmowers everywhere. Now, it is the new Halloween prom and the pumpkin-headed killer has returned. Hot on the trail is an obsessive cop who won’t allow history to repeat itself.
Legally Blonde Collection
Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) may look like just another California blonde, but she’s nobody’s fool. Sensible, beautiful and, of course, impeccably dressed, the determined Elle is perfectly suited to use the law for good in these hilarious, upbeat films starring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars! First, in Legally Blonde, Elle chases her boyfriend to law school, then enrolls, graduates and passes the bar with flying colors (but mostly just pink). In Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde, the crusading attorney puts her well-heeled foot down on meanness and gives Washington, D.C. a makeover!
Photo: Sony Pictures
New on Digital HD
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
The Oscar-winning animated film introduces Brooklyn teen Miles Morales, and the limitless possibilities of the Spider-Verse, where more than one can wear the mask.
Third Eye Spies
When America’s greatest psychic spy dies mysteriously and is accused of treason, it spurs program co-founder Russell Targ to fight to get this work declassified, even if it means going directly to his former enemies in the Soviet Union, to the CIA, and beyond to prove the reality of ESP.
Level 16
Teen-aged Vivien (Emmy-nominated actress Katie Douglas) and Sophia’s (Celina Martin) are locked away in a sterile top-secret facility where they’re taught the finer points of “feminine virtues” by Miss Brixil (Sara Canning), a Stepford-like headmistress, and left to question what fate awaits them when they age out of the institution.
