Welcome to Mandatory and ComingSoon’s weekly Binge & Buy, a digital HD, Blu-ray, and DVD column for the week of Aug. 13! Here, you’ll find detailed write-ups of different titles released this week, including a number of new releases like Avengers: Endgame, reissues, combo packs, and TV seasons, none of which you can live without in 2019. Click each highlighted title to purchase through Amazon!
Iron Butt: Florida Man Aims To Set Record For ‘Avengers: Endgame’ Viewings
Photo: Marvel Studios
New Movies on Blu-ray/DVD
Avengers: Endgame
The fourth installment in the Avengers saga is the culmination of 22 interconnected films and the climax of an epic journey. Earth’s heroes will finally understand how fragile our reality is — and the sacrifices that must be made to uphold it — in a story of friendship, teamwork, and setting aside differences to overcome an impossible obstacle.
All is True
The year is 1613, and William Shakespeare is acknowledged as the greatest writer of the age. But disaster strikes when his renowned Globe Theatre burns to the ground. Devastated, Shakespeare returns to Stratford, where he must face a troubled past and a neglected family.
Shadow
Director Zhang Yimou once again pushes the boundaries of wuxia action to create a film like no other, masterfully painting a canvas of inky blacks and greys punctuated with bursts of color from the blood of the defeated. In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a shadow, a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.
The Command
The film follows the 2000 K-141 Kursk submarine disaster and the governmental negligence that followed. As the sailors fight for survival, their families desperately battle political obstacles and impossible odds to save them.
The Brink
A reckless police officer is dead-set on bringing a world-renowned gold smuggler to justice, even if he has to go to the ends of the Earth to find him.
Vault
In this gripping thriller based on true events, two small-time crooks cook up an ill-fated scheme to rip off a nearby vault for $30 million — money that belongs to the local Mafia.
Creating Woodstock (DVD)
For three days in August 1969, nearly a half-million young people descended upon Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York for the rock ‘n’ roll event that defined a generation. Mythologized for 50 years, the filmmakers set the record straight with Creating Woodstock, the most comprehensive examination of how the festival came to be.
Anti-Nowhere League – We Are The League
The full uncensored story of how a biker, a skinhead, a grammar school boy, and a Persian exile came together, with no musical talent or ambitions and even less respect for anything or anyone, to burst into the U.K. charts with their debut single.
Trial by Fire (DVD)
The true-life Texas story of the unlikely bond between an imprisoned death row inmate (Jack O’Connell) and a mother of two from Houston (Laura Dern) who, against staggering odds, fights mightily for his freedom.
Rafiki (DVD)
Kena and Ziki have long been told that good Kenyan girls become good Kenyan wives, but they yearn for something more. Despite the political rivalry between their families, the girls encourage each other to pursue their dreams in a conservative society.
Binge-able: The Best Streaming Documentaries
Photo: The Criterion Collection
Criterion Corner
The Inland Sea
In 1971, author and film scholar Donald Richie published a poetic travelogue about his explorations of the islands of Japan’s Inland Sea, recording his search for traces of a traditional way of life as well as his own journey of self-discovery. Twenty years later, filmmaker Lucille Carra undertook a parallel trip inspired by Richie’s by-then-classic book, capturing images of hushed beauty and meeting people who still carried on the fading customs that Richie had observed.
Photo: Arrow Video
Reissues
Alice Sweet Alice
After a young girl is brutally murdered during her first communion, her strange and withdrawn older sister becomes the main suspect.
Moonfleet
Adventure and intrigue await all ye who venture into the small and sinister village of Moonfleet on the windswept moors of Dorsetshire. Particularly as directed by master-of-menace Fritz Lang, this colorful tale of a young boy s experiences among some really bad companions enthralls in the tradition of Kidnapped and Treasure Island.
Wagon Master
The rivers are wide and rapid. The desert is vast and unforgiving. And when the trail turns craggy, men use pickaxes to dig grooves for the wagon wheels.
Vice Squad
Season Hubley stars as Princess, a single mom by day, a Hollywood prostitute by night. A volatile cop, Tom Walsh (Gary Swanson) uses her to trap a sadistic pimp named Ramrod (Wings Hauser), who murdered one of her friends.
Easy Living
Mary Smith is a poor working girl who literally has a fortune dropped in her lap when a wealthy financier tosses a sable coat out a window and it lands on her. Everyone automatically assumes she’s his mistress, and soon her fairytale-like rags-to-riches lifestyle threatens a very real romance with an inept waiter.
Death Takes a Holiday
When the Grim Reaper (Fredric March) goes on a three-day holiday, he takes the form of a visiting prince and falls for a woman both in love with life and infatuated with death.
Shiraz: A Romance Of India
Based on a romance between 17th-century Mughal ruler Shah Jahan and his queen, this epic silent film is the ravishing, romantic tale behind the creation of one of the world’s most iconic structures: the Taj Mahal.
Touch of Death
A moody, middle-aged gigolo kills off women after he gets bored with dating them and uses their body parts for trophies and for consumption.
The Daredevil Drivers (DVD)
Bill Foster, a suspended auto racer, attempts to get even with Jerry Neeley, the woman who owns a bus line, by going to work for the rival company. But Bill soon learns about his new boss’ shady practices and begins to fall for Jerry.
Double Danger (DVD)
Robert Crane is a slick jewel thief who also doubles as a novelist writing about a slick jewel thief known as “The Gentleman,” who the police have never been able to catch.
Photo: AMC Networks
New on Digital HD
Gwen (in theaters and VOD August 16)
Gwen is a young girl desperately trying to hold her home together – struggling with her mother’s mysterious illness, her father’s absence, and a ruthless mining company encroaching on their land. As a growing darkness begins to grip her home, the local community grows suspicious and turns on Gwen and her family.
Awake (on Digital HD Aug. 16)
A man (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) wakes up in a hospital bed with no recollection of who he is or why he is there, but quickly learns he’s the lead suspect in a series of murders and is now wanted by the police.
Driven (in theaters and VOD Aug. 16)
The film tells the story of controversial automotive industry golden boy John DeLorean, who invented the famous DeLorean automobile in the 1980s. Unfortunately, the car didn’t sell and DeLorean turned to shady financial methods — i.e. smuggling cocaine — to save his DeLorean Motor Company and ultimately wound up as a target of the FBI.
Manson: From an Unsound Mind
The astonishing, untold story of Charles Manson’s remarkable rise in the 1960s music world, this film examines the rock legends who supported him and shines a light on Manson’s own recordings for the first time.
A Dark Place
A 20-something struggles to put his life back together after mistakes and a reckless past render his job search hopeless. Just when things are looking up, Alex discovers a secret that sends him into a self-destructive downward spiral, bringing his two best friends down with him.
Photo: CBS
TV on Blu-ray and DVD
I Love Lucy: Colorized Collection (DVD)
The collection will include 16 full-length colorized I Love Lucy episodes, including “Lucy’s Italian Movie” (grape stomping), “Lucy Does a TV Commercial” (Vitameatavegamin), “Job Switching” (chocolate factory), and more!
The Blacklist: Season 6
Following the shocking revelation that Raymond “Red” Reddington (Spader) isn’t the real Red Reddington, Elizabeth Keen (Megan Boone) is torn between the relationship she’s developed with the man she believed to be her father and her desire to get to the bottom of his years of secrets and lies.
The Good Doctor: Season Two (DVD)
Shaun Murphy, a young surgeon with autism and savant syndrome, relocates from a quiet country life to join a prestigious hospital’s surgical unit. Alone in the world and unable to personally connect with those around him, Shaun uses his extraordinary medical gifts to save lives and challenge the skepticism of his colleagues.
