The Best New Blu-Ray Releases: Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse And More

We come to this place to look at the latest Blu-ray releases, and as usual, I've got a grab bag of titles for you to peruse. You can pretend you've gone back in time and are walking up and down the video store aisle! Or you can just read the article without pretending at all. Don't let me tell you what to do, folks. You call the shots. And In this edition of the best new Blu-ray releases, we've got an animated superhero movie, a Jennifer Lawrence comedy, a Disney live-action remake, a Paul Schrader classic, and a stylish treat from Mr. Orson Welles. That's some line-up, gang. So let's get to it. And remember to keep spinning those discs. 

"Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse" is one of the most beautiful, inventive, thrilling comic book movies ever made. It's also frustrating as hell, because it's not a whole movie. This sequel is very much "part 1" or a two-part story, and the film feels incomplete as a result. Just when you think the story is going to pick up ... the movie ends. I get it — they want to leave you wanting more. They want you to come back for the sequel. But, hey, remember when movies used to have endings? And told a complete story? That was fun! Let's do that again, shall we?

Anyway, "Across the Spider-Verse" deals with Miles Morales, a Spider-Man from an alternate universe who must once again deal with the consequences of the multiverse. That means there are lots more Spider-People afoot, including Gwen Stacy, Miles' crush, who returns and inadvertently draws Miles into a whole new adventure. That adventure finds Miles at odds with some other Spider-People, including those he thought were his friends. It's all a bit convoluted, truth be told. But the film's animation is so vibrant, so colorful, so eye-popping that you can't help but get swept up in it all. Still, I wanted more. I wanted a complete story, and I don't think that's such an outlandish request. But who am I kidding? I'm now fully in the tank for whatever comes next, so maybe the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing with their cliffhanger ending. 

Special features:

4K UHD, BLU-RAY, AND DIGITAL

• Blu-ray, 4K UHD and Digital Exclusives:
  • Obscure Spiders and Easter Eggs
  • Deleted Scene: Miguel Calling
  • "I'mma Do My Own Thing" Interdimensional Destiny
  • Across the Worlds: Designing New Dimensions
  • Designing Spiders and Spots
  • Scratches, Score and The Music of the Multiverse
  • Escape from Spider-Society
  • Across the Comics-Verse
  • Lyric Videos
  • Filmmaker Commentary
• Also Includes:
  • Creating the Ultimate Spider-Man Movie
  • Raising a Hero
  • Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Cast

The marketing for "No Hard Feelings" left me cold. The jokes felt stale and nothing about what was being sold spoke to me. Well, if you're like me and felt the same way, let me tell you the trailers undersold what a treat this movie is. Believe it or not, this is Jennifer Lawrence's first proper comedy, and I really hope she does more, because she has a knack for the genre. Lawrence plays Maddie, a struggling Uber driver who gets her car impounded due to mounting bills. A strange solution presents itself: a wealthy couple is willing to give her a car if she'll date their nerdy 19-year-old son Percy (a very funny and very likable Andrew Barth Feldman). Of course, Maddie ends up liking this young man, and while the age difference might give some people pause, trust me when I say the film is a lot sweeter and kinder than its synopsis suggests. It's funny as hell, sure, but there's a melancholy lurking beneath it all that makes "No Hard Feelings" more than a generic raunchy comedy. Heck, it's not even that raunchy (again, the marketing did it no favors). 

Special features:

• Outtakes & Bloopers
• A Motley Crew: Meet the Characters
• A Little Wrong: Making No Hard Feelings

In terms of quality, the Disney live-action remakes have been more miss than hit (in terms of box office, they're doing just fine). With that in mind, one approaches the live-action remake of "The Little Mermaid" with caution. So how does the film stack up? Well, it's not ... awful? So I guess that's something!? To be clear, the original "Little Mermaid" is one of Disney's best movies. It helped save the studio and gave birth to a whole new era of Disney animation. The songs are great, the animation is vibrant, everything clicks. Why mess with perfection? It doesn't help that the new film's underwater sequences are so brightly lit and CGI-enhanced that they never look the least bit convincing. 

But the live-action "The Little Mermaid" does have one big thing going for it: Halle Bailey. Bailey is pretty damn wonderful as Ariel, the rebellious mermaid who just wants to strut around on dry land. Her singing voice is incredible, so much so that it actually moved me to tears a few times, and it's probably safe to say that if the movie did not have her it would not work. She's the key ingredient to the film's success, and if you want to watch this movie at all, watch it for her. 

Special features:

• Sing Along Version – Sing along with your favorite songs while watching the movie with on-screen lyrics.

• Hotter Under The Water – Discover how director Rob Marshall and his team brought the story of The Little Mermaid to life with this documentary in five chapters:
  • A Tale Of The Bottomless Blue – Join Rob Marshall on the set of one of the most ambitious and challenging films he's ever directed.
  • I Know Something's Starting Right Now – Join cast members Halle Bailey, Melissa McCarthy, Jonah Hauer-King and more and learn how they were cast in the film and what it was like to bring director Rob Marshall's vision to life.
  • Down Where It's Wetter – Dip your toes into the virtual ocean and learn about how the breathtaking underwater world was created with visual effects, imagination and a lot of talented artists.
  • Explore That Shore Up Above – From Prince Eric's castle to the beach, explore the above-the-sea locations and the elaborate production design behind them.
  • Do What The Music Say – Discover how legendary composer Alan Menken teamed up with Lin- Manuel Miranda to write new songs to accompany the original classics

• Song Breakdowns
  • Wild Unchartered Waters – Prince Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King, gets his own song, written by Alan Menken and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Go behind the song, from the writing to the recording, to the filming on a practical ship.
  • Under the Sea – Get a first-hand look at how professional dancers helped bring director Rob Marshall's vision to life as they stood in for the various animated sea creatures that sing and dance in this showstopping number.
  • Kiss The Girl – Float along and get a frog's-eye view of the beautiful set built to film the live-action version of this classic song.
  • Poor Unfortunate Souls – Join Melissa McCarthy (Ursula) as she takes us on the journey of making her character's signature song.

• Featurettes
  • The Scuttlebutt On Sidekicks – Dive in and meet Sebastian, Flounder and Scuttle, who not only have their own song, "The Scuttlebutt," but also fresh looks as they work hard to make sure Ariel and Eric kiss before Ursula's deadline.
  • Passing The Dinglehopper – Ariel met Ariel when Halle Bailey worked with Jodi Benson — the voice of Ariel in the original animated movie — who appears in a clever cameo in the live-action film..
  • Bloopers – Laugh along with the cast as they have the time of their lives making The Little Mermaid.

George C. Scott descends into a sleazy underworld in Paul Schrader's remarkable "Hardcore." There's a dark poetry to this film, coupled with a verisimilitude that makes everything feel extra real (with the exception of the film's violent climax, which rings somewhat false and recalls Schrader's script for "Taxi Driver"). Scott plays a conservative man who is horrified to learn his only daughter has appeared in a porno film. He heads to California to try to track her down, convinced she's being forced to make porn against her will, and he travels through the world of sex shops and underground porn. Schrader captures it all with a keen eye — there's a killer sequence where his camera drifts through a sex shop, over magazine racks and glass cases containing dildos and other paraphernalia, all while "Helpless" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young plays on the soundtrack. The film also has deftly funny touches, like a scene where we watch a porn film being shot by a director from UCLA. And Scott is perfectly cast as the God-fearing father with a violent streak ready to come out at the drop of a hat. 

Special features:

• Audio Commentary by Writer/Director Paul Schrader
• Audio Commentary by Film Historians Eddy Friedfeld, Lee Pfeiffer and Paul Scrabo
• Theatrical Trailer
• Optional English Subtitles

Hey, have you heard of this Orson Welles guy? Pretty good filmmaker, if you ask me! Welles' 1962 "The Trial," based on the novel by Franz Kafka, is now part of the Criterion Collection, and in 4K, no less. Anthony Perkins is Josef K., who awakens one day to find he's being arrested. For what? He's not told. He's not even taken into custody. Instead, he has to wander around wondering what he's being accused of. Is he completely innocent — a hapless cog in the machine? A helpless victim of bureaucracy? Or is he hiding something? Perkins' performance is brilliant in the manner he plays the character both ways — he's jittery and awkward, and that could either be because he's an innocent man being railroaded, or he's a guilty man who knows he's been caught. Full of expressionist shadows and surreal sets, "The Trial" is a visual feast, and it looks downright stunning in this new 4K restoration. 

Special features:

• New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• New audio commentary featuring film historian Joseph McBride
• Filming "The Trial," a 1981 documentary about the film's production
• Archival interviews with Welles, actor Jeanne Moreau, and director of photography Edmond Richard
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by author Jonathan LethemNew cover by Nessim Higson