BluRay/DVD: Get high with Kristen & Jesse

Since we haven't done one of these in awhile here is what is new or newish on DVD and BluRay as you try to catch up for your personal year-in-review mania.

• American Ultra - Kristen Stewart and Jesse Eisenberg headline this pot-smoking action comedy. Which begs the question...

• Amy - Glenn recently wondered aloud about the ethics of posthumous privacy invasions but that hasn't stopped audience and critics from rallying around this one.
• Cooties -It only took this horror comedy two years since its Sundance premiere to show up for home entertainment.
• Goodnight Mommy -Jose interviewed the directors of this Austrian horror film, one of the most unusual Oscar submissions for 2015. It's done well at the arthouse, breaking the increasingly difficult 1 million mark
• Grace of Monaco - what a long and tortured ride this biopic starring Nicole Kidman has had, huh? We've been covering it for 3 years! A year and a half since its Cannes debut and one cable premiere later and only now is it on DVD?
• The Man From U.N.C.L.E. -This franchise hopeful adaptation of the spy TV series was a pleasant summer surprise featuring Guy Ritchie's best work in ages, heaps of style, and a disgustingly beautiful cast.
• Meru - An Oscar seeking documentary abou t
• Mississippi Grind - Ryan Reynolds & Ben Mendlesohn are pool sharks

• Mistress America - The latest divisive comedy from Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig. I didn't like it much but Jason loved it. As stated, divisive.
• Outlander S1 - Somehow I fell off this series after that super hot super costumed Wedding episode. Should I tune back in?
• Ricki & The Flash -in which Meryl Streep does some of her best and most relaxed work in ages as an aging unsuccessful rocker ... naturally there was little audience reaction and no Oscar buzz as a result! They like to see her sweat for it. Anyway... I liked it. How about you?
• Shaun the Sheep - It shall remain a mystery why this hilarious & sweet Aardman animation effort didn't get US families into theaters to see it (it earned three times as much abroad) considering the absolute garbage parents will take their kids to. The new question is will it be Oscar nominated given the strangely low number of qualifying films in that category this year?
• Stanford Prison Experiment -This ensemble indie (filled with a ton of promising young male actors) about the infamous titular study didn't really catch on but years from now people might look back on it as a "look how many stars are in this!" petri dish.

The Forever Link

Before We Get Started...
Here's the only sane reaction to the news that The Lovely Laura Linney (who has barely been on movie screens these past five years) has joined the cast of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. This comes from Aaron Fullerton on Twitter:

Laura Linney was cast in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 and, for her sake, I hope she simply introduces it like an episode of Downton Abbey.

The Links
NY Times profiles Tom Hardy on the cusp of even wider stardom with Mad Max: Fury Road
The Guardian looks at five great moments from Shirley Maclaine's career
CHUD Director Josh Trank (Chronicle) has left the as yet untitled Star Wars spinoff film
EW interviews Matthias Schoenaerts about Far From the Madding Crowd, being called "the Belgian Brando" and his favorite movies (he loves David Lynch!)
Coming Soon from Shakespeare to a video game adaptation? The MacBeth team (Fassy, Cotillard, and director Justin Kurzel) are doing Assassin's Creed together.
The Dissolve Helen Hunt reuniting with the director of The Sessions for a road trip movie. Dakota Fanning co-stars
The Dissolve Because A24 is the best one of their next projects will have Cary Fukunaga telling the true story of a father who went on a cross-country walk to work through his grief about his gay son's suicide
Deadline Channing Tatum to star in an adaptation of the old sci-fi novel "The Forever War" from the 70s which is about soldiers fighting an endless war with no clear concept of why they're fighting. Apparently the novel has ideas about the future including the eliminating of heterosexuality (?) and the melting pot creating one homogenous race that are hard to imagine in movie form, given Hollywood's timidity about race and alternative sexuality 
MNPP a fun new poster for the horror comedy Cooties 

Superhero Mania
Time Out the first ten Marvel films in 40 gifs -- this would have been so much faster than that Marvel Marathon I attended!
Comics Alliance shares 11 in universe or comics references within the movie
Bryan Singer keeps releasing photos of his new X-Men team from the set including Jean Grey () in acid washed jeans and Jubilee in that familiar yellow jacket
Mark Ruffalo is calling Marvel out on their lack of female action figures
Pajiba collates a list of actors and directors considered for all the Marvel movies - what a difference many of them would have made
Dark Horizons they've narrowed down the new Peter Parker to Asa Butterfield and Tom Holland. Holland is the better actor but immensely less famous so let's hope they realize they don't need pre-movie fame for one of the most globally famous heroes ever created

Showtune to Go!
Remember Robin De Jesús, that awkward drag-loving teenager from Camp (2003)? He recently turned 30 and here he is from his new cabaret show #TheStruggleisReal (May 4th at 54 Below) doing Miley Cyrus ("Wrecking Ball" is totally a standard already) and reminding us that there was more to that movie than Anna Kendrick's breakout. 

The Year of the Hero. And Other Links

The Wrap all time lows for unemployment for women in the movie biz. what the what now?
Veteran Fan Girl on Frozen's groundbreaking depiction of mental illness (depression) in a Disney Princess movie 
Variety Johnny Depp might be our Doctor Strange. Which would be awesome news if it weren't 2014 and his eccentricities didn't yet feel like a factory-produced cans of name brand Quirk

Terry Richardson for some reason the internet seems surprised today that Jared Leto posed mostly naked for this controversial photographer. Doesn't the internet know that they're friends and this happens pretty regularly? C'mon internet, catch up
The Wire an Oscar completist's prayer: please don't nominated these movies
BuzzFeed why Emma Thompson was the best part of the Golden Globes 
Awards Daily final Oscar predictions 
MNPP a fun retro poster for the new horror flick Cooties 
Pajiba provocatively predicts the biggest flops of 2014 from Pompeii to Transcendence to Jupiter Ascending without calling it predictions 
Vulture speaking of provocations... David O. Russell really put his foot in it comparing Jennifer Lawrence's Hunger Games contract to 12 Years a Slave 

...and by now you may have heard that Oscar has picked his theme!

like my photoshop?

They've announced that the 2013 Oscars (WE'RE SUPPOSED TO CALL IT BY ITS FILM YEAR. EVEN OSCAR KNOWS THIS THOUGH SOME WEBSITES DON'T!) to be held on March 2nd, 2014 will be "The Year of the Hero". This sounds like another lame ploy to win the demographic that just doesn't care about them since it's not like they're going to nominate Man of Steel or Thor or Iron Man 3 for anything (okay maybe Iron Man 3) and it's not like anyone wants them to, either! (Besides Marvel and Warner Bros) Can't it be enough that other demographics care about the Oscars?

If they mean this in a less lame way than a "please love us, fanboys!" ploy, then this is good news for Captain Phillips, which is basically the only film in the running that plays like a hero's journey. A more appropriate theme for this year in cinema might be the Year of the Survivor with Gravity, All is Lost, The Butler, Nebraska, and 12 Years a Slave and more factoring in but I guess that doesn't have as much of a kick to it since surviving is kind of exhausting and nobody producing the Oscars probably wants you to think about exhaustion until, like, the 180 minute mark on Oscar night.