This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

This week: Marvel continues its world domination, a gutwrenching third season of ‘Homeland,’ and some of the last work by Paul Walker and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

► It’s remarkable just how many great movies CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER actually is. It’s a smartly-written political drama, a phenomenal action movie, a conspiracy thriller, and a superb sequel to not just the first ‘Captain America,’ but also ‘The Avengers.’ It may be the best stand-alone Marvel movie to date, and it took that other Marvel movie to dethrone it as the year’s biggest hit. Even folks I know who aren’t big superhero buffs were jazzed by this, and it’s no wonder: Directors the Russo Brothers took their attention for detail and character from ‘Arrested Development’ and applied it to a spectacle which owes as much to ‘Three Days of the Condor’ as it does to the Marvel flicks which preceded it. Chris Evans is even better this time, and the story’s emotional scope is perfect. This is Marvel’s ‘The Dark Knight.’ Most of the extras are on the 3-D version, which includes commentary and deleted scenes.

► I, for one, welcome our new Marvel overlords. The house that Stan ‘n Jack built pretty much rules the world after 2014, with two of the year’s three biggest hits and the weekly series MARVEL’S AGENTS OF SHIELD, leading me to once again lament…where was this shit when I was a kid? We had ‘Wonder Woman,’ and Lynda Carter’s hotness was wasted on my bored ass. Anyhow, as you all know, Agent Coulson (Clark Gregg) didn’t really die in ‘The Avengers,’ and he’s leading an elite squad of agents investigating superhuman activity throughout the world – like a superhero X-Files. For added coolness, some episodes tie into ‘Thor: The Dark World’ and ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier,’ and Samuel L. Jackson puts in an early and late appearance as Nick Fury. Extras include some Comic Con footage and the TV special ‘Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe.’

► The Luc Besson-written BRICK MANSIONS was the last complete movie Paul Walker made before his death last November. He stars as a Detroit cop in the near future, where the downtown has become a walled-in containment area for criminals. He teams with an ex-convict (David Belle) to go after a drug kingpin who is about to blow the city up with a suitcase bomb. A remake of Besson’s own 2004 French action flick ‘District 13.’

► Everyone who bailed on HOMELAND after a spotty second season missed the show return to its harrowing, heartbreaking roots for an excellent Season 3. The end game for Brody begins with him in hiding after the bombing of CIA headquarters, but eventually recruited for a mission into Iran to assassinate the head of the Revolutionary Guard. Carrie, less stable than ever, continues claiming his innocence, but she can’t beat the CIA politicking that brings things to a brutal, but inevitable conclusion. The series could have ended just fine after this, but it’ll somehow be back for a fourth season starting Oct. 5.

► As much as everyone rags on the ’98 ‘Godzilla,’ don’t discount the sheer stupidity of GODZILLA 2000 for killing the franchise in North America. Sony, figuring fans would flock back to the real Godzilla after their screw-up, released this in theatres to utter indifference. Mainly because it was the same campy, incompetent sludge Godzilla had been stuck in for years – Toho wasn’t treating him any better by this point. Ignoring all continuity, it has Big G battling an alien trying to steal his regenerative qualities in order to pave the way for an invasion. Blu-ray includes both U.S. and Japanese versions.

► For one of his final roles, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a working stiff in GOD’S POCKET trying to bury the truth (and a body) after his stepson is killed. A boozing columnist (Richard Jenkins) starts digging and is smitten with the victim’s widowed mom (Christina Hendricks). Directorial debut from ‘Mad Men’s John Slattery.

► ‘True Blood’ may be gone, but its watered down cousin THE VAMPIRE DIARIES is still going strong on The CW. Well, as strong as any show that finished #147 in the ratings can be, I guess. Like an undead ‘Gossip Girl,’ Season 5 picks up with Elena leaving Mystic Falls to attend college with Caroline, and it doesn’t take long for vampires and doppelgangers to muck things up. Extras include a 100th episode special and deleted scenes. Season 6 starts Oct. 2.

► Oliver Stone’s movie debut is about as freaky as you’d expect. 1974’s SEIZURE! starred Jonathan Frid (Barnabas on ‘Dark Shadows’) as a horror writer whose recurring nightmare comes to life when his friends and family are killed by a trio of killers, including Herve Villechaize as a dwarf named Spider. Five years later, Stone had an Oscar for writing ‘Midnight Express.’

Also out this week: