This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Don Jon, CBGB, Love Marilyn …

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

This week: The year ends with Joseph Gordon-Levitt spanking it.

► Joseph Gordon-Levitt wrote and directed DON JON, the totally plausible tale of a guy who scores Scarlett Johansson but still prefers online porn. When Scarlett disapproves, his back-up is Julianne Moore. Levitt doesn’t just cut deep with this relationship comedy, he dives into the reasons porn is a $10 billion-per-year industry. Cameos include Anne Hathaway, Channing Tatum and Emily Blunt.

► Randall Miller’s CBGB aims to tell the tale of New York’s legendary club which was instrumental in the late ‘70s punk/new wave movement, essentially changing music’s landscape. And while he has some of the essentials on board – Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith – he’s missing the Ramones. And without Ramones music, you aren’t really getting the true story. Alan Rickman stars as club owner Hilly Kristal, who gave up trying to run a country bar and took a gamble booking local acts.

► Look, I love all things Monroe but HBO’s LOVE, MARILYN might be stretching things. It’s yet another documentary, this one using dramatic readings of her private letters and journals discovered in former acting coach Lee Strasberg’s home. Despite these being Monroe’s own words, there still isn’t much new or revealing. The roll call includes Elizabeth Banks, Glenn Close, Marisa Tomei and – yes – Lindsay Lohan.

► Panties, boobs, perverted kids…SO I CAN’T PLAY H is this week’s nutty anime collection. When a horny high school kid meets a hot goddess lookin’ for love, he makes a deal with her, unaware she’s a Grim Reaper who needs the energy created by his ‘perverted spirit’ to stay in the human world. According to Wikipedia, “her bust size is seventy-something cm.” Don’t ever change, Japan.

► The ‘Reno 911’ team of Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant co-direct HELL BABY, about parents-to-be (Rob Corddry and Leslie Bibb) who move into a demon-possessed house. Among other things, this requires an oiled-up Riki Lindhome to be naked. A lot. Garant and Lennon play exorcists sent by the Vatican.

► Jason Isaacs steals the show as a dirtbag preacher in SWEETWATER, sort of a western ‘I Spit On Your Grave’ with January Jones as a former prostitute trying to build a better life with her husband in New Mexico. When that goes all to hell, she hooks up with a crazed sheriff (Ed Harris) to dish out some revenge. Released as ‘Sweet Vengeance’ in the UK.

► In the horror anthology SANITARIUM, the forever slumming Malcolm McDowell plays a doctor at a mental institution discussing three patients in his freaky institution. Stars Lou Diamond Phillips, Robert Englund and Lacey Chabert.

► Mill Creek Entertainment releases a bunch of 20-movie collections on New Year’s Day for $10, including DEAD OF NIGHT. Some of the usual public domain regulars are here (‘Night of the Living Dead’, ‘The Devil Bat’), but this one also includes cheap-but-fun goodies like the made-for-TV ‘Snowbeast’ and the 1982 sea monster howler ‘Bloodtide’ with James Earl Jones.

Also out this week:

CLICK HERE FOR A FULL LISTING OF ALL THE COOLEST DVD RELEASES OF THIS WEEK AND THE REST OF THE YEAR!

SO WHAT DVD/BLU-RAYS ARE YOU GUYS STOKED ABOUT THIS WEEK?!