This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: The Affair, Insurgent, Orphan Black

By John Law

August 3rd 2015, 11:43pm

This Week: Fooling around with The Affair, the clones keep coming in Orphan Black, and another dip into the Divergent series.

► Despite a rocky start, Showtime’s THE AFFAIR ended up being one of last year’s best new shows. The dodgy concept of showing two different versions of the same events every episode ‘Rashomon’-style grates at first, but Dominic West and Ruth Wilson are simply too good to resist here. He’s a vacationing writer on vacation in Long Island with his family, and she’s the damaged waitress he starts messing around with. We know something bad happens, as the story is intercut with scenes of them bring grilled by detectives, but there’s more than enough surprise detours getting to that point. Would have made a tight, satisfying mini-series for Showtime, but there’s somehow a Season 2 on the way. Just a hunch: It’s going to underwhelm like Season 2 of ‘True Detective.’

► If the Divergent series wants to shake its reputation as Hunger Games-lite, INSURGENT didn’t change things. The second movie in the franchise hits all the familiar beats, as Tris (Shailene Woodley) is on the run after the coup at the end of the first film, with the faction system in post-apocalyptic Chicago falling apart. Woodley is putting in solid work here, but the dystopian storyline just feels played out, or at least done far better by some other franchise (ahem). And just like that other one, the final book in the series – ‘Allegient’ – will be stretched into two movies.

► ORPHAN BLACK is fun, but wow, is it a commitment. A mythology verging out of control in Season 2 just gets deeper and crazier in Season 3, but one thing hasn’t budged – Tatiana Maslany is doing some of the most amazing work on television right now playing multiple clones, and was finally recognized with a way overdue Emmy nomination. The Season 3 blu-ray includes the origins of the show’s male clones, and a look at how they do those seamless scenes of Maslany as different characters.

► Rupert Goold’s TRUE STORY is the, uh, true story of a killer on the FBI’s Most Wanted list who is arrested while using the alias of New York Times reporter Michael Finkel. Meanwhile, the real Finkel is dismissed from the paper, and while struggling to find work is contacted about his identity thief. He agrees to meet him, and a strange friendship develops between the two. James Franco plays Christian Longo, whose wife and three kids were discovered murdered and has a looming trial. He agrees to share his story with Finkel (Jonah Hill) in exchange for writing lessons.

► Director Rodney Ascher, whose documentary ‘Room 237’ delved into the hidden meanings of Kubrick’s ‘The Shining,’ continues down the creepy corridor with THE NIGHTMARE. It looks at eight people suffering sleep paralysis, where they’re unable to move or speak in the state between sleeping and awake. Adding to their terror, many of them share visions of strange shadow men during this state. Ascher suffered the condition as a kid.

► Right before Tom Hardy went all Mad Max, his thriller CHILD 44 did a quick vanishing act in theatres. The Brit/U.S. thriller has him as a disgraced Soviet agent in the ‘50s who believes a serial killer is responsible for the deaths of several young boys. His government brushes it off because serial killers can only come from evil capitalist countries. Russia got in a huff and refused to screen it, but it’s not like anyone else saw it. Noomi Rapice and Gary Oldman co-star.

► In BARELY LETHAL, Hailee Steinfed and Sophie Turner (Sansa in ‘Game of Thrones’) star as rival orphans at a government-run academy which creates young secret agents. While on assignment in Chechnya, Steinfeld defects to start life as a normal teenager, despite having little access to the outside world. Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the school wants her back. Samuel L. Jackson plays the girls’ mentor, while Jessica Alba is the arms dealer they’re sent to take down.

► After hipster Nick Kroll’s company flops on the eve of its launch, he leaves Manhattan to live with his estranged pregnant sister (Rose Byrne) and his brother-in-law (Bobby Cannavale) in the suburbs in Ross Katz’s ADULT BEGINNERS. While there he becomes the temporary nanny of his three-year-old nephew. Joel McHale provides some solid support. Went straight to VOD in April.

Also out this week: