This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: The Expendables 3, The November Man

By John Law

November 25th 2014, 12:40am

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

This week: Third time’s no charm for The Expendables, Brosnan goes back to Bond (sorta) with The November Man, and can you handle five and a half hours of Nymphomaniac?

► Not sure a movie that made over $200 million worldwide can be called a bomb, but THE EXPENDABLES 3 was this summer’s whipping boy. Sylvester Stallone’s decision to go PG-13 didn’t interest younger viewers and seemed to piss off the older ones, making it by far the least successful of the franchise. Mel Gibson joins the fray as the group’s co-founder who went rogue and is now an arms dealer. Harrison Ford, Kelsey Grammer and MMA fighter Ronda Rousey make their entrance as well. Dwindling returns for an already limp series, but Pierce Brosnan and Hulk Hogan are already linked to #4.

► THE NOVEMBER MAN is what Pierce Brosnan’s James Bond would look like if given the ‘Casino Royale’ treatment. Based on the seventh book of a spy series by Bill Granger, Brosnan plays a retired CIA officer talked into retrieving another operative out of Russia. Then the backstabbing and blowing up stuff begins. Brosnan got some raves but the flick didn’t take hold.

► You’d think a summer sci-fi flick with Oscar winners Jeff Bridges and Meryl Streep might warrant some attention, but THE GIVER barely made a ripple. Not even Taylor Swift showing up near the end helped. Based on Lois Lowry’s 1993 book, it stars Bridges as one community’s Receiver of Memory, absorbing all their baggage so they don’t have to deal with it any more. Brendan Thwaites is the 16-year-old next in line for the job, and is overwhelmed by the town’s collective secrets.

► And so begins the sad roll call of Robin Williams’ final movies. The festively bland A MERRY FRIGGIN’ CHRISTMAS has Joel McHale as a pricky Chicago dad who heads to Wisconsin for Christmas with his estranged family, only to realize he left all of his son’s gifts at home. He joins his dad (Williams) for an eight-hour round trip to retrieve them before Christmas morning.

► Two movies not enough? The director’s cut of Lars Von Trier’s NYMPHOMANIAC VOL. I & II adds a combined 90 minutes to his sordid saga of an elderly bachelor (Stellan Skarsgard) who takes in a badly-beaten sex addict (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and listens to stories of her extreme life. Yes, the longer cut adds more money shots (if it was NC-17 before, it’s full on porn now), but also more back story and humor. Five and a half hours, not counting the long shower you’ll need afterwards.

► ‘Goon’ director Michael Dawse’s WHAT IF, also known as ‘The F Word’ in less uptight countries, has Daniel Radcliffe as a medical school drop-out in Toronto who vows not to socialize for a year. That’s when he meets an animator (Zoe Kazan) who is already in a five-year relationship. Sharply written rom-com rises above its familiar set up. Also stars Adam Driver and Megan Park.

► During Robert Altman’s astounding run in the early ‘70s, his send-up of the Raymond Chandler detective tale THE LONG GOODBYE got a hostile reaction at first. Elliott Gould plays private eye Phillip Marlowe, digging for the truth about a friend’s suicide and finding a shady trail of drugs and double murder. A box office dud ripped by critics, it – like so many other Altman classics – found its admirers years later. His next film, THIEVES LIKE US, is also out on blu-ray Tuesday.

► It’s turkeys all around for Vol. 31 of MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000. Getting carved up this time is the Bela Lugosi howler ‘Jungle Goddess,’ the bizarre Lassie movie ‘The Painted Hills,’ the Hitchcock rip-off ‘The Screaming Skull,’ and – just released on blu-ray last month – the 1976 killer worm flick ‘Squirm.’ Joel Hodgson provides new Turkey Day intros.

Also out this week: