This Week in Blu-ray / DVD Releases: Workaholics, The Forger, Pound of Flesh

By John Law

June 22nd 2015, 10:37pm

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

This Week: No big releases this week, but you can catch up with Workaholics, revisit The Fisher King and Dog Soldiers in slick new editions, and discover a German war classic.

► For Season 5, the slacker gang of WORKAHOLICS create their own public access wrestling show, strive to win an office blood drive in order to meet Dolph Lundgren, and have an epic game of ‘80s movie trivia to scam the competition. Ben Stiller and Jack Black drop by. Thirteen episodes with some of the funniest cast commentaries you’ll ever find.

► If John Travolta has another comeback in him, it better be soon because movies like THE FORGER are burying him beyond saving soon. In this family crime drama that feels made-for-TV, he’s an inmate who pulls some strings to get released early to spend time with his ailing son (Tye Sheridan). Once out, though, he has to steal a Monet as part of the deal. Christopher Plummer plays the crusty grandpa.

► Jean Claude Van Damme wants to donate his kidney to his dying niece in POUND OF FLESH, but some organ thieves helped themselves to it. That’s his cue to crack some skulls and retrieve his innards before his niece checks out. Reunites the fleet-footed one with his ‘Six Bullets’ and ‘Assassination Games’ director Ernie Barbarash.

► Criterion has loaded up its special edition of THE FISHER KING with sweet specs approved by director Terry Gilliam (who also does commentary), new interviews with Jeff Bridges, Mercedes Ruehl and Amanda Plummer, deleted scenes and a new look at the creation of the film’s Red Knight. All that’s missing, of course, are new insights from Robin Williams on one of his greatest performances, but he’s here via a 2006 interview. An essay by critic Bilge Ebiri is a nice bonus, too. One of Gilliam’s very best movies and certainly his most emotional.

► Right before he made ‘The Descent,’ Neil Marshall banged off one of the great werewolf movies ever with DOG SOLDIERS. Shout! Factory’s special edition blu-ray includes a new 2K transfer approved by Marshall (who also does commentary), new interviews with the cast for a making of featurette, and Marshall’s short film ‘Combat.’ Solid scares and some hilarious dialogue have elevated this to classic over the years.

► One of the first great anti-war films to come out of Germany following World War II, Bernhard Wicki’s THE BRIDGE – based on a true story – follows a group of high school teens in a small German town enlisted in the army during the war’s closing days. To be protected from fighting, the boys’ teacher arranges for them to guard a seemingly unimportant local bridge. When their commanding officer is mistakenly shot, they’re on their own with no communication as a group of American tanks arrive. Haunting images throughout and a haymaker of an ending. Criterion blu-ray includes an interview with the writer whose novel inspired the movie, and a look at the film’s influence on German cinema.

► Making its blu-ray debut this week is HARRY IN YOUR POCKET, a fun crime caper from the early ‘70s with James Coburn as the leader of a professional gang of pickpockets. Together with new recruits Michael Serrazin and a smokin’ Trish Van Devere (George C. Scott’s girlfriend at the time), they hit Seattle and Victoria, BC before they implode in Salt Lake City. Some fascinating info on the art of lifting wallets – seriously, if that’s your career choice, this flick is a how-to manual.

► An Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, TIMBUKTU finds a cattle farmer living in a city occupied by Islamic extremists. When one of his cows gets get in a fisherman’s net, it sets off a tragic chain of events showing the ridiculous fear and hardships these people live in – at one point, children play with a pretend soccer ball because all sports are banned.

Also out this week: