THE TUESDAY BLUES

In which we count down the Top Five Blu-Rays coming out today!

5. BEYOND THE LIGHTS

One of the surprise hits of late-2014, Beyond the Lights came out of nowhere to make almost $15 million in the box office, despite not being a sequel to a comic book movie. Most critics agreed that it’s a great example of how to take a tired story everyone has seen a million times and breathe new life into it. Hopefully it catapults actress Gugu Mbathe-Raw into stardom, so we can hear people butcher that name for the next two years.

4. SONS OF ANARCHY: SEASON SEVEN

Most Sons fans know that the show jumped the shark when Jax’s baby got kidnapped and taken to Ireland. That was the beginning of season two. By the end of season seven, the show was barely hanging on, forcing their characters to dance around like morons until FX would finally let them go. If you’ve seen everything but this, then I’m not going to talk you out of watching it, but if you quit a long time ago, pick this up anyway, if only for the last scene of the last episode. For a show that tiptoed in the Cheese Ocean for the back half of its run, it’s great to finally watch dive all the way in.

3. WATERSHIP DOWN

I’ve been successfully able to avoid this movie my entire life because A) no teacher ever demanded I read it, thereby demanding I watch the movie during class time, and B) why would I watch it when everyone else I know who has seen it still wakes up in puddles of urine thanks to the nightmares this movie has induced their entire lives. Knowing nothing about the story, I assume that the movie is basically a Gaspar Noe film, but with bunnies, and I don’t want a saccharine dose of 1978 truth to take that image out of my head.

2. WHIPLASH

Whiplash is the dream Blu Ray release for most people/outlets, and was hard to keep off the number one spot. It’s ideal because just enough people have seen it to keep it constantly in the conversation, but it’s not like it was a blockbuster. That leaves a whole swath of people dying of curiosity, but who heard about it too late before the movie left their area’s theaters. They won’t be disappointed, as Whiplash offers moments of true complexity and greatness, but enough suspense to keep people going. I’ve heard it referred to as a monster-less horror movie, which is true, but it wasn’t marketed that way, so for most people that will come as a pleasant surprise. It’s not the best movie of the year, but it’s the official candidate for “Movie Both Nerdy Cinephiles and Their Lame Mothers” can get a lot out of. This of course precludes Boyhood, much like every conversation about 2014 movies.

1. BIG HERO 6

So Disney buys Marvel, and picks something super obscure for their first adaptation. It’s something that no one has ever heard of, and it’s not even connected to the MCU, presumably the main reason Disney bought Marvel in the first place. And then Big Hero 6 comes out and is a monster hit, earning an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature, something that The Lego Movie couldn’t even do. And then every other studio in Hollywood floods their pants with shit, because this Disney/Marvel (Star Wars/Pixar) machine is liable to turn all of them into little Asylum Entertainments, praying that the SyFy Channel is interested in their projects. I get that is was technically based on something, but I think it still counts as a win for all of the people scared to death that soon every movie will be a part of an already established franchise. Big Hero 7, however, is another story. This movie is released in 42 different versions today, so do your research.