A seemingly quiet week in DVD releases.  And yet, we do cover a good bit of ground.  We have joy, we have darkness.  We have the first film from one of America's best (if little-known) directors.  We have series of all kinds of series.  All of that, and...Da Bears.  

Feature Films

Of course, we love film here at Flick Picks.  But the Academy Awards - not so much.  Sure, it's interesting to see what everyone's wearing and all that.  But when it comes to the supposed recognition of the year's best in film...it might be better left to group of senile hamsters.  Actually, that may not be far from reality.  And yet, and yet...the Academy got things tolerably right this year.  Hard to quarrel with the Best Picture Oscar going to Tom McCarthy's Spotlight.  

Recent DVD releases  are highlighted by a couple of other winners at this year's Academy Awards, The Revenant and Son of Saul.   

So DVD watchers, would you like green pill or the red pill?  Fans of The Matrix will know exactly what we're talking about.  However, if you're shaking your head in confusion, we speak of a decision between fantasy and reality.  Heading the new releases on DVD, we have strong film examples of both extremes.  Representing fantasy, there is the fourth (and final) Hunger Games film, Mockingjay Part 2.  Holding the banner for reality, is and a well-reviewed but little-seen indie film called James White.  Unlike Neo in The Matrix, you can actually choose both.  As usual, we have many other options as well. 

Feature Films

Two prominent 2015 features highlight this rich, early spring (use your imagination, people of the Midwest) batch of DVD releases.  From the global economic collapse to forbidden love.  From high satire to broad comedy.  From a series about perilous moments in the 1980's to a remembrance of the Thin White Duke.  If Bitter Rice is too bitter, chase it with That Sugar Film.  If spring is a little too theoretical for you at this point, insert those Game of Thrones discs and hunker down until warmer weather arrives to stay.  

Feature Films

THE BIG SHORT

A major batch of new releases before Flick Picks goes on a brief hiatus.  We'll be back on March 24.  In the meantime, a passel of new feature films, a couple of which figured in Academy Awards competition.  And we must say, Oscar did alright this year:  Best Original Script and Best Picture for Spotlight; Best director to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (for The Revenant, coming this spring); Best Documentary Feature to Amy; Best Foreign Language Film to Son of Saul (also coming this spring). 

Feature Films

On the verge of the Academy Awards, this week's new releases on DVD are highlighted by one of the contenders for Best Picture.  And a very worthy contender Spotlight is.  With new series, it's a matter of the darkly comic and the just plain dark.  Never fear, Sarah Silverman is here!  And you probably know how funny she is.  Well, actually,...Ms. Silverman plays it very straight as a troubled wife and mother in I Smile Back, a performance that has won the comedienne considerable acclaim.  Quality we have this week.  Laughs, not so much.  If you need a little escapist fun, there's always the red carpet at the Oscars....         

Feature Films

SPOTLIGHT

New releases on DVD this week are led by some formidable characters - a crime boss, a grandmother...and that Apple guy.  To contrast that age and hard-won life experience, we have a couple of recent French films more concerned with coming of age.  Among the new arrivals in series DVDs is season three of the popular Silk.

Feature Films

Appropriate to a "leap" February, bulging with an extra day, we begin the month with a DVD roundup that offers dispatches from all corners of the world and the human spirit.  And good,  distracting t.v. series and films - we have those too.  

Feature Films

Feature Films