Arnie, Jojo, Gemini
The trailer for Taika Waititi’s best movie since Boy made it look like dire magical-realism farce – and that’s what it threatens to be for the first 20 minutes. But then it evolves into a captivating, touching and inventive take on Nazism and human nature, with Waititi irreverently playing Adolf Hitler as the imaginary friend of an ostracised youngster whose encounter with a grenade thwarts his brownshirt ambitions – as does discovering a Jewish teenager hiding in his maverick mother’s attic.
The 4K transfer lends superb grit and texture to the surprising predicaments but the only bonus is Waititi’s unorthodox commentary (he literally phones it in); you’ll have to buy the Blu-ray or DVD to see the deleted scenes and making-of extras.
The most celebrated movie of the year deserves all of its plaudits and looks breathtaking on Bluray. Part-sinister home invasion thriller, part-wickedly black comedy, it revolves around an unemployed family of four living in a Seoul basement who hatch a plot to exploit the luxurious household of an IT tycoon. What starts as enterprising self-enrichment soon spirals so wildly out of control that it nearly derails the movie - only for writer/director Bong Joon Ho to step back from the brink of absurdity and surprise shell-shocked viewers with a knockout twist. The sole extra is a brief making-of promotion. verges on a hyper-realism that makes not just the computergenerated effects look fake. Yet even they stand up to scrutiny better than the plot, about a retired hitman who’s stalked by his clone.
Still, the visuals are virtuosic and at least the 4K-UHD release is bundled with a Blu-ray and decent behind-the-scenes extras.
From Over the Rainbow to over the hill – this is a crushing, poignant portrayal of Judy Garland six months before she died from an overdose, when the pillpopping, alcoholic Oscarwinner was reduced to a nightclub stint at London’s Talk of the Town. It was a fraught comeback peppered with triumph and tragedy unlike Renee Zellweger’s tour-de-force rebound, which rightly won her a bevy of best-actress trophies. Truly, a star is reborn.
The Blu-ray transfer is exemplary and the hour of cast-and-crew interviews compensates for the perfunctory making-of-short. fighting with behind-thescenes shorts for disc space.