On Blu-Ray & DVD: August 14, 2018


Where does one even begin? That is the question the screenwriters of Avengers: Infinity War must have been asking themselves when they sat down to pen what will ultimately come to be a five-plus hour finale to what the world has been witness to the construction of for a decade. There is so much happening and so much seemingly left to happen with Infinity War and whatever the as of yet untitled sequel is sure to include that it's almost incomprehensible anyone in their right mind took this on as a challenging endeavor they'd be willing to try their hand at. And say what you will about Joe and Anthony Russo, the directors of Winter Soldier, Civil War, and now both the third and what will be the fourth Avengers movies, and how they might feel like Marvel's "directors for hire" that bend at any whim studio head Kevin Feige commands, but these guys get the work done and do so in a way that is both dramatically satisfying as well as colossally entertaining. With Infinity War, the Russo brothers along with series screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (all three Captain America films, Thor: The Dark World, as well as Agent Carter) have somehow managed to tackle the unenviable for them, but extremely exciting for audiences in the vein of making eighteen previous movies come together and intertwine in a way that is as natural as possible with clear motivation as to why as much is necessary at this point in time all while keeping it all, as Thanos would put it, "well-balanced." Where to begin in such an endeavor is certainly not a question with an obvious answer, but Markus and McFeely begin in what feels like the most natural of places given the hints that have been being dropped since that post-credits scene in 2012's The Avengers and where we last saw Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) after the destruction of their home world, Asgard. If you haven't been paying attention, the aforementioned post-credits scene delivered a slight smirk by a guy named Thanos (Josh Brolin) AKA a titan who sees fit to invade planets and wipe out half of their population in order to keep balance among the galaxies. This is who Infinity War centers around and in more ways than one this is Thanos' movie. This is a smart decision as this was never going to be able to be one heroes movie more than another's, but by giving this villain who we've been hearing whisperings about for almost six years now the credit he is due the movie allows this antagonist to live up to the mythos those past movies have built around him. Full review here. A

John Cameron Mitchell, director of the acclaimed films Hedwig and the Angry Inch and Shortbus takes us to an exotic and unusual world: suburban London in the late 70's. Under the spell of the Sex Pistols, every teenager in the country wants to be a punk, including hopeless hero Enn. Hearing that local punk Queen Boadicea is throwing a party, Enn crashes the fun and discovers every horny boy's dream; gorgeous foreign exchange students. When he meets the enigmatic Zan, it's lust at first sight. But these girls have come a lot further than America. They are, in fact, aliens from another galaxy, sent to Earth to prepare for a mysterious rite of passage. When the dark secret behind the rite is revealed, the galaxy-crossed lover must turn to Boadicea and her punk followers for help in order to save the alien he loves from certain death. In How to Talk to Girls at Parties the punks take on the aliens on the streets of London, and neither Enn nor Zan's universe will ever be the same again.


The Yellow Birds follows Two young soldiers, Bartle (Alden Ehrenreich) and Murph (Tye Sheridan) as they navigate the terrors of the Iraq war under the command of the older, troubled Sergeant Sterling. All the while, Bartle is tortured by a promise he made to Murph's mother (Jennifer Aniston) before their deployment.













Director Rob Reiner's Shock and Awe follows a group of journalists, including Woody Harrelson, James Marsden, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich, and Richard Schiff, who are covering George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 and are skeptical of the president's claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction."












In Affairs of State, D.C. aide Michael Lawson's (David Corenswet) quest for power pushes him to do anything to take part in Senator Baines's White House campaign, including blackmailing Baines's shady advisor and sleeping with the candidate's wife. When Lawson gets involved with the senator's daughter though, Lawson learns his dangerous game could have a deadly payoff.

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