New in Home Entertainment
November 15, 2016
Finding Dory
Rated PG for mild thematic elements
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
Taking place directly after the events of 2013’s Finding Nemo, Finding Dory follows the blue tang with limited short term memory as she goes on a long journey to find her family, which she has only now started remembering. There’s no doubt that this Pixar mega hit gets a lot right. It is stunningly beautiful to look at, has some interesting new characters and is pretty engaging. My problems lie in the story, which feels too much like Finding Nemo, and the overall writing which isn’t merely creative as we’d expect from these artists. Compared to many other studios’ animated pictures, it is very good. But within the Pixar or Disney universe, it lacks the magic we are used to seeing on screen. I fully expect Moana and Zootopia to trounce Dory in the awards races this year. B-
Sausage Party
Rated R for strong crude sexual content, pervasive language, and drug use
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 83%
This raunch-fest from the minds of Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg (Superbad) follows a grocery store full of talking food as they long for the day they are purchased and brought home, until they discover the horrors that await them there. The story here is creative and fun and full of laughs, if your sense of humor allows this kind of overtly offensive material. For me, I found it to be mostly funny, although as it dives into a preachy and almost arrogant attack on religion, it does lose much of its comedic power. B-
Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season
Rated TV-MA
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
For much of its life on HBO, Game of Thrones has remained one of the most popular shows in television history, in spite of, or maybe because of, its constant habit of killing off main characters, both hero and villain alike. In Season 6, there were constant surprises, but there were also more crowd-pleasing moments than in any of the previous seasons. But just because you have more to cheer for doesn’t mean you can let your guard down. The dram is riveting and they are setting up their last two seasons to be legendary. A
Dreams: The Criterion Collection
Rated PG
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 55%
While writer/director Akira Kurosawa is best known for his samurai films like The Seven Samurai and Rashoman, he also created many more quiet and introspective films such as 1990’s Dreams. Here Kurosawa shows his audience eight vividly colored vignettes based on his own visions. While I wouldn’t suggest this film to most of you out there, if you are a fan of Kurosawa, there is much to be excited about. This Criterion edition not only features a new 4K digital transfer, but also has a ton of new interviews and the 2011 documentary ‘Kurosawa’s Way’ featuring interviews with directors such as Alejandro Inarritu and Martin Scorsese (who also stars in one of the Dreams sequences as artist Vincent Van Gogh). B