Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of November 30th – ‘Lord of the Rings’ Trilogy in 4K and ‘The Rental’

Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, Dave Franco‘s directorial debut, The Rental, gets top honors. Notably, we also have The Lord of the Rings trilogy hitting 4K this week. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, too, so read on for more…

Joey’s Top Pick

The Rental

One of the year’s best horror films, The Rental is a fright flick that really goes there. Dave Franco treats the genre with care and respect, resulting in genre fare that’s a cut above. He knows what works and what doesn’t, so this is lean, mean, and wholly effective. Franco’s top-tier cast helps, too. Not only does his wife Alison Brie have a strong role, the quartet is filled out by Dan Stevens, Sheila Vand, and Jeremy Allen White. The four contribute quality work that lends the unsettling premise an extra sheen of class. If you like scary movies, The Rental is one not to miss, plain and simple.

Recommended Viewing

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (in 4K)

Confession time: I’m not big on The Lord of the Rings. I can appreciate them, and certainly are aware of Peter Jackson‘s craftsmanship, but I’ve never been a fan. That being said, a revisit of the trilogy has long been in the cards for me. So, having the three films hit 4K has provided the optimal (and perfect) opportunity to do so. Many of you are undoubtedly fans of this franchise, so if that’s the case, this 4K set is likely a perfect holiday gift. Pick it up and enjoy!

Also Available This Week

Beverly Hills Cop (in 4K)

Cagefighter

Coming to America (in 4K)

Do Not Reply

The Golden Child

The Hobbit Trilogy (in 4K)

Made in Italy

Perry Mason: The Complete First Season (TV)

Rob Zombie Triple Feature

Top Gun (in 4K)

Trading Places

The Trip: Four Course Meal

Criterion Corner

Crash

From The Criterion Collection: “For this icily erotic fusion of flesh and machine, David Cronenberg adapted J. G. Ballard’s future-shock novel of the 1970s into one of the most singular and provocative films of the 1990s. A traffic collision involving a disaffected commercial producer, James (James Spader), and an enigmatic doctor, Helen (Holly Hunter), brings them, along with James’s wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger, in a sublimely detached performance), together in a crucible of blood and broken glass—and it’s not long before they are all initiated into a kinky, death-obsessed underworld of sadomasochistic car-crash fetishists for whom twisted metal and scar tissue are the ultimate turn-ons. Controversial from the moment it premiered at Cannes—where it won a Special Jury Prize “for originality, for daring, and for audacity”—Crash has since taken its place as a key text of late-twentieth-century cinema, a disturbingly seductive treatise on the relationships between humanity and technology, sex and violence, that is as unsettling as it is mesmerizing.”