Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy have reviews of eight new movies this week. They revisit one of the best films they saw at Sundance this year (The Ballad of Wallis Island) while Erik handles this week’s latest video game adaptation (A Minecraft Movie). Public domain puts Steamboat Willie into horror (Screamboat) and how do they like dem apple on dat head (William Tell). Michael Shannon directs the aftermath of a school shooting (Eric Larue) and Paul Walter Hauser plays the infamous Press Your Luck champion (The Luckiest Man In America). The directors of Half Nelson and Captain Marvel make an ‘80s anthology (Freaky Tales) and, finally, Naomi Watts and a Great Dane grieve over the loss of Bill Murray (The Friend).

If you missed a number of recent films in theaters then this is really the Blu-ray week for you. Beyond those, Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski still have some titles for you to consider if you can’t get enough of Nicholas Hoult in vampire films or you really like those new digital shorts on SNL. There’s also the tale of graverobbers that took their work a little too far, an obscure relationship melodrama from the 1940s and an influential ghost story set against the backdrop of the Japanese Civil Wars.

Blu-rays, 4Ks, physical media galore this week as Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski guide you through another week. They include upgrades of a great Gene Hackman film and another from Alan Rudolph by Criterion. There’s early work from Rudolph Valentino and the late George Armitage. Horror goes from brain-inhabiting slugs to a black mamba, child murders, cannibalism and eating the rich. There’s also a pair of Chris Farley/David Spade films and a trio of deadly women including Ursula Andress, Kathleen Hughes and the immortal Lynda Carter.

Erik Childress & Steve Prokopy have nine movies for you this week. It all starts by hitting the way back machine for their 2023 review of a Sundance film delayed by the controversy over its star (Magazine Dreams). There is also an apocalyptic musical fantasy (O’Dessa) and Bill Skarsgard is trapped in Anthony Hopkins’ fancy car (Locked). Sci-fi goes two ways with the bloody aftermath of an astronaut colony (Ash) and the process future couples go through to have a baby (The Assessment). Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo form a surrogate parental friendship (Bob Trevino Likes It). One of the great baseball movies is out there just in time for the season (Eephus). Robert DeNiro plays dual roles as real-life mobsters for Barry Levinson (The Eephus) and the Disney live-action remake machine churns out its latest (Snow White).

Erik Childress has been traveling to Austin for over 20 years for the annual South by Southwest Film Festival. He is back to tell you all about 19 films that he saw this year. Among the films you can see soon are the return of Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively to the world of simple favor. Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega trying to survive the revenge of a unicorn and Nicolas Cage battles some territorial Australians. Hopefully audiences won’t have to wait too long to see the solo directorial debut of Jay Duplass or the latest from Matt Johnson that pays homage to the world of Robert Zemeckis and Rosamund Pike & Matthew Rhys desperately try to get to the scene of their daughter’s accident, Daisy Ridley has to dodge zombies and a pair of brothers take a leisurely stroll through San Francisco with their guitars in a single take. There are documentaries about Curtis Mayfield, Marc Maron, the horrors and fascism in the wake of the Uvalde school shooting and what to do when an A.I. Pioneer won’t answer your questions. Erik reviews all that plus Michael Bay’s parkour documentary in this recap of one of his favorite festivals.

Peter Sobczynski joins Erik Childress again to get you caught up on a couple weeks of new physical media. They include drama from Charlie Chaplin and Michael Mann’s feature debut. Godzilla returns as does the creepy Roger Corman sci-fi of the early ‘80s. Renny Harlin brings the sharks, Skippy from Family Ties battles a heavy metal killer and Peter reminds us of another piece of ‘80s horror that some parents would like to forget. There is also more weirdness including Steve Allen studying sex, John Travolta investigating sex and Eddie Murphy brought in to save a comedy. All that might be nothing compared to the visualization of The Who’s rock opera brought to life by Ken Russell.

Movie reviews continue on the show with seven new releases this week. Steve Prokopy looks at the chaos of a young woman and her Zambian family (On Becoming a Guinea Fowl) while Samara Weaving plays a pop star dealing with a stalker (Borderline). John Malkovich is another pop star whom Ayo Edebiri discovers may be part of a cult (Opus). Daffy Duck and Porky Pig try to save the world from zombies and aliens (The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie) while Chris Pratt and Millie Bobbie Brown live in a world of robots (The Electric State). Jack Quaid can feel no pain while trying to rescue his girlfriend (Novocaine) and Steven Soderbergh gives us Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married spies (Black Bag).

Physical media never takes a week off but sometimes they sleep in a little. Such as this light week that has Peter Sobczynski and Erik Childress starting off with a stone-cold classic thriller from Criterion upgraded to 4K. Kino has more film noir, a double feature with Agatha Christie AND Bert I. Gordon plus the terrifying presence of Klaus Kinski as a Nazi. There’s an animated cat who gives massages and everyone’s favorite bear in a rain slicker.

Another light week of releases, but are any of them good? Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy talk you through five of them including a documentary on a better person in charge of the Washington Post (Becoming Katharine Graham). Ed Harris factors into two releases this week including a woman manifestsing her PTSD through her fellow soldier (My Dead Friend Zoe) and a crime comedy with an all-star cast (Riff Raff). There is also a bitcoin hostage thriller (Cold Wallet) and an underwater true story that the filmmaker has re-made from their own documentary (Last Breath).

Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski run down titles you can get on physical media this week and, not gonna lie, there’s a lot of baggage. There’s the Mick Jagger film that say on the shelf for two years along with Lindsay Lohan’s collaboration with Paul Schrader and William Friedkin’s infamous Al Pacino murder mystery set within the gay community. Not to mention John Wayne playing Genghis Khan and the poor timing for an Eric Red horror film. But even controversy can be put aside for cinema sunshine. You can now get Milos Forman’s Mozart film in its original theatrical incarnation. Maybe you don’t even remember the issue parents had with one of the loveliest coming-of-age films of the ‘90s. And why would you say anything controversial about Carol Reed’s masterpiece? All that plus Guillermo Del Toro’s debut and the genius of poking fun at documentaries on this week’s Blu-ray show.