Glory Is the Pick of the Week

The year 1989 was pretty great for film, although not for the Oscars. The overall winner was Driving Miss Daisy, which was a rather safe choice by the Academy. However, there were two other films that were more accurate, less syrupy representations of racial tension and prejudice: Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, and director Edward Zwick’s Glory, which remains an emotionally charged and important picture about not only the bloodiest event in American history, but also the bonds between those not defined by the color of one’s skin, but the moral code in which they live by. This is a really brave acting piece with an incredible cast of men: Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman, Cary Elwes, Andre Braugher, and especially Denzel Washington, who deservedly won one of the film’s three Academy Awards as Best Supporting Actor. It was wrongly denied Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay nominations (some of the great injustices in history), but it is proof that a film is not great by the awards it wins or not, but the overall impact and feeling that it brings to audiences. It’s just one of the seminal war films of all-time. [Read David Wangberg’s review of a recent Fathom Events screening.]

If you happen to have a 4K player, you’ll be able to enjoy a new picture-in-picture commentary track with Zwick, Broderick, and Freeman; and the never-before available theatrical trailer. If you only have a Blu-ray player, you’ll only have access to special features including the original commentary with Zwick, making-of featurette, and deleted scenes. I think having to have a 4K player just to watch a few bonus features, when they just could made all of them available on Blu, is pointless, but that’s just my opinion.

Other notable releases:

The Thin Man (Warner Archive): Bill Powell and Myrna Loy sparkle in the first film of the Thin Man series as Nick and Nora Charles, a former detective and his wealthy wife who investigate a murder, but mostly for the excitement.

A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Archive): The neurotic Blanche Dubois (Vivien Leigh) tries to hold on to her last remaining Southern grace against Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando), her sweaty and brutish brother-in-law.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (Warner Archive): Baby Jane (Bette Davis) and Blanche Hudson (Joan Crawford) are two aging sisters and former child and silent stars bound together in fear, jealously, and hate.

Humanoids from the Deep Steelbook (Scream Factory): The 1980 sleazy cult classic about fish-like humanoids emerging from the sea to terrorize a sleepy fishing village after an aquaculture experiment gone horribly wrong.