Blue Sunshine
Having been canonized in respectable fashion on a two-disc 2003 special edition, this relatively bare-bones, single-disc re-release of the 1978 brown-acid cautionary tale in which a group of people who all took experimental LSD (the titular “Blue Sunshine”) 10 years ago, suddenly go insane and start killing people, is at least a reason to revisit the shiny-headed charm of this dated yet admirably balls-to-the-wall horror flick. (available now)
Special Features: Director interview, retrospective
Bride Flight
This old-ladies-reunite weeper, which toggles between a tear-soaked present-day funeral and a WWII-era romantic drama, plays like catnip for a Lifetime-watching demographic. With its soft-focus lighting, arch protestations of undying love and setup-spike plot – three women board a flight out of war-and-flood-torn Holland bound for new lives in New Zealand, encountering true love, friendship and betrayal along the way – it’s easy to dismiss as schlocky Kleenex pandering, but director Ben Sombogaart does a fine job of maintaining emotional grounding despite Bride Flight’s ambitious scope. (The film is reportedly the most expensive ever made in Holland.) And it boasts the return of Rutger Hauer to his native Dutch cinema.
(available now)
Special Features: none
Bridesmaids
OK, so everyone in the Jordan almonds-munching world knows this summer smash drops (plops?) this week, but we’d like to point you to the Special Features in particular, which had our editorial department in stitches all week. From deleted scenes that include a minor Paul Rudd turn as a disastrous blind date to the traditional Apatow Line-O-Rama, in which newly Emmy-crowned sensation Melissa McCarthy fires off mind-bending options for the bachelorette party like a filthy machine gun – not to mention the effortless improv of SNL vet/co-writer/star Kristen Wiig – this DVD is likely to be a bridal-shower standard. (available now)
