The Circle Blu-ray Review

• Actors: Emma Watson, Tom Hanks, John Boyega, Karen Gillan, Patton Oswalt
• Director: James Ponsoldt
• Film Format: AC-3, Color, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region A/1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: PG-13
• Studio: LIONSGATE
• Release Date: August 1, 2017
• Run Time: 110 minutes

        The Circle has potential in its message to carry searing message or political commentary, but screenwriters James Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers (adapted from his novel) are as uncommitted to a single viewpoint as their film is to a genre. Bouncing back and forth between playful satire and sci-fi melodrama, The Circle never actually delivers on the suspense that was promised by the marketing campaign. The result is the feeling that the movie ends before ever digging beneath the surface of its own premise, an error that no amount of opportunistic casting can save the film from.

The Lovers Blu-ray Review

• Actors: Debra Winger, Tracy Letts, Aidan Gillen, Melora Walters, Tyler Ross
• Director: Azazel Jacobs
• Film Format: AC-3, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region A/1
• Rated: R
• Studio: LIONSGATE
• Release Date: August 1, 2017
• Run Time: 94 minutes

        A comedy about adultery is a hard sell, and one that writer/director Azazel Jacobs commits too completely with The Lovers. Even when the charm of the lead performances begs for a more sentimental shift in the storyline, Jacobs stays dedicated to the ideas in his screenplay rather than the tradition of most romantic comedies or the desires of most viewers. In this sense, The Lovers is a completely successful film experiment that owes a great deal of its likeability to actors Debra Winger and Tracy Letts and their layered performances.

Phoenix Forgotten Blu-ray Review

• Actors: Luke Spencer Roberts, Chelsea Lopez
• Format: AC-3, Color, DTS Surround Sound, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish
• Region: Region A/1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rated: PG-13
• Studio: 20th Century Fox
• Release Date: August 1, 2017
• Run Time: 87 minutes

        Found footage horror have dual goals that often work against each other. On one hand, after the success of The Blair Witch Project’s unique marketing campaign, there are great efforts by these films to appear as realistic as possible. This often means keeping the action minimal, building on suspense instead. But as they also exist in the horror genre, there is the expectation of some type of payoff and larger this spectacle is, the less realistic it often appears. This forces the filmmakers to do a balancing act that almost always leaves some audience members disappointed. Phoenix Forgotten runs into this problem, mostly due to the inclusion of an unnecessary secondary storyline whose only purpose is to give exposition and pad the run time.

S.W.A.T.: Under Siege Blu-ray Review

• Actors: Adrianne Palicki, Michael White, Ty Olsson
• Director: Tony Giglio
• Disc Format: AC-3, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Subtitles: Czech, Russian, Slovak, French, Portuguese, Finnish, Swedish, Estonian, Croatian, Arabic, Korean, Latvian, Hebrew, Norwegian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Mandarin Chinese, Icelandic, Romanian, Thai, Danish, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, English, Lithuanian, Serbian
• Dubbed: French, Hungarian
• Region: All Regions
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Rated: R
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• Release Date: August 1, 2017
• Run Time: 89 minutes

        With the low production values and TV actor cast, S.W.A.T.: Under Siege might as well be a pilot for yet another failed series based on a forgotten action film from recent past. Only the computer generated blood and a few four-letter word help distinguish it from something you would see in the saddest time slot of a network station. But as much as this film is poorly constructed, it is just another entry into the continuation of a film franchise that nobody asked for.