New digital and streaming release highlights for week of June 20-26, 2022

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — This week's digital and physical movie releases remind me that it would be nice to have all the time in the world and nothing else to do except watch movies. Sadly, there are only so many hours in the day and while I am able to devote a good many to film watching, I'm never able to see everything I'd like to see. I've wanted to carve out some time to see David Cronenberg's latest effort, " Crimes of the Future." Cronenberg is responsible for some of the most terrifying horror films ever made ("Naked Lunch" and "Dead Ringers" are traumatic in a way that is as unique as the director). I've also wanted to see "Watcher," a paranoid horror experience featuring the entirely underrated Maika Monroe. "Ip Man: The Awakening" is interesting in thatWing Chun (aka Ip Man) is a historical figure (he taught Bruce Lee) and something of a cinematic superhero who has been the subject of more films than all of the Marvel movies added together. Not just the new Marvel films. All of the Marvel films ever made. I was surprised to see that the 1981 film "Times Square" is making its digital debut. I've never seen the film but as an obsessive collector of The Cure, I have the soundtrack on vinyl.

It's also a stellar week for Blu-ray as amusing animated comedy "The Bad Guys" and the Nick Cage as Nick Cage oddity "The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent" make their way from the theaters into your homes. I recommend both. Just don't overlook the more obscure films "After Yang" and "You Are Not My Mother." "After Yang" is a elevated sci-fi film that I enjoyed at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and deserved a lot more attention that it was given. "You Are Not My Mother" is an Irish horror/thriller with a doppelganger narrative. I watched and enjoyed it over the weekend.

On the catalog title front we get a Criterion Collection of the original "Shaft;" a obscure release of the oft forgotten "Richard III" featuring Ian McKellen in an adaptation that is set in a fascist state circa 1930 (it works brilliantly); early efforts from Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki in the "Panda! Go Panda!" double feature.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, here's a stroll through all the highlights.

New Digital to Own

Crimes of the Future -As the human species adapts to a synthetic environment, the body undergoes new transformations and mutations. With his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux), Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), celebrity performance artist, publicly showcases the metamorphosis of his organs in avant-garde performances. Timlin (Kristen Stewart), an investigator from the National Organ Registry, obsessively tracks their movements, which is when a mysterious group is revealed... Their mission –to use Saul’s notoriety to shed light on the next phase of human evolution.

Aquaman: King of Atlantis -Aquaman: King of Atlantis begins with Aquaman starting his first day on the job as king of Atlantis – and he’s got a lot of catching up to do. Luckily, he has his two royal advisors to back him up: the scholar Vulko, and Mera, the water controlling warrior princess. Between dealing with unscrupulous surface dwellers, elder evils from beyond time and his own half-brother who wants to overthrow him, Aquaman must rise to the challenge and prove to his subjects – and to himself – that he’s the true heir to the throne, and holder of the trident!

Donbass - In the Donbass, a region of Eastern Ukraine, a hybrid war takes place, involving an open armed conflict alongside killings and robberies on a mass scale perpetrated by separatist gangs. In the Donbass, war is called peace, propaganda is uttered as truth and hatred is declared to be love. Life suffused with fear and suspicion; what is real and what is fake news?

Ip Man: The Awakening -While visiting Hong Kong, a young Master Ip intervenes in a kidnapping attempt, unintentionally igniting a turf war with a ruthless human trafficking ring. In retaliation, the gang kidnaps one of Ip Man’s close friends, leaving him with no choice but to challenge the group’s notoriously brutal boxing champion head-on.

Memory -Alex Lewis (Liam Neeson) is an expert assassin with a reputation for discreet precision. Caught in a moral quagmire, Alex refuses to complete a job that violates his code and must quickly hunt down and kill the people who hired him before they and FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce) find him first. Alex is built for revenge but, with a memory that is beginning to falter, he is forced to question his every action, blurring the line between right and wrong.

Times Square -Rich girl Pammy (Trini Alvarado, Stella) is the sheltered daughter of a prominent politician. Wild child Nicky (Robin Johnson, D.O.A.) is a tough runaway. Together, the two teens escape from a psychiatric hospital and with the help of radio DJ Johnny LaGuardia (Tim Curry, The Rocky Horror Picture Show), become punk rock heroes on the streets of New York City. But just as their outrageous new life begins to come together, they find that society wants to tear them apart. Can a sisterhood that runs soul deep survive the cold heart of the city? Produced by Robert Stigwood (Saturday Night Fever, Grease) and directed by Allan Moyle (Pump Up the Volume, Empire Records), Times Square features an amazing soundtrack of hits from Patti Smith, The Cure, Lou Reed, The Ramones, The Pretenders, Roxy Music, Robin Gibb, Gary Numan, Suzi Quatro, Talking Heads, Joe Jackson, XTC and more.

Watcher - Julia (Maika Monroe) joins her husband (Karl Glusman) when he relocates to his family’s native Romania for a new job. Having recently abandoned her acting career, she finds herself frequently alone and unoccupied. One night, people-watching from her picture window, she spots a vague figure in an adjacent building, who seems to be looking back at her. Soon after, while alone at a local movie theater, Julia’s sense of being watched intensifies, and she becomes certain she’s being followed — could it be the same unknown neighbor? Meanwhile, a serial killer known as The Spider stalks the city.

New to Blu-ray & DVD

The Bad Guys -After a lifetime of legendary heists, notorious criminals Mr. Wolf, Mr. Snake, Mr. Piranha, Mr. Shark and Ms. Tarantula are finally caught. To avoid a prison sentence, the animal outlaws must pull off their most challenging con yet – becoming model citizens. Under the tutelage of their mentor, Professor Marmalade, the dubious gang sets out to fool the world that they're turning good.

The UnbearableWeight of Massive Talent -Nicolas Cage stars as... Nick Cage in the action-comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” Creatively unfulfilled and facing financial ruin, the fictionalized version of Cage must accept a $1 million offer to attend the birthday of a dangerous superfan (Pedro Pascal). Things take a wildly unexpected turn when Cage is recruited by a CIA operative (Tiffany Haddish) and forced to live up to his own legend, channeling his most iconic and beloved on-screen characters in order to save himself and his loved ones. With a career built for this very moment, the seminal award-winning actor must take on the role of a lifetime: Nicolas Cage.

Cinderella -From Kay Cannon (Pitch Perfect), Cinderella is a musically driven bold new take on the classic fairytale. Our ambitious heroine (Camila Cabello) has big dreams and with the help of her Fab Godmother, she perseveres to make them come true. Cinderella has an all-star cast including Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver, James Corden, Nicholas Galitzine, Billy Porter and Pierce Brosnan.

After Yang -When his young daughter's beloved companion — an android named Yang — malfunctions, Jake (Colin Farrell) searches for a way to repair him. In the process, Jake discovers the life that has been passing in front of him, reconnecting with his wife (Jodie Turner-Smith) and daughter across a distance he didn't know was there.

You Are Not My Mother -Starring Carolyn Bracken (“Dublin Murders”), IFTA Award nominee Ingrid Craigie (“Blood”) and Dublin International Film Festival Discovery Award winner Hazel Doupe (Kathleen Was Here), You Are Not My Mother takes viewers on a frightening, yet authentic coming-of-age journey through the dark history of the folks in Ireland. It’s the week before Halloween and Char’s (Doupe) mother, Angela (Bracken), has suddenly disappeared, leaving only her car behind. When she returns home without explanation the following evening, it becomes clear to Char and her grandmother, Rita (Craigie), that Angela’s behavior has become increasingly frightening, as if she has been replaced by a malevolent force. When Halloween arrives, Char realizes that she is the only one who can save her mother, even if it means potentially losing her forever.

Ip Man: The Awakening -While visiting Hong Kong, a young Master Ip intervenes in a kidnapping attempt, unintentionally igniting a turf war with a ruthless human trafficking ring. In retaliation, the gang kidnaps one of Ip Man’s close friends, leaving him with no choice but to challenge the group’s notoriously brutal boxing champion head-on.

Cellar -Filmed on location in Roscommon, Ireland, The Cellar tells the story of Keira Woods (Elisha Cuthbert), whose daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of their new house in the country. Keira soon discovers there is an ancient and powerful entity controlling their home that she will have to face or risk losing her family’s souls forever.

Catalog Release Blu-ray & DVD

Shaft -While the Black Power movement was reshaping America, trailblazing director Gordon Parks made this groundbreaking blockbuster, which helped launch the blaxploitation era and gave the screen a new kind of badder-than-bad action hero in John Shaft (Richard Roundtree, in a career-defining role), a streetwise New York City private eye who is as tough with criminals as he is tender with his lovers. After Shaft is recruited to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Harlem mob boss (Moses Gunn) from Italian gangsters, he finds himself in the middle of a rapidly escalating uptown vs. downtown turf war. A vivid time capsule of seventies Manhattan in all its gritty glory that has inspired sequels and multimedia reboots galore, the original Shaft is studded with indelible elements—from Roundtree’s sleek leather fashions to the iconic funk and soul score by Isaac Hayes.

Rouge -Cantopop superstars Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung display the androgynous magnetism that made them icons as doomed lovers in this emblematic film of Hong Kong’s Second New Wave, directed by pioneering queer melodrama master Stanley Kwan. Rouge bridges past and present in its tragic romance between a humble courtesan and the wayward scion of a wealthy family, who embrace death by suicide pact amid the opulent teahouses of 1930s Hong Kong. Fifty years later, she returns to the city-state to find him, drawing a young contemporary couple (Alex Man and Emily Chu) into her quest to rekindle a passion that may be as illusory as time itself. With its lush mise-en-scène and transcendently melancholy mood, this sensuous ghost story is an exquisite, enduringly resonant elegy for both lost love and vanishing history.

The Initiation of Sarah -Shy misfit Sarah Goodwin (Kay Lenz, House), has a secret gift: the ability to control — and destroy — with her mind. When Sarah goes off to college with her more outgoing and popular sister, Patty (Morgan Brittany, Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat), their plans to join the most prestigious sorority on campus are scuttled by snobby president, Jennifer Lawrence (Morgan Fairchild, Phantom of the Mall). Separated from her sister, Sarah is taken in by a rival, less popular sorority, whose mysterious house mother, Mrs. Hunter (Shelley Winters, The Night of the Hunter), is harbouring a secret of her own: a scheme to harness Sarah’s terrifying power for revenge. Betrayed by Patty, humiliated by Jennifer, it can only be a matter of time before Sorority Hell Week erupts in flame!

Edge of Sanity -When his experiments into a powerful new anesthetic go hideously awry, respected physician Dr Jekyll (Anthony Perkins) takes off into the night, casting aside the shackles of upper-class propriety as he disappears into the shadowy decadent demimonde of Whitechapel in pursuit of sensual pleasures under the guise of ‘Mr Hyde’. As his wife Elisabeth (Glynis Barber) passes her time in charitable work, rehabilitating the district’s fallen women, Hyde is drawn into an escalating cycle of lust and murder that seems to know no bounds.

Richard III -Ian McKellen (The Lord of the Rings) reprises his Royal National Theatre stage triumph in director Richard Loncraine's (Wimbledon) screen adaptation of William Shakespeare's tale of the monstrous royal, Richard III, from a screenplay co-written by McKellen and Loncraine. Featuring a stellar supporting cast that includes Annette Bening, Maggie Smith, Robert Downey Jr., Kristen Scott Thomas and John Wood, the Bard's original Elizabethan tale of villainy is reimagined and set within a 1930s war-torn fascist monarchy.

Giant 4K UHD -Wealthy Texas rancher Bick Benedict (Rock Hudson) shakes things up at home when he returns from a trip to the East Coast with a love interest, the refined Leslie Lynnton (Elizabeth Taylor). Bick and Leslie get married, but she clashes with his sister, Luz (Mercedes McCambridge), and wins the admiration of the ambitious young Jett Rink (James Dean). Bick and Jett form a tense rivalry that continues to surface as the years pass and fortunes change in this sweeping drama.

Panda! Go Panda! - Mimiko is a cheerful, young girl who is left on her own while her grandmother is away. When little Panny Panda and his father Papanda stumble into her home, Mimiko welcomes them in as her new family. Adventures ensue as Mimiko discovers the challenges of taking care of her new cuddly friends. Directed by Isao Takahata and based on a concept by Hayao Miyazaki, Panda! Go Panda! is a charming, early-career classic from two animation legends before they co-founded the award-winning Studio Ghibli. This set includes both Panda! Go Panda! and Panda! Go Panda! Rainy Day Circus.