Home Video Picks & Passes 03.29.20

It’s an all-star week of home video picks.

(photo: Shutterstock)

The Hunt For Red October (1990) — PICK

Knives Out (2019) — PICK


It’s an all-star week of home video picks.

Fans of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, rejoice! One of last year’s best films, Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (now on Blu-ray and DVD) is both an old-fashioned whodunit and a morality tale with a distinctly contemporary vibe.

All the traditional elements are here: an elegant old manor home; a corpse; a large, colorful supporting cast who each have a motive; a pair of not-so-brilliant police investigators; and an idiosyncratic private detective.

It’s also a morally complex parable rewarding decency, siding with the marginal over the privileged, and knocking the complacent on both sides of contemporary political discourse. The stellar cast includes Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Ana de Armas, Jamie Lee Curtis, Michael Shannon, Don Johnson and Toni Collette.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary, John McTiernan’s Cold-War suspense classic The Hunt for Red October arrives in a Collector’s Edition Steelbook with 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray. Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, Scott Glenn, Sam Neill and James Earl Jones star.

 

CAVEAT SPECTATOR: The Hunt for Red October: Intense nuclear threat; some deadly violence and gunplay; swearing and crude language. Teens and up. Knives Out: Brief bloody violence; frequent profanity, cursing and crude language; implied drug use; sexual references. Mature viewing.

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis

Palestinian Christians celebrate Easter Sunday Mass at Holy Family Church in Gaza City on March 31, amid the ongoing battles Israel and the Hamas militant group.

People Explain ‘Why I Go to Mass’

‘Why go to Mass on Sundays? It is not enough to answer that it is a precept of the Church. … We Christians need to participate in Sunday Mass because only with the grace of Jesus, with his living presence in us and among us, can we put into practice his commandment, and thus be his credible witnesses.’ —Pope Francis