Home Video Picks & Passes 10.28.18

A classic Gregory Peck film is a pick.

(photo: Universal Pictures)

Charade (1963) — PICK

The Prince of Egypt (1998) — PICK

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) — PICK


A great week for Blu-rays! Among worthwhile offerings are three classics: an Oscar-winning moral drama starring Gregory Peck, a frothy comedy-thriller with Andrey Hepburn and Cary Grant, and a stellar animated Bible film starring Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes.

Justly billed as “the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made,” Stanley Donen’s Charade makes the most of Hepburn’s and Grant’s gifts while weaving together thrilleresque set pieces and double-crosses with the rhythms of romantic comedy.

Rivaled only by The Miracle Maker, DreamWorks’ The Prince of Egypt explores the epic possibilities of animation in a retelling of the Exodus story boasting the best depictions of the Burning Bush and Red Sea sequences ever filmed.

To Kill a Mockingbird remains a timeless masterpiece, not only because of Peck’s career-defining performance and Horton Foote’s deft adaptation of Harper Lee’s novel, but also because of its child’s point of view.

 

Caveat Spectator Charade: Menace and violence; references to divorce. Teens and up. The Prince of Egypt: Depictions of slavery; some violence and fatalities (including the Egyptian firstborn and the charioteers at the Red Sea). Older kids and up. To Kill a Mockingbird: A recurring racist slur; discreet references to an alleged rape and description of violence; menace to children; brief drunkenness. Teens and up.