In-home Releases: August 14, 2018: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, CASUALTIES OF WAR, THE HOWLING, & More

In-home Releases: August 14, 2018

New films and TV shows have been released on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K Ultra, and Digital HD today (August 14 2018), including new Criterion Collection films. Some of these releases are on single discs while others come in large collections, filled with extras, behind-the-scenes footage, and cloud capabilities. Below you find a listing of those films and TV programs.

Our Picks of the Best DVDs, Blu-rays, 4K Ultras, and Digital HDs Out Today

Avengers: Infinity War
Casualties of War
Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season
The Howling
National Lampoon’s Van Wilder
The Blacklist: The Complete Fifth Season
Bean

Thoughts on This Week’s In-home Releases

For this weeks in-home releases, the biggest by a mile is Avengers: Infinity War. The culmination of 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the film shows The Avengers having to face the ultimate threat in Thanos, an intergalactic despot trying to destroy half the universes population. The movie was a massive hit at the box office, grossing $2 billion worldwide!

In his review FilmBook Editor-in-Chief Rollo Tomasi said about the film:

For all of its emotional pluses, Avengers: Infinity War is not a perfect film. It’s not even close. Like all Marvel films, following the Marvel formula, Avengers: Infinity War contains moments of levity so that the on-screen carnage does not override its sense of fun. Like ill-fated Star War: The Last Jedi, however, Avengers: Infinity War jokes seem forced in certain instances. Half the jokes in Avengers: Infinity War don’t land while others painfully go on long past their humor self-life. Avengers: Infinity War would be a tighter film without so many jokes, especially those that are luke-warm humorous.

Also releasing this week for the first time on Blu-ray (and the best film in my opinion) is Brian De Palma’s underrated Casualties of War. Starring Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn, the film is a brutal and despairing look at the Vietnam War through the eyes of a soldier with a conscience. The movie is about a new recruit (Fox) joining up with Penn’s infantry unit, who kidnap a young Vietnamese girl and subsequently rape and kill her. The standout from the cast is undoubtedly Sean Penn, who is a monster hiding behind the facade of ‘all is fair in war’. The film has gorgeous cinematography, and contains many of De Palma’s signature shots (the split screen, the split-diopter shot, first-person). It tackles themes prevalent throughout De Palma’s filmography, including voyeurism, violence against women.

The film was unfortunately released too late for audiences, who in 1989, had already seen many quality Vietnam war films (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter). While it may not be as well known as those films, Casualties of War excels thanks to the craft and two lead performances of Fox and Penn. The film bombed at the box office, and Brian De Palma has lamented in interviews that its failure was a crushing blow. But it has found new life on video, DVD and now Blu-ray, and is frequently cited as one of the directors better films.

Also releasing this week are a seasons of two veteran TV shows, The Blacklist: The Complete Fifth Season and Arrow: The Complete Sixth Season.

Let us know your thoughts and which new In-Home Releases for August 14, 2018 you plan on purchasing (or renting) below in the comments section. Readers seeking more In-Home release news can visit our Home Entertainment News Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, and Facebook.