Disney continues to rake in the big bucks for many of its films, but two of its highly hyped 2016 releases underperformed at the box-office so much so that in their first week of release on DVD and Blu-ray, neither The BFG nor Pete’s Dragon gets the spotlight at Walmart and other retailers, which are showcasing the creepy horror movie Don’t Breathe instead.

It’s difficult to say what exactly went wrong with the theatrical release of The BFG, a film directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial‘s Melissa Mathison from a children’s classic by Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory‘s Raold Dahl starring recent Oscar winner Mark Rylance.

We can start with the unappealing title. Had it been called simply BFG, we could deduce that it was someone’s initials, but The BFG conjures up all kinds of off-putting interpretations of which “Big Friendly Giant” is not the first to come to mind. Add to that the fact that Dahl’s story is not as well known in the U.S. as it is in the U.K. and other Western European countries. Anyone trying to obtain information about the work would first learn that it is about a giant who kidnaps a 10-year-old girl, not something most people would want to rush out and take their kids to see. Delving into it a little further, one might discover that it’s OK, because unlike his fellow giants, he doesn’t eat children. That’s supposed to ease a parent’s concerns?

Those who did venture out to see the film despite whatever misgivings they may have had, found a nice little film that supplied an abundance of charm, not the least of which was the encounter that the BFG and the girl Sophie (Ruby Barnhill) have with Queen Elizabeth and her assistants, delightfully played by Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall, and Rafe Spall.

The BFG is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Owned by Disney since the 1950s, Pete’s Dragon was originally intended for an episode of Disney’s 1950s TV show, but was never produced. Instead the unpublished story by Oscar-winning writer Seton I. Miller (Here Comes Mr. Joran) and S.S. Field was adapted into a 1977 movie musical that attempted to recapture the magic of Mary Poppins, but failed miserably on that account. Although the film has its fans, aside from the central relationship of young Pete (Sean Marshall) and his magical dragon Elliott and Pete’s bonding with kindly lighthouse keeper Nora (Helen Reddy) and her father (Mickey Rooney), the cartoonish villains of the piece, most notably Shelley Winters as his wicked stepmother, drag the film down with their constant mugging. The new film is like a breath of fresh air.

Tony Halbrooks and director David Lowery have re-written the story, excising the cartoonish villains and giving a preamble to the story that establishes the dragon’s name as Elliot (without the second “t”). Pete (Oakes Fegley) has no wicked step-family and Nora and her father have been replaced by kindly ranger Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), her husband (Wes Bentley), daughter (Oona Laurence), and father (Robert Redford). There is just one principal villain this time in Grace’s opportunistic brother-in-law (Karl Urban). Technologically the film is lightyears beyond the 1977 version with the dragon a much more believable character. This is a fine example of a remake that does what all remakes should, but rarely, do: improve on the original.

Pete’s Dragon is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Twilight Time continues to release limited edition Blu-rays of some of the best films ever made. This month’s releases include Moby Dick, Moscow on the Hudson and Pretty Poison with newly recorded commentaries by noted film historians, The Boston Strangler with numerous extras including a 2013 on-camera interview with William Friedkin and I Want to Live! featuring a commentary by the late Robert Wise imported from the original DVD.

The revelation here is John Huston’s 1956 version of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in the gray tint not seen since its theatrical release that gives the film a realistic look that separates it from most seafaring epics. The screenplay by Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) and Huston is remarkably faithful to Melville’s sprawling 1851 masterpiece. The characters of Ishmael (Richard Basehart), Starbuck (Leo Genn), Queequeg (Friedrich von Ledebur), and Father Mapple (Orson Welles) come vividly alive and although Gregory Peck’s Captain Ahab seemed out of place sixty years ago, his taciturn performance seems remarkably insightful now. This is a film ripe for rediscovery.

Another film that is ripe for rediscovery is Paul Mazursky’s 1984 immigration comedy-drama Moscow on the Hudson starring Robin Williams as a member of a Russian circus troupe who defects in the middle of Bloomingdale’s New York flagship store. The film is a homage to America’s diversity, then at the height of Reagan-era inclusiveness.

Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler starring Tony Curtis in the title role and Noel Black’s Pretty Poison starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld are vastly different films about homicidal maniacs from the same year, 1968, and both provide their star players with seminal career performances. The Boston Strangler features Curtis in his best dramatic performance since 1957’s Sweet Smell of Success while Pretty Poison features Perkins in his best role since 1960’s Psycho and Weld in her best role ever. They make for interesting back-to-back viewing.

Wise’s 1958’s I Want to Live! is most famous for Susan Hayward’s Oscar-winning portrayal of Barbara Graham, executed for a crime she may not have committed. It had a profound influence on the public’s thinking about capital punishment in the U.S. Hayward’s agonizing last moments provided an image that is ingrained in the memory of anyone who has seen the film.

Finally released on Blu-ray, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1959 film of Tennessee Williams’ Suddenly, Last Summer is only available as an Australian import, albeit one that is playable in all regions. The black-and-white film has never looked as good. The purple dialogue is, of course, ridiculous, but the playing of it by Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, and, in lesser roles, Mercedes McCambridge and Albert Dekker, is delicious. Hepburn makes a great bitch in her only role as a villainess, a demented loon who wants to have niece Taylor lobotomized to keep her from revealing the truth about her homosexual son’s cannibalistic demise.

As for the film that I briefly mentioned at the beginning of this article, it’s a nihilistic nightmare of a film about bad people doing bad things to each other. There’s no one to empathize with here. If that’s what you’re looking for, you can find it on both Blu-ray or standard DVD. Otherwise, don’t bother with Don’t Breathe.

This week’s new releases include Jason Bourne and Something for Everyone.