I first saw Laurence Olivier’s version of William Shakespeare’s Richard III on the Sunday afternoon of March 11, 1956 when I was twelve years old. How do I remember the date? I don’t actually, but per the Internet Movie Database that’s the day the film was broadcast on NBC It was an event presentation. It was shown in conjunction with the U.S. premiere of the film the same day. It was broadcast in color, but so few homes had the then new color sets that most of us, me included, saw it in black and white. By the time I got around to seeing it in color in later TV viewings, the color had faded. The 2004 Criterion DVD release restored several scenes that had been cut over the years and improved upon the picture and sound, but it was not a full restoration. The new Criterion release, available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD, is from the 2012 restoration that fully restores the film’s vivid colors.

Richard Loncraine’s version with Ian McKellen which updates Shakespeare’s play to a fictitious 1930s fascist London may be more cinematic, but Olivier’s version is about as close as we’ll ever get to a film version of the work performed as written.

Olivier’s Richard is a mix of cruelty and comic bravado up to the point in which he manipulates his nephews, 12 and 10 year-old princes, to the Tower of London and later orders their murder. This, of course, had quite an effect on me as an 12 year-old myself. Historically, however, whether or not Richard ordered the murders has long been in dispute. Shakespeare’s portrait of Richard, the last of the Plantagenets, was based on rumors of the day supporting the legitimacy of the Tudor claim to the throne. The then 27 year-old playwright was in the employ of Elizabeth I whose grandfather Henry VII, the first Tudor king, usurped the crown from Richard at the bloody battle of Bosworth causing questions to remain about the Tudors’ legitimate hold on the crown for the three generations of their rule. The Virgin Queen would be the last of the Tudors. The royal succession fell to her father’s sister’s son, the Scottish King James, the first of the Stuarts.

Historically accurate or not, the play and the film make for extraordinary theatre. This is Olivier’s consummate Shakespeare performance on screen. He is given terrific support by Ralph Richardson as his coconspirator, the Duke of Buckingham; John Gielgud as his brother, the ill-fated Duke of Clarence; Cedric Hardwicke as his brother and monarchal predecessor, Edward IV; Claire Bloom as Lady Anne and Laurence Naismith as the Lord Stanley. Stanley Baker appears briefly as the Earl of Richmond, Stanley’s stepson and the triumphant Henry VII.

Historical accuracy, or more precisely political correctness, has dogged Juan Antonio Bayona’s film of The Impossible focusing on one family’s survival of the horrific tsunami that overwhelmed the coast of Thailand on December 26, 2004. Much has been made of the fact that the film focuses on a Caucasian family, when most of those killed were native Asians. To boot, the actual family was Spanish, not Scottish. Maybe so, but this is a film that was made by a Spanish director with the full support of the real life woman who experienced it and who was proud to have Naomi Watts impersonate her. Other stories are for other films, this one should be seen as just one of many and judged by what’s on the screen, not what’s not. What is, is quite riveting.

Watts curiously received the film’s only Oscar nomination for the film, which should certainly have been considered for its special effects as well as editing, makeup and sound. Watts, as good as she is, actually has limited screen time. Tom Holland, the 16-year-old actor-dancer who rose to fame in the title role of London’s Billy Elliot – The Musical from 2008-2010, actually has the film’s central role as the oldest of the couple’s three children who must get his mother to safety and look for his father and younger siblings even though he believes they were killed in the initial wave.

Holland was campaigned for a Best Actor Oscar, something he had little chance of securing. He might have fared better had he been campaigned in support, but the actor, who has since made three more films, is likely to be around for some time.

The Impossible is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

If The Impossible came up short at the 2012 Oscars, at least it had its Best Actress nomination to get it into the history books. That was more than could be said for Gus Van Sant’s once promising anti-fracking drama, Promised Land with a screenplay by co-producers and stars Matt Damon and John Krasinski.

The film’s lack of awards traction could be blamed on the film’s late release or lack of campaigning, but truth be told it’s just not really that good.

Damon supplies his usual charm as a high-powered salesman working for a gas company that wants to buy up land in a farming town from which it hopes to extract gas through the hydraulic fracturing of rock layers utilizing pressurized liquid. This method, commonly known as fracking, may be environmentally unsafe, an issue that is raised by respected community resident played by Hal Holbrook. Damon and partner Frances McDormand’s job is made tougher by the appearance of a smooth-talking environmentalist played by Krasinki. There are several twists and turns in the plot that also features Rosemarie DeWitt as a local schoolteacher, but come on, this is Matt Damon making a film on a subject close to his heart. You know how it’s going to turn out. It’s a nice little movie, but nothing really special.

Promised Land is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Alan Cumming and Garret Dillahunt star as a gay couple fighting for the right to adopt a Downs Sydrome teenager in 1979 Los Angeles in Travis Fine’s Any Day Now. The principal actors are terrific, including Isaac Leyva as the boy, and their story is heartbreaking, but it’s more than a bit contrived with all the characters except the leads behaving like non-redemptive morons. The film would have been better served by making at least some of these characters well-meaning if wrongheaded, but no, the actions of the district attorney, the judges and especially the boy’s mother are so ludicrous they seem like something out of an old stage melodrama. The title comes from Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released” soulfully sung by Cumming at the film’s end.

Any Day Now is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Ten year-old Gerald Perreau had been in films for five years when he was re-introduced to audiences as Peter Miles in Lewis Milestone’s 1949 version of John Steinbeck’s Red Pony. The film, adapted from the first of four chapters in Steinbeck’s 1933 novel, features a screenplay by the author and a score by Aaron Copeland. Unable to relate to his parents (Myna Loy, Shepperd Strudwick), the boy looks to a ranch hand (Robert Mitchum) for guidance, especially in the raising of a colt. Louis Calhern co-stars as the boy’s grandfather. Newly released by Olive from Replublic Pictures’ source material, it available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Also newly released from Olive on both Blu-ray and standard DVD are a couple of films noir, Champion and City That Never Sleeps.

Robert Rossen’s 1949 film, Champion, is better known, but not necessarily the better of the two films. Nominated for six Oscars including Best Actor Kirk Douglas and Best Supporting Actor Arthur Kennedy, the film won one for Best Editing.

Douglas had his first solo over-the-title billing in the film and delivers a virtuoso performance as a heel who rises to the top of the fight game while stepping on the toes of everyone who got him there, including brother Kennedy, manager Paul Stewart and three women, one good (Ruth Roman), one bad (Marilyn Maxwell) and one in-between (Lola Albright). It was hot stuff in its day, and still packs a wallop, but has been overshadowed by numerous similar films since.

John H. Auer’s 1953 film, City That Never Sleeps remains fresh and engaging. It’s an interesting study of one night in the life of America’s second city – Chicago, which is narrated by the city which comes to life in the guise of Chill Wills who is there to protect honest cop Gig Young and keep him from turning bad. Believe me, it’s better than it sounds – much better, thanks to Steve Fisher’s taut screenplay, Auer’s tight direction and the performances of Young, Mala Powers, William Talman, Edward Arnold and especially Marie Windsor in one of her signature bad girl roles.

This week’s new releases include Silver Linings Playbook and the Blu-ray upgrade of Funny Girl.