Animated features are generally not my favorite type of film. I am more drawn away from films with “movie” in the title than drawn to them. The word in the English language I find most abhorrent is “awesome”. These are three reasons why The Lego Movie shouldn’t work for me, but surprisingly does.

The film, an unexpected world-wide box office phenomenon earlier in the year, is the tried and true tale of the reluctant hero who excels beyond all expectations when the going gets tough, wrapped up in new surroundings. The surroundings are those of Dutch toy manufacturer Lego’s world. The hero is a figurine, a construction worker in that make-believe world; the principal villain a powerful businessman who controls that world, a sort of animated version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

The action sequences are a bit monotonous but are delivered with self-effacing humor rendering them almost charming. The use of the word “awesome” is given an extremely satisfying send-up. The impossible to dismiss song, “Everything Is Awesome”, meant to lull the figurines into cheerful submissiveness, is quite infectious. It could well turn out to be the front-runner for this year’s Oscar for Best Song.

The voice work is impressive with Chris Pratt and Will Ferrell handling the main roles. They are ably supported by the voices of Elizabeth Banks as the refreshingly fearless heroine; Will Arnett as superhero Batman who also figures in the plot; Liam Neeson as a good cop/bad cop and Morgan Freeman as a benevolent prophet/philosopher among many others.

The Lego Movie is available on 3-D Blu-ray; 2-D Blu-ray and standard DVD. Extras include a making-of documentary and yes, an “Everything Is Awesome” sing-a-long.

Wes Anderson is generally considered an acquired taste. His movies beguile and entrance a select audience while leaving others scratching their heads wondering what all the fuss is about. His latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel is both the most complex and the most accessible of his films to date.

Anderson’s most memorable comedy-dramas such as The Royal Tenenbaums; The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom place their razor-sharp focus on families with all their quirks on vivid display. The hotel’s concierge (Ralph Fiennes) and lobby boy (Tony Revolori) of The Grand Budapest Hotel may not be family in the traditional sense but their close bond is just as strong as those in Anderson’s dysfunctional family sagas. Both Fiennes and Revolori give award-worthy performances. Also earning high marks in the acting department is Adrien Brody in his strongest performance in years as the principal villain, the son of a wealthy woman (Tilda Swinton) who dies leaving the bulk of her estate to Fiennes.

The film’s framing device, narration from F. Murray Abraham as the elder lobby boy; Jude Law as a young writer and Tom Wilkinson as the older version of the writer enhances, rather than overwhelms the somewhat convoluted plot which also features Mathieu Almaric as a duplicitous hotel employee; Willem Dafoe as Brody’s dastardly henchman; Edward Norton as a sympathetic Nazi; Bill Murray; Harvey Keitel; Saoirse Ronan and many others. The film’s eye-popping production design is easily the early favorite for this year’s Oscar in that category.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. Extras include a making-of documentary.

Independent director David Gordon Green, who made a huge impression with such films as All the Real Girls and George Washington has another critically acclaimed film in Joe. This one is a character study about an ex-con struggling to stay above water as the head of a band of itinerant road workers who becomes the protector of a hard-working 15 year-old trying to escape his abusive father on the outskirts of society in rural America.

The film provides Nicolas Cage with a role that demands his best performance in some time, of which he is more than up to the task as Joe. The film also provides another amazing acting opportunity for Tye Sheridan, the teenage actor unforgettable in The Tree of Life and Mud, as the man-child desperately trying to protect his mother and younger sister from his drunken, shiftless father.

Green cast many of the supporting roles with homeless people including fifty-something Gary Poulter as the father who will do anything for a drink including stealing money from his hard-working son and selling his daughter to riff-raff for $15. Poulter’s seemingly lived-in performance is amazing as well and the film is dedicated to him. He died on the streets of Austin a few months after completing the film.

Joe is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD. Extras include a making-of documentary.

Cohen Media Group has released two films from legendary director Costa-Gavras on Blu-ray. Best known for Z and Missing, the 81 year-old director has not had a commercial hit since 1989’s Music Box. Neither 2012’s Capital nor 2002’s Amen. were box-office titans. Barely released in the U.S., they are, however, worth seeking out.

Capital, in French and English with English subtitles, is a fairly complex tale of an opportunistic writer who rises to prominence in Europe’s most powerful investment bank and upon the sidelining terminal illness of the bank’s CEO is made CEO by the powerful board of directors with ulterior motives.

Gad Elmaleh is excellent as the newly minted CEO with plans of his own and Gabriel Byrne is fine as usual as the American hedge fund owner and principal investor of the Paris bank who is trying to force a hostile takeover of a Tokyo bank for his own evil purposes.

Amen., Costa-Gavras’ last film made primarily in English to date, is the film version of the 1964 Broadway play The Deputy which the director had been trying to make for nearly forty years. Less controversial now than it would have been if made in the 1960s, the film is nevertheless a powerful indictment of Pope Pius XII and other religious leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, as well as political leaders who failed to speak out against the Nazi extermination of the Jews. The Pope feared retaliation against Catholics in Nazi dominated countries, although he did support the hiding of Jews in Catholic churches. American politicians refused to negotiate with the Nazis until the war was won for fear of being seen as soft in Hitler’s eyes. The heroes of the film are an SS officer (Ulrich Tukur) who is horrified by what he sees and the Catholic priest (Mathieu Kassovitz) stationed in Berlin but connected to the Vatican who appeals to the Church hierarchy in vain.

Both films have been newly released on Blu-ray. Capital has also been newly released on standard DVD. Amen. was previously released on standard DVD. Extras include an interview with Costa-Gavras on Capital and the 1995 BBC documentary Pope Pius XII: The Pope, the Jews and the Nazis.

This week’s new releases include the highly anticipated Blu-ray upgrade of A Hard Day’s Night.