South Africa’s Neill Blomkamp hit the big time with 2009’s epic science fiction film, District 9 which took in more than $115 million at the U.S. box office alone and went on to receive four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and one for writer-director Blompkamp and co-writer Terrri Tatcehll for Best Adapted Screenplay. His follow-up film, 2013’s Elysium, a Matt Damon-Jodie Foster starrer set on a man-made space station in the year 2154, took in more than $92 million at the U.S. box office despite mixed reviews but received no Oscar nominations. His most recent film, Chappie, proved to be a box office bomb, taking in less than $32 million at the U.S. box office earlier this year.

Chappie is a mixed bag. It mixes mind-numbing ultra-violence with a sweet story about a nerdish inventor (Dev Patel) and his smarter-than-human robot “Chappie” (voiced by Blomkamp regular Shalto Copley). Hugh Jackman has a supporting role as Patel’s nefarious co-worker and Sigourney Weaver is pretty much wasted as the CEO of Patel and Jackman’s company which specializes in making the robots which have replaced humans as the mainstay of the Johannesburg police force in 2016.

Chappie is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Generally regarded as Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, 2001’s Spirited Away has finally been given a Blu-ray upgrade by the Disney Studios. Disney, which has released most, if not all, of Miyazaki’s animated Japanese films theatrically and on home video, has already provided stunning Blu-rays of 1989’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, 1997’s Princess Mononoke, 2004’s Howl’s Moving Castle, and 2013’s The Wind Rises.

The Oscar-winning Best Animated Feature of 2002 (the year of its U.S. release) is a magical story about a sullen 10-year-old girl whose life is turned upside down when she wanders into a world of gods, witches and spirits. There she meets a boy who helps her break the spell that has turned her parents into pigs and held them captive on their way to their new home in the suburbs. While the film might scare little children, it provides a myriad of pleasures for older children and adults.

Kino Lorber has released upgraded Blu-rays of The Boys in the Band, The Onion Field, and Malice.

Of all the intense stage dramas of the 1960s, three stand out – Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Frank Pierson’s The Subject Was Roses, and Mart Crowley’s The Boys in the Band. All three were made into unforgettable films. 1966’s Woolf earned Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis Oscars, and Richard Burton and George Segal nominations. 1968’s Roses earned Jack Albertson an Oscar, previous winner Patricia Neal a nomination, and made a star of Martin Sheen. 1970’s The Boys in the Band received no major nominations or wins for any of its cast members, probably because they were all so good it would be difficult to single one out, although the off-Broadway Obie Awards did single out Cliff Gorman for his role in the play.

The play and William Friedkin’s film made from it with the celebrated stage cast received strong notices when first reviewed but went out of fashion in the post-Stonewall era in which the mostly self-loathing gay characters were deemed stereotypically maudlin. It regained its reputation in 1990s after several of its cast members had died of AIDS. Although most of the actors are best known for their performances here, several were major stars beyond the play and film.

Kenneth Nelson was the original boy in off-Broadway’s long-running The Fantasticks. Leonard Frey received an Oscar nomination for the following year’s Fiddler on the Roof. That same year Cliff Gorman won a Tony for Lenny in the role that would earn Dustin Hoffman an Oscar nomination on screen. Laurence Luckinbill and his wife Lucie Arnaz won a 1993 Emmy for producing a documentary about his famous in-laws, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Based on the true story of two police officers (John Savage, Ted Danson) who make a routine traffic stop only to be confronted by two vicious killers (James Woods, Franklyn Seales), Harold Becker’s The Onion Field from Joseph Wambaugh’s book was one of the most disturbing films of the late 1970s. James Woods’ chillingly effective performance as the more dangerous of the two killers remains his greatest screen performance. John Savage, fresh on the heels of The Deer Hunter and Hair, is also at his peak.

Becker’s 1993 film, Malice was one of the slickest thrillers of its time. Third billed Bill Pullman has the principal role of the New England college dean suspected by policewoman Bebe Neuwirth of being a serial killer of his female students. Top-billed Alec Baldwin is a swaggering hot shot young doctor; Nicole Kidman is Pullman’s wife, a former student of his who is unhappy that he has rented a room to Baldwin; and Peter Gallagher is a slick lawyer while Gwyneth Paltrow is disposed of quickly as a murder victim. Anne Bancroft and George C. Scott have cameos. Nothing is what it seems to be at first blush.

Twilight Time has released upgraded Blu-rays of The Young Lions, The Night of the Generals, and State of Grace.

Irwin Shaw’s The Young Lions was, along with Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (both 1948), and James Jones’ From Here to Eternity and Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny (both 1951), one of the four voluminous best-selling novels about World War II made several years after the war. They were filmed with diminishing returns. From Here to Eternity, which was filmed first in 1953, was made into a landmark film that won numerous Oscars. The Caine Mutiny, which was made second, won a slew of nominations but no Oscars. The Young Lions, which took two years to make, was released in March 1958 and earned three Oscar nominations. Never on DVD in the U.S., The Naked and the Dead was released in October 1958 to mixed reviews, receiving no major awards recognition.

Fittingly, the Oscar nominations for The Young Lions were all in technical categories. The nearly three-hour movie, directed by Edward Dmytyrk who also directed The Caine Mutiny, unfortunately doesn’t really grab you. It is a series of vignettes about three soldiers, one German, two American, who meet at the climax of the film when one is shot dead by one of the others. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin are the soldiers. Liliane Montevecchi, Hope Lange, and Barbara Rush are the women who love them. Maximilian Schell is a particularly nasty Nazi and May Britt is his unfaithful wife.

Released in February 1967, Anatole Litvak’s The Night of the Generals met with mixed reviews at the time, but holds up extremely well. Omar Sharif is the conscientious German Major investigating German Generals Peter O’Toole, Donald Pleasance and Charles Gray are German generals, one of whom is a serial killer of prostitutes. Tom Courtenay is an innocent driver caught in the middle, Coral Browne is Gray’s nasty wife, and Joanna Pettet is their daughter in love with Courtenay.

Phil Joanou’s 1990 film State of Grace is a forerunner of the better known 2006 Oscar winner The Departed, but is just as compelling in its own right. Set in New York’s changing Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, Sean Penn stars as an undercover cop whose girlfriend (Robin Wright) is the sister of the Irish Mafia brothers he is investigating (Gary Oldman, Ed Harris). John Turturro is another undercover cop. Burgess Meredith has a cameo.

This week’s new releases include the Criterion Editions The Fisher King and The Bridge.