One of the silliest disaster movies ever, Brad Peyton’s San Andreas is nevertheless a lot of fun if you don’t take it too seriously.

The film opens with helicopter pilot Dwayne Johnson and team rescuing a woman whose car crashes and rolls down a cliff thanks to her texting while driving in Southern California. It then moves to Nevada where the Hoover Dam is about to be hit by a major earthquake. The head seismologist (Paul Giamatti) determines that there are going to be even bigger earthquakes along the San Andreas Fault. The earthquakes happen, Los Angeles is destroyed and San Francisco is about to be destroyed. Johnson must first rescue ex-wife Carla Gugino atop a crumbling building in downtown L.A. and the two of them must then fly to San Francisco to rescue their daughter (Alexandra Daddario). The daughter, however, must first be rescued from the garage of a downtown San Francisco high rise where her mother’s fiancé (Ioan Gruffudd) has abandoned her. She is, in fact, rescued by a young man (Hugo Johnstone-Burt) she has just met and his precocious young brother (Art Parkinson). Johnson, Gugino and Daddario go through the motions as well as can be expected, but TV actors Johnstone-Burt (Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries) and Parkinson (Game of Thrones) invest their characters with a great deal of charm that wasn’t necessarily in the script. They and the special effects are the best parts of the show.

San Andreas is available on 3D Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD.

The fourth iteration of the popular American Horror TV anthology series, American Horror Story: Freak Story, has been released on Blu-ray and DVD as the fifth iteration, American Horror Story: Hotel, begins airing.

Jessica Lange stars as a second-rate Marlene Dietrich who runs a freak show consisting of the likes of a bearded lady (Kathy Bates), her lobster-handed son (Evan Peters), a strongman (Michael Chiklis), a woman with three breasts (Angela Bassett), the world’s shortest woman (Jyote Amge), and her newest acquisition, conjoined twins (Sarah Paulson in a dual role). Weaving in and out of their various stories are the likes of a murderous clown (John Carroll Lynch); a psychotic mama’s boy (Finn Wittrock) and his mother (Frances Conroy); their maid (Patti LaBelle) and her daughter (Gabourey Sidibe); a pair of con artists (Denis O’Hare and Emma Roberts); a ventriloquist controlled by his dummy (Neil Patrick Harris); a 19th Century murderer who comes back every Halloween (Wes Bentley); and a hustler who begs his killer to finish him off (Matt Bomer).

First there was the 2000 film Billy Elliot, then there was the 2005 London stage musical, Billy Elliot: The Musical, which came to Broadway in 2008, and more recently in 2014 a one-night only theatrical presentation of Billy Elliot: The Musical Live. Previously released outside the U.S. on Blu-ray and DVD, the latter is now available here in both formats.

The musical may well be one of the best of the last decade, but it lacks the emotional pull of the multi-award-winning film. At three hours, the show is too long, with more of an emphasis on the striking miners than the boy who wants to be a dancer. Nevertheless it has a lot to admire, including the exuberant performances of Elliott Hanna as Billy, Zach Alexander as his friend Michael, Ruthie Henshal as his ballet teacher, Deka Walmsley as his father, Chris Grahamson as his brother, and Ann Emery in an expanded role as his grandmother. The dance between Billy and his older self (former “Billy” Liam Mower) is a highlight. The strikers’ anti-government anthem “Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher is unforgettable as is the special ending of the show in which 25 former “Billys” dance their hearts out.

The opposite is true of Aladdin, an emotional tour-de-force on Broadway, but an overall disappointing film in the Disney canon despite the legion of fans commencing with its 1992 box-office success. The film, which has been newly remastered on Blu-ray, was the third in the resurgence of Disney animation that began with 1989’s The Little Mermaid and reached its zenith with 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. Originally conceived by composers Alan Menken and Howard Ashman in the same Broadway style as their previous successes, the direction of the film changed when Ashman died and Tim Rice was brought in to replace him. The genie, originally conceived in the image of Rex Ingram from 1940’s The Thief of Bagdad, was out, as was the film’s best song, “Proud of Your Boy”. Both the original concept of the genie and the song are reinstituted in the Broadway version, where the first appearance of James Monroe Iglehart as the genie and Adam Jacobs’ show-stopping rendition of “Proud of Your Boy” hold audiences in thrall night after night. A documentary on the Broadway musical which is included in the Blu-ray is more satisfying than the actual film.

Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni played against type and comedy director Ettore Scola got serious with 1977’s A Special Day, a major international success about a meeting between a lonely housewife and a gay radio announcer awaiting arrest on the day Hitler came to Italy in 1938.

Loren, in her only role since her Oscar-winning performance in 1960’s Two Women in which she downplays her glamour, plays the mother of six who is expected to wash, cook, clean and be available for sex whenever her priggish husband wants it. Mastroainni, Italy’s leading male star plays a character that is the antithesis of the husband, father and soldier that a man in fascist Italy is supposed to be. Filmed in desaturated color to make it more of a memory peace, with the propaganda about Hitler and Mussolini playing on the radio in the background, the film provides both actors with strong characterizations as Mastroianni raises Loren’s conscience before being carted off by the authorities. Mastroianni’s Oscar nomination was well earned. Loren may well have been nominated as well if the Best Actress field hadn’t been so crowded that year with Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Anne Bancrfot and Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point, Jane Fonda in Julia, and Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl.

The restored Blu-ray special features include new on-camera interviews with Loren and Scola, two half-hour Dick Cavett episodes from 1977 with Loren and Mastroianni, and Loren’s 2014 short film The Human Voice directed by her son.

The fifteenth anniversary Blu-ray edition of Big Eden includes a reunion with the film’s stars, Arye Gross, Eric Schweig, Tim DeKay, and Louise Fletcher who reminisce about the film concerning a gay love triangle, then considered a fairy tale, but now looking like reality. Missing from the reunion are co-stars George Coe who died in July, and Nan Martin who died in 2010.

The film centers on Gross’ character, a closeted gay Montana native who returns to the small town he grew up in to be with his dying grandfather (Coe) while keeping from acting on his feelings for a straight friend (DeKay), not realizing the local store-keeper (Schweig) is in love with him. Kindly local ladies (Fletcher and Martin) provide support. It’s a nice little character study from director Thomas Bezucha who went on to greater success with 2005’s The Family Stone.

In releasing Don Siegel’s gritty 1979 Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz on Blu-ray a year after its 25th anniversary without a special edition is a missed opportunity for Warner Bros. The film from the director of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry, and The Shootist is a strong reminder of what a good director he was and what a good actor Eastwood could be when given the right material.

Eastwood is the mastermind behind the escape of three prisoners from the maximum security island prison which led to the prison’s closure less than a year later. The detail of the preparations is fascinating. Despite the missed opportunity, it’s good-to-have the film, one of Siegel and Eastwood’s best, finally available on Blu-ray at any rate.

This week’s new releases include the Jurassic World and Testament of Youth.