Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool and films about them don’t succeed at the box-office or apparently on home video either.

The film, from Peter Turner’s memoir about the last days of Oscar-winning actress Gloria Grahame, was shown at various film festivals, most notably Telluride and Toronto in September 2017, and opened in the U.K. in November 2017. It was only given a limited release in the U.S. on December 29, 2017. It was recognized by critics’ groups in the U.K. and BAFTA, which gave it nominations for stars Annette Bening and Jamie Bell as well as its screenplay, but the only major U.S. recognition it received was an award from the AARP in their Movies for Grownup Awards. There, Bening was honored as Best Actress over Judi Dench in Victoria & Abdul, Salma Hayek in Beatriz at Dinner, Frances McDormand in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Meryl Streep in The Post. Bell was ineligible for this award as AARP only recognizes people over 50.

The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.K. in March. I reviewed that release in my March 27th report. Sony Pictures Classics has not seen fit to release it in the U.S. on Blu-ray, but it is available now on DVD and streaming. That’s an important distinction. Whereas DVD purchases have waned considerably among serious collectors, Blu-ray has not. General audiences are less apt to give a serious, but overlooked film a try on DVD and serious collectors will often dismiss a film from consideration that is not available on Blu-ray.

Those who miss the film will have missed one of 2017’s best and best acted by Bening and Bell with solid support from Julie Walters, Bell’s dance teacher in Billy Elliot, and his mother here.

Paddington 2, which I also reviewed in my March 27th report upon its March release in the U.K., has now been released in the U.S. on both Blu-ray and standard DVD by Warner Bros. As I said then, this delightful film is one of the rare sequels that is better than the original thanks to its deft mix of live action and animation and the faultless performances of a cast both seen and unseen that includes Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Imelda Staunton, and BAFTA nominee Hugh Grant.

The undying hold of Grease on audiences is something that I have never understood. The 1972 Broadway musical was well diverting enough, and the 1978 film version which includes 14 of the 17 songs written for the stage version, as well as several other songs, is sonically decent enough, but that’s where it ends.

The story, which takes place in 1959, casts 24-year-old John Travolta fresh from the superior Saturday Night Fever, 30-year-old pop goddess Olivia Newton-John, 27-year-old TV actor Jeff Conaway, and 34-year-old stage actress Stockard Channing as high-schoolers. None of them are convincing in their roles, especially Channing who looks and acts like the mother of a teenager trying to act like her 17-year-old daughter. 70-year-old Eve Arden and 72-year-old Joan Blondell, are cast respectively as the school’s principal and a waitress at the diner where the kids hang out. Both iconic actresses are poorly used. Blondell doesn’t have enough to do, whereas Arden is given too much to do. Her famed acid delivery becomes tiresome after a few ill-advised barbs delivered to her assistant played by 66-year-old Dody Goodman.

The worst part of all this, though, is the camerawork. Veteran Bill Butler (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, TV’s The Thorn Birds) certainly knew how to photograph a film, so the fault must lie with director Randall Kleiser who should never have been let anywhere near a musical. What is the point of having intricately choreographed dance sequences in which you never seen the dancers’ feet? There isn’t one.

The 40th anniversary edition Blu-ray is available as a stand-alone or as part of The Grease Collection, which also includes the 1982 sequel, Grease 2, and the 2016 TV production of Grease Live! .

Grease 2, which was a critical and commercial flop, is in my estimation a better film than the original. It was the only film directed by choreographer Patricia Birch who earned the first of her five Tony nominations for her choreography for the original Broadway production of Grease. Unlike Kleiser, she knew how to stage and film dance sequences.

Up-and-comers Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer were in their early twenties, too old to be really convincing as high-schoolers but closer in age to their characters than Travolta and Newton-John were. Peter Frechette, Adrian Zmed, Christopher McDonald, and especially Lorna Loft were no teenagers either, but they could move like they were. Arden, now four years older, is less grating as the principal and Tab Hunter is quite funny as a substitute teacher.

Interestingly, despite the film’s flop, this is listed as the most prominent film of still active Caulfield’s career.

Grease Live! is something I found completely annoying and couldn’t get past the first few scenes.

New-to-Blu-ray releases include Hope and Glory and The Virgin Suicides.

John Boorman’s semi-autobiographical Hope and Glory earned five 1987 Oscar nominations, three of which went to Boorman for writing, producing, and directing. He had previously earned two for producing and directing 1972’s Deliverance. The film, which chronicles a young boy’s life during World War II, also earned several critics’ awards including nods for star Sebastian Rice-Edwards. The ten-year-old was, however, not one of the recipients of the film’s BAFTA nominations, which included fellow actors Sarah Miles, Ian Bannen, and Susan Wooldridge among them. Wooldridge was the film’s only winner.

The film remains a charmer in the Blu-ray release from Olive Films.

Sophia Coppola’s 1999 debut film as a director, The Virgin Suicides, took that year’s Cannes Film Festival by storm, but the film was not released by Paramount Classics until a full year later. Although Coppola would later earn Oscar nominations for writing, producing, and directing 2003’s Lost in Translation, winning for writing, The Virgin Suicides is the film that is still regarded as her greatest achievement.

The film, from Jeffrey Eugenides’ 1983 novel, is a chilling account of a family of five girls, all of whom commit suicide. The film is told in flashback from the perspective of the teenage boys, now middle-aged men, who still don’t understand what happened. Kirst Dunst as the middle girl and Josh Hartnett as her boyfriend are the standouts among the young players, with James Woods and Kathleen Turner as the girls’ parents, Scott Glenn as their priest, and Danny de Vito as the family therapist all turning in fine performances.

Criterion’s 4K restoration is one of their best. The Blu-ray offers a plethora of extras including a 1998 documentary filmed by Eleonor Coppola and new interviews with Dunst, Hartnett, Eugenides, Coppola, and others.

This week’s new releases include In the Fade and Winchester.