Mike Spring
What’s New in Home Video & Pop Culture – September 1, 2026
We’ve got an interesting mix of releases this week, with a heavy dose of foreign films, but then also a big screen blockbuster or two and a recent semi-hit comedy. Check out the full release slate below!
In This Week’s Column:
- The Mandalorian & Grogu (Blu-ray + Digital)
- Disclosure Day (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
- The Breadwinner (Blu-ray + Digital)
- Tekkonkinkreet (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
- The Magnificent Cuckold (Blu-ray)
- Ten Women in Black (Blu-ray)
- Fatal Flying Guillotine (Blu-ray)
The Mandalorian & Grogu (Blu-ray + Digital)
Official Synopsis:
The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords are scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they enlist the help of Mandalorian Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu. Some flashing lights sequences or patterns may affect photosensitive viewers.
The Movie:
Let me get this out of the way right off the bat: I enjoyed The Mandalorian and Grogu. It’s a fun movie with a lot of action, great special effects, and a storyline that DOESN’T concern the fate of the galaxy, something I find very refreshing. Not every superhero/sci-fi movie always has to be about preventing the end of the universe. So if you saw people on the internet bad-mouthing it as being a terrible movie, ignore them, because it certainly isn’t.
That said, if there’s a major flaw with the movie, it’s that it feels like an extended episode of the TV series. While I give it credit for not being a about a universe-ending threat (which would feel out of place in a Mandalorian movie) there was also a little bit of a sense of, “Why wasn’t this just the fourth season of the show? Did it need to be a big screen motion picture?” Obviously the decent-but-not-great box office grosses seem to confirm that as much as the world at large loves Grogu (that’s Baby Yoda for you normies), most people are pretty content getting to watch him for free with their Disney+ subscription.
Still, as far as Star Wars movies go, it is an enjoyable ride, and there are a couple of nice tributes to the original trilogy that I enjoyed. I would say definitely watch The Mandalorian and Grogu; go in expecting a good time (and not too much more) and you won’t be disappointed.
The Bonus Features:
- Audio commentary with Jon Favreau
- Crafting “The Mandalorian and Grogu”
- Biomes—From Snow to Swamp
- Welcome to Shakari
- Dejarik for Real
Digital Copy Included: Yes
Disclosure Day (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital)
Official Synopsis:
If you found out we weren’t alone, if someone showed you, proved it to you, would that frighten you? Now the truth belongs to seven billion people in an original event film created and directed by Steven Spielberg, from a screenplay by David Koepp, starring Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo.
The Movie:
Steven Spielberg returning to a movie about aliens should be a cause for celebration, right? Right. I think we can all agree on that. But man, I can’t help but feel like I was misled by Disclosure Day’s trailers.
And here’s the thing: I have to be careful how I phrase this, because I don’t want to spoil anything. But what I can safely say is that, while Spielberg has crafted a fine chase movie, it feels a lot like a first act. Like, what I expected to be a driving part of the movie is instead left to our imaginations; the film focuses on getting us there. So what that means is that there are some dazzling action sequences and an intriguing premise, but when it’s over, you kind of find yourself going, “Is that it?”
Now, on the plus side, the film features some excellent performances, especially by two of the leads, Josh O’Connor and Eve Hewson. Hewson (also known as Bono’s daughter) especially shines here, and I expect to see her profile rise quite a bit as a result of her role here. Emily Blunt, on the other hand… I dunno. I really like Emily Blunt and I think she’s a talented actress, but I’m not really sure what she was doing here. Maybe it’s more about the way her character is written and less about her performance, but she is not one of the better parts of the movie, which is something I didn’t expect to ever say.
I also have a major problem with events of the film’s ending. Again, I want to avoid spoilers, but suffice it to say that the actions of the film’s bad guys at the end of the film feel incredibly out of character considering what we watched them do for the previous two hours. I think that contributes to the letdown at the end of the movie.
All in all, Disclosure Day is worth checking out, and there are actually a lot of good parts to it, it just feels like an unfinished or underdeveloped movie.
The 4K Video/Audio:
Not surprisingly, Disclosure Day looks and sounds exceptional on 4K Ultra HD. The image clarity is top-notch, and colors are both brilliant and muted in the way that Spielberg and his crew clearly intended. There’s a sense of desaturation or cooler colors to the movie at times that is how the movie was shot, and that is captured accurately. There’s a nice depth to the imagery as well, and overall the picture quality is quite impressive. The surround soundtrack is constantly active, with the satellite channels offering up constant movement and activity, all while solidly anchoring the dialogue in the center channel. It’s a nice audiovisual experience from top to bottom.
The Bonus Features:
- Encountering the Unknown: Inside Disclosure Day
- Spielberg & Williams: A Legendary Collaboration
Digital Copy Included: Yes
The Breadwinner (Blu-ray + Digital)
Official Synopsis:
Starring record-shattering comedian Nate Bargatze in his first feature film, The Breadwinner stars Bargatze as salesman Nate Wilcox and Mandy Moore as his wife, Katie. To Nate and their three children, Katie is the ultimate mom – she manages their comically chaotic household with equal parts efficiency and love, and everything runs perfectly. But when Katie’s household invention leads to a once-in-a-lifetime deal on Shark Tank and takes her on a prolonged business trip, Nate has to figure out how to keep the house from (literally) falling apart. He and his kids soon learn that while he may not do it like mom, he can figure out how to do it his way. Welcome to the dad era.
The Movie:
When I first saw the trailer for The Breadwinner, I was kind of annoyed. Besides the fact that it looked like a retread of the 1980s Michael Keaton classic Mr. Mom, I was a little irked that we haven’t gotten farther by now. As a dad of twins who spent plenty of time raising them and doing dishes and running laundry and picking them up from school over the years, I found it a little insulting that dads are still portrayed as complete bumbling oafs when it comes to child care in movies. But whatever, I get that it’s a comedy film, and maybe it would be a funny experience.
In fact, not only is The Breadwinner not a funny experience, it’s actually awful. It’s the most insipid, vapid, lazy script for a comedy film I’ve seen in a long time. I’ll give Nate Bargatze a pass for not being a good actor because, well, he’s a stand-up comedian, not an actor. But every single character in the film is flat-out dumb. Like, moronically dumb. The only character who’s not a complete idiot is Mandy Moore as the mom, and her leaving is what sets everything in motion, so she’s not around much. How Bargatze or the film’s producers got so many talented people to be in a movie this poorly written is beyond me, but the cast counts Colin Jost, Will Forte, Kumail Nanjiani, Mandy Moore, Brett Cullen, and Zach Cherry among them.
I honestly didn’t laugh once watching The Breadwinner. I get that Nate Bargatze is incredibly popular as a stand-up comic, but maybe he should stick to doing that and leave writing movies to more talented people.
The Bonus Features:
- Making-of
- Director’s Commentary
- Bloopers
- Deleted Scenes
- Daditude, Sharks and a Horse: Casting The breadwinner
- Extended Short: A Stand-up on Set
- Line-O-Rama
Digital Copy Included: Yes
Tekkonkinkreet (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
Black, a tough and skilled fighter, and his naïve younger brother White, are two orphaned street kids patrolling the slums of Treasure Town. When gangsters threaten to tear down what’s left of the city to build a theme park, the kids are thrown into a nonstop battle to survive, taking on yakuza, alien assassins, and ultimately their own selves.
The Movie:
There is a lot going on in Tekkonkinkreet. Like, a LOT. Heck, even the name of the movie is a lot to take in.
This anime film, now celebrating its 20th anniversary and based on a three-part manga from the early 1990s, is ostensibly about two orphaned street kids patrolling and protecting their city who then have to take on a new enemy. But deeper at its core, it’s also about friendship, love, society, violence, neglect, crime, and the future. And all of that is packed into a two-hour animated film that looks a little bit like if Blade Runner and Akira had a love child and then that love child had a fever dream.
To be fair, the visuals are one of the most impressive parts of Tekkonkinkreet; while I don’t particularly love the animation style for the human characters, the cityscapes and world-building elements are incredible. This is a movie that you don’t just watch, you drink it in. The story might not be as strong as the visuals, but you also might find yourself not caring.
I’ll admit, I’d heard of the film for a long time and was curious to check it out. I can’t say I loved it outright, but I also can’t say I disliked it in any way. It’s a lot to take in and I suspect it will benefit from repeat viewings, but either way, Tekkonkinkreet is a fascinating film accomplishment.
The 4K Video/Audio:
As you would hope, Tekkonkinkreet looks and sounds great in 4K Ultra HD. The colors are deeply saturated and really bring the film to life, while the unique animation style looks crisp and clean. Black levels are deep and inky, and the film just really pops. The surround soundtrack is constantly active and all of the speakers get a full workout between music, crowd noise, sci-fi sound effects, violence, and dialogue. All in all, this is a terrific A/V presentation.
The Bonus Features:
- The Making of Tikkonkinkreet: Director Michael Arias’ 300-Day Diary
- A Conversation with Director Michael Arias and British Music Duo Plaid
- Filmmaker Commentary
- Teasers & Trailers
Digital Copy Included: No
The Magnificent Cuckold (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A happily married businessman (Ugo Tognazzi, Weak Spot) succumbs to the advances of one of his less square, more open-minded female friends. His eyes now open to the rampant adultery among his high-society acquaintances, he is amazed at the ease with which they lie to their loved ones. Soon, he begins to suspect his loving wife (Claudia Cardinale, Girl with a Suitcase) of infidelity – even as she guesses nothing of his own extramarital affair. Antonio Pietrangeli’s luscious adaptation of Fernand Crommelynck’s tale of obsession and delusion skewers the changing mores and tenacious prejudices of 1960s Italian society with style. As the troubled husband’s paranoia takes him ever further away from reality, his fantasies come to life in sumptuous dream sequences, each one a dashing tribute to the radiant charm of Claudia Cardinale.
The Movie:
When I first got my review copy of The Magnificent Cuckold, I wasn’t overly excited, if for no reason other than that a lot of times foreign films from halfway through the last century can be more challenging to watch than, say, The Breadwinner. But when I saw that the film stars Claudia Cardinale, the famed Italian actress and sex symbol, well, let’s just say that I was a little more open minded. Don’t take that the wrong way; I wasn’t just drooling over the lead actress. But I find Cardinale a fascinating figure in cinema (you might know her best from Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West), and having a familiar face in a foreign film can often help make it more accessible.
The Magnificent Cuckold is a product of its time, and I mean that as a compliment. It focuses on a man who becomes convinced that his young and beautiful wife is having an affair simply because so many other people around him are having affairs. And so he basically becomes obsessed with her potential extramarital activities, even while he himself has stepped outside of their marriage.
The film manages to both surprise you and end up exactly where you expect it to at the same time, which I see as a positive. There are some slower moments here are there, but there are also some attitudes and scenes you simply wouldn’t have seen in an American film from the same time period. Ultimately, The Magnificent Cuckold isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s an enjoyable piece of foreign cinema with a legendarily beautiful actress at the heart of it.
The Bonus Features:
- New interview with Italian film expert Richard Dyer
- New visual essay by Italian cinema professor Rémi Fournier Lanzoni
- Alternative colour sequences
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by film critic Phuong Le and archival writing
Digital Copy Included: No
Ten Women in Black (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
A television executive’s nine mistresses conspire with his wife to have him killed. When Miwako, one of the mistresses, tells him of the plot, he decides to fake his own death in front of them all. The women panic and deny that they were ever serious about the murder, while Miwako even takes her own life in remorse. But when they find out the man is still alive, they put their original plan back into action. Given complete creative freedom, Kon Ichikawa made this dark satire that is one of the undiscovered gems of Japan’s cinematic Golden Age. Featuring a stunning cast of Daiei studio divas and striking monochrome photography by Setsuo Kobayashi (Blind Beast), this is a merciless dissection of social relations and gender roles in affluent post-war Japan, scripted by Natto Wada.
The Movie:
Not to be outdone by the Italians (see the review above), Ten Women in Black continues this week’s Radiance Films theme – which is clearly infidelity – and ups the ante. In this movie, our protagonist doesn’t have just one mistress, he has nine of them! NINE!
But in this case, the film is less about love and romantic jealousy and more about murder, as the mistresses conspire with the man’s wife to murder him, only to have him fake his own death when he learns of the plot. But… well, I don’t want to say more, but suffice it to say that the action is just getting started and things progress even further from there.
This 1961 black-and-white crime drama was directed by the revered Japanese director Kon Ichikawa, and it’s such an intriguing premise that the film was remade as a TV movie 50 years later, in 2002. I haven’t seen that version, but I did enjoy this original tale. It’s dark and twisty and has bit of black humor running throughout it. Once again, Radiance has found a hidden gem in the annals of foreign film with Ten Women in Black.
The Bonus Features:
- The Kon Ichikawa Story: a feature-length documentary directed by Shunji Iwai, featuring Ichikawa and his wife and screenwriter, Natto Wada
- Trailer
- Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by Yuka Kimbara
Digital Copy Included: No
The Fatal Flying Guillotine (Blu-ray)
Official Synopsis:
The 1977 head-lobbing martial arts classic, first time ever on Blu-ray featuring a new 35mm scan. Deep in the forbidding Valley of No Return, a reclusive master, driven to madness by his own obsessive training, perfects a nightmarish weapon – the “Lightning Strike,” a savage evolution of the flying guillotine with twin, whirling blades designed for maximum carnage. Any intruder who dares cross into his domain faces instant decapitation with ruthless precision. But when a vengeance-driven fighter (Carter Wong) sets his sights on the valley, seeking justice for his mother’s death, he must confront both the master’s deadly invention and the head-chopping chaos it leaves in its wake.
Arriving cheaply and quickly in the fury of the flying guillotine craze that swept 1970s international martial arts cinema, The Fatal Flying Guillotine taps into the era’s appetite for outrageous kung fu spectacles sparked by the breakout 1976 smash hit Master of the Flying Guillotine. This off-brand Taiwanese entry escalates the formula with its delirious titular weapon variation and near-constant combat – while blending mystical elements, rival factions, double crosses and Buddhist brawls into one of the more kinetic and memorable examples of the short-lived but legendary trend.
The Movie:
Ah, finally a foreign film this week that isn’t about infidelity! In fact, according to the film’s description, The Fatal Flying Guillotine was part of a flying guillotine craze that was big in the mid-70s! I’m not old enough to remember that, but it feels like kind of a niche thing to become popular enough to spawn several movies. But, hey, I kind of get it, too; the flying guillotine is a pretty bad-ass weapon (even if I’m pretty sure they never actually existed), so I can see why people would want to see more of them.
The Fatal Flying Guillotine is apparently something of a B-movie in the genre – although I would argue that most of the movies in that genre are kind of B-movies, no? – but that doesn’t take away from the fun. The story is a pretty typical revenge plot, but surrounding that you get wild guillotine action, martial arts fights, a little bit of magic, and no shortage of just out-and-out violence. I don’t know about you, but if I’m watching a flying guillotine B-movie, that’s exactly what I want!
Visual Vengeance has delivered a nice Collector’s Edition of The Fatal Flying Guillotine, complete with plenty of extra features, plus some neat physical goodies available only in the first pressing. Fun stuff!
The Bonus Features:
- Commentary with Justin Decloux of the Important Cinema Club Podcast
- A Brief History of Flying Guillotine Movies: Video Essay
- Chan Siu-Pang Was There: Video Essay
- Actor Carter Wong Archival Interview
- Chan Siu-Pang: 10 Styles of Tamo demonstration
- Fatal Flying Guillotine: old school ‘Dirty VHS’ version
- Image gallery
- Visual Vengeance trailers
- Folded mini-poster featuring original theatrical art
- Reversible sleeve featuring alternate VHS art
- ‘Stick Your Own’ VHS stickers (FIRST PRESSING ONLY)
- Imitation Decapitation – liner notes booklet by C.J. Lines ((FIRST PRESSING ONLY)
- Lobby card reproduction set (FIRST PRESSING ONLY)
Digital Copy Included: No
