Broken Hearts Gallery (2020/Blu-ray*)/Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 4K (2000/Steelbook/4K Ultra HD Blu-ray w/Blu-ray/*both Sony)/Etruscan Smile (2018/MVD/Lightyear Blu-ray)/Fatima (2020/Universal DVD)/Hands Of God (2000/DVD**)/Mister Roberts (1955/Warner Archive Blu-ray)/Raining In The Mountain (1979/Blu-ray/**both Film Movement)

4K Ultra HD Picture: A- Picture: B+/B+/B+/B-/B-/B/B+ Sound: B/A/B+/B-/B-/B-/C+ Extras: B/B/C-/A/C-/C/A Films: A-/B+/B/A-/B/C+/B+

PLEASE NOTE: The Mister Roberts Blu-ray is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive series and can be ordered from the link below.

The next group of releases are dramas with a little bit unusual or different about them....

Lucy (Geraldine Viswanathan) just broke up with her boyfriend when she found out he was cheating on her and she just so happens to run into Nick (Dacre Montgomery), who is trying to build a hotel and she is suddenly inspired to make an art gallery for the broken hearted. The Broken Hearts Gallery (2020), a place where people can leave their baggage and story behind. What started out as an Instagram idea, word soon spreads and proves she isn't the only one, but everyone has a story or two about heartache and romance.

After discovering her boyfriend was cheating on her, Lucy got drunk and fired from her job and was left crying in the streets of New York. Until she got a lift home from Nick (whom she thought was a Lyft driver at first) while drunk. Nick befriends (unwillingly) Lucy and she learns that he is trying to create his own hotel and she decides to help him and decorate it into an art gallery. There people/romantic hoarders can leave behind their memorabilia of their ex. As they struggle to build, find art, and funding a romance blossoms between Lucy and Nick and she learns being broken hearted is part of life and what makes her herself as well as help her find true love again.

This film was a romance, slightly funny movie about love and the things we do (and keep) from our relationships. The main character was struggling artist looking for the next art nouveau, turning people's broken relationship/emotional baggage into art (proving once again, one person's junk is another person's art).

The 1080p 2.00 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer reflects a solid digital shoot that is consistent and smooth, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix is well recorded and clear throughout this dialogue-based work. Extras include gag reel, behind the scenes and trailers.

Director Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) remains an important film to this day and it's hard to believe it is as old as it is now. A mix of fantasy and adventure, this Oscar darling was praised at its time for good reason. Incredible fight choreography, fantastic production design, and of course an amazing cast, this film beautifully captures the 19th century Chinese period and is top notch filmmaking from a Director with a complex resume of films that are hit and miss. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon 4K is definitely one of Ang Lee's hits and looks even better now that it's on 4K UHD in this collectible steel book edition from Sony that fans will definitely want to grab.

The film stars Chow Yun Fat, Michelle Yeoh, and Zhang Ziyi.

Ultimately a story of romance, the film centers around the Green Destiny Sword - an eloquent and sacred weapon. When the sword gets in the wrong hands of a young and agile female warrior (Zhang Ziyi), it's up to a pair of legendary warriors (Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh) to face her. The warrior is not who or what she seems, however, and has her own complex past riddled with love.

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is presented in an HEVC / H.265 codec in 2160p Ultra High Definition with HDR10 (High Dynamic Range), a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1, and audio tracks in lossless Mandarin Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (with English subtitles) as well as an English-dubbed track in lossless DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1. The film has an incredible score as well with cello solos by Yo Yo Ma that come across nicely. The swooshes and whooshes of the action scenes are on point and overall a noticeable bump in quality from the Blu-ray to the 4K UHD.

Special Features (as they were on the regular 4K version):

Six Deleted Scenes: presented in 4K Ultra HD with High Dynamic Range

In-Depth Retrospective Interviews: Director Ang Lee, producer James Schamus and editor Tim Squyres discuss the making of the groundbreaking film

Introduction to the Film and the Deleted Scenes by Director Ang Lee

"A Love Before Time" Music Video: in English and Mandarin

The Making of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Commentary with Ang Lee and James Schamus

Commentary with Cinematographer Peter Pau

A Conversation with Michelle Yeoh

Photo Gallery

and a Theatrical Trailer

Even if you aren't a huge fan of foreign films, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is pretty enjoyable to watch and has incredible action sequences that can't be ignored. The 4K UHD version here is even better than the previous Blu-ray release and a worthy upgrade.

Brian Cox stars in the heartwarming feel good drama, The Etruscan Smile (2018), the story of a native Scotsman who travels from Scotland to San Francisco in order to seek medical treatment. Upon arriving and meeting his son and his family in America, he decides to live life to the fullest in this last two months of life, and attempt to repair the wrongs he made before his demise.

The film also stars Rosanna Arquette, J.J. Feild, Thora Birch, Tim Matheson, Peter Coyote, and Treat Williams with direction by Mihal Brezis and produced by six-time Academy Award-winner Arthur Cohn.

The Etruscan Smile is presented in 1080p on Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC (22.98 Mbps) codec and a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and lossless English DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit) and English: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 16-bit). The film is beautifully photographed and translates fine to disc.

Special Features: Trailers for other Lightyear releases

Similar to The Bucket List and other films of that native, the main attraction to this film is a charming performance by Brian Cox. The presentation on disc is perfectly fine for the Blu-ray format and worth checking out.

1917, in the small town of Fatima, Portugal, 3 children, a 10-year-old girl and her 2 cousins had multiple visitations of the Virgin Mary, telling them the future and that through prayer and suffering will only bring an end to WWI. Soon news of the children's visitation spreads like wild fire drawing religious pilgrims in hopes of a miracle...

In Marco Pontecorvo's Fatima (2020), Lucia (Stephanie Gil) and her cousins Francisco (Jorge Lamelas) and Jacinta (Alejandra Howard) one day are visited by the vision of the Virgin Mary and tells them to visit and pray every month and telling them of the future. In the beginning the adults, church and even the government thought it was just a prank, 3 children with too much of an active imagination. But in a time of war where people need something to believe in and hope, soon Fatima is overrun with religious pilgrims. At first no one, not even the children's parents or priest believed in them, but as the children's visitations continued what if they weren't lies, only the 3 could see and hear the Virgin Mary... and what if it was all true?

This was a very spiritual and emotional moving film, how 3 children who prayed and caused a movement that others tried and couldn't stop. It questions those who believe and those who don't, asking, "What is faith?"

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image and lossy Dolby Digital 5,1 sound mix are as good as they can be for this format, just watchable enough, though why no Blu-ray? Extras includes Andrea Bocelli: The Making of "Gratia Plena", Vision of the Director, Meeting the Seers of Fatima, Meeting the Cast, Making of the Miracle, Behind the scenes, Set Design and Art and Costume Design.

From executive producer Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men, Gravity) comes an insightful documentary called Hands of God (2020) also known as Throwing Bombs in Baghdad - which is the true story of the Iraqi Olympic boxing team who defied ISIS and made desperate attempts to qualify for the Olympics despite a country in turmoil. The film shows their rigorous training, competitions, and friendship despite the odds against them that is sure to inspire athletes and non alike.

The film is directed by Riccardo Romani and features Waheed Abdulridha Waheed, Jafaar Abdulredha Ali, Haider Ahmed Sabry, and Saady Tariq Mouhammed.

Hands of God is presented in anamorphically enhanced standard definition on DVD with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix in Arabic with English subtitles. The documentary feature is nicely and very professionally produced and up to par with festival qualifying titles. Compression issues are evident in the disc and the norm for the format.

The only extras are the Trailer for the film itself and other Film Movement releases.

John Ford and Mervin LeRoy's Mister Roberts (1955) is based on the hit Broadway play with Henry Fonda repeating his stage success as the title character, stuck between a mixed crew and aa bitter Captain (James Cagney in a thankless role, totally fired up in it) during a mission to supply other ships, et al. He also has a friend in Doc (William Powell, in sadly his last movie role) and is a veteran himself. The interplay between the various characters is fine and the film is somewhat realistic (no battles occur on screen, though we hear about other issues abroad) and it may seem stage-safe) but it is all built up well for the widescreen frame.

Jack Lemmon sometimes steals the show as an opportunistic Ensign who has all kinds of ideas and other ideas instead of what might benefit all the WWII best, which won him his first Oscar. I had not seen the film for a very long time and was not its biggest fan, plus the War genre tends to be pretentious at times, but I think the film is worth a good look and the performances even outdo some of the script points. I cannot say it is a classic to me, but it is a film trying to say a a few things and it usually succeeds in this well. Philip Carey and Ward Bond are among the supporting cast.

The 1080p 2.55 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer can show the age of the materials used and is yet another great restoration by Warner of a back catalog title that looks as good as it will likely ever look. Shot on Eastman Color 35mm negative, lensed in the early, older, wider CinemaScope format and processed by Warner in their own WarnerColor process, you get some fine results throughout despite flaws here and there. In some cases, there is little they could do, but in most, the restoration is impressive. This extends to the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix expanding on the 4-track magnetic soundmaster that seems to have survived well and was used in the best presentations of the film at the time. Yes, it has some sonic limits, but it also has traveling dialogue and sound effects retained here. Well enough.

An Original Theatrical Trailer and scene-specific commentary by Jack Lemmon are the extras.

A monastery master abbot is choosing his next successor and invited the local esquire, general governor and even a reformed criminal to help with choosing. However, all of them are really after the sacred scroll within and have plans and trying to manipulate, lie, cheat and steal the election and sacred scroll. In the end is it most clever who wins or who is most worthy to get the scroll?

In King Hu's Raining In The Mountain (1979), an old abbot monk is passing away, but before he can do so he must choose his successor and invites various people to help with his choice ...or is he testing them? Each 'advisor' has their own candidates (and thieves), each one plans to either manipulate the selection or steal the scroll within the walls. However, it proves harder to steal the scroll when the abbot leaves it open for all to see instead of locked away. But when the elder abbot chooses the former criminal to be the next head abbot, it surprises both the governor, the esquire and not to mention pisses off all the monks at the temple. The former abbot chooses the former criminal because he was the only one who renounced all worldly materials and he doesn't care about power or position. After a chase, the new abbot decides to destroy the scared scroll and remove the cause of their temptations.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer can show the age of the materials used and is a 2K restoration, so it is not 4K and the 35mm materials used needed much work, but sometimes it looks great. Just expect some down moments visually. The Mandarin PCM 2.0 Mono lossless mix on Ariadne is as good as a production of this age that is somewhat of an orphan film can be. It shows its age, but has been fixed as much as possible.

Extras include Treasure of the Spirit, audio commentary with a critic and booklet.

The film is a classic of what Asian movies used to be, teaching Buddhist values as well as a bit of drama and martial arts. We're lucky it survived this well.

To order the Mister Roberts Warner Archive Blu-ray, go to this link for them and many more great web-exclusive releases at:

http://www.wbshop.com/

- Nicholas Sheffo (Roberts), Ricky Chiang (Broken, Fatima, Raining) and James Lockhart

https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/