Home Theater: What to watch from your bunker.

It's your bi-weekly blend of tasty new releases on DVD/Blu-Ray and the ever shifting entrees from streaming services. I'm totally depressed about the state of the world today as we head to another round of catastrophic primaries tomorrow but let's jump right in.

NEWISH ON DVD/BLURAY

• Alvin & Chipmunks 4 - a sure sign of the apocalypse
• The Big Short - about the financial apocalypse
• Brooklyn - wonderful escape from awfulness of everything
• Carol - masterpiece. hope it survives the fires
• Grease: Live! -nobody will be doing the handjive in hell
• In the Heart of the Sea - we are all Chris Hemsworth, deluding ourselves
• Macbeth -that damn spot will never come out, lady!
• The Peanuts Movie - tfw you're Charlie Brown
• Sisters - the sinkhole is a metaphor
• Victor Frankenstein - again?
• Game of Thrones S5 - everyone dies
• Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt S1 - that bunker is looking smart right about now.

NEW TO STREAMING
• Netflix: Zac Efron in Charlie St Cloud, Tom Hanks in Larry Crowne and Daredevil S2 all on March 18th
• Amazon Prime: The Internet's Boyfriend and also Garrett Hedlund in Mojave (March 22nd) and the visceral gripping '71 (March 27th) about The Troubles starring Jack O'Connell. You should see that. 

LAST CHANCE TO STREAM
You know how we do. We've freeze framed each movie somewhere random after the jump...

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Vintage 1954: Brando, Monroe, Godzilla, and Much More...

"Can Marlon Brando Be Tamed?" - the answer, as the next 50 years taught the world was an unequivocal "No."1954 is our "Year of the Month" and this post was fun to research. People who only care about 'the now' are really missing out. Movie tickets were only 70 cents. Can you imagine?

We'll announce the panelists for the Supporting Actress Smackdown (August 30th) on Tuesday. But until then let's marinate a little in the year that was.  

BEST MOVIES ACCORDING TO...

Oscar:
On the Waterfront (12 noms / 8 wins)
The Country Girl (7 noms | 2 wins)
The Caine Mutiny (7 nominations)
Seven Brides For Seven Brothers (5 noms | 1 win)
Three Coins in the Fountain (3 noms | 2 wins).

Just outside the Best Picture shortlist looking in was surely Billy Wilder's wonderful and funny Sabrina and maybe the airplane drama The High and the Mighty (both with 6 noms | 1 win). Probably not just-misses as they were not totally loved but definitely prestigious / respected were two musicals, the awesome A Star is Born (6 nominations) which should have definitely been there and which in fact won both the acting Globes for comedy/musical and the historic Carmen Jones (2 nominations). It's always worth noting that only beginning in the 80s were musicals like rare unicorns. There were 22 musicals released in 1954! It was just another type of movie with hits and misses like any other film genre for the first 50 years of sound cinema.

Golden Globe: (drama) On the Waterfront (comedy/musical) Carmen Jones

Cannes: Gate of Hell  (Japan) took the Palme D'Or and after opening in the US in December and Oscar nomination for Costume Design and an Honorary Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (before that category was created)

List-Mania continues with music hits, debuts, and adorable "born in '54" people after the jump...  

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Team Top Ten: Best Sci-Fi Films (Pre-1977)

Amir, welcoming you back to Team Top Ten! We are returning after a long hiatus with not one, but two top ten lists for April. In connection to our theme of the week, Artificial Intelligence on the big screen, we are here to celebrate science fiction cinema. As with the horror genre and to help ourselves a bit by narrowing down our options, we're cutting the list in two halves. Our dividing point is 1977, when two of the cinema's most enduring science fiction films were released: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars ushering in an era of huge advances in popularity and visual effects technology. And yes, those are both science fiction films and your contrarian arguments will not be heard.

We were spoilt for choice for the second part of this poll, for the simple reason that far more science fiction films have been produced since 1977 than before it. Still, this first list is comprised of eleven films that have all become part of the canon and among the best in film history in any genre. Without further ado...

Team Experience Top Ten
Best Science Fictions Film Produced Before 1977...

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Poster Madness! The Best of 2014

Glenn here with my now annual list of the best movie posters of the year. I should apologize for being so tardy with this, but I've been working on a big non-movie-related project that took precedent. Never mind that though because we're back. Last year logged the first time that I dragged my lil ol' list of the year's best movie posters over from my own blog onto The Film Experience we're back to see what'll win this year. Last year the honor went to Spring Breakers and this year was no less fierce. I have once more assembled an... eclectic list of films ranging from French orgy dramas and Christian religious flicks to British sci-fi and obscure horror titles.

I have tried to keep the posters featured within down to American 2014 theatrical/VOD releases only. That means designs that emerged online as much as 18 months ago can be on here if the film was only released this year (hi Nymphomaniac!). Likewise, designs for 2015 releases that are already hanging in cinema foyers do not feature - I'm going to spend the next year tossing and turning over whether this hilariously unsubtle phallic poster for Fifty Shades of Grey is actually good or completely terrible. Having said that, being an Australian means I have snuck few Aussie films on the list because, I guess, my list my rules. I should also point out that, just like last year, the lack of many big budget blockbusters on the list isn't my contrariness popping up (my lonely passions are now a thing), rather it's just proves that so many working for Hollywood studios would be absolutely lost without the billions of dollars that they take for granted and the audiences that flock to their movies like sheep.

Follow me as I count down the best posters of 2014!

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Live from Comic Con: Teasing Crimson Peak, Godzilla 2, Blackhat

Anne Marie still here in Hall H at San Diego Comic Con, delivering unto you the major studio announcements via an increasingly busy LTE signal. Legendary Pictures was up after WB, ready to deliver on its name. Here's what it brought.

Godzilla 2
Despite the fact that Godzilla isn't even on DVD yet, Legendary rolled out an announcement that the King of Monsters would get a round two. Via recorded message, director Gareth Edwards thanked congoers for inspiring Legendary to make the film two years ago, and for ensuring its success. Then, they revealed the identities of Godzilla's next three adversaries: Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidora. That's 4 monsters for the price of one. Will Legendary be stretching its 100 ton supermonster too thin?

Michael Mann's thriller and Guillermo del Toro all-star Crimson Peak cast after the jump...

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