TranscendenceTranscendence (Warner, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, Cable VOD) marks the directorial debut of Wally Pfister, Oscar-winning cinematographer for Christopher Nolan. His visual intelligence, however, doesn’t transcend the dead weight passing as a script in this confused science fiction thriller starring Johnny Depp as a computer science genius whose mind is uploaded to an experimental computer program with the potential capabilities of artificial intelligence. Sure enough, once the program loads, the intelligence is off and running through the interwebs, escaping the lab and making a fortune in the markets, enough to fund a secret site in the middle of the desert where… well, this is, after all, a film that opens with the end of the world as we know it, a technology dead zone where the human race becomes squatters in the husks of desolate cities, and flashes back to the events that brought us to this point.

Rebecca Hall stars as Depp’s nearly-as-brilliant but more socially-adept wife who embraces the cyber-Depp, whose voice seeps out of every corner of the wired world and whose digitized face emerges from screen, as if Depp 2.0 is still her husband but in digital form, not really taking over the world, just trying to fix it up to make her dreams of a better world come true. If that’s the case, you gotta give the guy points for going the distance to impress a girl. But the film itself isn’t so much ambiguous on the AI’s real’s identity and motivation as simply sloppy and lazy, straddling flat cliché and unconvincing sentiment without making either convincing. This virtual being of seeming unlimited power, which can sends bazillions of nanobots into the atmosphere and pull the strings on dozens of enhanced human soldiers in a guerrilla war, is faced with a dilemma that confirms that the screenwriter ran out of ideas early on in the screenwriting process. Pfister provides some really arresting imagery as the revolution is fought with nanobots and human drones and technology so advanced that it looks like magic to us, yet fails to make any of it interesting, let alone compelling. Even a solid cast – Paul Bettany as the best friend and nominal point-of-view figure, Kate Mara as the possibly mad anti-technology terrorist, Morgan Freeman as the Morgan Freeman character – can’t make us care what happens to anyone here. Suddenly, just shutting it all down and starting all over again doesn’t sound so bad.

Jeff Michael Vice’s review is here.

Blu-ray and DVD, with the featurettes “What is Transcendence?” and “Wally Pfister: A Singular Vision.” The Blu-ray Combo Pack adds two addition featurettes (“Guarding the Threat” and “The Promise of A.I.”) and three viral videos, and includes bonus DVD and UltraViolet digital copies. Also available on Digital and VOD.

SabotageSabotage (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, Cable VOD) is strange creature, a violent cop thriller from David Ayer that combines the gritty urban sensibility and revenge-movie doom of Ayer’s excellent End of Watch with a high-concept corruption plot and a clumsy star-vehicle lead by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is tasked with playing a papa bear leader to a team of adrenaline-junkie specialists in a DEA tactical unit with military skills and firepower. Their discipline ends when the mission is over, which makes them dangerous and unpredictable. And not particularly likable either, though Mireille Enos is awfully fun to watch as the team’s sole female warrior and most out-of-control element. The rest of the team members are less memorable despite the casting of such genre veterans as Sam Worthington, Joe Manganiello, Josh Holloway, Terrence Howard and Max Martini, and they are certainly less memorable as characters than murder victims.

The film opens with them making off with a drug lord’s fortune during an official police raid and soon afterwards the money disappears and the team members get hunted down and murdered in splattery fashion. This isn’t the spectacular, oversized kind of violence of “Red,” where everything is just a little tongue-in-cheek or at least comic-book unreal. This is all about the meat left behind a death-by-train, the spatter of a bullet wound, and the spewing exit viscera of a head shot, all of it photographed in dripping detail. It all gets pretty numbing, just like Schwarzenegger’s one-dimensional performance. And that love scene with Olivia Williams? I hope she got hazard pay for it.

Blu-ray and DVD with a short, promotional-style “Making Sabotage” featurette, deleted scenes, and two alternate endings. The Blu-ray also includes bonus DVD and UltraViolet digital copies. Also available on Digital and VOD.

blueruinBlue Ruin (Anchor Bay, Blu-ray, DVD), an indie revenge drama from director / writer Jeremy Saulner, stars Macon Blair as a down-and-out guy living out of a rusting car (the blue ruin of the title) who is roused to action when the man who killed his parents is let out of prison. James Rocchi praised the film when it premiered at Sundance: “Gorgeously shot by Saulnier himself, Blue Ruin contains the cool, green-and-dark-and-blue look of trees and rivers and shores, but also the crimson red of blood and the bleak whiteness of exposed bone. There’s silence in much of the film, whether in moments of suspense or moments of quieter interaction, and it’s a terrific example of a film where silence is as important as speech.”

Blu-ray and DVD, with filmmaker commentary, a featurette, deleted scenes and a camera test.

Also new and notable:

HeavenrealHeaven is for Real (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, Cable VOD) is the faith-based drama with Greg Kinnear as a man driven to tell the world that his son (Connor Coruum) came out of surgery with a visit to heaven and a story to tell. Kelly Reilly, Thomas Haden Church and Margo Martindale co-star.

Michael Peña is Cesar Chavez (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital VOD, Cable VOD) in the biographical drama co-starring America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson and John Malkovich.

And Jude Law is Dom Hemingway (Fox, Blu-ray), a newly-freed convict looking to collect on a debt.

VOD / On Demand exclusives:Cuban-Fury-2013-Movie-Poster

Cuban Fury (eOne, Cable VOD), starring Nick Frost as a schlub who learns salsa dancing to woo Rashida Jones, can be seen on Cable On Demand one week before disc release.

Divergent (Lionsgate, Digital HD) isn’t due on disc for two weeks yet but you can buy a digital copy (standard or HD) now.

Also new: The Woman Chaser (Sundance, Digital VOD), the 1999 LA noir starring Patrick Warburton, and the Spanish horror film Cannibal (Film Movement, Cable VOD), which is still playing theaters around the country.

More releases:

The Angriest Man in Brooklyn (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD)AngriestMan
Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD, Digital VOD, Cable VOD)
Make Your Move (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD)
The Returned (Phase 4, DVD)
The Suspect (Well Go, Blu-ray, DVD)
Made in America (Phase 4, Blu-ray)
The Human Race (Arc, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD)
Hoser (Screen Media, DVD)CesarChav
Gangster (Inception, DVD, Digital VOD)
Wet Behind the Ears (Cinema Libre, DVD)
Next Goal Wins (Ketchup, DVD, Digital HD)
Made in America (Phase4, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD)
GMO OMG (MPI, Blu-ray, DVD)
Border Break (GVN Releasing, DVD)
The Perfect House (Wild Eye, DVD)
Love or Whatever (Canteen Outlaws, DVD)DomHem
Antboy (Cinedigm, DVD)
Justin and the Knights of Valour (Arc, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD)
All Cheerleaders Die (Image, Blu-ray, DVD)
Propaganda (MVD, DVD)
Sector 4: Extraction (Lionsgate, DVD, Digital HD, VOD, On Demand)
Mumfie’s Quest: The Movie (Lionsgate, DVD, Digital HD, VOD, On Demand)

TV on disc:

Shogun (Paramount, Blu-ray, DVD)SHoguncap
Wahlburgers: The Complete First Season (Lionsgate, DVD)
Silent Witness: Season One (BBC, DVD)
Silent Witness: Season Seventeen (BBC, DVD)
Dalziel & Pascoe: Season Ten (BBC, DVD)
My Wild Affair (PBS, DVD)
Perfect Shark (BBC, DVD)
Shark Battlefield (BBC, DVD)

Classics and Cult:

The Essential Jacques Demy (Criterion, Blu-Ray+DVD Dual-Format set)JacquesDemycap
Insomnia (Criterion, Blu-ray+DVD Combo, DVD)
The Wind Will Carry Us: 15th Anniversary Edition (Cohen, Blu-ray, DVD)
We’re in the Movies: Palace of Silents & Itinerate Filmmaker (Flicker Alley, Blu-ray, DVD)
Appleseed Alpha (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD)
Witness for the Prosecution (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)
The Scalphunters (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)
Sabata (Kino Lorber, Blu-ray)
Ginger Snaps: Collector’s Edition (Scream Factory, Blu-ray, DVD)WindCaryUscap
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance: Ultimate Revenge Edition (Palisades Tartan, Blu-ray, DVD)
Love in the City (Raro, Blu-ray)
World War I Centennial Commemorative Collection (Warner, DVD)
The Hobbit (1977, animated) (Warner, Blu-ray)
The Return of the King (1979, animated) (Warner, Blu-ray)
Forever Female (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Other Love (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
Detour (Film Chest, DVD)WitnessProsecutioncap
Donnie Brasco (Mill Creek, Blu-ray)
The Legend of Billie Jean (Mill Creek, Blu-ray)
The Last Action Hero (Mill Creek, Blu-ray)
Anaconda (Mill Creek, Blu-ray)
Flatliners (Mill Creek, Blu-ray)
The First World War: The War to End All Wars (The War Zone: Centennial Anniversary Series) (Eagle Rock, DVD)

Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD