A limited number of new DVD were released the day after Christmas. The small number of new titles is no problem when there are a few very good selections you can pick up.
• “Manhunt: Unabomber”: Two of the most dominating images at the end of the 20th century were a police artist’s sketch of a hooded man wearing sunglasses who would be tagged the Unabomber by the FBI, and the actual photo of the scruffy man captured for sending bombs to universities and airlines, Ted Kaczynski. They represented the focus of the massively expensive manhunt waged to find the man who mailed and planted bombs across the country from 1978 to 1995.
The story serves as the basis for the new release that originally aired as a Discovery Channel miniseries starring Sam Worthington and Paul Bettany. Through eight episodes, the tale is told of how a new FBI profiler with a knack for linguistics finally helped bring the man who terrorized the nation for 17 years to justice.
“Manhunt: Unabomber” is a very different role for Worthington, whose past works include action-heavy productions such as “Clash of the Titans,” “Terminator Salvation” and “Avatar.” He finally gets to show he can play a character who’s deeply flawed, full of uncertainties and desperate for attention.
Equally good is Bettany, who reveals tiny glimpses of madness in Kaczynski, but generally plays him as a man desperate to understand human interaction after living through a life that continuously stripped away any last bits of humanity he had.
• “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”: After a production delay, the rerelease of the 1991 feature from James Cameron is now scheduled to hit stores. The film is best remembered for how Cameron teamed with Industrial Light & Magic to produce the liquid metal special effect that allowed the murderous robot from the future, T-1000 (Robert Patrick), to morph into multiple shapes.
Cameron went back to the basics with “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” by taking the original negative and making a 4K digital transfer to make the images look as clear as possible. Cameron even called on the original “T2” director of photography, Adam Greenberg, to make sure the color work was as near to the original as possible.
The one thing Cameron didn’t have to worry about was the quality of the story of a robot from the future sent back in time to save the person who would one day lead humans in a war against the machines. “Terminator 2” has been constantly heralded as a great action movie, but Cameron stresses that at the heart this is a “nuclear family drama.”
Also on DVD
• “The Mountain Between Us”: Two strangers must rely on each other to survive the extreme elements of a remote snow-covered mountain. Idris Elba and Kate Winslet star.
• “Acceptable Risk”: The thriller follows a woman (Elaine Cassidy) as she begins to realize how little she knew about her husband before he was murdered.
• “Jeepers Creepers 3”: The creeper returns to start a new killing spree.
• “Killing Gunther”: Group of young assassins hires a documentary crew to have undeniable proof that they’re the ones who will kill the most infamous hit man of all time, Gunther (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
• “Mayhem”: Virus turns white collar workers into killers. Steven Yeun stars.
• “Revolt”: Soldier joins the fight against aliens who have arrived on Earth.
