A Midnight Clear has finally been given a U.S. Blu-ray release by Shout Select.

The anti-war film directed by former actor Keith Gordon (Dressed to Kill) has been a cult favorite ever since its debut in April 1992. Taken from the novel by William Wharton (Birdy, Dad) with a screenplay by Wharton and Gordon, the story about American and German soldiers coming together just before the end of World War II, is based on a true story in which the names have been changed “to protect the guilty” according to Wharton.

The film is narrated by Ethan Hawke who stars in the film with Kevin Dillon, Gary Sinise, Peter Berg, Frank Whaley, Arye Gross, and John C. McGinley. The commentary track by Gordon and Hawke is imported from a previous release. “A New Look Back at A Midnight Clear” with Gordon, Hawke, Whaley, and Gross is provided as an extra.

Shout Select has also released an upgraded Blu-ray of Sidney Lumet’s last film, 2007’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead about family dynamics involved in a robbery gone wrong. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke star as brothers with Albert Finney as their father, Rosemary Harris as their mother, Marisa Tomei as Hoffman’s wife, and Amy Ryan as Hawke’s ex-wife with Michael Shannon and Brian F. O’Byrne in key supporting roles.

Lumet’s commentary and a making-of documentary from the previous Blu-ray release are included. The director, whose films ranged from 12 Angry Men to The Verdict, died in 2011. New extras include “Best Last Film,” an interview with Ethan Hawke, and “A Dark Story,” an interview with screenwriter Kelly Masterson (Snowpiercer).

Paramount has released long overdue Blu-rays of Atlantic City and On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.

1980’s Atlantic City is the better of the two films, by far. Nominated for five Oscars including Best Picture, Actor (Burt Lancaster), Actress (Susan Sarandon), Original Screenplay (John Guare), and Direction (Louis Malle), it failed to win any. It did, however, win numerous awards from other organizations including a New York Film Critics award, a National Society of Film Critics award, and a BAFTA for Lancaster.

Atlantic City provided Lancaster with his fourth and final Oscar nomination. It also provided him with his third New York Film Critics award. His previous wins were for From Here to Eternity and Elmer Gantry, for which he won his only Oscar. It provided Sarandon with the first of five Oscar nominations. She would win on her fifth nomination for Dead Man Walking.

For Malle, it was the second of three nominations, albeit his only one for direction. His other two, for 1971’s Murmur of the Heart and 1987’s Au Revoir les Enfants, were for writing. For noted playwright Guare, whose credits include Six Degrees of Separation, it would be his only nomination.

Lancaster is at his best as an aging small-time gangster who is reduced to selling numbers tickets and caring for the widow of his former mob boss (Kate Reid). Sarandon, a surprise Best Actress nominee, was expected to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress instead. She plays the casino employee whose sleazy gangster husband (Robert Joy) returns with his pregnant girlfriend who just happens to be her sister played by Hollis McLaren.

Atlantic City itself is also a character that we see changing before our eyes. Old buildings are demolished and casinos, the hope of the city’s renewed prominence, are being built. Forty years later, Atlantic City is in worse shape than it was then, even before the pandemic.

The film ends on a wistful note that is both hopeful and melancholy at the same time.

1970’s On a Clear Day You Can See Forever had the right pedigree. It was based on a hit 1965 Broadway musical with a terrific score by Burton Lane and Alan Jay Lerner, directed by Vincente Minnelli (Meet Me in St. Louis, An American in Paris, Gigi) starring Barbra Streisand in her third film and third musical. People that like this movie have no idea what they are missing!

Originally intended as a three-hour road show, the film was cut to two hours. It is missing half its delightful score. Of the twelve sung-through songs in the original production, only six are sung in the release version of the film with two inferior songs added. Several of the missing songs were filmed and then cut.

Streisand plays a an exasperatingly dull 22-year-old with ESP (extra-sensory perception) who has lived dozens of previous lives, all of which have been more interesting than her present one. Yves Montand is the doctor who falls in love with one of her past selves. Larry Blyden is her equally dull fiancée. Jack Nicholson plays the son of one of her mother’s ex-husbands, a character not in the original. His part is nevertheless cut to just one inconsequential scene. The dialogue in Lerner’s screenplay, based on his book for the musical, is sadly embarrassingly trite and doesn’t gel with the sophisticated lyrics the same characters sing.

Paul Mazursky earned his fifth Oscar nomination for the screenplay of 1989’s Enemies, a Love Story based on Isaac Beshevis Singer’s novel about a Holocaust survivor (Ron Silver) in postwar New York with three wives (Anjelica Huston, Lena Olin, Margaret Sophie Stein). Like the characters in Mazursky’s previously nominated screenplays for Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Harry and Tonto, and An Unmarried Woman, which earned Oscar nominations for Elliott Gould, Dyan Cannon, Art Carney (who won), and Jill Clayburgh, the colorful performances here earned nominations for both Huston and Olin who are terrific.

Which wife does Silver end up with? The answer is none, and all of them. If you want to find out how, watch the film now available on Blu-ray from Sony.

The Way Back was one of the last films to be released to U.S. theatres before the COVID-19 pandemic closed them. Ben Affleck’s portrayal of an alcoholic construction worker who gets a chance at redemption as a Catholic High School basketball coach is his best since 2006’sHollywoodland.

Affleck and the rest of the cast are fine. The problem with the film is the script, which has too many cliched scenes that go on and on with most of the potent drama crammed into the last fifteen minutes. For that you can blame writer Brad Ingelsby and director Gavin O’Connor. O’Connor has directed some fine films in the past including 2008’s Pride and Glory and 2011’s Warrior, but many of his films, including 2016’s The Accountant, his previous film with Affleck, like this, tend to come up short.

This week’s new releases include new Blu-ray releases of Glengarry Glen Ross and Urban Cowboy.