The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an action-packed comedy co-written by Nicolas Cage superfans Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten, and directed by Gormican. It stars Cage as himself and Cage superfan Pedro Pascal as a Cage superfan who convinces the actor to co-write and produce a film that the two will put together, Craziness ensues, and real life meets fantasy and vice versa.

Cage, who had qualms about playing himself on screen, gives one of his best, most relaxed performances in some time. Although the film references the actor’s action films from the 1990s such as The Rock and Face/Off, it’s the quieter Cage films from his early performances in Rumble Fish and Birdy to his more recent work in Joe and Pig that come through in the film’s many philosophical moments between the action.

Pascal (TV’s The Mandalorian) proves an excellent foil for Cage, and Lily Sheen, the daughter of Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen, last seen as a ten-year-old in 2009’s Everybody’s Fine, makes a welcome return to the screen as Cage’s daughter. Tiffany Haddish as an FBI agent and Neil Patrick Harris as Cage’s agent are along for the ride.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Blu-ray. Extras include deleted scenes and on-screen interviews with the filmmakers

Criterion has reissued two of the all-time greatest films in upgraded versions.

Martin Scorsese’ 1980 film Raging Bull has been given a 4K Blu-ray Ultra HD presentation.

By the end of the 1980s, Scorsese’s film about one-time champion middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta and the volatile temper that destroyed his life, was considered by a composite of critics to be the greatest film of the decade. That wasn’t always the case. The film opened to mixed reviews but even the so-so ones gave high praise to the performances of Robert De Niro as LaMotta, Joe Pesci as his younger brother, and Cathy Moriarty as his wife. Also singled out for praise were Michal Chapman’s cinematography and Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing.

The film was nominated for eight Oscars and won two for DeNiro and Schoonmaker. Pesci, Moriarty, and Chapman were nominated along with the film’s sound technicians as was the film for Best Picture and Director. Scorsese and the film lost to Robert Redford and Ordinary People.

Extras include three audio commentaries, three short programs highlighting the collaborations of Scorsese and DeNiro, and numerous archival interviews with Moriarty and others.

David Lean’s Summertime, the director’s own personal favorite of his films, has long been one of the most requested titles for a Blu-ray upgrade by Criterion and is finally here.

Summertime, as pointed out in Time film critic Stephanie Zacharek’s compelling accompanying essay, is about the duality of loneliness and independence in a middle-aged spinster who spends her life savings on a trip to Venice so that she will have something to look back on in the years to come. It sounds like a tearjerker, but it isn’t.

Lean, free of the constrains of the studio system, bathes the film in light, unashamedly visiting all the places hordes of tourists have been seeking out for centuries and will continue to do so until the island sinks. Katharine Hepburn, in one of her signature performances, has never been better than as the awkward tourist falling in love with a married Italian shop owner against her better judgment. The bittersweet ending in hands of lesser talents than Hepburn and Lean might have left audiences in despair, but not in the way it’s played here with a triumphant Hepburn gloriously waving goodbye as the train pulls out of the station and she begins her journey back to the dregs of her daily life.

Rossano Brazzi (South Pacific) as Hepburn’s paramour and Gaetano Autiero as the street urchin who becomes her guide to the city also provide memorable performances.

Shockingly, the film was only nominated for two Oscars – for Lean’s direction and Hepburn’s performance. Lean and cinematographer Jack Hildyard would only have to wait two years, however, before winning Oscars for The Bridge on the River Kwai. Hepburn, whose nomination was her sixth, would have to wait twelve years before winning her first Oscar since 1933’s Morning Glory for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner on her tenth nomination, followed by her third and fourth on her eleventh and twelfth nominations for The Lion in Winter and On Golden Pond.

Australia’s Imprint has released two British epics on region-free Blu-rays.

Lewis Gilbert’s Damn the Defiant! was the first, albeit least remembered, of three mutiny films released in 1962, the others being Lewis Milestone’s critically trounced remake of Mutiny on the Bounty and Peter Ustinov’s critically adored Billy Budd.

Top-billed Alec Guinness as the ship’s captain and Anthony Quayle as one of the mutineers filmed Damn the Defiant! during hiatus on Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. Second-billed Dirk Bogarde had the film’s actual lead as the ships’ cruel second-in-command. All three are excellent as are those in a supporting cast that includes David Robinson as Guinness’ son and Tom Bell and Murray Melvin as junior officers.

Extras include audio commentary by film historians Barry Forshaw and Kim Newman and on-screen interview with surviving cast members Brian Phelan, Peter Gill, and Roger Mutton.

Hal Wallis was for many years Paramount’s preeminent producer before moving to Universal where he successfully produced Anne of the Thousand Days and Mary, Queen of Scots for Universal. His third was 1973’s The Nelson Affair, which reunited Glenda Jackson as Lady Hamilton and Peter Finch as Lord Nelson two years after their award-winning pairing in John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Jackson and Finch, who had only one scene together in Sunday Bloody Sunday did not get along on this one. Jackson wanted to rehearse, Finch didn’t. Critics of the day were kinder to Finch who dominates the film than they were to Jackson who isn’t as memorable as previous players Corinne Griffith in The Divine Lady and Vivien Leigh in That Hamilton Woman.

Faring better were Michael Jayston (Nicholas and Alexandra) as Nelson’s second-in-command and Dominic Guard (The Go-Between) as Nelson’s young nephew. Both 86-year-old Jayston and 65-year-old Guard provide on-camera interviews for Imprint.

Other extras include a video essay on Jackson’s early career.

This week’s new releases include the Criterion Blu-ray edition of Drive My Car and the Warner Archive Blu-ray edition of The Adventures of Don Juan.