Kurt Russell

CHICAGO – As far as kiddie tearjerkers go, “The Fox and the Hound” is one of Disney’s finest. It’s not a great film, and certainly not in the same league as the watershed game-changers that came before or the renaissance masterworks that followed. But it is a tender and bittersweet fable with a message of refreshing complexity. At its heart is a friendship that society has deemed unsustainable, and the film doesn’t shy away from its troubling repercussions.

CHICAGO – Our younger readers may find it hard to believe that John Carpenter was once one of the most inspiring filmmakers in the world. He’s still one of the truly influential voices of the ’70s and ’80s despite the tragedy that has been his career for the last couple decades. Save for the occasional flare-up (“Masters of Horror: Cigarette Burns,” “In the Mouth of Madness”), Carpenter’s work has barely resembled his prime. For proof, check out the still-amazing and timeless “Escape From New York,” now available on Blu-ray for the first time.

CHICAGO – There is no Blu-ray justice. The great “Escape From New York” sits unavailable in HD, along with dozens of other great movies of its era, but the vastly inferior sequel “Escape From L.A.” lands on the format this week. “L.A.” isn’t a horrible film, but it works mostly because of the goodwill created by love for the original, which makes that film’s unavailability on the format all the more bewildering.

CHICAGO – When Wolfgang Petersen’s “Poseidon” crashed and sank in the wave of summer hits of 2006 — making only $60 million domestically on a reported budget of $160 million — I thought the film got an undeserved bad rap (and it actually did much better internationally). It’s no classic and my love for the Irwin Allen era disaster films might have disguised some flaws but it looks and sounds great on Blu-ray.