New on Blu-Ray/DVD for March 19, 2013 – Discover “The Hobbit’s” journey

There’s some quality films coming out this week starting with Tuesday’s new offerings. This week marks an unusual one as two big releases are being held until Friday so consider this part 1 of the week’s options.

Warner Bros.
[From left] Bifur (William Kircher), Dwalin (Graham McTavish), Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Bofur (James Nesbitt) and Oin (John Callen) in the fantasy adventure “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – Peter Jackson returned to Middle Earth with this prequel to his Oscar-winning “Lord of the Rings” saga. While it had solid 3D, Bilbo Baggins’ story wasn’t as exciting as Jackson’s LOTR films and feels like one book stretched out to three films.

Zero Dark Thirty – Kathyrn Bigelow’s look at the decade long manhunt for Osama bin Laden started as the film to beat when it released in December, but controversy over the torture scenes did it in. Jessica Chastain earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her performance, but the film is largely dry and not worth your time.

Rust and Bone – Just because I can’t seem to catch every film that comes out in a given week (and I was oh-so-close this time) comes this story of a man who bonds with a killer whale trainer (Marion Cotillard, “The Dark Knight Rises“) was a dark-horse contender for a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her role here and she tends to up the quality of any film she’s in so this may be worth a look.