New to Blu: May 8-14

Les Misérables tops a lacklustre, if not outright miserable, week for new Blu-ray releases.

Whether or not you like musicals, you’ll love Les Mis’ HD transfer.

“The visuals here are absolutely stunning … This movie has some big time production values that are perfectly rendered on screen.”

“Les Misérables’ lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 track offers the film’s score and occasional dialogue with sterling fidelity and consistent surround activity …

“This is reference quality audio that offers this incredibly popular score with beautiful fidelity.”

“There are quite a few worthwhile supplements included on this release, including feature-length commentary by director Tom Hooper, who provides a lot of insight into why he made certain decisions as a filmmaker and about the approach taken with a variety of scenes.”

The week’s other top pick is season four of Sons of Anarchy, even if, peculiarly, its being released within a week of season five’s finale on TV3.

“The image is clean and crisp, free of noise and banding issues and presents each episode with stunning clarity and depth of image.”

“The DTS-HD MA 5.1 track is above and beyond what one would expect from a television show, with extensive use of the surrounds and subwoofer.

“Music is perfectly balanced in the rear speakers, and dialogue and soundtrack are mixed well, with coherent dialogue and no audio glitches.”

“The bonus features are all worth watching and listening to, but the best thing about this set is something called ‘Season Mode,’ which will remember where you left off and go right to the episode when you put in the disc, without having to sit through trailers, warnings, and menus.”

Also new are The Ultimate Luc Besson Collection, the direct-to-disc Pawn (“a very strong presentation”) and Stitches (“decent enough”), anime titles Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion Season 1 Collection, and blasts from the past Barbra Streisand Live and James Last: Live at the Royal Albert Hall.