From the Big Screen:
“The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part,” “What Men Want” and “Prodigy.” For more information on other releases this week, see the Weekly Guide to Home Video Releases.
This Week’s Best Bets
Directed with a keen sense of ambiguity by William Wyler, “The Heiress”
(1949), based on a hit stage adaptation of Henry James’s “Washington Square,” pivots on a question of motive. When shy, fragile Catherine Sloper (Olivia de Havilland, in a heartbreaking, Oscar-winning turn), the daughter of a wealthy New York doctor, begins to receive calls from the handsome spendthrift Morris Townsend
From TV to Disc:
“Agatha Raisin, Series 2” (2018) is a three-disc set with three feature-length episodes. Based on M.C. Beaton’s bestselling books, Agatha Raisin stars Ashley Jensen as a London PR whizz turned amateur sleuth, who becomes entangled in mischief, mayhem, and murder when she opts for early retirement in a small village in the Cotswolds. Drawn into the town’s murders, Agatha attempts to solve the crimes … often in rather unorthodox ways. From Acorn Media … “Better Call Saul: Season Four” (2018) is a three-disc set with all 10 episodes. In the critically acclaimed drama’s fourth season, his brother’s death catalyzes Jimmy McGill’s transformation into “Saul Goodman.” Now Jimmy steps into the criminal world, putting his future as a lawyer — and his relationship with Kim Wexler — in deep jeopardy. Meanwhile, Mike Ehrmantraut’s work for Gustavo Fring throws the cartel into chaos, with tragic results.On DVD, Blu-ray, from Sony … “No Offence, Series 3” (2018) is a two-disc set with all six episodes of the female-driven police procedural with fierce characters and a shrewd, irreverent take on crime that follows an unorthodox team of cops in Manchester, England. Series 3 finds dynamic DI Vivienne Deering (Joanna Scanlan) and her team providing security at a contentious election debate, but tragedy strikes when a gunman attempts to assassinate one of the candidates. Deering and her right-hand woman, DC Dinah Kowalska (Elaine Cassidy), vow to apprehend the culprit, despite warnings from their superiors that the investigation could jeopardize an undercover officer who has infiltrated an extreme right-wing group. From Acorn Media … “Unforgotten, Season 3” (2018) is a two-disc set with all six episodes of the British procedural. When human remains are found by a motorway near London, the crime-solving duo Cassie and Sunny are called to the scene. Dogged work leads the team to Hayley Reid, a 16-year-old girl who went missing on the eve of the millennium. The police’s failure to find out what happened to Hayley wrecked her family’s life. Cassie’s compassion makes her determined to correct the mistakes made by the original investigating team — whatever the cost is to herself. From PBS Distribution.
Buzzin’ the ‘B’s:
Playfully exploring the outer reaches of cult film fandom, “Sex Madness Revealed” (2018), starring Patton Oswalt, Rob Zabrecky and Patrick Cooper, is both an ingenious twist on the audio commentary and a satire of the wisecrack track (featuring the voice of “MST3K” regular Patton Oswalt). Using as it foundation a low-budget sex hygiene picture from 1938 (“Sex Madness,” aka “Human Wreckage”), Jimmy Morris (Oswalt) of the popular “Film Dick” podcast hosts an irreverent conversation with the filmmaker’s grandson, the eerily emotionless Chester Holloway (Rob Zabrecky) while the film streams behind them. But as the on-screen plot unfolds, a much darker story unravels within the recording booth, about the sinister mastermind behind the film, and the unorthodox methods he employed. On DVD, Blu-ray, from Kino Lorber …
On the Indie Front:
In “Strawberry Flavored Plastic” (2018), starring Aidan Bristow, Nicholas Urda and Andres Montejo, Errol and Ellis, two aspiring documentarians embarking on their first feature, put out a feeler to their local community for individuals with interesting stories. They hear back from and settle on the tale of Noel, a man who has just been released from prison after a nine-year incarceration for a crime of passion. After several weeks of shooting, they inadvertently discover that Noel’s story is fabricated: he has never been to prison. They soon find out that he is an at-large and very active serial killer who has never been apprehended by authorities. Now too entangled and implicit in Noel’s horrific crimes, the duo are stuck between deciding on the right thing to do and possibly making the most sensationalized and infamous documentary ever made. From Breaking Glass Pictures … In “Just Say Goodbye” (2018), starring Katerina Eichenberger, Max MacKenzie, William Galatis, Jesse Walters, Pamela Jayne Morgan and Charlotte Cusmano Zanolli, ater enduring years of abuse from his alcoholic father and the school bully Chase, Jesse Peterson tells his best friend Sarah that he plans on committing suicide. After promising to tell no one, Sarah takes it upon herself to try to stop him, taking any means necessary. Formats: DVD, Digital. (Leomark Studios). Due May 10.
Foreign Films:
“All About Lily Chou Chou” (2001 — Japan) is Shunji Iwai’s acclaimed and profound Japanese coming-of-age story. For young people around the world, music is often the only salvation when pain and suffering becomes too much to bear. Yuichi (Hayato Ichihara) is in 8th grade and worships Lily Chou-Chou, a Björk-like singer whose lush and transcendent music provides the perfect escape from his brutal surroundings. Yuichi also finds solace as the moderator of an online chat room dedicated to his pop idol, but as his real life nightmare of teenage prostitution, crime and bullying grows more untenable, will Lily be enough to save him from isolation and despair? On DVD, Blu-ray from Film Movement … In “Everybody Knows” (2018 — Spain), starring Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo
For the Family:
In “Sesame Street: Awesome Alphabet Collection” (2019), Elmo and his Sesame Street friends explore every letter of the alphabet in this new collection, brought to you in Sesame Street’s 50th anniversary year.
Special Interest:
Completed shortly before Claude Lanzmann’s death at 92 in July 2018, “Shoah: Four Sisters” (2018) is the long-awaited follow-up to his monumental “Shoah”, which shook the world upon its release in 1985 as a profound cinematic memorial to the Holocaust. Four Jewish women, survivors of unimaginable Nazi horrors during the Holocaust, tell their individual stories. Each of their testimonies was filmed more than 40 years ago as Lanzmann collected first-hand accounts in preparation for what would become the nine-and-a-half-hour “Shoah.” Starting in 1999, Lanzmann made several films that could be considered satellites of “Shoah,” comprising interviews conducted in the 1970s that didn’t make it into the final, monumental work. In the last years of the director’s life, he decided to devote a film to each of four women from four different areas of Eastern Europe with four different destinies, each finding herself improbably alive after war’s end: Ruth Elias from Ostravia, Czechoslovakia; Paula Biren from Lodz, Poland; Ada Lichtman from further south in Krakow; and Hannah Marton from Cluj, or Kolozsva´r, in Transylvania, Romania. The four films that make up “Shoah: Four Sisters” are titled “The
All DVDs and Blu-rays are screened on a reference system consisting of an Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray Disc Player w/SACD & DVD-Audio, a Rotel RSX-972 Surround Sound Receiver, and Phase Technology 1.1 (front), 33.1 (center), and 50 (rear) speakers, and Power 10 subwoofer.