In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Based on a novel by Suzanne Allain (who also penned the screenplay), Emma Holly Jones’ feature debut divertingly plays with the conventions of 19th century novels—and their movie and TV adaptations—and gives its female characters agency in their own futures (including husbands).

 

 

Reminiscent of the recent Jane Austen adaptation of Emma with Anya Taylor-Joy, Mr. Malcolm’s List is light on its feet and unapologetically romantic, allowing two worthy if underused actresses—Zawe Ashton and Freida Pinto—the opportunity take center stage, and they take full advantage with delightful performances.

 

 

 

 

 

You Are Not My Mother 

In this creepy and understated horror film, a teenager, Char, subject to school bullying, also must deal with the difficult relationship between her grandmother, Rita, and her mother, Angela, especially after Angela disappears, then returns…or does she?

 

 

Director-writer Kate Dolan keeps things percolating as the women’s behavior and relationships are continuously scrambled, and if she loses control before the too-literal denouement, her film remains deeply unsettling and is superbly acted by Hazel Doupe (Char), Carolyn Bracken (Angela) and Ingrid Craigie (Rita).

 

 

 

 

 

4K Release of the Week 

In Gordon Parks’ groundbreaking 1971 detective picture, Richard Roundtree set the macho blueprint for the Blaxploitation heroes of the early ‘70s for an unbeatable blend of crime drama, romance, comedy and good old NYC location shooting. The first sequel, 1972’s Shaft’s Big Score!, is just as entertaining, so it’s nice that Criterion included it on one of the two Blu-ray discs.

 

 

The original film looks supremely gritty and grainy in 4K, while the sequel looks good in hi-def. Many extras include vintage and new featurettes, including interviews with Roundtree, Parks and Oscar-winning composer Isaac Hayes (who did not return to score Shaft’s Big Score!, but did contribute a song), along with new video essays that put the movie in context, like the full-length 2019 documentary exploration, A Complicated Man: The "Shaft" Legacy.

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

For exploring a near-taboo coupling—a married 40-ish father and a high school exchange student who attends classes with his daughter—director-cowriter Drake Doremus deserves credit for restraint; but since the 95-minute drama isn't interested in chronicling a strictly sexual relationship, the gradual reveal of an intimate relationship is slow and unrewarding.

 

 

Still, this intriguing character study has a strong cast: Guy Pearce (dad), Felicity Jones (student), Mackenzie Davis (daughter) and especially Amy Ryan (mom) provide credible character arcs throughout. The hi-def transfer is immaculate; extras are a making-of and director interview.

 

 

 

 

 

Mozart—Don Giovanni 

Mozart’s masterpiece is given a conventional but powerful staging by director Michael Hampe at the 1987 Salzburg Festival, and the artists are even better: conducting the orchestra and chorus is none other than the great—if controversial—Herbert von Karajan, near the end of his life (he would die two years later) but still commanding on the podium.

 

 

The rakish Don is the imposing American bass-baritone Samuel Ramey; the Don’s conquests are sung and acted brilliantly by American soprano Kathleen Battle (Zerlina), Bulgarian soprano Anna Tomowa-Sintow (Donna Anna) and German soprano Julia Varady (Donna Elvira); and the Don’s servant, Leporello, is the redoubtable Italian bass Ferruccio Furlanetto. The hi-def video and audio are acceptable.

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberry Mansion 

Set in 2035, when the government has the right to tax citizen’s dreams, this too-clever sci-fi romance follows a man who arrives at a senior citizen’s house to audit her VHS dream tapes. What follows is unsurprisingly surreal but also surprisingly forgettable, as codirectors/cowriters Albert Birney and Kentucker Audley fashion an arbitrary world that never coheres emotionally or histrionically.

 

 

It doesn’t help that Audley (who plays the auditor) isn’t much of an actor, so any soulfulness or sympathy toward the relationship is negated from the outset. There’s a fine hi-def transfer; extras include a directors’ commentary, deleted/extended scenes, making-of, test footage and Birney’s short films.

 

 

 

 

 

We Need to Do Something 

What begins as a tense drama set in a bathroom—a family is barricaded there during a strong storm—soon degenerates into a risible scarefest in which anything goes, particularly the convenient appearances of a poisonous (and symbolic) snake. Director Sean King O’Grady and writer Max Booth III have absorbed the lessons of countless horror flicks, but they forgot that the best ones know that a sense of inevitability is subordinate to plausibility.

 

 

Once the parents’ argument leads to the young son getting bitten by the snake, empathy is thrown out the window; the flashbacks setting up malevolence are similarly ham-fisted. The best thing about the film is Vinessa Shaw, who has been seen far too infrequently since Eyes Wide Shut nearly a quarter-century ago and who nearly makes the mother fully inhabited. There’s a superior hi-def transfer.