Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalogue titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This twice-monthly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you\u2019re watching.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n PICK OF THE WEEK: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tod Browning\u2019s Sideshow Shockers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Director Tod Browning\u2019s carnival tales were told from the inside\u2014he literally ran away from home at 16 to join the circus\u2014and all three of the features in this new Criterion Collection box set feel like secrets that shouldn\u2019t be told. The most notorious of the batch is 1932\u2019s Freaks<\/em><\/strong>, Browning\u2019s blank-check follow-up to the smash hit of Universal\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, a film so upsetting and controversial that it basically ended his filmmaking career. It remains as potent and powerful as ever, transcending the rubbernecking of its title and premise to tell a timeless (and satisfying) story of outsiders against the world. The Mystic<\/em><\/strong>, released in 1925, is a creepily atmospheric combination of two venerable formulas: the \u201chow it actually works\u201d movie (in this case, detailing the deceptions of sideshow mediums) and a \u201cthe fake thing is real, actually\u201d thriller. But the title that\u2019s ripe for rediscovery here is The Unknown<\/em><\/strong>, with the great Lon Chaney as an armless carnival knife thrower and Joan Crawford as the object of his twisted affections. It\u2019s equal parts horrifying and heartbreaking; Chaney confirms his status as one of the finest of all silent actors, while the sympathetic Crawford hints at the maturity of her career to come. All three films are worthy of consideration \u2014 if you only know Browning from Dracula<\/em>, you\u2019re in for a treat. (Includes audio commentaries and introductions, interviews, archival documentary, and featurettes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON MUBI:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Passages<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Ira Sachs\u2019s Love is Strange<\/em> and Little Men<\/em> were very much about the complications of middle-class middle-age, so it was somewhat startling that his latest (and his first film since 2016) turned out to be this vivid, occasionally explicit, and always honest account of two splintering relationships, and the manchild at their centers. He\u2019s the filmmaker Tomas (Franz Rogowski), a filmmaker first seen in a comfortable marriage with Martin (Ben Whishaw) \u2014 but drawn into a sexual relationship with schoolteacher Agathe (Ad\u00e8le Exarchopoulos). Tomas is a real piece of work, and Sachs walks a tricky high-wire, presenting these people and their problems without judging them, and he somehow pulls it off<\/a>. All three performers shine; Exarchopoulos is especially good as a smart woman who gets more than she bargains for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON 4K\/ BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Barbie<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>It sounded like the most cynical of cash grabs: indie darling turned three-time Oscar nominee Greta Gerwig (and co-screenwriter and off-screen partner Noah Baumbach) taking big IP money to turn the endlessly popular yet recently #problematic Mattel icon into a big, splashy blockbuster. Not one thing about Barbie<\/em> should work, and yet it does<\/a>; Gerwig and Baumbach\u2019s script lobs its barbs at sacred cows on- and off-screen like hand grenades; Gerwig\u2019s throwback, handmade directorial style proves a harmonious match for the world at hand; Ryan Gosling\u2019s Ken is a series of comic masterstrokes; and Margot Robbie is pitch-perfect as the Stereotypical Barbie who becomes her own woman. I still can\u2019t quite believe they got away with it. I love that they did. (Includes featurettes.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n