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 Nothing But a Man<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Michael Roemer\u2019s debut feature was, for quite some time, difficult as hell to see, and the opening credits provide a clue as to why: the songs, presented by \u201cspecial arrangement with Motown Records.\u201d Such special arrangements didn\u2019t tend to include all future media formats, but thankfully, the Criterion Collection has gone to the trouble of restoring and releasing this keenly observed snapshot of the life of a Black couple in the \u201860s-era South \u2014 and the tensions of everyday interactions therein. The warmth and ease of the central relationship is overwhelming, uneasily coexisting with the interactions that its participants must navigate every day; those scenes are downright visceral, so infectious is the feeling of dread and discomfort. A modest masterpiece, boasting simple, direct, and impactful performances by Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, and a young (but already bruising) Yaphet Kotto. (Includes interviews and featurettes.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON HULU:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All of Us Strangers<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Andrew Haigh writes and directs this evocative, melancholy mixture<\/a> of romantic drama and semi-surreal memory play. Andrew Scott (who is so good, you\u2019ll follow him any wild place Haigh takes him) stars as a writer who is attempting, in his new screenplay, to grapple with his childhood and the loss of his parents at age 17; on a trip to his hometown, he finds himself inexplicably spending time with them, via vivid visions and candid conversations in which he works through his complicated feelings about them. The years melt away as the interactions and support he so badly needed are grafted onto his past, a fiction less painful than fact. Simultaneously, he\u2019s embarking on a relationship with a neighbor (Paul Mescal) who\u2019s young and wild and probably not good for him in the long run, but exactly what he needs at the moment, and this is a movie that understands the value of both. As it winds up to the home stretch, All of Us Strangers<\/em> becomes a film about itself \u2014 about making art to fix your life, your past, and your pain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON MAX:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Priscilla<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Few recent matches of filmmaker and material are more inspired than Sofia Coppola and Graceland; she\u2019s always been a master of conveying texture, tones, and vibes, and from the opening images (of carefully manicured toes in shag carpeting), she\u2019s squarely in her wheelhouse. She can convey multitudes in a single image or a cut; her montages and compositions convey so much about the loneliness and melancholy of Elvis Presley\u2019s child bride, and the severity of his emotional game-playing. We only see \u201cthe King\u201d as Priscilla does (not making music, not making movies), and she wouldn\u2019t say much, so she doesn\u2019t; in the title role, Spaeny crafts a spectacularly non-verbal performance, vividly putting across the character\u2019s longing, excitement, discontent, and (in the best drive-away closing shot since Jackie Brown) determination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON 4K \/ BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>What if \u2014 and just hear me out \u2014 when a film or book series comes to a logical, elegant, and self-contained conclusion, we just let it end? What would that be like? Alas, we\u2019ll never know, as there is too much money to be made in existing IP, which is how we ended up with a prequel to the perfectly satisfactory Hunger Games<\/em> trilogy of books that is now a prequel to the crisply concluded quartet of movies. Now, that complaint properly lodged, the good news is that The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes<\/em> is no Fantastic Beasts; <\/em>returning director Francis Lawrence refuses to phone it in, the screenplay elegantly subverts expectations of both structure and narrative, and the performances are first-rate, especially West Side Story<\/em> breakout Rachel Zegler\u2019s fully realized turn as the Katniss of this particular era. (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, song performance, and theatrical trailers.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Dream Scenario<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Nicolas Cage continues<\/a> his meta-textual exploration of his own celebrity and memeability with this frequently thoughtful and slyly funny comedy\/drama from Kristoffer Borgli. Cage is Paul Matthews, a milquetoast professor who finds himself unexpectedly culturally ubiquitous when he starts turning up in other people\u2019s dreams. The tantalizing questions of what such a man would do with this sudden notoriety make for compelling drama (and, occasionally, big laughs); the picture\u2019s second half, a mealy-mouthed indictment of \u201ccancel culture,\u201d is both less nuanced and less entertaining<\/a>. But Cage comes through like a champ, and Borgli has a good eye for both heightened nocturnal landscapes and the misery of everyday existence. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, featurette, and trailer.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n