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 Dogfight<\/a><\/em>:<\/strong> If you\u2019ve despaired over the lack of current home video releases for \u201890s indie filmmaker Nancy Savoca, boy have I got good news for you. This month sees the long-delayed and highly welcome release of three<\/em> of her gems, led off by Criterion\u2019s addition of this 1991 beauty. Set mostly in 1963, it finds a group of Marines, led by a boisterous River Phoenix, on leave in San Francisco before shipping out to Okinawa and engaging in a little game: everyone in their company puts in $50, finds the ugliest girl they can manage to pick up, and bring her to a private party where the guy who did best\/worst takes the pool. It\u2019s the kind of plot that could have made for a leering \u201880s sex comedy, which is why Savoca\u2019s directorial voice is so necessary; she knows the focus of the story is Rose (Lili Taylor), the girl Phoenix\u2019s Eddie picks up, and she shows us the quiet tragedy of her excitement while getting ready for her big night out, and the heartbreak of her listening to Joan Baez records after. The genuine tenderness that develops between these characters, even after she finds out the truth of the evening, is hard to sell, but these two terrific actors pull it off \u2014 up to and including the perfect notes they find, and hold, in the haunting epilogue. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, trailer, and essay by Christina Newland.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON SHUDDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Late Night with the Devil<\/a><\/em>: <\/strong>That-guy character actor David Dastmachlian stars as Jack Delroy, a Carson-style late night talk show host in the late 1970s, whom we meet in clever documentary opening, which uses faux-archival footage and clippings, magazine covers, and the like to fill in the show\u2019s backstory and set us up for the main event: the full master tape of its Halloween 1977 show, \u201cthe TV event that shocked the nation.\u201d Directors Cameron and Colin Cairnes niftily replicate the look and feel of the era\u2019s late shows, while wisely varying the gag by going to black-and-white behind-the-scenes footage during station breaks. Some of the supporting players are a touch thin, and the picture goes on a few minutes too long, with an epilogue that it could\u2019ve done without. But Dastmachlian crafts a powerhouse performance; he gets the laughs, but conveys the talk show host\u2019s darkness and deep cynicism when it counts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON 4K \/ BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mean Girls <\/em>(2024)<\/a>:<\/strong> The remake of the 2004 teen comedy classic (see below) is one of those Hairspray<\/em> situations, in which a hit movie was adapted into a Broadway musical (since Broadway producers will only spend their money on properties people are already familiar with), and was enough of a success to warrant said musical adaptation being turned back into a movie (since Hollywood studios will only spend their money on properties people are already familiar with). The result doesn\u2019t exactly make the case for its own necessity<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s not like the original doesn\u2019t still play, and if you don\u2019t believe me, go to any of the many revival screenings it still fills \u2014 but Mean Girls 2.0 <\/em>is energetic, the performers are capable and charismatic (particularly Rene\u00e9 Rapp as Regina and Auli\u02bbi Cravalho as Janis), and Tina Fey\u2019s script still has plenty of juice. (Includes sing-along option, extended scene, gag reel, music video, and featurettes.) (Also streaming on Paramount+<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n ON BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Drive-Away Dolls<\/a><\/em>:<\/strong> Ethan Coen makes his solo narrative directorial debut (penning the script with wife Tricia Cooke, rather than brother Joel) with this gleefully naughty and frequently funny caper. Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan play the title roles, lesbians of wildly varying out-ness whose platonic friendship takes a turn during an impromptu road trip where they find themselves in possession of a very strange briefcase. Coen keeps things moving at a good clip, Viswanathan is a delightful \u201cstraight\u201d woman, and the supporting cast \u2014 including Beanie Feldstein, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Colman Domingo \u2014 comes to play. But the real news here is Qualley, in what can only be described to Coen afficionados as the George Clooney role; she\u2019s an absolute hoot, funny and sexy and right at home with the unique rhythms of the Coen dialogue. (Includes featurettes.) (Also streaming on Peacock<\/em><\/a>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n