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 The Mother and the Whore<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: Jean Eustache\u2019s 1973 interpersonal epic was, for decades, something of a cinematic holy grail \u2014 all but impossible to see, thanks to the firm grip of the filmmaker\u2019s estate on the rights to his work, its legend only amplified by its seeming esotericism (a nearly four-hour French, black-and-white relationship drama). Yet this first-time viewer found it surprisingly accessible, a snapshot of twentysomething listlessness that has only aged in its most minute specifics (and those, like the portraiture of Bohemian Parisian life, only add spice). Eustache\u2019s thorny script addresses the stubbornness of love, heteronormative double-standards, and sexual jealousy with refreshing frankness, drilling down on the genuinely complex and sometimes contradictory dynamics of the participants of its love triangle, understanding, perhaps more than any film that comes to mind, the impulse to stay, knowingly, in a bad thing that feels good. The expansive running time is ultimately its best feature; we sit with these people so long that it really does feel as though we know them, in all of their pleasure and misery. (Includes interviews, featurettes, archival footage, trailer, and essay by Lucy Sante.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON PARAMOUNT+: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Black Box Diaries<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Japanese journalist Shiori Ito details her journey as a survivor of sexual assault in this devastating documentary. It occurred in April 2015, at the hands of a powerful and respected colleague; she went public two years later, in the face of infuriating hostility from members of the media and police investigators. Ito isn\u2019t just the subject of “Black Box Diaries” \u2014 she\u2019s also its director, and that cinematic intimacy, that raw, open-wound quality, gives the picture much of its considerable power. She\u2019s also, luckily, a compelling protagonist, tough and resourceful and determined, taking on not just one well-connected journalist, but an entire corrupt system. It\u2019s a tough sit, but an important one, and there\u2019s a telephone conversation near its ending that\u2019s one of the most moving things I saw in any film last year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON BLU-RAY \/ DVD \/ VOD:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Soundtrack to a Coup d\u2019Etat<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/strong>Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist Johan Grimonprez\u2019s film sounds, from its logline, like a fairly straight-forward historical documentary, chronicling the struggle for Congolese independence from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s. But Grimonprez eschews most of the stylistic markers such a description calls to mind; there are no talking head interviews and no contemporary voice-of-God narration, and he shines the story through the prism of the era\u2019s jazz music, as well as that music\u2019s intersections with the politics and protest of the moment. So the jazz gives the picture its heartbeat, its rhythm; it\u2019s a masterfully edited case of form following function, medium marrying message. This is a long movie \u2014 just shy of 2.5 hours \u2014 but it moves like lightning, its flurry of information and insight powered by sly, sharp juxtapositions and unexpected connections. (Includes interview and trailers.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n