SMART AND STARTLING SCIENCE FICTION
New on Blu-ray Annihilation Paramount DVD, $29.97; Blu-ray, $39.99; also available on VOD
In writer-director Alex Garland’s adaptation of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel “Annihilation,” Natalie Portman plays a distressed scientist who joins four other troubled women (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Tessa Thompson and Tuva Novotny) to investigate an ominous bubble of energy that’s slowly spreading across a remote region of the United States. Once they’re inside “the Shimmer,” the women begin experiencing strange time fluctuations and encountering bizarre and violent hybrid creatures, as one by one they find themselves confronting aspects of their own unsettling pasts. “Annihilation” didn’t get the global promotional push that it deserved when it was released this year, but it’s already building a cult following and will likely be remembered as one of 2018’s best. This rare kind of smart and startling science-fiction — with roiling undercurrents of emotion — is meant to be savored. Special features: Extensive behind-the-scenes featurettes
VOD Discreet Available Friday
There’s nothing conventional about writer-director Travis Mathews’ elliptical, elusive character sketch. The premise is fairly straightforward, with Jonny Mars playing Alex, a socially maladjusted small-town Texas hustler, who spends his days listening to right-wing talk radio, making sensual YouTube videos, and having furtive sexual encounters with closeted gay men. But Mathews minimizes plot and emphasizes mood, shooting for more of a textured meditation on the disconnect between people’s private needs and their publicly stated beliefs. “Discreet” is a challenging film, ambiguous in its ultimate meaning but pointed in its contemporary details.
TV set of the week I’m Dying Up Here: Season 1 Showtime DVD, $39.98
The 10 episodes on the DVD set from Showtime present a lightly fictionalized version of the Los Angeles stand-up comedy scene in the early 1970s, when innovative young performers competed for the best exposure, jostling for TV spots and headlining gigs. The show’s actual jokes should be a lot funnier than they are, but the performances are uniformly excellent — including Melissa Leo as the capricious, opinionated owner of the circuit’s hottest club. The series brings to life a fascinating time in American popular culture, as comedians tried simultaneously to appeal to a hip young audience and to the much tamer mainstream. Special features: None
From the archives Midnight Cowboy Criterion Blu-ray, $39.95
Still one of the most daring and unusual best picture Oscar winners of all time, John Schlesinger’s 1969 street-hustler drama stars Jon Voight as a Texas Romeo who comes to New York intending to make money off rich women but ends up squatting in a crumbling building with a sickly grifter played by Dustin Hoffman. The movie’s style is rooted in the psychedelic ’60s, evoking the romantic freedom of the hippie era. But Schlesinger also undercuts the “love generation” positivity, setting the film in a sleazy, decaying metropolis, where the old chivalric codes have been discarded. Throughout its deep dives into masculinity and the highs and lows of sexual liberation, “Midnight Cowboy” never forgets what it’s really about: How it feels to covet material success and to be completely lost about how to attain it.
Special features: A Schlesinger commentary track and vintage interviews