KIDMAN’S PERFORMANCE ENHANCES ‘DESTROYER’
New on Blu-ray Destroyer 20th Century Fox DVD, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.99; also available on VOD
Nicole Kidman gives a remarkably raw performance in the Los Angeles police drama, playing a veteran detective who’s become emotionally unstable after a traumatic undercover assignment. Accomplished action-thriller director Karyn Kusama — working from a screenplay by Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi — keeps the movie every bit as pulpy as neo-noir fans would expect. But it’s primarily a character study, detailing the heroine’s clouded state of mind as she works a case that plunges her back into the messy world of cults and gangs. Kidman plays her cop both in flashbacks and in the present day, digging deep into the contrast between the confident woman she once was and the lost person she’s become. Special features: Two commentary tracks and a featurette
VOD Under the Silver Lake Available April 22
The success of writer-director David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 cult horror classic “It Follows” gave him the clout to make this bizarre mystery, a dense, delirious cinematic experience that some adventurous filmgoers will love and that others will find too self-indulgent. Andrew Garfield stars as a pop culture-obsessed Angeleno who becomes convinced his neighbor’s sudden disappearance is related to a farreaching conspiracy, revealed via clues in songs, magazines and cereal boxes. As the increasingly paranoid hero chases leads, Mitchell uses the loose hook of this quest as an excuse to over-analyze ephemera himself. If audiences don’t share his fascinations, they’ll probably be lost. And if they are on this movie’s wavelength? Well, they may still be lost … but more happily so.
TV set of the week A Place to Call Home: The Complete Collection Acorn DVD, $299.99
The rich melodrama wrapped its sixth and final season last fall, bringing to an end the saga of Sarah Adams (Marta Dusseldorp), a nurse who upended her life in Europe to go work in a rural Australian hospital. Reminiscent of sweeping historical dramas like “Downton Abbey” and “Call the Midwife” — with a touch of ’80s American prime-time soaps like “Dynasty” — the series deals with the rapidly changing world of the 1950s, where traditional views on gender, sex and class were being called into question by people who’d just been through a punishing world war. Special features: Featurettes and interviews
From the archives A Face in the Crowd Criterion DVD, $29.95; Blu-ray, $39.95
Forget Ben Matlock, and forget the sheriff of Mayberry. Andy Griffith goes terrifyingly out of character in director Elia Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg’s 1957 morality play, portraying a charismatic scoundrel who gets a national media platform and becomes a mean-spirited political demagogue. Patricia Neal is outstanding as the ambitious young reporter-producer who discovers Griffith’s Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes in a country jail, figures out how to make him a star and then regrets the monster she helped create. Though the film was originally about the increasing shallowness of cultural discourse in the TV age, its message remains alarmingly pertinent. Special features: New and vintage interviews Three more to see Bisbee ’17 Grasshopper DVD, $29.95; Blu-ray, $34.95; also available on VOD Escape Room Sony DVD, $30.99; Blu-ray, $34.99; also available on VOD I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu Deja Vu LLC DVD, $19.99; Blu-ray, $24.99; also available on VOD