This week sees the release of Karyn Kusama’s Destroyer, which should strike the fancy of many here as an L.A. noir starring a roughed-up Nicole Kidman. There’s also Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd, a movie that gets more prescient by the millisecond, and the Russo brothers’ You, Me and Dupree, a movie that gets more inexplicable by the millisecond now that the Russos are Marvel pets for life. And then there’s Albert Brooks’ Modern Romance, being spotlighted in this series for the second time after its region-free UK release last year. This U.S. release dumps that release’s bonus features but at least presents the film in a new restoration, all the better to show off the detail in the film’s cringey long shots of Brooks humiliating himself in the name of unhealthy obsession. As I said last time, it’s almost certainly a major influence on Phantom Thread, although Anderson is at least enough of a romantic to let his characters eat their meals, while Brooks gets sadistic pleasure out of never providing the satisfaction of his characters finishing or even beginning their meals. The omelette may poison you, but at least it doesn’t blue-balls you too.

Alien 4K (Fox)
Big Fat Liar (Universal)
Bisbee ’17 (Grasshopper)
Destroyer (Fox)
Escape Room (Sony)
A Face in the Crowd (Criterion)
Modern Romance (Sony)
Paradise Alley (Shout Factory)
Scared Stiff (Arrow)
A Simple Wish (Universal)
Underground (Kino)
White Sands (Sony)
You, Me and Dupree (Universal)