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One of the few shocking things about this year’s Oscar nominations is that Jeff Nichols’ Loving is only nominated for one Oscar, albeit one of two that should have been slam dunks.

One of 2016’s most highly anticipated films, Loving was expected to be a film that focused on the landmark 1967 Loving v. Virginia court case that was ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, putting an end to the criminalization of interracial marriage in the U.S. That, though, is not how Nichols works. If you’ve seen any of his previous four films, of which I’ve seen three – Take Shelter, Mud, and Midnight Special – you know that regardless of the story, the emphasis is on characterization. That is exactly what you get from Loving, with the poignancy of the love story taking center stage.

Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga plays Mildred Loving, the black wife and mother, with quiet dignity. Australian actor Joel Edgerton plays Richard, her white construction worker husband, with dogged determination. Both should have been nominated for Oscars. Negga was, Edgerton sadly was not, although both were nominated for Golden Globes and other awards.

There is also an outstanding supporting performance by Michael Shannon as a Life photographer who briefly befriends the couple. Shannon has been in all five of Nichols’ films. In Midnight Special, released earlier in 2016, he has the starring role while Edgerton provides sterling support as his best friend.

Another film based on headline-making news, Peter Berg’s Deepwater Horizon is about the 2010 oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana that created the largest oil spill in U.S. history. This largely by-the-numbers recreation of the disaster was nominated for Oscars for Sound Editing and Visual Effects, both of which it earns.

Mark Wahlberg has the lead role of Chief Electrical Engineer Mike Williams, giving one of his best performances. Gina Rodriguez as his assistant and John Malkovich as a BP representative also do good work. I was, however, put off by Kurt Russell’s too broad Southern accent as Wahlberg’s boss, Jimmy Harrell. Kate Hudson as Wahlberg’s wife must have had the same dialogue coach as Russell, but not only is her accent too broad, her role seems completely superfluous.

The animated musical Trolls is a pleasure to listen to, thanks to a deft mixture of old and new songs including the Oscar-nominated “Can’t Stop the Feeling.” It also benefits from outstanding voice work from an excellent cast led by Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake. On the downside, however, is the frenetic camerawork that might keep kids under five entertained. For older children and adults, though, it’s best played in the background while doing homework or housework, paying your bills, or anything else that will keep your eyes diverted from the screen.

Only a handful of prolific writer Philip Roth’s novels have been made into films, all of which, except for 1969’s Goodbye, Columbus, have been flops. It’s therefore quite surprising that two of his novels would be made into films in 2016, both containing the feature length directing debuts of show business veterans.

Roth’s 1997 Pulitzer Prize winner American Pastoral had been in development for years. It was set to go in 2004 with Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connolly, but couldn’t get off the ground. More than a decade later it was filmed with Ewan McGregor and Jennifer Connolly. McGregor also offered to direct as no one else wanted the job.

It begins at a high school reunion meeting of Roth substitute David Strathairn and childhood friend Rupert Evans, where Strathairn learns of McGregor’s death, whose life story is then seen in flashback.

McGregor and Connolly are fine as the All-American jock and his beauty-queen wife who marry in the 1950s, only to have their lives turned into a living hell by their brat of a daughter in the turbulent 1960s. At 15, the brat, played by Dakota Fanning, torches a local business, killing the proprietor, and disappears. Connolly has a nervous breakdown, but eventually recovers. McGregor never gives up hope of finding Fanning, but when he does, all is not sweetness and light, leading to his death from a broken heart. It’s heavy going, but worth seeing if you’re a McGregor fan.

Roth’s lesser known 2008 novel, Indignation, was optioned at the time of its publication, but not filmed until it was taken over by James Schamus, Ang Lee’s producing partner and a triple Oscar nominee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain).

Logan Lerman gives one of the year’s best performances as a 19-year-old college student in 1951. Patterned after Roth himself, his character is an atheist who rejects not only his own Jewish religion, but all religion. As such, he is incensed that he is required to attend at least ten chapel meetings per year and gets a friend to impersonate him at one, leading to his expulsion. The film, which has been leisurely paced until then, hurries the ending so that you’ve got to read the novel or at least a synopsis of it to fully comprehend what you’ve just seen.

Lerman gets fine support form Sarah Gadon as the troubled girl he falls in love with, Tracy Letts as his dean, and Danny Burstein and Linda Edmond as his parents.

Loving, Deepwater Horizon, Trolls, American Pastoral, and Indignation are all available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Newly upgraded to Blu-ray are the classics Postcards from the Edge, Love in the Afternoon, and No Highway in the Sky.

It’s hard to believe that Mike Nichols’ Postcards From the Edge is twenty-seven years old as Carrie Fisher’s semi-autobiographical novel remains as fresh as the day it came out. Both Oscar-nominated Meryl Streep and BAFTA-nominated Shirley MacLaine as thinly disguised versions of Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, are superb. The Sony Blu-ray release was planned before the two legends’ recent deaths, but takes on greater poignancy because of it.

Billy Wilder’s 1957 film, Love in the Afternoon had a washed out look with dull sound in previous home video releases, but Warner Archive’s restoration makes it look and sound like an overlooked masterwork. Gary Cooper still seems miscast as the aging Don Juan, but Audrey Hepburn as the young woman he impresses and Maurice Chevalier as her private detective father do some of their best work here.

Kino Lorber’s release of Henry Koster’s 1951 film No Highway in the Sky benefits from a brand-new commentary from film historian Jeremy Arnold and Koster’s son, Bob. James Stewart, as an absent-minded aeronautical engineer who predicts a potential airplane catastrophe, gives one of his finest dramatic performances. He is ably assisted by Marlene Dietrich as a glamorous film star in their first pairing since 1939’s Destry Rides Again, Glynis Johns as a supportive flight attendant, and Janette Scott as his 11-year-old motherless daughter.

This week’s new releases include Arrival and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

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