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Lean on Pete won Charlie Plummer the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress at last year’s Venice Film Festival. Although the film received strong support at the 2017 Telluride and Toronto film festivals among numerous other venues, it was not released theatrically until April of this year. Directed by Andrew Haigh (45 Years), from Willy Vlautin’s 2010 novel, the film is about hope in the wake of the failure of the American dream, a thread that runs through two of the writer’s and director’s influences, The Grapes of Wrath and Midnight Cowboy. Like Henry Fonda and Jon Voight in those films, Plummer (All the Money in the World) is an imperfect but essentially good person you root for through thick and thin.

Although the film’s title is that of the name of the horse that Plummer’s character bonds with, the story is really about the 15-year-old kid’s search for home. The strong supporting cast includes Steve Buscemi as the sleazy horse trainer he takes a summer job with, Chloe Sevigny as the seen-it-all veteran jockey, and Alison Elliott as the kid’s estranged aunt. Filmed on location in Portland, Oregon and other locations in the great northwest, this is a treasure of a film.

Available on both Blu-ray and DVD, extras include an informative making-of documentary.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the dystopian horror film A Quiet Place has a unique premise in that the film’s monsters are blind but possess a heightened sense of hearing that forces the survivors to live in a world of silence. Directed by John Kasinski who stars in the film opposite real-life wife Emily Blunt, the film also stars Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck), Noah Jupe (Wonder), and newcomer Cade Woodward as their three children.

The actors are all fine considering what they’re given to work with, but the film leaves so many questions unanswered, it’s like reading a book with the first and last chapters ripped out and black ink splattered across many of the remaining pages. That said, you may enjoy it if you’re not expecting much in the way of logic.

A Quiet Place is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is both timeless and timely. Mark Twain’s 1876 novel had already been made into a film four times when David O. Selznick produced the definitive version directed by Norman Taurog (Boys Town) in Technicolor in 1938. Selznick’s search for the perfect Tom was as extensive as his search for the perfect Scarlet in the following year’s Gone with the Wind. The winner of the search was 12-year-old Tommy Kelly who proved perfect for the part but whose career went into fast decline. Although his screen career would last through 1950, he never played a credited role after 1942. His last films included unbilled roles as a casualty in Battleground and a secretary in The Magnificent Yankee.

Highlights of the film, like the novel, include the whitewashing of the fence, Tom and Huck’s river journey and the very timely nearly thirty-minute sequence of Tom and Becky lost in a cave in which Becky nearly dies of dehydration.

The standout in the supporting cast is May Robson as Tom’s Aunt Polly straight from her appearance in Selznick’s 1937 film A Star Is Born and ahead of her other two 1938 classics, Bringing Up Baby and Four Daughters.

Kino Lorber’s Blu-ray and DVD releases include both the original 91-minute cut of the film and the 74-minute 1954 reissue cut.

Kino-Lorber has also released the earlier Selznick film, 1932’s A Bill of Divorcement, in both formats, which, like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, had never been released on DVD before.

George Cukor directed this, the second of three film versions of the 1921 Broadway play. It all takes place at a British country estate with all but two brief scenes occurring inside the house and the other two just outside of it. John Barrymore is the man who escapes from the insane asylum he has been locked away in for fifteen years on Christmas morning claiming sudden clarity. Billie Burke is the wife who divorced him unbeknownst to him and is about to marry another man (Paul Cavanagh). Katharine Hepburn in her film debut is their daughter who has just become engaged to a young man of her own (David Manners). Elizabeth Patterson is Barrymore’s sister who resides in the house with Burke and Hepburn, and Henry Stephenson is the family doctor who must decide whether Barrymore should return to the asylum. It does not end the way you expect it to. The plot is sheer hokum, but the splendid cast pulls it off.

Peter Ustinov directed his first film in 1946, but it was his 1962 film of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd for which the two-time Oscar-winning actor is remembered as a writer-director. Released in a stunning new Blu-ray from Warner Archive, the film still resonates in its shimmering black-and-white format. As good as Ustinov himself is as the ship’s captain, it’s the performances of Robert Ryan as the evil master of arms, Calaggart; Terence Stamp as the good merchant seaman, Billy; and Melvyn Douglas as the old sailmaker that really shine. Stamp, in his film debut, was nominated for an Oscar and Douglas, whose first film in eleven years this was, would win an Oscar the following year for Hud.

One of the funniest films ever made as well as one of the best sports films of all time, Ron Shelton’s debut 1988 film Bull Durham has been given a 30th anniversary special edition Blu-ray by Criterion. The baseball classic, which bolstered the careers of Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins features two commentary tracks, one by Shelton, one by Costner and Robbins, and tons of baseball-centered extras.

Inspector Morse (1987-2000) has long been considered the best of the modern British mystery TV series, but its sequel, Inspector Lewis (2006-2015), was just as good and so is Endeavour (2012-present), the prequel that deals with the early career of Morse in the 1960s.

Now available in both Blu-ray and DVD from PBS, the fifth season features Morse (Shaun Evans) with most of the detectives who have been with the series from the beginning including Roger Allam and Anton Lister as well as a new one this season, Lewis Peek. By the end of the season the station house will be closed due to consolidation and the detectives will be given separate new assignments. Season 6 will move the series in a new direction in 2019.

This week’s new releases include Isle of Dogs and You Were Never Really Here.

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