New Releases for August 20 2024

NOT A PRETTY PICTURE (1976) (CRITERION)

Trailblazing filmmaker Martha Coolidge made her feature debut with this unflinchingly personal hybrid of documentary and fiction. Centered on an intense reenactment of Coolidge’s experience of rape in her adolescence, the film casts Michele Manenti (also a survivor) as the director’s younger self, and observes the actor and her castmates as they engage in a profound dialogue about what it means to recreate these traumatic memories, and about their attitudes concerning consent and self-blame. A high-stakes experiment in metacinema that broke new ground with its uncompromising examination of date rape, Not a Pretty Picture brings a stunning immediacy to questions about the on-screen representation of sexual violence and the limits of artistic catharsis. (BLU-RAY and DVD)

THEY CALL ME MACHO WOMAN (1989)

Susan Morris thought she could find peace and quiet by escaping the city and moving to a secluded country town. Unfortunately, she's picked the wrong day to go house-hunting as she and her mousey real estate agent stumble on a big-money backwoods drug dealing scheme led by the vicious Mongo and his crude gang of inbred thugs. But, when the hillbillies take Susan hostage, they quickly realize they've got trouble on their hands and that the pretty, blonde city girl they've tied up is in fact a highly trained killing machine! (BLU-RAY)

LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL (1984) (WARNER ARCHIVE)

Palestinian intelligence says she's loyal to their cause. Israeli counterintelligence says she's "bright, creative, underused, romantic and a liar." Academy Award winner Diane Keaton stars as Charlie, a repertory actress and Palestinian sympathizer who plays the role of -- and for -- her life when she's thrust onto the center stage of international espionage. Klaus Kinski and Yorgo Voyagis co-star as shrewd Israeli operatives who plot to use Charlie as bait to capture an elusive terrorist (Sami Frey). Director George Roy Hill masterfully arranges the pieces of this cloak-and-dagger puzzle based on John le Carre's bestseller into a dazzling thriller racing full tilt through London, Munich, Athens, Jerusalem and Beirut. (BLU-RAY)

GREEN BORDER (2023) 

Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival, Green Border immediately drew controversy from the Polish government for its depiction of the European migrant crisis on the Poland-Belarus border. Shot in stark black-and-white, this riveting thriller explores the intractable conflict from multiple perspectives: a Syrian family fleeing ISIS caught between cruel border guards in both countries; young guards instructed to brutally reject the migrants; and activists who, at great risk, aid the refugees. Director Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa) brings an unflinching eye and deep compassion to this blistering critique of a humanitarian calamity that continues to unfold. (BLU-RAY and DVD)

HOUSE OF SEVEN CORPSES (1974) (2 DISKS) 

The old Beal mansion is famous for the mysterious deaths that befell all seven members of the Beal family there. Looking to cash in on the legend, schlock director Eric Hartman (John Ireland) and his crew rent the place in order to make a film about the infamous family. Everything goes fine until, when staging a black mass, the actors read incantations from "The Tibetan Book of the Dead." Zombies suddenly emerge from the cemetery in the backyard and begin killing off the crew one by one. (BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)