New Releases for October 22 2024

ABOUT DRY GRASSES (2023)

The latest existential epic from Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a masterclass in characterization, atmosphere, and moral and philosophical inquiry. When he comes under scrutiny for misconduct, cynical middle-school instructor Samet (Deniz Celiloğlu) fears that his punishment will trap him in the snowy, isolated Anatolian village he has grown to despise. The only ray of hope is his relationship with Nuray (Merve Dizdar, who won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival), a fellow teacher who openly challenges Samet’s bitter narcissism—yet Samet’s friendship with his colleague and roommate, Kenan (Musab Ekici), who also has feelings for Nuray, hangs in the balance. Using hypnotic long takes and other bold formal techniques to convey the murky motives of its Dostoevskian protagonist, About Dry Grasses proves Ceylan to be one of cinema’s most incisive investigators of the human condition. (DVD and BLU-RAY)

GUMMO (1997) (Criterion Collection) 

Harmony Korine’s debut feature is an audacious, lyrical evocation of America’s rural underbelly, and an elegy in the southern-gothic tradition of William Faulkner and William Eggleston. Shot in Korine’s native Nashville—standing in for the tornado-ravaged Xenia, Ohio—the rough-hewn film follows two young friends, Tummler and Solomon, as they ride around town, huffing glue and hunting stray cats, their every local encounter charged with vaudevillian anarchy as well as deep pathos. At once transgressive and empathetic, disturbing and undeniably beautiful, Gummo is a one-of-a-kind portrait of angelic and devilish souls caught in a cultural void, circumscribed by poverty and the depleted, alienated spiritual life of late-twentieth-century America. (BLU-RAY + 4KULTRAHD)

TWISTERS (2024) 

Kate Cooper is a former storm chaser haunted by a devastating encounter with a tornado during her college years who now studies storm patterns on screens safely in New York City. She is lured back to the open plains by her friend, Javi  to test a groundbreaking new tracking system. There, she crosses paths with Tyler Owens, the charming and reckless social-media superstar who thrives on posting his storm-chasing adventures with his raucous crew, the more dangerous the better. (BLU-RAY and DVD)

HITCHER, THE (1986) 

In this 1986 cult classic, director Robert Harmon thrills the viewer with the story of young Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell), who stops on the highway to pick up a hitchhiker, not knowing that by doing so, he opens the door to terrible evil. The mysterious hitcher, unforgettably portrayed by Rutger Hauer, is a relentless slaughterer, preying on those who invite him into their lives. Somewhat dismissed at the time of its original release, THE HITCHER developed a rabid fan following in the ensuing years, now properly recognized as one of the most memorable and terrifying thrillers of the 1980s. (BLU-RAY)

CUCKOO (2024)

17-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) who leaves her American home to live with her father and moves into a resort in the German Alps with his new family. Arriving at their future residence, they are greeted by Mr. König (Stevens), her father's boss, who takes an inexplicable interest in Gretchen's mute half-sister Alma. Something doesn't seem right in this tranquil vacation paradise. Gretchen is plagued by strange noises and bloody visions until she discovers a shocking secret that also concerns her own family. (BLU-RAY)