There’s a bunch of stuff out this week. Some of it is even good. Not much of that good stuff is in new releases, though. The best new title is probably, almost by default, Zoe Lister-Jones’ music dramedy Band Aid, and the “biggest” title is probably Rough Night, a female reboot of Very Bad Things in every thing but name. It wastes several talents, most obviously its great cast, but also cinematographer Sean Porter, the excellent indie DoP of Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter and Green Room whose work on 20th Century Women was some of my very favorite cinematography of last year (it’s some of the only cinematography that’s genuinely touched my heart in addition to looking good). If the cinematographers series was not dead and buried at this point (I’ve seen multiple people call it “ongoing”, and yeah, it is very much not that), I might cover it. I wouldn’t even think about covering Barry Ackroyd’s work on Sean Penn’s The Last Face, which received the kind of apoplectic reaction at its Cannes premiere that makes Vincent Gallo sleep a little easier at night. It’s almost certainly only getting a release because it stars Charlize Theron and Javier Bardem, and will very soon become a (hilarious) footnote in the careers of them and Penn and Blue is the Warmest Color‘s Adele Exarchopoulos.

Catalog titles are at least a little less depressing (or maybe Lionsgate inexplicably upgrading American Psycho 2 brings down the average to that of the new releases). Criterion has finally gotten back rights to Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca and brought back many of the features from the old DVD in addition to some new bells and whistles and an excellent new 4K restoration of the film. Also getting a 4K remaster is James Ivory’s Maurice (just in time for the fellow Ivory-scripted gay romance Call Me By Your Name), courtesy of the Cohen Film Collection. Universal continues to release comedies seemingly chosen at random (and also The Skulls), and they’ve managed to hit on two good movies this time, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and Ron Howard’s The Paper (the latter being released in widescreen for the first time). That’s just one of two Michael Keaton comedies finally getting released in widescreen this week, with Shout Factory’s release of Mr. Mom. And while Kino has had a habit of fucking up recently, based on screenshots, they’ve actually done right by Sydney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (I can’t speak to their release of William Friedkin’s The Birthday Party, though).

All Eyez on Me (Lionsgate)
American Psycho 2 (Lionsgate)
Band Aid (Shout Factory)
The Birthday Party (Kino)
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (Universal)
Fletch Lives (Universal)
For Richer or Poorer (Universal)
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (HBO)
The Last Face (Lionsgate)
Lowriders (Universal)
Maurice (Cohen Media Group)
Megan Leavey (Universal)
Mr. Mom (Shout Factory)
The Paper (Universal)
Rebecca (Criterion)
Rough Night (Sony)
The Skulls (Universal)
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (Kino)