This week in movies you missed: No, this is not Quartet with Maggie Smith, which is slated for the Savoy Theater in Montpelier on February 15. It’s a different movie about classical musicians with an all-star cast.

What You Missed

For 25 years, the Fugue String Quartet has won accolades all over the world. Now its founder, cellist Peter (Christopher Walken), is feeling his age. When he’s given a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, he realizes he’ll need a replacement if the quartet is to go on.

Violist Juliette (Catherine Keener), to whom Peter is a father figure, struggles to accept his departure. Her husband, Robert (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the quartet’s second violinist, decides this is a good time to point out he’s always wanted to try playing first chair. That doesn’t go over well with the first violinist, Daniel (Mark Ivanir), who was Juliette’s first love and is currently teaching the couple’s violinist daughter (Imogen Poots). Feeling cold-shouldered by his wife and colleagues, Robert gets cozy with a flamenco dancer.

Will the quartet survive the transition and make it through a season-opening performance of Beethoven’s Opus 131?

Why You Missed It

You may have caught A Late Quartet during a run at the Savoy or Catamount Arts, but not in Burlington.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Fans of Beethoven, string quartets and classical music generally should check out A Late Quartet. It’s a restrained, beautifully acted drama that does not fall prey to Hollywood stereotypes about professional musicians. No divas or egomaniacs here. As the offspring of two classical flutists, I found the characters and their upper-class New York milieu plausible … if a little stifling.

While the characters are believable, the screenplay (by Seth Grossman and director Yaron Zilberman) doesn’t delve far beneath their surfaces. Everyone can be summed up by one dominant trait: Peter is nurturing, Juliette is cold, Robert is insecure and passive-aggressive, and Daniel is a perfectionist who needs to experience “passion.” As for Poots’ twentysomething character, she seems to exist only to give Daniel the “passion” he needs and then to guilt-trip Juliette for being an absent mother. She doesn’t make much sense on her own.

Because of this shallowness, and because the quartet’s drama is pretty easily resolved, I found myself more interested in the actual music, played by the Brentano String Quartet. The film would have benefited from less classy soap opera, more music geekery.

Verdict: Christopher Walken lecturing about the history of Opus 131: surprisingly absorbing. (Who wouldn’t want him for a prof?) Christopher Walken confronting his mortality: good stuff, but we’ve seen it before. A lot lately.

More New Off-the-Beaten Track DVDs

Celeste & Jesse Forever

The Day He Arrives (latest from Korean auteur Sang-soo Hong)

Deadfall (Eric Bana. Olivia Wilde. Casino heist.)

Little White Lies (Marion Cotillard. French family drama.)

So Undercover (Miley Cyrus. Doing her version of Miss Congeniality.)

Yelling to the Sky (Zoe Kravitz. Inner-city drama.)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: a true story stranger than fiction.

What You Missed

In 1994, 13-year-old Nicholas Barclay left his home in San Antonio, Tx., and did not return. Nearly four years later, his family received a call from Spain. Their missing child, they were told, had been found. Nicholas’ grown sister, Carey Gibson, jumped on a plane.

What she didn’t know — but the viewer of Bart Layton’s documentary does, early on — was that “Nicholas” was actually a 23-year-old Frenchman named Frédéric Bourdin who made a habit of impersonating abused or abandoned teenagers. His motive, he claimed, was to find the love and care his own family had denied him.

Until now, Bourdin had invented his false identities, he tells us in interview footage. He stole Nicholas’ only because the authorities threatened him with finger-printing, which would have revealed his long record. As soon as he saw a color photo of the missing boy, Bourdin realized he could never convince Nicholas’ family that he — dark-eyed, dark-haired, not a native English speaker — was their blond, blue-eyed, all-American son.

Or could he?

Why You Missed It

Like many docs, The Imposter skipped most U.S. theaters, reaching 31.

Should You Keep Missing It?

The strange exploits of Bourdin are already well documented — for instance, in this 2008 New Yorker piece, which reveals how he continued successfully to impersonate teens and fool sympathetic do-gooders even after his fame as an imposter had spread across the U.S. (They don’t watch Connie Chung in France!)

While it explores a narrower slice of the story, The Imposter is still well worth watching. Layton’s documentary has three components: interviews (with Bourdin, Nicholas’ family members, the FBI agent assigned to his case, and the private detective who first suspected him); snippets of VHS footage from Nicholas’ family; and re-enactments of the events using actors.

These aren’t lurid, basic-cable-type re-enactments; they’re restrained, generally soundless and artistically shot, à la Errol Morris. They draw us in while also reminding us how much fabrication is involved in storytelling — particularly when the storyteller is an attested pathological liar like Bourdin. He loves to talk about himself, but can we trust anything he tells us? For that matter, can we trust Nicholas’ family?

Layton uses film noirish touches to emphasize his dramatic shaping of the story, which features a Texan private dick, Charlie Parker, straight out of a Coen brothers movie. While the FBI agent looks for the child sex ring that supposedly abducted Nicholas, Parker is the one who thinks to compare the shape of the boy’s ears in a childhood photo with those of Bourdin, then growls, “The ears don’t match!”

Bourdin’s disguise wasn’t exactly hard to penetrate. (Even today, he speaks with a strong French accent unimaginable from a native English speaker.) The real question is, how did he fool so many for so long? As Parker speculates about whether Nicholas’ family really thought Bourdin was their son, and why they might have conned the con man, the story develops another, more disturbing layer of mystery. Like many real-life mysteries, it lacks the satisfying wrap-up of a fictional whodunit. But the journey is worth taking.

Verdict: See it if you like con-artist stories or documentaries that explore the dark corners of human behavior. Then memorize your kids’ faces (and ears).

More New Off-the-Beaten Track DVDs

The Awakening (Rebecca Hall in ghost story set in 1921 England)

“Downton Abbey,” season 3

I Am Bruce Lee (TV doc about the martial-arts star)

Seven Psychopaths

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: the movie where Nicole Kidman scored a Golden Globe nomination by peeing on Zac Efron.

What You Missed

Rural Florida, 1969. A corrupt sheriff was brutally murdered, and a swamp-dwelling low-life (John Cusack) has been convicted of the crime. A woman named Charlotte Bless (Kidman), who’s been corresponding with him on death row and plans to marry him, appeals to a pair of hot-shot Miami journalists (Matthew McConaughey and David Oyelowo) to prove his innocence.

McConaughey’s character’s dad owns a newspaper in the area, and his naïve younger brother, Jack (Efron), tags along with the investigation. The “paperboy” of the title, Jack strips to his tightie-whities more eagerly than Bryan Cranston on “Breaking Bad.” He falls in love with Charlotte after he watches her pleasuring herself in front of her manacled lover while simulating a blow job, and, well, things get creepier and more ludicrous from there. (You don’t want to know how Cusack reacts when his fiancée wears pants to see him instead of her usual micro-mini.)

Why You Missed It

After getting a big (not exactly positive) reaction at Cannes, this drama from Lee Daniels, director of Precious, made it to 76 U.S. theaters.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Ah, Paperboy. I had such high hopes for you. I wasn’t expecting to have a modicum of respect for you, or to take you at all seriously, the way I did the borderline-campy Precious. But I thought, “This sounds like ‘John Waters does Wild Things’ — what could be wrong with that?”

So much. Nathan Rabin of the A.V. Club said it best: “It’s as if the filmmakers combined 18 different kinds of scalding-hot peppers, yet inexplicably emerged with oatmeal.”

The Paperboy isn’t a full-fledged Southern-gothic campfest, just an incompetent movie that alternates arty affectations with over-the-top silly conceits. Daniels seems to want to portray how Southern racism infected all relationships; there’s a subplot involving Efron’s friendship with the family maid (Macy Gray) that might have been grittier than The Help.

But that goes nowhere, like every other plot thread in the film, because Daniels is too busy stopping the action to have Kidman defy her ice-queen image by doing something slutty and outrageous, or to sweep his camera lovingly over Efron’s chest again. Jack’s love for Charlotte is never remotely plausible: When the heroine is described as “a sex-crazed Barbie doll” in your movie, you have a problem.

None of the characters make sense, and, owing to long stretches of improvised-sounding dialogue, neither do many of the scenes. McConaughey and Oyelowo spend far more time gazing at each other sinisterly and/or sensually than they do investigating the case; McConaughey’s dark secret is finally revealed in a scene that should have been horrifying, not laughable.

The whole spectacle suggests high school kids with a camera trying to mash up Angel Heart, Mississippi Burning, Monster’s Ball and Killer Joe. Movie stars inexplicably participate, and everyone ends up embarrassing themselves — despite the special-feature interviews in which the stars pontificate “On Lee Daniels Being a Genius.”

Precious was an OK movie in my book. Whatever you think of the source material, it had a setting suffused with life and energy, a straightforward, coming-of-age storyline and strong performances. But this flick suggests that, when he indulges his every whim, Daniels doesn’t have much of a filmmaking future.

Verdict: Destined to be best remembered as the film where Kidman spoke the words, “If anyone’s gonna piss on him, it’s gonna be me!”

More New DVDs

The Ambassador (Danish doc about blood diamond trade)

End of Watch

Keep the Lights On (drama about a gay male relationship in 1997 NYC)

The Imposter (semidocumentary retelling of the case of a Texas boy who disappeared, then reappeared in Europe … or did he?)

Nature Calls (Patton Oswalt tries to force pampered modern kids to go camping.)

Nobody Walks (John Krasinski, Olivia Thirlby play arty types in LA.)

Pina

Samsara (trippy/spiritual wordless collage of documentary footage)

Searching for Sugar Man (acclaimed doc about tracking down a legendary singer-songwriter)

Something Better Somewhere Else (indie romantic comedy told in four stories)

Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning (People on the internet say this Jean-Claude Van Damme flick is an unsung triumph. We shall see.)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: In 2012, Twilight fans flocked to a movie that lectured them about “cybercapital.” Then, we’re guessing, they flocked straight out again.

What You Missed

Eric Packer (Robert Pattinson), a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager, wants a haircut. He sets off across Manhattan in his stretch limo, though his chief of security (Kevin Durand) warns him of unrest in the city.

Along the way, Packer chats with his ice queen wife (Sarah Gadon); gets busy with his art dealer (Juliette Binoche) and various other ladies; watches anarchist protesters immolate themselves; and receives a very thorough physical from his doctor while having an intense conversation with a colleague (Emily Hampshire) about the vicissitudes of the Chinese yuan, which threatens to bring down his business empire. Will he survive the trip with his 1-percenter identity intact?

Why You Missed It

Despite the Pattinson factor and the smaller (but committed) fan bases of director David Cronenberg and novelist Don DeLillo, on whose book it is based, Cosmopolis only reached 65 U.S. theaters.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Watching Cosmopolis and Holy Motors on the same night (thanks for the screening, Burlington Film Society!) I was struck by the similarities. Both are movies about a man riding through a city in a stretch limo over the course of a single day. Both those men discuss how technology is “melting into the texture of everyday life,” as Cronenberg’s script puts it. The digitization of life itself is a subtheme in both movies. Both protagonists leave their protected vehicles to have fleeting encounters with the highs and lows of society. Neither film aims to be “realistic,” and both are labors of love by the director, too out there for big ticket sales or U.S. awards consideration.

Given all these similarities, why did I, a Cronenberg fan, love Holy Motors yet find Cosmopolis a trial to sit through?

Well, there are the differences. Holy Motors is a relatively quiet film where a lot of insanely memorable stuff happens. (You may not like it, but you can’t deny it’s memorable.) It’s driven by the performance of Denis Lavant, who embodies a slew of characters experiencing all kinds of emotions with great abandon.

Cosmopolis, on the other hand, is a film where people talk. And talk. And talk. They talk about things that fascinate both DeLillo and me, including the rise of “cybercapital,” how people are becoming “streams of information” and how “time is a corporate asset now.” The problem is, every single person in the film talks this way. Pretty much all the time.

A sample exchange: “My prostate is asymmetrical.” “What does this mean?” “I don’t know.”

Rest assured, we will be informed of the meaning of Pattinson’s asymmetrical prostate by the end of the film, and a grad student could probably write a paper on said meaning. The question is, do we care?

Cronenberg undoubtedly knew what he was doing when he chose this cold, cerebral, dialogue-driven approach to DeLillo’s novel. He elicited a perfectly solid performance from Pattinson in the role of the cold, cerebral hero. (Paul Giamatti and Samantha Morton also play key roles, but Binoche is the only actor who seems like a human being.)

It’s an accomplished movie, and those who like the deliberately alienating aesthetic will love it. But I prefer my Cronenberg with some human grubbiness, some humor, perhaps even some exploding heads.

And I like my movies about ideas to contain at least halfway-believable characters who can illustrate said ideas with their actions. (Martin McDonagh's work comes to mind.) Eric Parker never feels like more than a construct, and that, for me, is the downfall of the film.

Verdict: Cronenberg fans will see Cosmopolis anyway. Pattinson fans should stay far away, except perhaps for the ones who enjoy this Tumblr. I think they’ll appreciate the scene where his character has a public rectal exam.

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: a movie that might be about teen lesbian werewolves, or just about arty navel gazing.

What You Missed

Diane (Juno Temple) arrives in New York and stumbles around, dressed like a little girl, having frequent nosebleeds and asking to borrow a phone. She meets Jack (Riley Keough, granddaughter of Elvis Presley), with whom she has instant chemistry. The two girls, both über-hip in their clothes and media (they’re partial to Walkmans and CDs), fall for each other. But Jack is devastated when she discovers that Diane has plans to leave for Paris in two weeks.

Other problems: Diane has a weird relationship with her twin sister, a chronic spaciness and issues with sex. Oh, and she might be some kind of monster. At least, the film’s teaser suggests so, as do frequent cuts to Cronenbergian animated sequences in which golden hair slithers through the bloody, slimy innards of … something. Or is that just a metaphor?

Why You Missed It

The latest from writer-director Bradley Rust Gray (The Exploding Girl) hit two U.S. theaters for two weeks.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Jack & Diane is one of those indies in which very little happens except for two attractive young people gazing at each other in close-up: photo-shoot mumblecore. While it has the elements to be a fascinating and provocative exploration of young women’s sexuality, etc. etc., the writing just isn’t there.

The problem is that Jack and Diane are the only characters on screen for most of the film, and they aren’t fleshed out. Jack has a trauma in her past, and something’s clearly wrong with Diane, but we never find out what. Things happen for no reason: Early on, for instance, Jack is nearly run over, which leaves her with a blood-caked facial wound for the rest of the film. Symbolically, this must have something to do with Diane’s fantasies of eating Jack alive, but it’s just kind of … there. The imagery doesn’t feed into a drama, and when Gray makes gestures in the direction of narrative, like a subplot involving internet porn, they never make much sense or go anywhere.

Temple also starred in the last DVD I reviewed in 2012 — Killer Joe — and she’s memorably strange in both movies, like a potentially homicidal Lolita who might just also be a space alien. I haven’t seen her in any film where she wasn’t strange. An actress to watch, but maybe not in this movie.

Verdict: For lovers of slow-paced lesbian romances with lots of quirk, Jack & Diane could fit the bill. If the werewolf angle is what interests you, you’re better off revisiting Ginger Snaps.

More New DVDs

“Archer,” season 3

Compliance

“Enlightened,” Season 1

Game Change (Julianne Moore plays Sarah Palin)

Guns, Girls and Gambling (Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, and Dane Cook in an action-comedy)

“The Hour,” season 2

The Inbetweeners Movie (Dorky teen boys on the make in an adaptation of the Brit comedy series.)

Now Is Good (Dakota Fanning as a dying teen)

Seal Team Six: Raid on Osama bin Laden (That other fictional version — with Cam Gigandet!)

Sleep Tight (Spanish thriller about a doorman tormenting a tenant in his building.)

Stolen (Nicolas Cage reteams with the director of Con Air)

The Wise Kids (coming-of-age tale set at a Baptist church)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: Matthew McConaughey goes sociopathic (and shows more than his chest) in a Southern-fried nightmare from the director of The Exorcist.

What You Missed

In deepest trailer-park Texas, young Chris (Emile Hirsch) has a problem. Someone stole his stash of cocaine, and now his suppliers want their money, or he’s dead. The prime suspect: his mother, with whom he has a less-than-cordial relationship. (“You hit her again?” someone asks, on learning he’s been kicked out of her house.) Chris approaches his thick-witted dad (Thomas Haden Church) and vampy, trampy stepmom (Gina Gershon) with a proposition that they hire a hitman to off the culprit, then split her life insurance policy, which is made out to his dotty sister, Dottie (Juno Temple).

The man they choose for the job is the titular Killer Joe Cooper (McConaughey), who is, conveniently for cover-up purposes, also a cop. But Joe isn’t willing to do the job on spec, and the “retainer” he has in mind is Dottie herself.

What could possibly go wrong?

Why You Missed It

Saddled with an NC-17 rating (for pretty good reasons), this indie from Exorcist director William Friedkin only hit 75 theaters, despite a script by Pulitzer winner Tracy Letts (from his play) and McConaughey’s star power.

Should You Keep Missing It?

If you’re eagerly awaiting Django Unchained, if you love Blood Simple, if you ate up the craziness of Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, hie thee to the video store to grab Killer Joe. If, on the other hand, movie violence — both physical and emotional — is the absolute last thing you want to see right now, you may want to give it a pass.

While this character-driven noir isn’t one of those films that involve people gleefully spraying other people with bullets, it is rude, crude, lewd and unabashedly enthusiastic about exploring very bad human behavior, with no redemption for anyone in sight. Think Tennessee Williams with a big side of John Waters. (There’s one really demented scene involving a fried chicken leg.) In other words, a probable future cult classic, but not for everyone.

To be honest, I’m not sure there was an ultimate point to Killer Joe besides painting a redneck family portrait in shades of lurid WTF-ery. But I won’t soon forget the creepy “romance” — if it is that — between Joe and Dottie. Is Dottie “simple,” is she a not-so-dreamy Manic Pixie Dream Girl, or is she just more honest than everybody else, as Friedkin claims in this fascinating, no-holds-barred interview? Maybe a little of all three. And there’s also something way off about Joe, who seduces her with reptilian grace, slithering his way into her fantasy life. It’s more than suggested that he puts her in a hypnotic trance.

It’s all more proof that a character-acting McConaughey is a good McConaughey. The character he creates here is genuinely scary at times, and way more interesting than your average movie psycho. Watching him in Killer Joe and last spring’s Bernie, I could totally forget McConaughey's shirtless participation in travesties such as Fool’s Gold. Let’s hope it stays that way for a while.

Verdict: Sit down in your own personal living-room drive-in/grindhouse and enjoy.

More New DVDs

10 Years (Channing Tatum and his real-life wife play friends at a high school reunion.)

Arbitrage

Backwards (James Van Der Beek in a romance about rowing.)

Beloved (generation-spanning musical from French director Christophe Honoré, with Catherine Deneuve)

The Good Doctor (Orlando Bloom tries to cure a young woman.)

Hermano (Venezuelan film about soccer player trying to escape the slums)

Kiss Me (Thirtysomething Swedish stepsisters fall in love.)

Liberal Arts (Josh Radnor directed and stars as an admissions officer falling for undergrad Elizabeth Olsen.)

Mansome (Morgan Spurlock takes on metrosexual masculinity.)

Red Hook Summer (Spike Lee’s latest is a tale about childhood.)

Sleepwalk With Me

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: A contrarian Film 101 course says no, the story of film is not all about Hollywood.

What You Missed

What are the “rules” of making movies? What does Taxi Driver have in common with a Godard film? How did film separate itself from theater? Who did the first movie close-up? The first editing? Who was the first movie star? How did Hollywood get so important?

All these questions are addressed in the first three episodes of The Story of Film, a highly idiosyncratic documentary series. Mark Cousins, a film historian from northern Ireland who likes to wear kilts (pictured) directed this 15-hour illustrated history of the art form based on his book of the same name.

It’s stuffed with clips from films ranging from the very familiar (Saving Private Ryan) to the much less so, at least for modern, Western moviegoers (groundbreaking silent films from Denmark, Shanghai and Japan). Cousins alternates these with recent footage of sites important to film history (Edison’s New Jersey, cities around the world) and oddball images he uses to illustrate his concepts. For instance, a shiny Christmas bauble represents Hollywood’s “romantic entertainment cinema” and shatters when arty innovators such as Carl Dreyer come along to break the rules.

Why You Missed It

Clocking in at 900 minutes, The Story of Film was broadcast on the UK’s Channel 4.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Cousins narrates the series, explaining the images to us. With a lilting Irish accent and a tendency to leave sentences hanging on an inconclusive up-note, he sounds like a parent trying to lull you to sleep by telling a thrilling bedtime story about the growth of a multibillion-dollar global industry ... very ... calmly ... and ... sleepily.

It might actually put you to sleep, if Cousins weren’t using his hypnotic tone to say deliberately provocative things, such as calling traditional film history “racist by omission” and asserting that films such as Casablanca are not “classics.” He’s like someone on serious downers reading a revolutionary political manifesto, a combination that grew on me. His collagistic, sometimes free-associating use of images didn’t hurt, either.

Its style issues and self-conscious contrarianism aside, The Story of Film is simply an absorbing film history. Cousins’ explanations of concepts like the “180-degree rule” are simple and clear, the jargon is minimal, and, best of all, you’ll get all kinds of new, cool-looking movies to add to your “To Watch” list. It’s time to stop complaining about how modern Hollywood puts out nothing but sequels and remakes and go watch The Wind and the films of Ozu, already. I only had time to see the first three hours of TSoF for this review, but I’m looking forward to the rest.

Verdict: If The Artist and Hugo made you want to watch silent films but you didn’t know where to start, Cousins should be your next stop.

More New DVDs

Advocate for Fagdom (doc about “queercore” filmmaker Bruce LaBruce)

The Bourne Legacy

“Futurama,” season 7

“Girls,” season 1

Half the Sky (miniseries about the global quest to improve women’s opportunities)

Miami Connection (cheapie cult classic from 1987, featuring a “martial arts rock band”)

Ted

Trade of Innocents (Dermot Mulroney and Mira Sorvino deal with human trafficking)

Up Heartbreak Hill (doc about Native American teens)

Why Stop Now (Piano prodigy [Jesse Eisenberg] struggles with his drug-addicted mom [Melissa Leo].)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: A slew of young horror directors bring us a found-footage anthology. But is it scary?

What You Missed

A group of twentysomething douchebags (sorry, the word fits) like to get unwilling or unwitting women naked on camera, then sell the footage online. While robbing a deserted house, they discover a corpse sitting in an armchair with a bunch of staticking TVs and stacks of videotapes. Rather than getting the hell out of there, they watch the tapes, each of which turns out to be a mini-horror flick:

In “Amateur Night,” directed by David Bruckner (The Signal), a group of partying frat bro types bring home a girl who turns out to be more voracious than they bargained for.

In “Second Honeymoon,” from Ti West (The House of the Devil), things go very wrong on a couple’s road trip through the Southwest.

“Tuesday the 17th,” from Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead) is a standard cabin-in-the-woods plot with a video-related twist.

Mumblecore director Joe Swanberg brings us “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger,” in which the title character Skypes with her distant boyfriend from an apartment she fears is haunted.

In “10/31/98,” from the collective Radio Silence, we learn why it’s best to avoid spooky houses on Halloween, even if there’s supposedly a party inside.

Why You Missed It

V/H/S made the rounds of festivals but only reached 19 theaters. This is most definitely not PG-13 horror.

Should You Keep Missing It?

If you’re a horror fan, you’ll probably want to check this out, and if you’re not, you almost certainly won’t. But for the record, here’s one horror fan’s reaction.

The segments that genuinely scared me were “Amateur Night,” “Second Honeymoon” and “The Sick Thing...” The first takes a long, long time to get creepy, and the other two have misguided twist endings that don’t make a ton of sense, but they all have their oh-shit moments.

I gather, however, that the internet fan consensus finds West’s segment too slow (it is pretty Blair Witch) and favors “10/31/98” for its creative, cheap effects. For me, that one was a little too hokey to be scary.

By far the worst segment is “Tuesday the 17th,” due to laughably wooden acting. Camp may have a place in slasher flicks, but not in found-footage horror.

I found V/H/S overall a seamy, seedy, almost dirty-feeling experience. That’s largely because the theme of guys trying to get girls to undress in front of the camera recurs in virtually every segment, usually leading to gratuitous nudity. Plus, every segment has white, entitled, twentysomething protagonists who seem to be almost begging for a comeuppance from the universe.

Were the filmmakers trying for some kind of commentary on sexual exploitation in horror, or is that aspect of the shorts just ... fan service? Perhaps some of both. But the creepy aura of voyeurism certainly fits the found-footage theme.

Verdict: When you give young male horror directors their way, they’re gonna put lots of boobs and blood on the screen. And, yes, some scares.

More New DVDs

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Butter (Jennifer Garner in a comedy about a Midwestern butter-sculpting competition)

The Dark Knight Rises

“Eastbound & Down,” season 3

Hope Springs (Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, couples therapy)

Last Ounce of Courage (Nonbelievers are waging war on Christmas, according to this inspirational drama.)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: Would The Road be better with ass kicking? WWE Studios decided to find out.

What You Missed

Six raggedly dressed, well-armed, photogenic young people hike along a country road in what appears to be a normal stick-season landscape. Because everything has been digitally drained of color, however, we can safely assume something apocalyptic has happened.

Our heroes (played by Dominic Monaghan of “Lost" and hobbit fame, Shawn Ashmore, Shannyn Sossamon, Ashley Bell and Cory Hardrict) explore a deserted farmhouse and discover a precious cache of food cans. But something is tracking them. It transpires that the house is a potential death trap where the group will make a valiant, budget-friendly last stand. For, you see, nothing has grown on earth in 10 years, and our friends are among the last survivors who haven’t become cannibals.

Why You Missed It

Made in Canada, Doug Aarniokoski’s flick reached 12 U.S. theaters and grossed only about $21,000.

Should You Keep Missing It?

If nothing else, The Day proves that Ashley Bell deserves a better career. The star of The Last Exorcism carries this movie as Mary, a grim, battle-scarred young woman who is hiding an ugly secret from her companions. (Someone should have told her that if you don’t want people to see a tattoo on your thigh, it's best not to wear a flippy, thigh-length dress. Really, there’s never a good reason for thigh-high skirts after the apocalypse.)

Combined with that bleak, starkly lit landscape, Bell’s demeanor gives the film a few iotas of credibility. Stealing the premise wholescale from Cormac McCarthy also helps its cause. Just like in The Road, we’re never told what wasted our planet; all that matters is that strangers want to eat you. And they’re smarter and more articulate than zombies! It’s the ultimate paranoid fantasy.

Luke Passmore’s script is pretty weak, but there isn’t much dialogue, so it doesn’t matter. The film has enough extreme violence to satisfy genre fans, though it’s not particularly well filmed or choreographed, with many fights dark or poorly framed.

That said, for an extremely low-budget apocalyptic exploitation movie, The Day was more watchable than I expected. It stands out for its attempt to depict, however sketchily and ill-informedly, a working society of cannibals, down to the cute wittle man-eating youngsters. I'm not sure why the first cannibal to get a speaking part looked like he'd just popped out of Starbucks in his stylish duster, but as a general principle, cannibals who resemble regular folks are scary.

Verdict: A kid who encountered this flick on late-night cable would probably end up with a few bizarre and traumatic images burned in his or her brain for life, just like I did when I happened to see the end of A Boy and His Dog at age 10. And isn’t that what exploitation cinema is really for?

More New DVDs

The Apparition (Ashley Greene versus a supernatural entity)

Burning Man (Matthew Goode plays a “hunky chef” who has “eye-popping sexual encounters.”)

Lawless

ParaNorman

Step Up Revolution (another dance flick)

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)

This week in movies you missed: your antidote to Twilight Part 5: the least romantic movie of the decade.

What You Missed

Abe (Jordan Gelber) is 35, pudgy, balding, and lives with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow). He is gainfully employed — at his dad’s company — but uses his earnings to buy Thundercats action figures.

One day, Abe meets Miranda (Selma Blair) and falls in love. She responds to his courting with the near-catatonic indifference of someone in a deep depression, but this doesn’t stop him from proposing marriage. Miranda turns him down, then changes her mind. She’s just had a Skype with her ex, she explains, and he convinced her it’s best to give up all hope for the future and settle. When she and Abe kiss, she remarks without irony, “That wasn’t horrible.”

Things go downhill from there.

Why You (May Have) Missed It

The only place to catch Dark Horse in Vermont was a special screening at Main Street Landing set up by the Burlington Film Society.

Should You Keep Missing It?

Recent years have brought us so many, many movies about manchildren in a state of arrested development, from Steve Carell’s 40 Year Old Virgin to Will Farrell and John C. Reilly acting like 14-year-olds in Step Brothers. With the sole exception of Ben Stiller’s title character in Greenberg, all these guys have been sweet, adorable and basically good hearted, just in need of the right woman to get them out of their cocoon.

Imagine Todd Solondz, who brought us Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, watching these movies. Imagine him sneering at their happy endings. Imagine him wondering, Who says losers have to be lovable? What if losers are sometimes just ... losers?

And so Abe was born. He is not a sympathetic character, as Solondz ensures by making him drive a yellow Hummer, wear an ironic disco necklace with his name on it and constantly put other people down. In Abe's mind, he’s not the underachiever of the family just because his brother (Justin Bartha) is a handsome doctor. He’s the “dark horse” competitor waiting for his big break, and he thinks Miranda is it. Never mind that he barely knows her — she’s “out of his league,” which makes her desirable.

Abe remains so small minded and non-self-aware throughout the movie that he only starts to draw our sympathy when Miranda does something that makes her look even worse. The film’s only likable character is Marie (Donna Murphy), the older-single-lady coworker on whom Abe relies to cover his ass when he misses deadlines. In Abe’s fantasies, she becomes a sexy cougar who takes him to her James Bond lair and tells him to stop whining and shape up in noir tough-dame style. Too bad that wasn’t real.

These fantasies increasingly take over the movie as it becomes clear that Solondz doesn’t know where to go with it. Are these characters redeemable? Does it matter? I thought the movie fell apart at the end, despite a few scenes that force viewers to look really hard at themselves, ironic T-shirts and all.

A.O. Scott disagrees, and his review of Dark Horse is worth reading.

Verdict: an unpleasant and yet somehow cleansing experience. Solondz remains the only American filmmaker I can think of who is completely devoted to counteracting our national tendency toward positive thinking. If you’re in the target audience, you may laugh out loud and then find yourself groaning in pain.

More New DVDs

2 Days in New York (Julie Delpy’s sequel to 2 Days in Paris)

Stephen Sondheim’s Company

Heathens and Thieves (indie western about raid on a Chinese-owned ranch)

Of Two Minds (Kristin Davis tries to care for schizophrenic sister.)

The Queen of Versailles (Real Housewife of the Recession)

Savages

The Watch

Each week in "Movies You Missed," I review a brand-new DVD release picked for me by Seth Jarvis, buyer for Burlington's Waterfront Video, where you can obtain these fine films. (In central Vermont, try Downstairs Video.)