One of the most highly anticipated films of 2015, Alfonso G. Annaritu’s The Revenant, lived up to the advance hype, winning numerous awards including three Oscars out of twelve nominations. For cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, it was his third consecutive win behind Gravity and Birdman, a first in his category. For Inarritu, it was his second win in two years, following the previous year’s Birdman. In doing so he tied a record reached just twice before by John Ford (The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz (A Letter to Three Wives, All About Eve). Like both Ford and Mankiewicz, only one of the two films for which he won Best Director would win Best Picture as well. Birdman won over Boyhood but The Revenant lost to Spotlight.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s win for Best Actor was his first out of five acting nominations in twenty-two years. He has a sixth nomination for producing Best Picture nominee The Wolf of Wall Street. While many have scoffed at his Oscar campaign in which he talked about the hardships he endured in making the film, it should be noted that although suffering for one’s art is in itself not a prerequisite for winning an Oscar, making your character look like he has suffered beyond endurance does count. For those who complained about his relative lack of dialogue in the film, it should be noted that spouting reams of dialogue is not a prerequisite for winning an Oscar either. Jane Wyman (Johnny Belinda) and John Mills (Ryan’s Daughter) won for keeping their mouths shut and Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) won for speaking just one word.

The epic film scores on every technical level imaginable, but suffers from going on too long and a fatal lack of clarity surrounding the film’s villain, ferociously played by Oscar-nominated Tom Hardy. Hardy is the one who should have kept his mouth shut. The actor employs a mush- mouthed accent that is extremely grating. Excellent work, however, is provided by an otherwise strong supporting cast topped by Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter and Forrest Goodluck as DiCaprio’s ill-fated son.

The Revenant is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD,

Maggie Smith first starred in The Lady in the Van on the London stage in 2010. The long delayed film version is a tour-de-force for the acting legend, but the very British film itself will appeal mostly to those who enjoy a nice cup of tea served with crumpets. Adapted by Alan Bennett from his play, directed for the screen by Nicholas Hytner, the film is about the esteemed playwright’s fifteen-year relationship with the old lady who parks her van in his driveway for a few weeks that turn into fifteen years. He’s played in the film by Alex Jennings as both himself and his alter-ego. Practically the entire cast of Hytner’s film of Bennett’s The History Boys turn up in cameos, including a young actor whose name is Richard Griffiths, the same name as the late star of that film. Brew a cup of tea, open a box of crumpets and sit back and enjoy it.

The Lady in the Van is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Two new home video releases made fifty-five years apart, the last twenty-seven years ago, eerily have a lot in common with each other and today’s political climate. Archie Mayo’s Ever in My Heart, which is part of Warner Archive’s Forbidden Hollywood Volume 10 and Costa-Gavras’ Betrayed, which is new to Blu-ray from Olive Films are the films in question.

SPOILER ALERT: The following section discusses plot points of the two films. If you don’t want to see them revealed, please skip this section.

In Ever in My Heart, Barbara Stanwyck, whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower, marries German emigre Otto Kruger in 1909. They have an adorable son who dies of a childhood disease as World War I begins in Europe. The boy’s friends poison the family dog, Kruger loses his teaching job and unable to find employment returns to Germany where he becomes a spy. Stanwyck divorces him, becomes a nurse in France where she meets him again, goes to bed with him (this is a pre-code film, after all) and poisons him before he can reveal troop movements to the Kaiser.

In Betrayed, Debra Winger is an undercover FBI agent who falls in love with white supremacist and suspected killer of a Jewish radio talk show host, and moves in with him and his two adorable kids. Horrified by the group’s “hunting” of a black man and plans to assassinate an unknown political figure, as well as their corruption of young children who are taught to spout their racist taunts, she is forced to go with him to Chicago where he plans to carry out the assassination. She has no choice but to shoot him to keep him from killing the politician who is killed anyway by a second sniper.

A lot of the rhetoric in both films is similar to that espoused by supporters of one of this year’s U.S. Presidential candidates.

END OF SPOILER.

Universal has released an eighteen-film collection of Cary Grant films from his Paramount days on standard DVD called Cary Grant: The Vault Collection. Covering the period from 1932 through 1936, this collection represents all of Grant’s films for the studio except Merrily We Go to Hell in which he has a bit part and Alice in Wonderland (available on the W.C. Fields Comedy Essentials Collection) in which he has a cameo.

Included are his most famous early films Blonde Venus opposite Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong and I’m No Angel opposite Mae West as well as lesser known gems like Devil and the Deep opposite Tallulah Bankhead; Madame Butterfly opposite Sylvia Sidney; Hot Saturday and The Woman Accused opposite Nancy Carroll; Wings in the Dark opposite Myrna Loy; and Big Brown Eyes and Wedding Present opposite Joan Bennett.

This week’s new releases include Son of Saul and Phoenix.