Not a Pretty Picture Is the Pick of the Week

I’m a nerd. Whenever I start to write something, I often check its accuracy. I’m not talking about historical dates, scientific measurements, or anything important. I’m talking about little things. Silly things. Unimportant things. Like right now, I started to write that we are in the dog days of summer. The days are long and hot. We’re not quite into autumn, but I can see it on the horizon, ever so close and yet so far away. School is starting back for millions of kids, but my air conditioning is still constantly running and I’m sweating all the time. To me, that is the definition of the dog days of summer. But is it the technical definition? Is there an exact time frame for the dog days?

As it turns out, there is. The official dog days of summer run from July 3 to August 11. The name has nothing to do with our furry little friends but comes from Ancient Roman times when the star called Sirius (or “dog star”) would show up at sunrise. This coincided with the hottest days of the summer which often meant drought and, as legend has it, drove people completely mad.

Now, if I had started this article saying we were in the dog days of summer would anyone have chimed in with a “Well actually” followed by a chastisement that the official dog days ended just over a week ago? Probably not. But some weird part of my brain made me look it up and now I know. And so do you. And as G.I. Joe always told me, “knowing is half the battle.” (But is it? Or is knowing only one-fourth the battle? Excuse me while I go look that up.)

My dumb, nerdy brain aside we are at the tail end of the summer. It is hot and miserable. This is the time of year you want to go see a movie. I want to be in a big dark theater with a big box of popcorn and an enormous, overpriced soda watching something dumb and entertaining. Unfortunately, due to the strikes that happened last year, this summer’s slate of potential blockbusters has been a little lackluster. Many films had to delay production or weren’t even able to start production on time causing many films that should have been released this summer to get delayed until next year. For sure some good films were released this summer and I’ll probably check out Alien: Romulus this week, but the number of popcorn flicks was definitely in decline this year.

I have no idea if that’s why this week’s new home video releases are so lackluster, or if the studios shot their wad earlier this summer, or what. But I’m happy to blame it on those pesky dog days…

Which (finally) brings me to my pick of the week. Not a Pretty Picture is the total opposite of a summer popcorn movie. It is something like a fictionalized documentary in which Martha Coolidge tells the story of a sexual assault she experienced in high school. She enlisted actors to recreate the event and then interviewed her real classmates about the incident, creating a curious meta-narrative. That’s sounds pretty heavy for a hot summer afternoon, but also very interesting. Criterion is doing the release and they have filled it with their usual heavy load of extras.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Bad Company: Jeff Bridges stars in this drama about a kid who heads west to avoid fighting in the Civil War and finds himself running with a ragtag group of similar young people fighting just to stay alive.

Prime Cut: Lee Marvin stars as a Chicago mob enforcer sent to Kansas City to settle things with Gene Hackman who runs a slaughterhouse and owes the mob money.

Evil Dead (2013) 4K UHD: Fede Álvarez’s remake of Sam Raimi’s cult classic was far more visceral and violent than the original. It was less constrained by Raimi’s minuscule budget, but it also lost a great deal of his personality. I’m surprised this didn’t come out last week in time to coincide with Álvarez new Alien theatrical release.

The Last Unicorn 4K UHD: Shout Factory brings us this 4K release of the beloved Rankin-Bass animated film about a lone unicorn searching for more of her kind.