New to View: April 7

By Bob Bloom
The following titles are being released on Tuesday, April 7, unless otherwise noted:
Mr. Nobody Against Putin (DVD)
Details: 2025, Kino Lorber
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: This Academy Award-winning documentary looks at Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a beloved Russian primary school teacher, known as a mentor and prankster, who offers students a safe haven in his office.
After Russia invades Ukraine, Talankin’s role in the school changes dramatically as he is reluctantly drawn into Russian president Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine. He is forced to promote state-sanctioned messages and, horrified by the transformation of his school and community, he struggles with guilt and a sense of powerlessness.
This leads him to become an international whistleblower. As the school’s videographer, Talankin documents intimate and revealing footage of Putin’s regime, capturing the rise of militarized children’s groups, repressive laws, fervent nationalism and the recruitment of graduating students to fight in the war.
When Talankin learns that his life may be in danger, he is forced to plan a dangerous escape from Russia.
The movie, co-directed by David Borenstein and Talankin, is as captivating and joyful as it is eye-opening and somber. “Mr. Nobody” spotlights rare footage that reveals the weighty impact of Putin’s regime on the lives of everyday Russians — especially its children.
Technical aspects: 1.78:1 (16:9 enhanced) widescreen picture; Russian 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: The main extra is an introduction by Talankin.

Randy and the Mob (Blu-ray)
Details: 2007, Lightyear Entertainment
Rated: PG, thematic elements, mild violence, language, smoking
The lowdown: Longtime friends Ray McKinnon and Walton Goggins became friends when they first met in a 1990 made-for-television movie.
Along with McKinnon’s wife, the late actor Lisa Blount, the trio formed an independent filmmaking partnership.
Among their collaborations was this screwball Southern comedy in which good ol’ boy Randy Pierson (McKinnon) finds himself in a heap of trouble.
The IRS is circling and gangsters want the money they loaned him.
The only people who still support him are his long-suffering wife, Charlotte (Blount), and his estranged gay twin brother, Cecil.
Then along comes Tino Armani (Goggins), a mob fixer with flawless fashion sense, gourmet Italian tastes and a strangely prophetic worldview.
Pierson’s business is not the only one suffering; all the merchants in town are making very little money. But, with the help of Armani, all that soon changes.
This madcap caper blends redemption, farce and spiritual reckoning that has gathered a cult following.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.78:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 Dolby digital.
Don’t miss: Extras include a making of featurette with cast and crew interviews and the Academy Award-winning short film, “The Accountant, written and directed by McKinnon.

The Accountant (Blu-ray)
Details: 2001, Lightyear Entertainment
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Ray McKinnon wrote and directed this 40-minute gem that won an Academy Award for best live action short subject.
The movie, set in the rural South, features Walton Goggins (who also produced the film) as Tommy O’Dell who, along with his brother, David (Eddie King), are in a world of hurt financially.
For help, they call in an expert, a mysterious account, played by McKinnon, with a talent for numbers and a fondness for beer. His job is the not only save the O’Dell’s family farm, but to help stop a national conspiracy and save a way of life.
The movie is funny, abetted by its spiritual undertones and heartfelt compassion for working-class characters.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.66:1 widescreen picture; English 2.0 Dolby digital.

Nuremberg (DVD)
Release date: March 17
Details: 2025, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Rated: PG-13, violent content including the Holocaust, strong disturbing images, suicide, language, smoking, brief drug use
The lowdown: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek and Michael Shannon star in this post-World War II drama in which Malek’s Douglas Kelley, a military psychiatrist, is assigned to evaluate the psychological personality of accused Nazi war criminal, former Reichsmarshall Hermann Göring (Crowe).
Their encounters slowly become cat-and-mouse encounters as Kelley tries to understand how an educated and intelligent individual such as Göring can be attached to the atrocities attributed to the Third Reich.
Shannon portrays the Allies’ chief prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, who wants not only Göring, but other high-ranking Nazi officials, answer for the Holocaust.
Jackson fears that Göring will attempt suicide to escape the hangman’s rope, and he pressures Kelley to make certain that Göring has no such intention.
Crowe’s performance drives the film, as he displays Göring’s intelligence and charm.
The movie, written and directed by James Vanderbilt, suffers from its slow pacing and lack of emotional intensity. Still, it earned a 72 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen picture; English 5.1 Dolby digital and audio description track; English SDH, English, French and Spanish subtitles.

“Wandering Ginza Butterfly Collection” (Blu-ray)
Details: 1972, Arrow Video
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Japanese screen legend Meiko Kaji teamed with director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi in two movies that examine gambling, deception and violence set in the mean streets of 1970s’ Tokyo.
In “Wandering Ginza Butterfly,” Kaji portrays Nami, “The Red Cherry Blossom,” returning to her old Ginza locale after serving time in prison for killing a yakuza boss.
She soon settles in at her uncle’s pool hall and working at a local hostess club.
But when a brutal yakuza tries to take control of the club, Nami and her uncle devise a plan to take him down.
Sonny Chiba costars with Kaji in “She Cat Gambler!” Chiba’s streetwise Ryuji falls for Nami and decides to help her on her mission to avenge her father.
Together, they scour the Ginza’s shabby gambling dens and check out every lowlife in the vicinity’s underworld until Nami discovers her target. Yamaguchi was again behind the camera.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 2.39:1 widescreen picture; Japanese LPCM monaural; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track on “Wandering Ginza Butterfly” by Japanese cinema experts Patrick Macias and Matt Alt, hosts of the “Pure TokyoScope” podcast; a second commentary by Japanese cinema expert Chris D; an interview with Macias and Alt about the two movies; an archival interview with Yamaguchi; an archival appreciation of Kaji; and a collector’s booklet.

Smother (DVD)
Details: 2023, IndiePix Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: After the death of her estranged father, Michi, a young mother struggling to stay sober, and her 8-year-old daughter, Hanna, return to the summer house where Michi grew up.
Isolated from the outside world, Michi is soon haunted by long-suppressed memories of her mother’s suicide. They resurface through disturbing dreams and waking visions that seem to originate from the home’s darkest shadows.
As the past interferes with the present, Michi’s sense of reality begins to crumble. Convinced that an unseen evil is closing in on Hanna, who has begun sleepwalking, Michi must challenge the trauma she has spent years trying to repress before it is too late for her and Hanna.
This is close to being a psychological horror movie, but director Achmed Abdel-Salam sees it more as a transgenerational trauma — in which anxiety, depression or addiction are at the forefront.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 (16:9 enhanced) widescreen picture; German 2.0 Dolby digital; English subtitles.

The Paranormal: Collector’s Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1998, Visual Vengeance
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Paranormal investigator Kyle Jennings (Todd Norris, who also directed and co-wrote the movie) is called in to investigate strange occurrences at the Englewood movie theater.
The second Jennings steps into the movie house, the nightmare begins as the theater seals itself shut, the screen tears open like a doorway and the low-budget zombie movie that is playing suddenly becomes real.
With zombies overrunning the theater, Jennings must find the source of the disturbance before the movie palace becomes a feeding ground.
And it seems the only clues may be trapped in the movie itself. Jennings discovers he can enter the movie to find answers — if he can survive the experience.
This low-budget, shot-on-video and direct-to-video outing is fun to watch, especially if you are a horror film buff.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track with Norris; a second commentary with Norris and composer Paul Roberts; cast and crew interviews; an interview with Norris and filmmaker Todd Sheets; “The Paranormal” Channel 5 airing bumpers; a blooper reel; deleted scenes; original script excerpts; and three short films.

Suspended Time (DVD)
Release date: March 31
Details: 2024, Music Box Films
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: Paul, a filmmaker, returns to his childhood home in the provincial French countryside as society recedes in the summer of 2020.
Paul begins to survey his parents’ legacy and decipher the uncertainty of the world to come.
He isolates with his documentary filmmaker girlfriend, Morgane, his music journalist brother, Etienne, and his brother’s new girlfriend, Carole. This makeshift household finds new ways to slice familiar wounds.
“Suspended Time,” despite its premise, is a wistful and playful comedy that is a personal, poignant and neurotic ode to never-ending memories and the allure of life beyond our own screens.
The movie garnered a 66 percent fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Technical aspects: 1.85:1 widescreen picture; French 5.1 Dolby digital; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental materials include interviews with director Olivier Assayas and actors Vincent Macaigne, Micha Lescot and Nora Hamzawi and “The Last Thing I Saw” featurette with Assayas and Nicolas Rapold.

Colony Mutation: Collector’s Edition (Blu-ray)
Details: 1995, Visual Vengeance
Rated: Not rated
The lowdown: A rarely-seen, stop-motion Super 8 body horror feature is a low-budget David Cronenberg-style feature making its debut on Blu-ray.
Genetic scientist Meredith Weaver discovers her husband’s affair and, in retaliation, doses him with an experimental and very unstable serum that causes body parts to separate from his torso and take on horrific lives of their own — with human flesh the food they crave.
Soon, he goes searching for food with his limbs detaching then reassembling after satisfying their gruesome appetites.
The movie features stop-motion action that is not up to the proficiency of the legendary Ray Harryhausen, but are acceptable for this feature.
The movie is a horror outing that serves as a cautionary tale of male sexual addiction and unchecked passion.
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Supplemental options include a commentary track producer-director Tom Berna; a second commentary track with Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop magazine; interview with Berna, star David Rommel and music composer Patrick Netteshein; an archival public access interview with Berna; an alternate original VHS version of the film; an alternate 2013 DVD version of the film; a complete original script; a booklet; and a folded mini-poster.

The Stewardesses (Blu-ray)
Details: 1969, Kino Lorber-Kino Cult #45
Rated: R, sexual situations
The lowdown: In the late swingin’ 60s and throughout the 1970s, a subgenre of sexploitation movies focusing on stewardesses (now politically correct flight attendants) and cheerleaders converged on movie screens.
“The Stewardesses,” is a time capsule of that permissive era. This campy outing follows a flock of friendly flight attendants who spend their layovers, well, laying over — engaging in casual sexual encounters, hallucinogenic drugs and a psychedelic haunted house.
But the life of stewardess is not all fun and games and these free-spirited women must eventually face the moral consequences of the lifestyles.
Because the movie was filmed in 3-D, it became a staple on the midnight movie circuit for many years and was the highest-grossing 3-D movie prior to the release of “Avatar.”
The Blu-ray offers the movie in stereoscopic and anaglyphic formats, as well as standard 2-D.
I guess if you want some raunchy fun, catch a flight with these hospitable women who offer coffee, tea or …
Technical aspects: 1080p high definition, 1.33:1 full-screen picture; English 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio; English subtitles.
Don’t miss: Extras include a commentary track with author-film historian David Del Valle and producer-archivist Miles Hunter; a 2006 documentary on the movie’s production and release; alternate opening title and outtakes and lens test footage all in 3-D; an erotic 1977 3-D short, “Experiments in Love”; and a 1953 3-D glamour short film, “Parisienne Life.”

Other titles being released in the upcoming week:
Over the Garden Wall (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
Something Better Change (DVD) (MVD Visual Entertainment)

DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, STREAMING or VOD
731 (Well Go USA Entertainment)
Ashes (Indican Pictures)
Babysitters vs. Vampires (Cleopatra Entertainment)
I Know Exactly How to Die (MPX)
The Land of Sometimes (Radial Entertainment-Shout! Studios)
Love Trap (Breaking Glass Pictures)
Proud Princess (Level 33 Entertainment)

APRIL 8
Imperfect Women: Episode 5 (Apple TV)
Shrinking: Season 3, Episode 11 (Apple TV)
The Testaments: Episode 1-3 (Hulu)

APRIL 9
Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman (Kino Film Collection)
Double Stakes: Episode 4 (Viaplay)
Oka (Kino Film Collection)

APRIL 10
Dreams (Greenwich Entertainment)
For All Mankind: Season 5, Episode 3 (Apple TV)
Forever (Film Movement+)
Heads or Tails (Cinema Inutile-Ring Film)
The Last Thing He Told Me: Season 2, Episode 8 (Apple TV)
Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair (Hulu)
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: Season 2, Episode 7 (Apple TV)
Outcome (Apple TV)
The Yeti (Well Go USA Entertainment)
Your Friends and Neighbors: Season 2, Episode 2 (Apple TV)

APRIL 13
Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord: Episodes 3 & 4 (Disney+)

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on X @ReelBobBloom, on Facebook at ReelBob and on Bluesky at @bobbloom1948@bsky.social or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.