Let’s make this simple: the movie to get this week is A Serious Man. Bitch about the ending all you want, or call the picture pretentious, or too obvious, or too obscure, or what-have-you… you’re barking up the wrong tree with me, buddy. It’s a Coen brothers movie. It’s funny, it’s surprisingly sweet, and it goes to unexpected places. Just get it—even if you don’t “get it.” Also worth your time? Nicolas Winding Refn’s arty crime epic Bronson, which features one of last year’s best performances, whether the Academy wants to acknowledge it or not. Lastly, noir fanatics should be happy to see that Sony is continuing to empty the Columbia vaults of gritty, rarely seen genre pictures—this time via the two-volume, eight-movie “Bad Girls Of Film Noir” set. Very few buried gems there, but still a boon for the devoted. My advice? Accept the mystery.
Anjelah Johnson: That’s How We Do It!
WEA/Reprise, $14.98
Arab & Jew: Return To The Promised Land
PBS, $24.99
Army Wives: The Complete Third Season
ABC, $45.99
Bad Girls Of Film Noir, Vol. 1: The Killer That Stalked New York/Two Of A Kind/Bad For Each Other/The Glass Wall
Sony, $24.96
Bad Girls Of Film Noir, Vol. 2: Night Editor/One Girl’s Confession/Women’s Prison/Over-Exposed
Sony, $24.96
Boobs: An American Obsession
Cinema Epoch, $19.98
Brain Fitness Frontiers
PBS, $24.99
Bronson
Magnolia, $26.98; Blu-ray, $29.98