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Every week, I search through movie release schedules to find movie rentals that I would have otherwise missed for lack of TV advertising. I'll watch the big name releases along with everyone else, but I know from experience that sometimes the box office failures, critically panned, straight-to-DVD, and independently financed movies that nobody's heard of can offer some real hidden gems. As they say, one man's trash is another man's treasure. This column is dedicated to bringing awareness to those potential treasures. Listed alphabetically, each movie includes a list of notable cast members, a basic plot summary, its DVD and/or cloud release date (based on Netflix - other services may have the movie earlier), and the basic reason why the movie caught my attention. With any luck, one or more of these will catch your attention, too. My picks of the week are listed at the end of the column.

Here's my watchlist of DVD and cloud releases for the week of:

August 6th (click the movie title to see the trailer)

Admission
Who: Tina Fey, Paul Rudd, Nat Wolff, Wallace Shawn, Michael Sheen, Lily Tomlin
What: Tina Fey plays a by-the-book admissions officer at Princeton who heads off on her annual recruiting tour. On her trip she reconnects with a college classmate (Rudd) and meets a student who is applying to Princeton and who may also turn out to be the son she gave up for adoption years ago. She then faces a number of choices outside her normally defined lines.
When: August 6th - DVD and online on demand
Why: Pairing Rudd and Fey in a comedy seems like something Judd Apatow would be involved in, but this movie is directed by Paul Weitz, who directed About a Boy and In Good Company. Those movies were more sophisticated comedies, which suggests that Admission is grounded in more sincerity than slapstick. Rudd and Fey can do both, so that seems like a good mix. Unfortunately most critics said that this movie fizzled.

Antiviral
Who: Caleb Landry Jones, Malcolm McDowell, Sarah Gadon
What: A sci-fi thriller that takes celebrity obsession to an extreme: imagine is fans could inject themselves with viruses that came from a celebrity. You know, to feel closer to the person by sharing their cold. Jones plays a lab worker named Syd at a company that supplies these viruses, and moonlights by smuggling out extra special samples to collectors. When Syd infects himself with a strain that killed superstar Hannah Geist (Gadon), he becomes a target for the obsessed as well as the center of the mystery around her death. McDowell plays the celebrity's private doctor.
When: August 6th - DVD and online on demand
Why: Director Brandon Cronenberg is the son of horror director David Cronenberg and looks like he's following in his dad's footsteps of making films that involve corrupting science and the mind and body. I picked up on this movie by McDowell's inclusion, which always grabs my interest, but the plot here is potentially intriguing. Gadon previously appeared in David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method as Carl Jung's wife.

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