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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 four picks of the week are listed at the end of the column.

Here's my watchlist of DVD and cloud releases for the weeks of
April 16th and 23rd (click the movie title to see the trailer)


Django Unchained
Who: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, James Remar, Don Johnson, Tom Wopat, Bruce Dern, Jonah Hill, Zoe Bell, Robert Carradine, Quentin Tarantino
What: Tarantino's highly violent revenge western tells the tale of a freed slave who is determined to take his wife out of bondage from a Mississippi plantation owner, with the help of a German bounty hunter.
When: April 16th - DVD and Ultraviolet
Why: Popular with Tarantino fans, the movie also earned Waltz an Oscar for Acting, Tarantino an Oscar for writing, and was a Best Picture nominee. I'm all for gunslinging and watching Foxx deliver some vengeance. I was also interested in being exposed to some of the brutality of slavery to put things in perspective. The movie is both fun and brutal, though slow and long, and in some ways O Brother Where Art Thou does it better.

Empire of Silver
Who: Aaron Kwok, Lei Hao, Jennifer Tilly
What: A 2009 Mandarin language drama set at the turn of the last century, about a young man who must decide if he will take responsibility as head of his family's banking empire in China.
When: April 16th - DVD, Ultraviolet, and Netflix streaming
Why: This came up in my search primarily because of Meg Tilly, and is probably a movie of interest for fans of Chinese cinema. The movie won the Jury Award at the Shanghai International Film Festival in 2009, and Kwok has a bunch of acting nominations from the Hong Kong Film Awards.

The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia
Who: Abigail Spencer, Morgana Shaw, Chad Michael Murray, Katee Sackhoff, Cicely Tyson
What: A not-quite sequel, this horror movie about a family in Georgia who can see dead people.
When: April 16th - DVD and Ultraviolet
Why: I include this movie for its sequelness, but given its poor reception, I wouldn't bother with it unless you're a completionist for the genre or actors. Spencer may be familiar from All My Children, Angela's Eyes, and Hawthorne TV series, Sackhoff from Battlestar Galactica and Longmire, Murray from One Tree Hill, and Tyson from Diary of a Mad Black Woman.

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