A murder mystery set in a fictional Rust Belt town tops the DVD releases for the week of Jan. 25.
“American Rust”: Showtime series adapted from the 2009 novel by Philipp Meyer stars Jeff Daniels as the police chief of an economically depressed community in western Pennsylvania who becomes conflicted after his lover’s son is accused of murder.
“Comparison with ‘Mare of Easttown’ feels unavoidable, if for no other reason than that show is set in the eastern end of the same state, in a similarly if not so extremely distressed small town, with a generous complement of bad and broken marriages, troublesome children, drug problems, a sad and exhausted citizenry and a cop more or less at the center of it,” writes Los Angeles Times critic Robert Lloyd in his review. “But ‘Mare’ could also be funny (Jean Smart hiding ice cream in a bag of frozen vegetables, for example), where ‘American Rust’ almost never aims to be.”
Also new on DVD
“Birds Like Us”: Animated family film about a group of birds who must spread their wings after suddenly finding themselves far from home.