Movie Videos: : Reviews of feature films new on video this weekend (unless otherwise noted.) - Los Angeles Times
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Movie Videos: : Reviews of feature films new on video this weekend (unless otherwise noted.)

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***â€Tell Me a Riddle.†Media. $59.95.

What is more quickly forgotten that a should-have-been Oscar nominee? This 1980 film, about an elderly immigrant couple spending their final days together, had several legitimate contenders for nominations and received none. Certainly, actress Lee Grant, in her directorial debut, acquitted herself at the highest level. But you would have a hard time finding five better male performances in 1980 than the one--his last--given by the late Melvyn Douglas as a crotchety old man forced to do a 180-degree attitude turn after learning of his wife’s terminal illness. You’d have an even harder time finding five better women performances than that of Lila Kedrova, who played the wife. “Riddle†is a sober, often painful look at lovers being parted by death.

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