Jason Bailey
Every Tuesday, discriminating viewers are confronted with a flurry of choices: new releases on disc and on demand, vintage and original movies on any number of streaming platforms, catalogue titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This twice-monthly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.
PICK OF THE WEEK:
The Princess Bride: Rob Reiner’s exquisite adaptation of William Goldman’s novel was previously issued by Criterion as a Blu-ray, but the double-dip seems somehow acceptable; this is an endlessly rewatchable picture, the cinematic equivalent of an old record you never get tired of playing. And it has an undeniably timeless quality- our basic precepts of love and romance are all rooted in storybooks and fairy tales anyway, which is part of why The Princess Bride remains so close to our hearts. There’s a purity to it, a simplicity to the (literally) undying love of Westley and Buttercup that grounds the rest of the movie’s sly genre send-ups and self-aware gags. It is, as advertised, True Love, and is so good-natured and lovely that by the end of the tale, even little Fred Savage doesn’t mind the kissing parts. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, featurettes, behind-the-scenes footage, audiobook excerpt, and trailers.)
ON AMAZON PRIME:
The Batman: Warner Bros head David Zaslav is apparently feeling the pinch of the strike and selling off his company’s parts again; you’d think if there’s one thing the home of DC would want to retain exclusivity on, it’s DC movies. And this is their best in at least a decade. The look and feel of Matt Reeves’ take on the Dark Knight isn’t exactly fresh, and you can play “spot the influence” pretty easily. But he’s doing some genuinely inventive things with his camera (both in terms of framing and focus), and he’s willing to engage with the character specifically as a vigilante; particularly in his early scenes, we have a real sense of how he’s using violence (brutal violence, often) to work out his issues. Robert Pattinson’s emo take is surprisingly effective, Paul Dano’s Riddler is properly creepy, and Zoe Kravitz hits all the right notes as Catwoman – it’s a (gasp) sexy superhero movie, if you can imagine such a thing.
Judas and the Black Messiah: Director Shaka King’s dramatization of the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton transcends (most of) the traps of the staid bio-drama, thanks to the easy connections to contemporary events, the pulsing urgency of the filmmaking, and the jaw-dropping performances of Daniel Kaluuya as Hampton as LaKeith Stanfield as Panther associate and FBI informant Bill O’Neal. It’s the kind of historical film where the narrative is so propulsive, and the characters so compelling, that you get lost in what’s known and not; the ending is the reason it exists, yet by the time it gets there, this viewer was shocked anew by those events.
Women Talking: Sarah Polley’s latest is based on the novel by Miriam Toews, but it feels more like a theatrical adaptation, from its audition-friendly dramatic monologues to its (mostly) single setting to its traditional three-act structure. But Polley doesn’t let things bog down in the torrent of talk (not that the title doesn’t warn us); there are moments that are cinematically intimate, poetic even, and occasionally she’ll burst away from the central locale with harrowing flashes of what’s been done to them, and thus what brought them there. Some of her tableaux are breathtaking, which makes Polley’s decision to use such a muddy, muted color palette all the more baffling – it gives a drab sameness to the images, and diluting the color of the blood dilutes its power. But that’s the only serious complaint; the performances are top-notch across the board, and boy is it nice to have this gifted filmmaker back in the saddle.
ON HULU:
Moving On: Lily Tomlin reunites with Paul Weitz, the writer/director who gave her the best role of her third act with 2015’s Grandma, and brings along her frequent co-star Jane Fonda for good measure. The results are frankly uneven, especially compared to the tight efficiency of Grandma, as Weitz attempts to spin a serious MeToo theme into a light-hearted story of bumbling amateur criminals. But it’s such a joy to watch Fonda and Tomlin work (and, especially, to watch them work together) that you might not much mind the inconsistencies, while Sarah Burns, Richard Roundtree, and Malcolm McDowell turn in memorable supporting work.
ON MUBI:
Macbeth: Joel Coen’s 2021 Tragedy of Macbeth may have helped memory-hole this other relatively recent adaptation, in which Australian director Justin Kurzel reimagines the Scottish play as Shakespeare by way of Braveheart. He supplements the rich text with blood-and-mud battles and full-throated, earthy performances by Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, making for a brisk, haunting adaptation. It owes more than a little of its aesthetic to Polanski’s take on the tale — a terrifying, seemingly irreversible dirge, gloomy and rainy and blood-soaked. Yet Kurzel makes it his own by diving deep into his protagonist’s hallucinations, waking nightmares, and ultimately, his madness.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
No Hard Feelings: One wonders what kind of an all-timer director/co-writer Gene Stupnitsky could’ve come up with if he’d just made his R-rated sex comedy an R-rated sex comedy, and not succumbed to the post-Apatow scourge of “dirty, but with the feels” that has infested contemporary studio comedy. That said, when No Hard Feelings is funny, it’s very, very funny — thanks primarily to the take-no-prisoners lead performance of Jennifer Lawrence, who is somehow, simultaneously, broadly comic, ceaselessly grounded, and entirely sexy. It’s a shock that she hadn’t done a full-on comedy before this one; here’s hoping she makes many more. (Includes outtakes, bloopers, and featurettes.)
ON 4K:
Three Days of the Condor: KL Studio Classics gives Sidney Pollack’s 1975 spy thriller the 4K treatment, and it looks great — a reminder that this is a cinematic contradiction, a slick genre movie that’s set in a grimy town. (Cinematographer Owen Roizman shot some of the quintessential dirty New York movies, including The French Connection and Network.) Robert Redford stars as a CIA desk jockey who examines texts for hidden messages, yet finds himself on the run when his entire office is executed. The genius of that set-up is how its genuine danger and urgency means that our man doesn’t have much of a learning curve; he has to improvise, clumsily grabbing a gun as he flees the bloodbath, and doing… well, what exactly? (Act like the spies in books he’s read and movie’s he’s seen, most likely.) There’s a crisp efficiency to Pollack’s storytelling – no wasted details, and even the most convoluted plot points are explained satisfactorily – and a handful of truly memorable set pieces. It’s one of the best of the many ‘70s political conspiracy thrillers, and that’s saying something. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes, and trailers.)
Walkabout: Nicolas Roeg’s sophomore effort (and his first solo credit) is an unsurprising pick for the 4K Criterion upgrade — it’s a gorgeously photographed (Roeg was also the cinematographer) outdoor survival adventure, set and shot in the Australian outback. But it’s no mere pretty picture show; this is an alternately poignant and terrifying tale of two school kids left to fend for themselves after their father attempts to kill them and then shoots himself, in a sequence that lulls you into complacency and then socks you in the jaw. The great indigenous Australian character actor David Gulplill is the teenage boy on a walkabout who helps them survive, and prompts plenty of cultural examination and counterpoint. It’s both a brainy and beautiful work, and a reminder of Roeg’s all but unclassifiable gifts. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, the documentary Gulpilil—One Red Blood, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
After Dark, My Sweet: Two years before hitting his career peak (and then declining swiftly) with Glengarry Glen Ross, James Foley directed this scorching adaptation of Jim Thompson’s novel (new on Blu from KL Studio Classics). It’s basically a three-hander, with simmering, spiky chemistry between leads Jason Patric and Rachel Ward and a wonderfully slippery supporting turn by good ol’ Bruce Dern. Marketed as an erotic thriller, it was much more of a film noir throwback, with Foley really nailing the hopelessness and doom of the best noir—and Thompson’s such a nihilist that, in spite of the familiar narrative beats, it really does feel like anything could happen. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, and trailer.)
Hardcore: Writer/director Paul Schrader’s most explicit take on The Searchers has its flaws (many of them well-expressed by Quentin Tarantino in Cinematic Speculation) but it’s well worth your time nevertheless, due to the considerable ferocity of Schrader’s execution—this is the kind of movie about vice and sin that only someone raised in a strict religious home could make—and the power of George C. Scott’s towering performance. As a conservative businessman tracking his wayward daughter into the porn underworld, Scott holds nothing back, and while the over-the-top nature of his performances has provided fodder to meme-makers for years, he never sounds a false note. (Includes audio commentaries and trailer.)
Amazon Jail 1 & 2: Vinegar Syndrome pairs up two Brazilian women-in-prison films that aren’t really connected, aside from the genre, star Vanessa Alves, and their place in the country’s “Boca do Lixo” movement. That phrase translates to “Mouth of Garbage,” which should give you some idea of what you’re in for—this is pure, uncut exploitation, unapologetically raunchy (and sweaty!), yet undeniably invigorating in its dramatization of (and pandering to) the basest human instincts. In other words, if you’re the right kind of audience (we know who we are), you’ll have a great time. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, and video essay.)
