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\u2019re watching.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n PICK OF THE WEEK: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Blaxpoitation Classics, Vol. 1<\/em><\/strong><\/a>:<\/strong> Shout Factory\u2019s first (of hopefully many) collections of \u201870s Black cinema includes six bangers of the genre\u2014three outright masterpieces, three undeniable good times. The masterpieces are Jack Hill\u2019s down-and-dirty Coffy<\/em><\/strong>, featuring Pam Grier in an iconic turn as a mild-mannered nurse by day who takes out drug dealers and crime bosses at night; Jonathan Kaplan\u2019s Truck Turner<\/em><\/strong>, which moved Shaft<\/em> composer Isaac Hayes front and center as a tough-as-nails bounty hunter (and features an electrifying, scene-stealing turn by Yaphet Kotto<\/a> as the villainous Harvard Blue); and arguably the best of all Blaxpoitation pictures<\/a>, Barry Shear\u2019s desperate and despairing Across 110th Street<\/em><\/strong>, with Kotto and Anthony Quinn as mismatched cops chasing down a cache of stolen Mob money. The also-rans are also awfully good: the legendary Larry Cohen gives The Godfather<\/em> a blaxpoitation bent and a James Brown beat in Black Caesar<\/em><\/strong> and its sequel Hell Up in Harlem<\/em><\/strong>, in which football star Fred Williamson plays the tough-talking boss of Harlem who takes on the Italian mafia, while the private eye tale Sheba, Baby <\/em><\/strong>is another fine showcase for the jaw-dropping gifts of the divine Ms. Grier. Shout\u2019s 4K restorations and presentations are top-tier (this is the best these movies have ever looked on home video), and the supplements are appropriately reverent. (Includes new documentary featurette, archival audio commentaries and interviews, and trailers.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n ON HBO MAX:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mickey 17<\/em><\/strong><\/a>: <\/em><\/strong>Bong Joon-ho\u2019s long-awaited latest is a delightful subversion of expectations<\/a>; it feels less like a follow-up to his Oscar-winning triumph Parasite<\/em> than a return to the themes and aesthetics of Snowpiercer<\/em>. And, since those who don\u2019t know the past are doomed to repeat it, WB head David Zaslav attempted a Weinstein-style sinking of this seemingly uncommercial property; he wasn\u2019t sabotaging a low-key masterpiece, but one must applaud Bong for spending something like $200 million of Zas\u2019s money on a loopy satire of conspicuous capitalism. Robert Pattison proves a surprisingly ace physical comedian, and the variances between his leading roles are subtle but clever, while Mark Ruffalo not only consciously channels Trump as a political doofus leading a brigade of red-hatted cultists, but (perhaps accidentally) loops in Elon Musk for an extras dash of non-escapism.
ON NIGHT FLIGHT PLUS:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n