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:
Dead Again: Kenneth Branagh followed up the triumph of his feature directorial debut Henry V with this deliciously twisty noir throwback from screenwriter Scott Frank (Out of Sight), making its 4K debut from KL Studio Classics. He and then-wife Emma Thompson co-star as, respectively, an L.A. gumshoe and the amnesia case he tries to help puzzle out her identity, only to discover that they may well have known each other, loved each other, or even killed each other in a past life. Like Brian De Palma, Branagh is leaning in to his genre, pushing each moment, elongating the beats, taking pleasure in toying with us purely for the pleasure of toying with us. His film is both a great mystery movie and a great movie-movie; its sheer “movieness” is what gives the picture its kick. As his career progressed, Branagh may very well have made better films than Dead Again. But he never made another one this fun. (Includes audio commentaries and trailer.)
ON HULU:
The Secret Agent: Bacarau director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Oscar nominee/winner TKTK seems, at first, like a more straightforward entertainment than that earlier gonzo social satire. But Filho could never make anything conventional, and the longer he goes, the more flourishes he sneaks in: unexpected time jumps, surrealist imagery, bizarre musical interludes. Wagner Maura proves himself a straight-up movie star in the title role, and much like One Battle After Another, the picture ultimately finds its power in its portraiture of activist communities, of the bonds that form between the outcasts and subversives who join in a common cause. And in the long-awaited big action sequence, and the material that follows, Filho summons up an heart-pounding intensity that should be studied in film schools.
It Was Just an Accident: The title has a double-meaning; the story opens with an automobile accident that sets the events into motion, but what follows is a series of such coincidences and impossibilities that it’s entirely possible that everyone has made grave mistakes. It hinges on a question of identity, as mechanic Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) encounters a man (Ebrahim Azizi) whom he believes is the government agent who tortured him and several acquaintances years earlier. Writer/director Jafar Panahi finds moments of levity even within this dark story (the image of another possible victim, kicking a van and asking where he is while she’s donning nothing more regal than a wedding dress, is a memorable one), but it all culminates in a long, tough scene of confessions and confrontations that contains some of the most gut-wrenching acting of any film in recent memory.
ON NETFLIX:
Nuremberg: One of the first images of James Vanderbilt’s dramatization of the Nuremberg trials is that of a swastika getting pissed on, and if that doesn’t convince you this is the feel-good movie of the year, I don’t know what will. Soon thereafter, the Allied forces capture Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe) in Austria, setting the trials in motion, which Vanderbilt approaches from two angles: the precedent-setting legal machinations, led by Michael Shannon as Robert H. Jackson, and the work of psychiatrist Lt Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), who sees his time with Göring as an opportunity to “psychologically define evil.” Malek is, as usual, perfectly fine in what amounts to the leading role, but the fire is provided by Shannon and Crowe, particularly when they face off in the courtroom; there are also good, juicy roles for John Slattery and Richard E. Grant. Vanderbilt never quite convinces us why his movie needed to be made when Judgment at Nuremberg exists, but that quibble aside, this is a fine historical drama.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
Hamnet: Chloé Zhao directs and co-scripts this adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novel, a kind of origin story for the greatest of all stage tragedies, postulating that Hamlet was born out of Shakespeare’s grief over the death of his young son. Paul Mescal stars, and is quite good, as the Bard, but the focus is on his wife Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley in yet another force-of-nature turn. The subject matter sounds grim, but there is joy to be found here (particularly early on, as the immediacy and intensity of the characters’ and actors’ spark dazzles). But once his career takes off, he’s away in London for much of the time, and Zhao chooses to stay with Agnes and the children — a wise decision, in terms of the emotional impact of the closing sections. They’re so powerful that the picture’s flaws (an uneven pace and occasionally flagging interest) will likely fade in your memory, as they did in mine. (Includes audio commentary and featurettes.)
The Housemaid: In her immortal essay “Trash, Art, and the Movies,” Pauline Kael despaired that there was so little great trash (to be clear: its own, specific thing, in stark opposition to bad trash), and if the pickings were slim then, there’s a straight-up famine these days. My shared affection for great trash probably explains my affection for the latest entry in Spy and Bridesmaid director Paul Feig’s peculiar side gig of making fundamentally silly but undeniably entertaining adaptations of women-centered thriller novels. Sydney Sweeney stars as a parolee so desperate for a job that she stays on as a rich couple’s housemaid when the wife and mother (Amanda Seyfried) is clearly insane. Or… is she? You just kinda have to muddle through the inexplicable actions of nearly everyone in the first act, confident in the knowledge that their actual motivations will reveal themselves soon enough — and when they do, holy mackerel. Sweeney is kinda phoning it in, but she’s adequate; Seyfried, on the other hand, turns in a performance just as dialed-in and on-the-money as her work in The Testament of Ann Lee. In other words: it’s great trash. (Includes audio commentaries, deleted scenes, featurettes, and trailers.)
Merrily We Roll Along: To tide fans over until Richard Linklater completes his movie musical adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s cleverly-constructed stage production (ETA: 2040), we have this live capture of the recent Broadway revival starring Daniel Radcliffe, Jonathan Groff, and Lindsay Mendez. It’s a fascinatingly fractured film, two things at once, not fully one or the other. Its actors strike an especially tough balance: on stage, an actor must communicate their emotions to the back of the house, while a screen actor can work in a much smaller manner, since the camera is so close, and so perceptive. Director Maria Friedman mostly goes for the gusto, shooting tight close-ups, often with a handheld camera that feels less like an observer than a participant. The cast rises to the challenge, stripping away the cynicism to convey their earlier youth and innocence, aided immeasurably by the angst, regret, bitterness, and disappointment of Sondheim and George Furth’s songs. The music is breathtakingly complex — formally and emotionally — and self-aware to boot. Groff and Radcliffe’s characters are musical theater composers, so the notion that you can put big, important ideas and complicated emotions into musicals is built right into the text; when idealistic Franklin (Groff) tells his partner Charley (Radcliff) that “we can change the world,” it feels like a mission statement. (Includes trailer.)
ON 4K UHD:
Viridiana: This 1960 drama (with more than a dash of black comedy) was one of Luis Buñuel’s most cynical movies — and that’s not nothing. Silvia Panal is the title character, a young woman about to take her final vows as a nun when she’s called to visit her sole living relative and benefactor, an aging but wealthy uncle who quickly reveals himself to be a total pervert (it’s a Buñuel movie, after all) before he drops dead and leaves her part of his estate. She tries to turn his home into a refuge for the town’s beggars and paupers, only to discover they’re all but feral. Ultimately, it’s a story about the absolute futility of goodness and virtue in a corrupted world; it’s also hysterically funny and endlessly disturbing. Criterion’s new 4K upgrade is crisp and impressive. (Includes interviews, archival TV excerpt, and essay by Michael Wood.)
Classe Tous Risques: Claude Sautet’s French crime picture, another 4K upgrade from Criterion, came out the year after Breathless, and plays like a victory lap for co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo; he brings so much presence into his supporting role as a driver and accomplice that you sit up a bit when he floats in, and follow the freewheeling narrative when it veers into his own adventures. But the primary focus here is on Lino Ventura as a career criminal sneaking back into France after years in hiding in Italy. Sautet directs in a tough, spare, no-nonsense style that’s a good fit for dramatizing the grim and notably unglamorous life of a criminal on the run (up to and including its admirably low-key, off-screen conclusion). And Ventura is terrific, particularly in the rare but affecting moments when his passive mask slips. (Includes documentary excerpts, interviews, trailers, and essays by Bertrand Tavernier, N. T. Binh, and Jean-Pierre Melville.)
Shanghai Blues: Tsui Hark’s 1984 hit gets a 4K shine-up from Film Movement Classics, and it looks fabulous, garishly gorgeous and fancy free. The film itself is a real pleasure, a goofy, good-natured comedy that’s borderline Shakespearean (or, at the very least, screwball) in its misplaced desires, mistaken identities, and running gags. Kenny Bee, Sylvia Chang, and Sally Yeh are game performers, equally adept at romantic subtleties and rubber-faced slapstick, and Hark is already showing the mastery of pace and energy and that would make him one of the premier action directors of ‘90s Hong Kong. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, and essay by John Charles.)
ON BLU-RAY:
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: Radu Jude’s 2021 American breakthrough feature (new on Blu from IFC) lets you know what you’re in for from frame one: it opens with a sex tape, and a graphic one, not one of those cutesy, modest Hollywood situations. But it’s not there for shocks; it’s at the center of this story about sexual prudishness in a wildly sexualized culture, as the video’s leak puts its likable protagonist (Katia Pascariu) into the crosshairs of Romanian hypocrisy. (It’s also a rare covid-era film to dramatize the pandemic, and my main takeaway was that the general assholery that invaded us then and hasn’t left was not a purely American phenomenon). As usual, Jude takes a freewheeling approach, full of occasional wild detours and witty dialectical asides, but when he locks in, it lands; the slow turn of the meeting at the end is masterful, as is the device of “three possible endings,” of which the last is handily the best. (Includes interview and essay by John Semley.)
Testament: The Day After may have received all the attention as the definitive 1983 portraiture of the nuclear threat to the heartland, but this tough, unforgiving theatrical release (a new addition to the Criterion Collection) is far more impactful and moving. Writer/director Lynne Littman takes her time with her opening scenes, presenting the time, place, and relationships in a California suburban town with clarity and authenticity. The event comes out of nowhere, and is over before it starts, immersing the rest of the story in the dread and fear of uncertainty about what happens next. It’s grim stuff — Littman, admirably, cuts no emotional corners, with moments of raw emotional intensity and quiet reveals of absolute devastation. An Oscar-nominated Jane Alexander is just staggering in the leading role of a mother who tries to stay strong for her kids, but sometimes cannot; the moment when she finally loses it, wailing “No one is burying him until I find his bear,” will stick with this viewer for a good, long while. (Includes interviews, featurettes, original short story read by Alexander, two Littman documentaries, trailer, and essay by Michael Koresky.)
Jack Benny Comedy Classics: There’s a peculiar moment in Artists and Models, one of the two vintage comedies collected here by KL Studio Classics, in which Benny, as theatrical impresario Mac Brewster, wanders by a radio and hears The Jack Benny Program blasting out. There are some winking in-jokes about the show, but that moment points out the peculiar conundrum of Benny on film; he conquered vaudeville, radio, and television, but never had the foothold on movies the way some of his peers (like Bob Hope and the Marx Brothers did), mostly because his radio and TV character was so well-defined and specific to that world that it couldn’t translate to the big screen. So he tried to create a different character for movies, a smooth-talking type, something of a con artist and something of a ladies’ man, but it just didn’t hit the way his perpetually 39-year-old penny pincher persona did. Nevertheless, these two late ‘30s comedies — Raoul Walsh’s Artists and Models and Mark Sandrich’s Man About Town — move fast, sing and dance with vigor (the former was Vincente Minelli’s first film assignment), and Benny’s comic timing is razor-sharp. (Includes audio commentaries and trailers.)
Embalmer: Enthusiasm and energy can go a long way, particularly in the world of no-budget genre filmmaking, where the visible seams and uneven acting of an indie horror film are often much more compelling than the slick professionalism of “real” movies. Such is the case with this 1996 16mm regional horror flick out of D.C., populated by an all-Black cast, hip-hop soundtrack, goofy sense of humor, and a handful of genuine scares. The influence of Candyman couldn’t be clearer — this too is an urban legend-based boogeyman slasher — but S. Torriano Berry has a sure sense of composition and mood, and the performers, while clearly non-professionals, are plenty charismatic. Oh, and the last gag is a real beaut. (Includes introduction, Q&A, featurette, early cut, trailers, short films, and bonus feature The Black Beyond.)
Iphigenia: This 1977 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, new on Blu from Radiance Films, was Greek director Michael Cacoyannis’s third adaptation of a Euripidean tragedy (after Elektra and The Trojan Women), and its simultaneously gorgeous — Giorgos Arvanitis’s cinematography is stunning — and grimy and lived-in. Stars Irene Papas as Clytemnestra and Kostas Kazakos as Agamemnon bring an earthy authenticity to their work; it seems obvious, but their proximity to the text really matters, so it doesn’t feel “performed” in the same way it always does when you’re watching a bunch of pasty Brits. It’s one of the oldest stories in existence, yet Cacoyannis’s close-to-the-ground approach makes it feel fresh and alive. (Includes Cannes press conference and new and archival interviews.)