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, catalog titles making a splash on Blu-ray or 4K. This biweekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.
Two potentially major productions caught in the wheels of the lockdown hit disc and (reasonable) VOD this week, alongside a Sundance doc on Apple TV+, a lovely new musical bio-doc, and the usual bushel of marvelous catalog titles from Criterion, Warner Archive, and Kino-Lorber. Let’s browse:
ON APPLE TV+:
“Boys State”: Every summer, in states across the nation, teens gather for a week-long, idealistic experiment in junior government. This Sundance fave eavesdrops on the events of Texas’ version in the Trump era, in which odious ideology, dank memes, and playing to the cheap seats are all par for the course. Directors Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss admirably capture both the inherent silliness of the endeavor (there’s a real sense that most of these teenagers are regurgitating slogans their parents have barked at them) and the genuineness that occasionally cracks that shell.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“The King of Staten Island”: Judd Apatow’s latest falls too easily into the formula of his previous works, as both director and producer, in which a lovable loser decides, at long last, to grow up. But if the broad strokes are familiar, the specifics are unique enough to warrant a look: a charismatic leading turn by Pete Davidson, a good ear for the flags and language of mental illness, and memorably supporting performances from Bill Burr, Marisa Tomei, Bel Powley, and Steve Buscemi. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, alternate endings, gag reel, “line-o-rama,” featurettes, and trailer.)
“The Burnt Orange Heresy”: Claes Bang and Elizabeth Debicki are an absurdly attractive couple, Donald Sutherland is an enigmatic artist with a gleam in his eye, and Mick Jagger is an art dealer with a sideline in blackmail in this clever adaptation of Charles Willeford’s novel, a thriller where everyone’s sexy and a little bit sleazy. Giuseppe Capotondi pulls a bit of a bait-and-switch, setting the picture up as a sleek, sophisticated, literate thriller, but as his protagonist grows increasingly desperate (and begins making progressively worse choices), the picture matches his energy, taking several nasty, shocking turns en route to its chilling conclusion. (Includes audio commentary, featurette, and trailer.)
ON DVD / VOD:
“Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind”: This bio-documentary begins with the Canadian troubadour watching an old TV performance of his hit “For Lovin’ Me,” and musing, regretfully, “That song is a very offensive song for a man to write who was married with a couple of kids.” So right away, directors Martha Kehoe and Joan Tosonio are exploring the idea of an artist reckoning with the flaws of their work, and that fierce sense of interrogation is what’s most noteworthy here; they move through his life, the cultural scenes he inhabited, and the name he made for himself. But most of all, they examine the mistakes he made, and how he grapples with them now. (Includes trailers.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture (Vol. 6)”: Kino-Lorber’s latest collection of cheapo social scare pictures is one of its best – which means the movies are some of their worst. The first, “She Should’a Said No!”, comes from exploitation legend Kroger Babb (“Mom and Dad”), a “story of ‘tea’ – or ‘tomatoes’” – more directly, marijuana. (Or, as it’s spelled onscreen, “marihuana.”) If you’ve seen “Reefer Madness,” you know what to expect: broad overacting, comically overdone villains, leering near-nudity, square-jawed cops, and wildly inaccurate dramatizations of drug use. It’s delirious, delicious camp. The sleeping pill exposé “The Devil’s Sleep” isn’t as much fun – it’s too dull and incompetent to achieve true camp classic status – but bad movie aficionados will recognize the settings and even some of the characters from the notorious “MST3K” favorite “Racket Girls,” so at least it has that going for it. (Includes audio commentary and trailers.)
“Town Bloody Hall”: On April 30, 1971, a crowd of intellectuals and looky-loos gathered at New York City’s Town Hall to watch acclaimed novelist and unrepentant misogynist Norman Mailer debate a quartet of feminist thinkers (Jacqueline Ceballos, Germaine Greer, Jill Johnston, and Diana Trilling). Famed documentarian D. A. Pennebaker was there to record the event for posterity; eight years later he and partner Chris Hegedus released this condensed chronicle of the event (new on Blu from Criterion), which combines the secondhand electricity of a concert movie with the boozy intensity of a rowdy dinner party. (Includes audio commentary, new and archival interviews, Mailer on “The Dick Cavett Show,” and an essay by Melissa Anderson.)
“The Comfort of Strangers”: Paul Schrader directs Harold Pinter’s screenplay adaptation of Ian McEwan’s novel with a studied elegance that captures both the razor-sharp wit of the text and his own specialty of creeping, certain dread. Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett are a sexy couple on vacation in Venice who stumble into the path of a mysterious stranger (Christopher Walken, doing what amounts to a serious version of “The Continental”) and come to regret it; Helen Mirren turns in a spirited (and horny) performance as his wife. You don’t know where any of this is going, at any given point, and that’s the picture’s secret weapon; while you’re distracted by all the sex and strangeness, Schrader tiptoes up and socks you in the jaw with his utterly bananas conclusion. (Includes new and archival interviews, trailers, and essay by Maitland McDonagh.)
“Toni”: Director Jean Renoir’s 1935 drama (also new from Criterion) is one of his lesser-known pictures, but it’s a fascinating film, stylistically situated at the intersection of his more classical style and the neorealist movement of the following decade. Its story concerns romantic rivalries and heartbreaking compromises, but it’s more of a study of a place and its people, burrowing into the rhythms of this working-class village and the lives of those who live there – and how easily those lives can be disrupted. (Includes audio commentary, Renoir introduction, new and archival featurettes, and essay by Ginette Vincendeau.)
“Pat and Mike”: George Cukor directs the seventh of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy’s nine on-screen collaborations, who star as (respectively) a newly-minted pro athlete and her fast-talking manager/promoter. It’s a solid match-up, with the sophisticated lady and the Damon Runyon character delightfully driving each other bonkers before, of course, falling for each other. Hepburn’s golf and tennis sequences make a marvelous showcase for her remarkable athleticism, while Cukor’s direction is energetic and stylish (watch how inventively he uses point-of-view when she has her breakdown on the tennis court), making the most of the witty script and zesty supporting cast. (Includes trailers.)
“Old Boyfriends”: This 1979 drama (newly restored and out on disc from KL Studio Classics) is like a convergence point of ‘70s cinema: directed by Joan Tewkesbury (who wrote “Nashville”), written by Leonard and Paul Schrader, starring “The Godfather”’s Talia Shire and “Saturday Night Live”’s John Belushi. It’s all but forgotten today, perhaps because its refusal to indulge in crowd-pleasing came at a point late enough in the era that it was going out of style. But it’s frequently captivating, well-observed and sharply played, especially by the deadpan Shire and charming Belushi, as a high-school shoulda-been who now sings ZZ Top tunes while playing cowbell for a cover band in a sparsely-attended Holiday Inn bar.
“Breezy”: This Clint Eastwood-directed romantic drama (also new from KL Studio Classics) hit theaters in the same calendar year as “Magnum Force” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” underscoring Eastwood’s versatility as he offset a Dirty Harry picture and a Western with an unhurried, character-driven May/December romance – and one in which, quite rare for that era, he did not star. William Holden is an aging divorcee and Kay Lenz is a free-spirited hippie chick, and while it hits some familiar beats, screenwriter Jo Heims really sees her female protagonist, and her pain, in a way that such stories frequently do not. Heims also penned Eastwood’s directorial debut, “Play Misty For Me”; together, they form a fascinating snapshot of ‘70s romance, relationships, and sexual liberation. (Includes audio commentary and trailer.)
“All I Desire” / “There’s Always Tomorrow”: Douglas Sirk’s Technicolor melodramas have become a touchstone for serious studies of 1950s cinema, but these black-and-white efforts (both starring Barbara Stanwyk, and both debuting on Blu-ray from KL) offer, in some ways, a more direct picture of his worldview. “All I Desire” features Stanwyk as a failed actress who attempts to return to her hometown and patch up her strained relationships, finding herself tempted by promises of happiness – short-lived of course. Stanwyk acts up a storm in the role, unsurprisingly, tapping into the character’s regrets and heartache with real force. She reteams with her “Double Indemnity” co-star Fred MacMurray in “There’s Always Tomorrow,” and though it’s quite a different kind of movie, they still generate sparks; he’s a miserable family man, and she’s the old flame who re-lights his fire. Both films are melodramatic (obviously), but not corny; Sirk accesses the end-of-the-world emotions and vulnerability of his characters without condescending to them and does so with such empathy and sympathy, we’re willing to follow them anywhere. (Both films include audio commentaries and trailers.)