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 weekly column sifts through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching.
This week’s big new streaming event, as you’ve probably heard, is the Netflix release of Spike Lee’s new joint, and it should definitely be at the top of your viewing queue. But we’ve also got two fall must-sees on Prime, two marvelous new indies on disc and on-demand, and fancy new Blu-ray upgrades for classic comedies and a beloved slasher flick. Strap in:
ON NETFLIX:
“Da 5 Bloods”: Home screens don’t feel big enough for Spike Lee’s latest, but they’ll have to do for now. An epic (in length and scope), it’s a return of sorts to the territory of his underseen 2008 film “Miracle at St. Anna” – a pressing reminder that, contrary to the majority of traditional “war movies,” black soldiers fought and died for this country, to preserve rights for others that their own country would not grant them. Lee spins this yarn with a potent mixture of discourse, action, humor, and heartbreak, much of that latter via an extraordinary central performance by the great Delroy Lindo. Lee has been on something of a hot streak lately, his righteous anger and bemused absurdity activated in equal measure by “President Fake Bone Spurs,” and this is the finest film of his recent output.
ON AMAZON PRIME:
“Knives Out”: Rian Johnson’s hit whodunit is one of those films that leaves you breathless at the sheer grace of its existence – it’s so meticulously written (as a mystery, it’s airtight and ingenious, a Swiss watch), and so precisely directed (Johnson simultaneously orchestrates of camera, pacing, tone, and his stacked cast like a plate spinner on the old “Ed Sullivan Show”) that it would be easy to write off as a simple contraption, an entertainment and little else. Yet, he fills the margins with tiny moments of empathy and humanity, and little sideways gags and winks; there isn’t a moment here that hasn’t been worked through, inside and out, yet it still bursts with spontaneity and life. What a treat this movie is.
ON HULU:
“Clemency”: Alfre Woodard is stunningly good as a prison warden whose executions have finally taken a toll on her soul in this carefully crafted drama from writer/director Chinonye Chukwu. Warden Williams can’t sleep, drinks heavily, has nightmares, and alienates her husband (Wendell Pierce, also very good), and it’s hard to blame her – Chukwu carefully depicts the process of killing a human being in the name justice, step by step, making plain both the physical and psychological barbarism of this act. Chukwu’s script occasionally stumbles, veering too far into the melodramatic and shifting focus from the story’s proper center. But Woodard is spectacular; it’s a must-see performance.
ON BLU-RAY / VOD / DVD:
“Saint Frances”: Last year’s SXSW Audience Award winner is, indeed, a crowd-pleaser, sporting a stunner of a central performance by Kelly O’Sullivan as young woman who takes on a nanny gig while trying (with mixed result) to get her act together. O’Sullivan also wrote the smart script, and isn’t afraid of getting prickly; this is a story about complicated and occasionally difficult people, and the filmmakers aren’t afraid to lean into those nuances. But it’s most effective as observation, with director Alex Thompson displaying a keen ear and eye for the tiny conflicts and moments of terror that define contemporary childcare. (Includes audio commentary, extended and deleted scenes, blooper reel, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD:
“Laurel & Hardy: The Definitive Restorations”: Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have been pretty well served by home video thus far – the 2011 “Essential Collection” DVD set was a must-have – but this new Blu-ray set is next-level, featuring 2K and 4K restorations of 16 classic short films and two features (“Sons of the Desert” and “Way Out West,” arguably their best), plus the long-thought-lost silent pie fight from “The Battle of the Century,” and eight hours of bonus goodies. But that’s all window dressing, of course. The meat here is still the films themselves, showcasing one of the all-time great comedy teams at the height of their powers, with their distinctive characters fully realized and second-to-none rhythm and comic timing at its absolute sharpest. (Features audio commentaries, bloopers and outtakes, interviews, original music tracks, trailers, and photo and document archive.)
“The Cameraman”: When Buster Keaton’s longtime producer Joseph Schenck sold his services to MGM, capping off a period of relative independence that gave us such undisputed classics as “Sherlock Jr.,” “The Navigator,” and “The General,” it didn’t turn out so well; the demands of the studio system were fundamentally incompatible with Keaton’s process. But it started off well, with this wonderful 1928 comedy, in which Keaton stars as a tintype photographer who tries to, well, “pivot to newsreel” to impress his dream girl. It’s a marvelous snapshot of that industry (and of New York City), but most of all, it’s a tightly-constructed and masterfully executed gag delivery system; for this brief period at the end of the silent era, Keaton was able to use the limitless resources of MGM to his advantage. (Includes Keaton’s also-very-good 1929 follow-up “Spite Marriage,” Kevin Brownlow and Christopher Bird’s informative documentary “So Funny It Hurt: Buster Keaton and MGM,” additional documentaries, audio commentaries, interviews, excerpt from Keaton’s autobiography, and essay by Imogen Sara Smith.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Friday the 13th“: Though not exactly unavailable on Blu-ray previously, Paramount’s new edition of Sean S. Cunningham’s slasher classic marks its 40th anniversary, and it’s worth marking; separated from considerable nostalgia, its artistic merits are dubious (though it’s certainly one of the better films of the series). But it’s a triumph of commercialism, keying in on the cheaply exploitable elements of “Halloween” and its ilk and building a seemingly inexhaustible multi-film mythology. And there is craftsmanship on display here; Cunningham can build to a scare, Tom Savini’s gore effects remain grisly and effective, and the performers (particularly Adrienne King, Betsy Palmer, and a young Kevin Bacon) acquit themselves nicely. (Includes audio commentary and featurettes.)
ON DVD / VOD:
“What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael”: The name of Kael is summoned so frequently in discussions of film criticism, like a talisman (or, occasionally, a hex) that it’s easy to lose sight of what made her words so vital – and that there was a real, and sometimes flawed, person behind them. Rob Garver’s bio-doc does its best to rectify that situation, with testimonials from those who knew her and were influenced by her, and thorough recapping of her many causes and controversies. But it’s most valuable as a showcase for the work (performed capably by narrator Sarah Jessica Parker), which papers the picture like a musical score. Which, in some ways, it is. (Includes bonus interviews and deleted scenes.)
