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 (migrating to The Playlist from Flavorwire, it’s home for the past five years) will sift through all of those choices to pluck out the movies most worth your time, no matter how you’re watching. This week: an exhilaratingly bizarre sophomore effort, two ‘90s “Irishman”-adjacent gems, two timely catalog releases from KL Studio Classics, and a new Cukor in the Criterion Collection.
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ON NETFLIX:
“Donnie Brasco”: Netflix might’ve pulled all those early Scorsese movies they licensed in the run-up to “The Irishman” (and boo to that move), but here’s another fine supplement to Scorsese’s mob epic. Likewise, based on a true story, “Brasco” features “Irishman” co-star Al Pacino as another gangster grinder, a life-long small-timer who makes the mistake of vouching for a new guy in his crew (Johnny Depp) who, funny story, is an undercover FBI agent. Director Mike Newell keenly captures the rhythms of this neighborhood crew, who spend more time robbing parking meters than shipping trucks, and Pacino does some of his finest work of the era as this goodfella, Willy Loman.
ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO:
“Bringing Out the Dead”: At least Prime is replenishing their Scorsese stock, with early January additions of both his peerless rockumentary “The Last Waltz” and this 1999 reunion with “Taxi Driver” screenwriter Paul Schrader. It feels very much like a bookend to that picture, concerning as it does a tortured soul working the night shift in Manhattan; this time it’s an ambulance driver (Nicolas Cage, doing some of his best work), and the era is the early ‘90s, just before the city cleaned up its act. Scorsese and his collaborators (particularly editor Thelma Schoonmaker and cinematographer Robert Richardson) find an aesthetic that fuses punk rock and grand opera, harnessing the furious energy of the streets while plumbing the depths of this broken man’s soul. And once you’re aware of the sly “Christmas Carol” homage, it’s hard to see anything else.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“The Lighthouse”: The relentless blasting of the foghorn fills the soundtrack of Robert Eggers’s follow-up to “The Witch” like a warning bell; it’s the sound of the oncoming and inevitable madness of its protagonists. Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson star as a pair of late-19th century lighthouse keepers losing their bearings on their remote island outpost as a storm rails unceasingly, and both actors shine. However, Dafoe, sporting his customary wild-eyed intensity, walks away with the picture thanks to his magnificently grizzled, eccentric performance. Eggers pitches it like a fever dream, but has a way of composing his images for maximum comic effect (some of it plays like straight-up slapstick), and takes this strange story into some, to put it mildly, unexpected territory. It’s a wild piece of work, a twisted sea shanty, warbled by a lunatic. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, and a featurette.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Brick”: Savvily following the success of “Knives Out” – and the re-appreciation of “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” – KL Studio Classics is giving the full special-edition Blu-ray treatment to Rian Johnson’s first feature (and first mystery). Hitting theaters the same year as “Veronica Mars” and working from the same “noir, but make it high school” hook, “Brick” feels very much like a first film, though mostly in the best sense; it finds a movie-crazy young director trotting out every dazzling visual and narrative trick he can muster, mixing his plentiful homage with a taste of his own sensibilities. Its lingo-heavy, hard-boiled dialogue can rub the viewer as either ingenious or obnoxious (perhaps both). Still, Johnson’s storytelling sense is already assured, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes for an appropriately downbeat and cynical noir hero. (Includes new 4K restoration supervised by Johnson, audio commentary, deleted and extended scenes, featurette, and trailer.)
“The Specialists”: KL shows a similarly keen reactive sense by giving the Blu-ray treatment to this 1969 title from director Sergio Corbucci, name-checked by Al Pacino in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” as “the second-best director of spaghetti westerns in the whole wide world.” And this is a model Corbucci picture, saturated in his rough brutalism and everyone’s-a-scoundrel worldview. Its plot is dizzyingly, perhaps needlessly complex – a story of revenge, betrayal, theft, and double-crosses, anchored by “The Mighty Hud,” (Johnny Hallyday, doing his very best Eastwood) a free-wheeling gunslinger looking to avenge the death of his brother. Corbucci’s action beats are, as usual, breathless, the dialogue is witty (an extended “Man from Liberty Valance” riff is particularly witty), and KL’s 4K restoration is gorgeous, beautifully capturing Dario Di Palma’s picturesque cinematography. (Includes audio commentary by Alex Cox and the theatrical trailer.)
“Holiday”: Two years before “The Philadelphia Story,” director George Cukor teamed Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn for this adaptation of Philip Barry’s play (a new addition to The Criterion Collection). Its stage roots are evident – the three-act structure is clean and effective – but it doesn’t feel prescribed, thanks in no small part to the charisma and chemistry of its leads. Grant is in top form as a go-go playboy whose vacation fling turns out to be richer than he is; Hepburn snarls and sparkles as the self-appointed “black sheep” sister of Grant’s would-be bride. What starts as a fast-talking comedy of manners evolves, ever so subtly, into a serious character study, plugging into the family’s dysfunction and tuning in to the powerful attraction our protagonists find themselves unexpectedly, and convincingly, in thrall to. (Includes featurette, archival interview excerpts, costume gallery, earlier 1930 film adaptation in full, and an essay by Dana Stevens.)