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.
Some weeks, there’s not much to talk about on the new release front – and some weeks, it feels like the video distributors and streaming platforms got together and just decided to clobber everybody. This is one of those weeks, with new (and new-ish) marquee titles on Netflix, a must-have horror trio on 4K, a whole mess of new additions to the Criterion Collection, and much, much more. Choose your fighter:
ON NETFLIX:
“The Lovebirds”: The plot is old hat – a barely-veiled mash-up of “Date Night” and “Game Night” – and the direction by Michael Showalter is barely serviceable. But this one-crazy-night rom-com is worth your time anyway, thanks to the considerable charisma and chemistry of stars Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani. They play a once crazy-in-love, now just crazy couple who, on the verge of a break-up, find themselves simultaneously on the run from cops and criminals. In a way, it’s like the old Paramount comedies of the 1930s, powered less by laser-sharp scripts or snazzy direction than the heavyweight personalities of stars like W.C. Fields and The Marx Brothers; Rae and Nanjiani similarly generate laughs just by existing onscreen together and bouncing their personas off each other.
“Uncut Gems”: Josh and Benny Safdie scored their biggest commercial and critical success to date – and deservedly so – with this adrenaline-fueled embed into New York City’s diamond district, as seen through the eyes of a perennial hustler and inveterate gambler (Adam Sandler), who spends his life perpetually in pursuit of the next big score. Sandler has never been better, harnessing his considerable nervous energy and offhand charisma, and the entire supporting cast wows (though Julia Fox’s put-upon girlfriend and Lakeith Stanfield’s seemingly laid-back accomplice are the stand-outs). The Safdies have been building to a movie this great for a decade; it’s hard to imagine where they’re headed next.
ON VOD:
“The Painter and the Thief”: Benjamin Ree’s startling documentary is a case study in the stranger-than-fiction turns of reality, focusing on a Czech artist who meets the man who stole two of her valuable paintings from an art gallery – and tells him, simply, “I’d love to make a portrait of you.” We’re used to unexpected relationships, in documentaries and narrative features alike, but that’s just the opening volley of this wildly unpredictable and warmly sympathetic picture, cleverly constructed and masterfully executed.
ON 4K / BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“The Invisible Man”: After the comically quick implosion of their ill-conceived Dark Universe, Universal did the smart thing with their vast monster holdings: they teamed with Blumhouse to craft stripped-down, modern reconfigurations of those classics. Leigh Whannel’s lead-off hitter punts the gauze wrapping and empty clothes in favor of dread, fear, and inventively deployed negative space, turning the old mad scientist tale into an up-to-the-minute meditation on paranoia and gaslighting (“This is what he does: he makes me feel like I’m the crazy one”). And then he delivers the thriller goods, with bluntly efficient action and terror sequences and simple but jaw-dropping special effects. It all works, and beautifully, thanks to Whannel’s narrative efficiency and yet another stellar performance by Elisabeth Moss. (Includes audio commentary, deleted scenes, and featurettes.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“Wildlife”: Paul Dano directs and co-writes (with Zoe Kazan) this haunting, melancholy adaptation of Richard Ford’s novel, displaying not only the expected skill with actors, but a real talent for homing in on tiny, personal moments, and living inside them. Carey Mulligan does some of her best work to date (no small feat) as a wife and mother who finds herself geographically and psychologically adrift; few actors are as skilled as putting on a mask to the world and letting us see the tiniest of split-seconds when it slips. Jake Gyllenhaal has less screen time as her husband, but makes the most of it, crafting a portrait of faltering self-worth and burgeoning (yet false) bravado. New releases rarely make it into the Criterion Collection this quickly, but this one earns its place. (Includes interviews and essay by Mark Harris.)
ON 4K / BLU-RAY:
“Maniac”: Joe Spinell, the patron saint of NYC sleaze, not only stars in this grisly cult classic (newly restored for 4K disc by Blue Underground) but co-wrote and executive produced as well. He plays a serial killer, working his way through the diciest corners of the city circa 1980; Spinell seems genuinely unhinged, in a way that raises the stakes higher than the tasteless thrills of your typical, low-effort slasher. To his credit, director William Lustig (“Maniac Cop”) never seems like a tourist – the film seems at home in these seedy Deuce locations, the flophouses and grindhouses and discotheques, giving it a lived-in quality that remains unnerving. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes, interviews, outtakes, trailers, and TV and radio spots.)
“Zombie”: Blue Underground is also unleashing a spiffy new edition of Lucio Fulci’s video store fave (complete with that gnarly cover), and it looks better than it ever has; the gory, convincing make-up and practical effects hold up particularly well. It was originally released in Italy as “Zombi 2,” marketed as a sequel to “Dawn of the Dead,” a film Fulci had not yet seen – but he exhibits similar commercial resourcefulness in the film itself, with sequences cheerfully and shamelessly lifted from “Jaws,” “Halloween,” and “Night of the Living Dead.” Yet none of those shenanigans – or the considerable amount of melodrama filler, particularly in the first half – detracts from what he does well. This is a man who knows how to build a set piece (that wood in the eyeball sequence, yeesh), and how to deliver the kind of unapologetic gore his audience is looking for. (Includes audio commentaries, interviews, featurettes, Guillermo del Toro introductions, trailers, and TV and radio spots.)
ON BLU-RAY / DVD:
“Scorsese Shorts”: Throughout the 1970s, Martin Scorsese frequently chased his narrative features with documentary companions, and two of those films, each running under an hour, are the centerpieces of this Criterion release. “Italianamerican,” a Little Italy exploration that followed “Mean Streets,” drop-kicks the drily historical approach of too many immigrant documentaries by focusing squarely on Scorsese’s charismatic parents, who tell the story of their immigration to the neighborhood over a laid-back Sunday afternoon, between mother Catherine’s trip to the kitchen to check on the sauce. (The recipe is helpfully included in the closing credits.) “American Boy” is a profile of Steven Prince, a memorably oddball presence who appears in a small role in “Taxi Driver” (he’s the gun salesmen), and here tells some of his stories of drug addiction and rock music roadie-ing. They genuinely rank among his best works, exploring the themes and ideas that have driven much of his career; the earlier, shorter films “The Big Shave,” “It’s Not Just You, Murray,” and “What’s A Nice Girl Like You Doing In a Place Like This?” are more like student film snapshots, tantalizing glimpses of talent waiting to explode. (Includes interviews and essay by Bilge Ebiri.)
“Husbands”: Scorsese mentor John Cassavetes’ 1970 drama – in which he writes, directs, and co-stars with longtime collaborators Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara – was conspicuously absent from Criterion’s Cassavetes box set lo those many years ago, but it’s worth the wait. It’s one of the dramatist’s most difficult pictures, a long and rambling howl of toxic masculinity and emotional abuse, but it renders its portraiture with unblinking and unapologetic savagery. And its three leads are break-the-glass good, pouring their considerable emotional force and tart charisma into this tough but satisfying work. (Includes audio commentary, interviews, video essay, featurette, “Dick Cavett Show” appearance, and an essay by Andrew Bujalski.)
“Dance, Girl, Dance”: As one of only a handful of women sustaining a directorial career in the studio system, Dorothy Arzner is overdue for recognition and consideration, so this Criterion edition of her 1940 backstage drama is welcome indeed. And the shift in gaze is unmistakable; this is a movie about women, about how they see and treat each other, where the men are primarily either obstructions or ornaments. Not that it’s an explicitly feminist tract, either; this is a good old-fashioned show-biz picture, well-versed in the lingo and logistics of the dance scene and the burlesque circuit, with Maureen O’Hara as the straight-laced lead and Lucille Ball stealing scenes by the fistful as her bad girl rival, “Bubbles” (“I ain’t got an ounce of class, sugar – honest!”). But Arzner’s touch is the key, particularly in a late barn-burner of a speech where O’Hara lets the burlesque audience know exactly what the dancers think of them. (Includes an introduction by B. Ruby Rich, interview with Francis Ford Coppola, and an essay by Sheila O’Malley.)
“All Night Long”: Jean-Claude Tramont’s 1981 romantic comedy (new on Blu from KL Studio Classics) was a notorious critical and commercial failure, and that’s not hard to see; it’s a bit of mess, with the director never quite figuring out if he’s making a screwball comedy, a sex farce, or a drama of middle-age malaise. But as a star vehicle, it’s got a lot to offer. Gene Hackman is the ideal vessel for a snapshot of a mid-life crisis, playing this story of a well-established executive busted down to an all-night managerial job with the proper degree of frustrated rage, but attracting our sympathy nevertheless. And he generates agreeable sparks with Barbara Streisand, charming and sexy as the older woman fancied by Hackman’s son (Dennis Quaid, likably lunkheaded), and, eventually, by Hackman himself. (Includes interview, radio spots, and trailer.)
“A Man, A Woman, and A Bank”: This 1979 Canadian heist movie nicely complicated the conventions by folding in a sweet and genuine romance, as would-be bank robber Donald Sutherland, in the process of covering his tracks, ends up falling hard for Brooke Adams. (Who wouldn’t?) They get a good, relaxed vibe going, and Sutherland also generates affable comic teamwork with Paul Mazursky as his partner in crime – the confident smoothie bouncing amusingly off the wisecracking worrywart. The tension never quite gets to where it needs to be (there’s a real ‘70s soft-rock factor happening here, and not just because Bill Conti does the score), but the surfaces are all so pleasurable, you won’t much mind. (Includes audio commentaries and trailer.)
