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.
We’ve got a new feature from an American indie legend on tap for this week, along with fancy new disc releases for fans of Stanley Kubrick, Audrey Hepburn, Claire Denis, David Cronenberg, and Bob Hope. Is that eclectic enough for you?
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“Tommaso”: Abel Ferrara lives and works in Italy these days, so it’s no coincidence that his latest psychological drama concerns an American filmmaker living and working in Italy. Said filmmaker is here called Tommaso, and is played by Ferrara’s longtime collaborator and friend Willem Dafoe – and that familiarity is key to the performance, particularly in the long, searching, confessional monologues he delivers at recovery meetings, as he talks about getting sober and taking control of his life. Those scenes are so grounded and rich that it’s easy to take “Tommaso” as the story of a wild man’s domestication, and that’s where Ferrara gets clever, constructing this nerve-racking drama in such a way that we never forget how easily the rage and instability can be unlocked. (Includes Dafoe interview, conversation with Ferrara and Sean Baker, and an essay by Brad Stevens.)
ON 4K:
“Full Metal Jacket”: The deliberate pace of Stanley Kubrick’s late period did him no favors when this 1987 Vietnam War picture tumbled into theaters on the heels of the previous year’s Best Picture winner “Platoon” – comparisons were inevitable, and at the time, not favorable. But as with most of the Kubrick filmography, time has been kind to his adaptation of Gustav Hasford’s novel “The Short Timers,” out now on a gorgeous new 4K disc. Its experimental structure and jet-black humor maintain their ability to shock, while the performances (particularly R. Lee Ermey’s brutal drill sergeant and Vincent D’Onofrio as the object of his ire) are as powerful and chilling as ever. (Includes audio commentary, featurette, and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY / AMAZON PRIME:
“Roman Holiday”: William Wyler directs Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in this charming continental romance, which Paramount is debuting on Blu-ray as part of its “Paramount Presents” series (and the luminous black-and-white photography has never looked better). Peck is a morally flexible reporter and Hepburn is the princess he’s trying to cover, who decides to take an incognito “holiday” and do the common things she never can; they’re both vaguely lying to each other, but so good-natured about it that we all go along. He’s a little stiff – as always – but they’re stunning together, generating real chemistry and stakes; it’s a sweet, tender, and decidedly heartbreaking tale, with a surprisingly poignant ending. (Also streaming on Amazon Prime.) (Includes Leonard Maltin “Filmmaker Focus,” featurettes, and trailers.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Beau Travail”: The great Claire Denis gives Melville’s “Billy Budd” a contemporary spin in this scorching 1999 drama, new on Blu-ray from the Criterion Collection. The focus is Galoup (Denis Lavant), Chief Adjutant in the French Foreign Legion, who recalls his time in Djibouti and his physical, psychological, and psychosexual battles with Sentain (Grégoire Colin), a new addition to the unit. But Denis’ film is less about plot than ritual (the training exercises, guard duties, and other day-to-day routines) and feeling, thanks to its lived-in, offhand aesthetic. Most of all, the picture is a haunting testament to the filmmaker’s keen, perceptive way of seeing – not just framing, but seeing – her subjects. (Includes selected-scene commentary, new interviews, video essay, conversation with Denis and Barry Jenkins, and essay by Girish Shambu.)
“Shivers”: This 1975 Canadian shocker marked the feature debut of David Cronenberg, and the watermarks of his work are all ready in place: unnerving body horror, copious fluids, pitch-black comedy, and institutional distrust. He sets his story in a luxury apartment building (and makes ingenious use of the amenities – storage units, elevators, pool, etc.); within those walls, a parasite is on the loose, “a combination of aphrodisiac and venereal disease,” if you can imagine. Cronenberg is thus working not only in squirmy gore but at the uncomfortable intersection of sex and violence, and his storytelling is merciless even when the effects are goofy. As ever, Cronenberg uses even his limitations to his advantage, and the anonymity of the actors, the briefly-borrowed quality of the locations, and the cheap film stock combine to give this one a peculiar, unexpected authenticity. And it’s creepy as hell. (Includes audio commentaries, new and archival interviews, trailers, and TV and radio spots.)
“Christ Stopped at Eboli”: Francesco Rosi’s 1979 adaptation of Carlo Levi’s book has only been previously available on American home video in its theatrical form – truncated to 150 minutes from its original, four-part television presentation. Criterion’s new Blu-ray presents the film in its uncut form, complete with episode breaks, so you can watch it in installments or, y’know, binge it. Either way, it’s an overwhelming experience, telling a story of exile, discovery, and fellowship, and though the expansive length is intimidating, it’s also immersive; Levi (Gian Maria Volontè) is banished to this small, rural village for his anti-Fascist views, but he comes to understand and value this community, and the viewer is with him every step of the way. (Includes interviews, documentary excerpts, director’s statement, and essay by Alexander Stille.)
“The Cat and the Canary” / “The Ghost Breakers”: The spooky season is upon us, so KL Studio Classics has bestowed upon us a pair of Bob Hope / Paulette Goddard horror/comedies from 1939 and 1940. The mash-up genre is a good match for Hope’s confident coward persona – “I’m not really frightened,” he explains early in the former, “I’m just naturally nervous” – and directors Elliott Nugent and George Marshall fill out the pictures with creepy characters actors and juicy plots. There’s a bit too much of the latter, in fact; Hope is kept on a pretty short leash here, locked in to the intricacies of the stories at the pictures’ center, rather than subverting them as he would in his best 1940s work. (And “The Ghost Breakers” is genuinely hobbled by some unfortunate gags at the expense of Hope’s Black valet.) But Hope and Goddard’s chemistry is strong and he lands some big laughs, and that’s about all you can ask for, isn’t it? (Both films include audio commentaries and trailers.)
