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, catalogue 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.
This week’s two big new releases both did brief, limited theatrical runs, and each reminds us, in very different ways, of what a bummer it is that more of us couldn’t see them on the big screen. We’ve also got an embarrassment of catalogue riches on disc this week, plus one of Scorsese’s most underrated titles back on Netflix.
ON NETFLIX:
“Shutter Island”: It’s tempting to dismiss this Gothic thriller from director Martin Scorsese as an exercise in pure style – and make no mistake, he’s clearly having a blast making a genre picture, teeing up the creaky doors and raging storms and nightmarish visions. But this is a haunted movie about a haunted man, and the more time we spend over the shoulder of its protagonist (Leonardo DiCaprio, doing top-tier work), the more emotional and affecting it becomes, up and through its devastating climax. As always, Scorsese’s influences aren’t hard to track; what’s refreshing is how he transforms the post-WWII trauma subtext of those inspirations into text, making what first seems an atmospheric lark into something all of a piece with his most psychologically incisive works.
ON BLU-RAY / DVD / VOD:
“Let Him Go”: If you can go in blind to Thomas Bezucha’s thriller, you should do that – because it’s an absolute gut-punch, shifting tones and styles unexpectedly, setting itself up as a quiet mediation on grief and mourning before the genre elements kick in with gusto. It’s a tense, often harrowing experience, with Kevin Costner and Diane Lane trying to track down and save their young grandson from a new, nefarious family. Bezucha builds the mood with quiet ease, and Costner and Lane anchor the events, no matter how wild, with their comfortable chemistry and offhand ease. (Includes featurettes.)
“Freaky”: The latest horror-comedy from “Happy Death Day” director Christopher Landon is an ingenious mash-up of two of the most venerable subgenres of the ‘80s: the slasher movie and the body-swapping comedy. (If they really wanted to go all the way, they’d have called it “Freaky Friday the 13th.”) He clearly knows his stuff, kidding the conventions with winkingly obvious set-ups and over-the-top gore, and cleverly working through the complications and variations possible when a serial killer and a final girl switch places. But the key to this one is the performances, with both Vince Vaughn and Kathryn Newton doing work of genuine comic invention and skill. (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, and deleted scenes.)
“Nationtime”: In March of 1972, a who’s-who of Black political leaders, activists, and entertainers assembled for the National Black Political Convention in Gary, Indiana, to discuss the state of the movement and marshal their political power. William Greaves (the director of “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm”) was there with his cameras to make a film intended for television. Still, it was rejected as too militant, and the version that has circulated since was a cut-down, 58-minute version. Kino-Lorber’s new release restores that film to its original 80-minute length, and every minute is valuable. Greaves isn’t breaking the form, as he was in “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm” – he’s documenting an event. But that’s all he needs to do; it’s a remarkable event, and the fiery rhetoric of Jesse Jackson, Mayor Richard Hatcher, Bobby Seale, and the rest of the line-up are as relevant, and urgent, as ever. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, and an essay by Leonard N. Moore, Ph.D.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“The Little Prince”: It’s understandable to express some skepticism that the director of “Kung Fu Panda” has the right touch for a film adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s classic children’s book; it’s similarly hard to imagine that it could withstand (or even need) a contemporary framing device. So it’s sort of a miracle that this 2015 family film works at all, no matter that it works as well as it does – it’s sweet, it’s charming, it’s inspiring, and it’s heartbreaking, in equally potent doses (and often simultaneously). It’s just now getting a domestic Blu-ray release, which is always welcome for Netflix acquisitions, and any parent would be lucky to have this one in the regular replay rotation. (No bonus features.) (Also streaming on Netflix.)
“The Parallax View”: Few directors were as adroit in the realm of the conspiracy thriller as Alan J. Pakula, and this 1974 humdinger (new on Blu from Criterion), his warm-up for “All the President’s Men,” is one of the best. Warren Beatty stars as a reporter who, in a wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time situation, witnesses an RFK-esque political assassination – and, true to the form, discovers that the more he finds out, the less he knows. Beatty is an ideal protagonist for this kind of story, always credible in both his dedication and slight dimness, while Pakula (with his peerless cinematographer Gordon Willis) crafts scenes of exquisite tension and unnerving dread. (Includes new and archival interviews, a featurette on Willis, an introduction by Alex Cox, and an essay by Nathan Heller.) (Also streaming on Amazon Prime.)
“The Ascent”: Larisa Sheptiko’s 1977 war film, new on Blu-ray from Criterion, is kind of a perfect film for blizzard viewing: wintery, blustery, and bleak. Set in the midst of the German-Russian conflict in WWII, it concerns a pair of Russian soldiers whose reconnaissance mission for food goes disastrously wrong – but Shepitko is less interested in plot than ambiance, in the terror of being out in the frozen forest, or hiding from Nazis, or cowering in a camp awaiting your doom. Sharp and scary (making frequent and expert use of the subjective camera), it was only Sheptiko’s fifth film, and sadly her last; it remains a staggering piece of work. (Includes audio commentary, new and archival interviews, introduction, Shepitko short films and documentaries, and an essay by Fanny Howe.)
“Jazz on a Summer’s Day”: Kino-Lorber gives us a new restoration of Bert Stern’s groundbreaking concert film, and it remains an absolute joy. The Newport Jazz Festival was one of the first big music fests, and thus Stern’s film is one of the first festival movies, with the conventions of that documentary subset not yet in place; there’s little in the way of interviews or set-up, or even dialogue, just 85 minutes of performances and small moments in the crowd (one that we cannot help but note, especially in contrast to the faces on the stage, is almost entirely white). And what performances – Thelonious Monk goes off, Louis Armstrong goes big, Chuck Berry goes wild, and Mahalia Jackson brings it all home. (Includes audio commentary, Stern documentary and photo galleries, archival interviews, and an essay by Nate Chinen.)
“The Kiss Before the Mirror”: This darkly funny effort from director James Whale (of the Universal “Frankenstein” movies) is cheerfully Pre-Code, centering as it does on unapologetic lovers, jealous husbands, and murder. Betrayal and adultery abound, as a man kills his wife’s side piece and is defended by a lawyer friend, who soon discovers his own wife is unfaithful as well. It’s all a tad overwrought, of course, but Whale’s direction is jazzy and entertaining; he fills the frame with stylish devices and snappy camera moves, which are all the more impressive compared with other early talkies. (Includes audio commentary and trailers.)