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.
The numerical value assigned to the past two weeks’ disc and streaming releases is up for some disagreement – there are nine new titles, to be sure, but one of them has three movies inside it, and the other has 39. Then again, “The 49 Best Movies to Buy or Stream This Week” sounds a little overwhelming, even during quarantine time, so maybe let’s stick with the original – which includes a new streamer, handful of ‘80s favorites, a recent (and above average) family film, an indie delight, and more:
ON HBO MAX:
“An American Pickle”: Simon Rich adapts his short story “Sell Out,” in which a Brooklyn laborer is accidentally pickled for a full century, into a Seth Rogen vehicle – with surprisingly sweet results. The delicious central gimmick is explored with the expected comic aplomb, as the former European ditch digger experiences acute culture shock in contemporary Williamsburg, where his great-grandson (also played by Rogen) is first his tour guide, and then his nemesis. And while a detour into culture war territory doesn’t quite play, the film’s themes of family, legacy, and heritage are mostly played straight, with weight, and they work. Cinematographer-turned-director Brandon Trost gives what could’ve been a one-joke movie a genuine sense of texture (the old world scenes are particularly gorgeous), but Rogen’s lovely dual performance is the key; leaning into the extremes of his onscreen persona, he carefully plays both the sharp differences and inherent similarities.
ON PRIME VIDEO / HULU:
“Dora and the Lost City of Gold”: It would have been breathtakingly easy to make a cheapo cash-in “Dora the Explorer” movie, mindlessly replicating the longtime family favorite and calling it a day. But director James Bobin and co-writer Nicholas Stoller do for the property what they did for “The Muppets” years ago, gently sending up the series and its characters without teetering into disrespect or vulgarity. It’s a lot of fun, is the point, a pint-size “Raiders” riff with a marvelous performance by Isabela Merced at its center.
ON BLU-RAY / VOD:
“Lucky Grandma”: Tsai Chin (from “The Joy Luck Club”) is an utter delight as the title character, a chain-smoking, no-nonsense gambling grandma who ends up on the wrong side of the Chinatown mob. Her impatient deadpan is a comic weapon, and the story of this character getting in over her head would be enough to satisfy most moviegoers – but then it becomes, unexpectedly enough, a buddy comedy with her big, goofy bodyguard, Big Pong (the wonderful Hsiao-Yuan Ha). It’s not a must-see, and perhaps that’s the point; this is the kind of funky, pay-cable-friendly fun that there’s not much room for in the current marketplace, and it’s a joy to watch a young filmmaker hitting these particular, enjoyable notes. (Includes behind-the-scenes featurettes and trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Diva”: This arthouse hit from 1981 was long overdue for a U.S. Blu-ray release, and now it finally has one, thanks to the fine folks at KL Studio Classics. It’s a thrilling story of obsession, murder, and surreptitious recording, in which a young postman’s obsession with a legendary (but unrecorded) opera singer leads him to make a high-quality bootleg of her performing, only to get it mixed up with a recording incriminating a dirty cop. It’s easy to pinpoint the influences director and co-writer Jean-Jacques Beineix is working from, but like Tarantino a decade later, he so thoroughly ingests and synthesizes those influences that the resultant style is purely of his own making. (Includes audio commentaries, introduction, interviews, featurettes, and trailer.)
“Tender Mercies”: Robert Duvall won his first (and so far, only) Oscar for this 1981 drama, which he also co-produced with screenwriter Horton Foote, and you can see why he was so anxious to get it made; the role of Mac Sledge, a washed-up, alcoholic country singer, squares perfectly with the kind of straight-ahead, no-frills acting he does so well. The entire picture seems to be situated around that sensibility, in fact – it’s a modest movie, full of short, simple scenes and stories told between the lines. The quiet poetry of Foote’s dialogue (he also won an Oscar) and the unfussy direction of Bruce Beresford, coupled with the stellar supporting cast (including the recently departed Wilford Brimley, an electrifying Betty Buckley, and a young Ellen Barkin, who comes on like a thunderbolt) make this one of the finest films of its era. (Includes audio commentary, feautrettes, and trailer.)
“The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum”: Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta’s 1975 adaptation of Heinrich Böll’s novel gets the Blu-ray bump from Criterion, and it’s a worthy one; though nearly half a century old, this story of government harassment and media malpractice feels uncomfortably fresh. Angela Winkler is harrowingly good as a housekeeper who is snagged by police, who claim her lover is a terrorist. The cops accuse and slut-shame her, tabloid reporters ghoulishly smear her name, and the truth becomes the last thing on anyone’s mind but hers. Schlöndorff and Trotta tell the story with documentary-style meticulousness, which makes the sensational turns of the story’s third act land with even more of a kick. (Includes interviews, documentary excepts, trailer, and essay by Amy Taubin.)
“The Quest”: Australian exploitation filmmaker Brian Trenchard-Smith (whom we just discussed a couple of weeks back) worked in the realm of the grisly and the gory so well – his credits included “Turkey Shoot” and “Dead End Drive-In” – that it’s a bit of shock to see his name attached to this family-friendly boys’ adventure tale from 1986, a Spielberg Lite picture down to the casting of “E.T.” star Henry Thomas in the lead. But the giddiness of Trenchard-Smith’s filmmaking, the inventive compositions and sprung edits, shines through, and it’s enjoyable to watch him bring his grindhouse sensibility to an ostensibly family entertainment. (Also streaming on Prime Video.) (Includes audio commentary, featurettes, and trailer.)
“The Complete Films of Agnès Varda”: Criterion’s box set game is unmatchable, but even by their own sky-high standards, this one is awe-inspiring: all 39 of the late French filmmaker’s features, documentaries, and shorts, from “La Pointe Courte” to “Varda by Agnès”, grouped by subject across 15 discs. The transfers are gorgeous and the special features are copious, but that’s not why you buy this one; you buy this one to revel in the staggering versatility, sensitivity, and intelligence of one of the true film artists of her generation. (Includes introductions, interviews, rare television work, archival interviews and tributes, featurettes, footage from unfinished films and commercials, behind-the-scenes footage, video essays, and trailers.)
“Carole Lombard Collection I”: Kino-Lorber’s Lombard collection (the first of hopefully many, based on that title) is by no means comprehensive; there’s no “My Man Godfrey,” no “Twentieth Century,” not even “Nothing Sacred,” which the company has put out separately. But what we get instead, in “Fast and Loose,” “Man of the World,” and “No Man of Her Own” – three Pre-Code pictures from Lombard’s days as a Paramount contract player – is nearly as valuable: an opportunity for completists and admirers (hello, guilty) to observe Lombard’s star quality in ascension, as she outshines and often steals these films from her (then) better-known co-stars. (Includes audio commentaries and trailers.)