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.
It’s a lighter week than usual on the new release front – and that will probably hold from here on out, as the past couple of weeks have seen the disc arrival of the last few theatrical features of the year. But not to worry: we’ve got your usual assortment of classic catalog titles on disc, a recent fave on Netflix, and two noteworthy new titles on their competing streaming services. Queue ‘em up:
ON NETFLIX:
“Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story”: It’s the craziest thing: back in 2007, director Jake Kasdan and his co-writer Judd Apatow took a flamethrower to the tired clichés of the musical biopic with this inspired and uproariously funny chronicle of rock legend Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly, perfection). They checked all the boxes: flashback structure (“Dewey Cox has to think about his entire life before he plays”), broadly drawn tragedies (“Wrong kid died!”), clumsy exposition (“What do you think, George Harrison of the Beatles?”), the rise-and-fall-and-recovery narrative, all of it. And the movie came out, and we all had a good laugh, and then they just… kept on making musical biopics! Gave them Oscars, even! It’s nutty!
ON AMAZON PRIME:
“The Vast of Night”: First-time filmmaker Andrew Patterson tells a period science fiction tale with nimbleness and wit, on a shockingly low budget – but he deftly avoids the need for pricey effects by relying on talk, mood, and movement. He’s interested in sounds and ideas that kick our imaginations into overdrive, focusing on strange currencies and inexplicable interference in the intermingling signals of a radio station, reel-to-reel recordings, and a telephone switchboard, and working into the sci-fi elements from there. But it’s not just an alien invasion story, or a “Twilight Zone” homage; though it moves at a furious gallop for 90 exhilarating minutes, the filmmakers paint a picture of a very particular kind of small-town (we’re airdropped in, but know right away exactly who everyone is, and what they are to each other), and charge the picture with a potent undercurrent about the stifling nature of these communities. Sleekly photographed and hauntingly dramatized, this is the most noteworthy debut in many a moon.
ON HBO MAX:
“On the Record”: This wrenching documentary from Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering (“The Invisible War,” “The Hunting Ground”) lands on HBO’s new streaming service heavy with baggage: it was originally set to debut on Apple+, under Oprah Winfrey’s production banner, but the mogul pulled her support mere days before its Sundance premiere, claiming concern over its reporting. But some have speculated she did so in response to pressure from its subject, Russell Simmons, who is alleged here to have sexually harassed and/or assaulted twenty women to date; one of them, Drew Dixon, is the primary focus, though several others tell their stories as well. As per usual with Dick and Ziering’s work, the film is tightly wound, frequently upsetting, and ultimately infuriating; it’s a powerful work that deserves to be seen, unpacking vital questions and grappling with key issues of this moment in the #MeToo movement.
ON 4K / BLU-RAY:
“Jaws”: Universal’s new 45th anniversary 4K release of Steven Spielberg’s mega-hit is tight as a drum; the transfer is clean and sharp, and I heard things in the mix that have eluded me for years. Such a pristine presentation underscores that this remains an honest-to-God flawless film: tightly constructed, beautifully acted, by turns scary and funny and exhilarating. It’s one of the most universally acclaimed and commercially successful movies of all time, and it still somehow feels underrated – or, more accurately, taken for granted. It’s just accepted as common wisdom that “Jaws” is perfect, and done so often that it’s easy to forget what a magnificent juggling act it is. And if that’s the excuse you need to revisit it, well, feel free. (Includes full-length documentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes and outtakes, and the theatrical trailer.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Glengarry Glen Ross”: James Foley’s film adaptation of David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play tanked when it hit theaters in 1992 – I’m convinced it was because of the title, and no one can tell me otherwise – but it slowly found its enthusiastic audience on home video. It returns to Blu-ray this week via Shout Select and the 4K restoration nicely repositions Juan Ruiz Anchia’s cinematography for proper praise – those neons! That rain! – and Foley’s expert compositions, frequently placing his actors in mediums and two-shots, so we can fully appreciate both the actor and the reactor. Mamet’s screenplay adaptation smartly rethinks the play for a theatrical audience, adding new introductions and motivations, smoothly intermingling the consecutive duets that start the play, and most importantly, adding Alec Baldwin’s justly celebrated sales-meeting monologue. It’s just a great American movie – slickly directed, intelligently written, and acted with ferocity. (Includes audio commentaries, interviews, and featurettes.)