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.
Look, they’re not gonna call this election as early as you want/need, so rather than doomscrolling and channel-surfing, do your best to distract yourself with one of the many, many new movies they’re streaming this week – including a pointed new documentary, a pointed new mockumentary, and something somewhere in between. Or if you’re up for something older, we have a political thriller, cult classics, new Criterions, and three stellar ‘70s Westerns from King Clint. Take your pick:
ON AMAZON PRIME:
“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”: The mere idea of a new Borat film would seem impossible, for reasons articulated by the character himself: “People make recognize my face.” So it’s all the more impressive that Sascha Baron Cohen not only equals his 2006 smash but bests it, offering up not only the expected parade of politicians and bigots showing their asses (including, yes, Rudy Giuliani), but an unexpectedly affecting and, somehow, emotional arc between Borat and his daughter (the remarkable Maria Bakalova), who ends up taking some of those high-risk interviews and proves more than up to the task. She’s a master improviser; so are not only Cohen but director Jason Woliner and their screenwriters, who managed to coherently rework their narrative to fit the COVID crisis, and land some well-aimed shots in the process (particularly Cohen’s visit to CPC in late February, as Mike Pence takes a wildly premature victory lap). It’s smart and rightfully furious, but also – and most importantly – funny as hell.
ON HULU:
“Totally Under Control”: The lastest from documentary machine Alex Gibney – who here co-directs with Ophelia Harutyunyan and Suzanne Hillinger – makes for an unexpectedly effective double-feature with “Borat,” working as it does as a dispatch from the foxholes of the lockdown. The obvious question is why anyone would want to watch it; “I’m living through it,” you might think, which is true. But the Trump administration has so flooded the zone with failures and incompetence, it ends up serving as a pointed reminder of all the mistakes they made, a tick-tock of a looming disaster, and the filmmakers assemble it with the urgency and fury of a great political thriller – but with higher stakes than usual.
ON 4K:
“V for Vendetta”: Even when placed alongside the other films that have taken on new relevance and poignancy in These Troubled Times, the prescience of James McTeigue’s adaptation (via a screenplay by The Wachowskis) of Alan Moore’s graphic novel is sort of astonishing. Here is a film that concerns a totalitarian government, a deadly virus outbreak, widespread propaganda, mass protests, citywide curfews, and a masked opposition movement that those in power attempt to classify and target as terrorists. The difference, however, between either chuckling or gasping at the similarities between this film and America circa 2020, as opposed to something like “Contagion” or “Take Shelter,” is that those films are dramas, flights of fancy borne of social realism. “V for Vendetta” is dystopian science fiction – and that’s what we’re living through right now. Its new 4K upgrade is astonishing; it looks like it could’ve come out yesterday, and it might as well have. (Includes featurettes, audition tapes, interviews, music video, and trailer.)
“Daughters of Darkness”: Director Harry Kümel’s erotic vampire horror picture gets the full high-class treatment – a 4K disc release, from a 4K restoration of the long-thought-lost original 35mm camera negative – and you know what? It deserves it. The colors absolutely pop (the reds, my word), while the Dolby Atmos audio mix gives François de Roubaix’s magnificent score the dimension it deserves. But those are just the bells and whistles; what matters is the movie, which remains one of the great grown-up horror movies of the 1970s, by turns bloody, sexy, thoughtful, and unnerving. “Last Year at Marienbad” alum Delphine Seyring is pitch-perfect as the ageless vampire seductress, while Danielle Ouimet is marvelous as the primary object of her (understandable) desire. (Includes audio commentaries, featurettes, interviews, trailers, radio spots, soundtrack CD, and essay by Michael Gingold.)
ON BLU-RAY:
“Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets”: The Ross Brothers, Bill and Turner, merge the conventions of documentary and fiction with this frequently funny and occasionally heartbreaking chronicle of the closing night party for a Las Vegas dive bar. The construction is contrived (the brothers shot it over several nights at a bar in New Orleans, and assembled the participants themselves), but little else is; intoxicated by the notion of the dive bar as community, they capture the gutter poetry of these conversations, the rhythms of these long nights of imbibing, and how quickly bravado and bullshit can give way to genuine pain and vulnerability (and how quickly that can give way to sloppiness and hostility). Documentary purists may quibble with how they get there, but ultimately the Rosses get at the essential duality of these spaces – the bitter and the sweet, the camaraderie and the desperation. It’s a wonderful, unforgettable picture. (Includes featurettes and trailers.)
“Parasite”: The ascension of Bong Joon Ho’s latest from dagger-sharp class and culture commentary to worldwide cinematic sensation was one of the few joys of 2020 (yes, it won Best Picture this year), proving once again that the right storyteller, with the right eye and focus, can gleefully burst borders. The new Criterion edition offers ample opportunity for second (and third, and fourth) viewings, to underscore the startling craft at work here: the crispness of the production design, the mastery of the movements, and the multiple levels of role-playing in the key performances (even the characters who aren’t literally impersonating other people). By the time the blood spurts (and boy, does it ever), it’s hard not to marvel at how exquisitely Bong has placed us in the palm of his hand – and how ruthlessly he proceeds to squeeze. (Includes black-and-white version, interviews, featurettes, Cannes press conferences, master class, storyboard comparison, trailers, and essay by Inkoo Kang.)
“The Gunfighter”: “That’s a real mean man there,” the young cowboy is told, and when he ends up dead on the saloon floor, well, you can’t say they didn’t warn him. His death shot was fired by the notorious gunslinger Jimmy Ringo (Gregory Peck), who comes into new towns like some kind of frontier rock star, preceded by a reputation that he easily lives up to. But Henry King’s 1950 Western (also new from Criterion) isn’t a celebration of this antihero; it finds him in a new town to deal with personal business, a woman who got away and who he would (gasp) go straight for, only to find himself in everyone’s sights. Peck is terrific, putting across the character’s unique mixture of danger and regret, while King deftly orchestrates the narrative’s tight timeframe for maximum tension. (Includes new and archival interviews, video essay, and essay by K. Austin Collins.)
“Two Mules for Sister Sara”: This 1970 oater from director Don Siegel was only Clint Eastwood’s second Western after his iconic trilogy with Sergio Leone, and it feels like an extension of those films, from his costume and cigar to the marvelous and memorable Ennio Morricone score. But it’s also a decidedly American product, an odd couple movie, with Eastwood’s freelance gunfighter pairing up with a (seemingly) prim and proper nun (Shirley MacLaine) for some prickly but affectionate byplay. Gabriel Figueroa’s widescreen cinematography is crisp and lovely, while Siegel stages his action well while (as per usual) keeping his characters squarely centered. (Includes audio commentary by Alex Cox, archival interview, trailers, and radio and TV spots.)
“Joe Kidd”: The second of KL Studio Classics’ new editions of Eastwood Westerns, this one dating to 1972, is the best of the bunch, thanks to the efficient direction by the great John Sturges and a wild, witty screenplay by Elmore Leonard. Eastwood proves a good Dutch antihero, wryly funny and laconic, mildly annoyed that he even has to interact with the various vermin around him; Sturgis surrounds him with ace character actors (including, unfortunately, John Saxon in brownface), chief among them a pitch-perfect Robert Duvall, whose oily villain marches right in like he owns the place. Eastwood rarely gets an antagonist who really feels like a match for him – he gets that here, in spades. (Includes audio commentary by Alex Cox, archival interview, trailers, and radio and TV spots.)
“High Plains Drifter”: This 1973 Western was only Eastwood’s second directorial effort, but he was already displaying a keen understanding of both the Western mythos and how his persona fit into it. It’s too easy to call a ‘70s Western “subversive,” but how else do you approach a movie in which the ostensible hero is as big of an asshole as this one, taking full advantage of a targeted town’s desperation to milk them for every penny and ounce of goodwill? In a wild way, it becomes something closer to a comedy of manners – they keep giving him an inch, he keeps taking a mile, and they let him, lest they be perceived as impolite. Some of it doesn’t quite land, and the politics of the thing aren’t terribly subtle, but credit where due: he knows we’ve seen these stories a million times, and he knows when and how to shake them up. (Includes audio commentary, new interviews, vintage featurette, “Trailers from Hell” commentaries, trailers, and radio and TV spots.)
“ivansxtc”: Director Bernard Rose (“Candyman,” “Immortal Beloved”) updates Leo Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan Ilyich” to Hollywood circa 1999, as a high-powered agent (Danny Huston, excellent) on the road to ruin. Rose shot the picture on some of the first (comparatively) high-def video cameras, which creates some tension with his classical style, not all of it negative. (Arrow’s new Blu-ray really gives the picture a luster that its initial release lacked.) Rose beautifully captures the unapologetic hedonism and cokey intensity of the time and place, and this is possibly Huston’s best work, a vivid portrait of a life careening out of control. (Includes commentary, extended producer’s cut, documentary, Q&A, archival interviews, outtakes, and trailer.)
“The Cold Light of Day”: “Names have been changed to protect innocent parties,” announces the opening text, flatly, introducing the cold, brooding sense of dread that pervades this British drama from writer/director Fhiona Louise, based on the crimes of serial killer Dennis Nilsen. Nilsen was civil servant by day, a polite fellow who cares for his elderly neighbors, but at night he picked up drifters and loners, feigning care and/or attraction, but brought them back to his apartment for murder and sex (often in that order). “Cold Light of Day” landed in theaters in 1989, around the same time as “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” and the parallels are unmistakable: it’s a grim bit of business, set in drab flats and depressing pubs, capturing acts of horrifying brutality in grainy 16mm. Like “Henry,” it’s a difficult sit. But its disturbing power is undeniable. (Includes audio commentaries, new interviews, featurette, short films, and essay by Jo Botting.)