Pick of the week: “High Fidelity“ — Lloyd Dobler will always be the iconic John Cusack role, but running a close second is a thirtysomething Chicago record store owner who finally learns he can achieve maturity and true love without giving up his massive record collection. Whitney Houston fans might not be so enamored, however, especially with Jack Black’s star-making role as a judgmental employee.
Pick of the week: “Nightcrawler“ — The thing is, he’s not wrong. The freelance crime scene photographer Jake Gyllenhaal plays in this creepy thrill may be a total sociopath, profiting off other people’s miseries and even adding to them (or at least staging them) if it makes for a better shot. But he’s taking the principles of free-market-capitalism and entrepreneurship to its logical extremes — even if those extremes include murder. Great film.
Pick of the week: “Hits” –My full review is here. “Mr. Show” co-creator David Cross is making the transition from young comedy upstart to cranky old man gracefully. He’s the writer-director of this scathing satire of “instant celebrity” culture in which no one is spared, from a teen girl who will do anything to be a pop star to a disgruntled man who becomes the flashpoint of a viral political movement.
Pick of the week: “The Deep Blue Sea“ (Amazon Prime)— My full review is here. Not a super-intelligent shark to be found in Terence Rattigan’s beautiful film about a woman in post-World War II London (a wonderful Rachel Weisz) leaving the security of her older husband for a handsome but shallow pilot (Tom Hiddleston).
Pick of the week: “The Homesman” (Netflix) — My full review is here. Tommy Lee Jones’ most recent film as director as well as an actor is an “anti-Western” in every sense, following a drunken thief (Jones) and a good woman (Hilary Swank) escorting three emotionally damaged women back East. But it also flips the genre on its head, showing the toll that taming a frontier took on the innocent and defenseless who were dragged along.
“Hoop Dreams” (Shout Factory TV) — The free streaming site shoutfactorytv.com added a bunch of arthouse films in May, including six John Cassavetes classics and Steve James’ wonderful 1994 documentary about two African-American boys hoping their basketball skills will lift them out of the inner city.
“Winter Sleep” — My full review is here. Three characters seem like they’re on the world’s slowest collision course in Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s closely-observed 196-minute drama about an imperious hotel owner whose illusions about his marriage and position in the town are slowly stripped away.
“The Sixth Sense” — Gotta say, M. Night Shyamalan’s new film “The Visit” does not look like a return to form. Better to go back to his modern horror classic about a psychiatrist (Bruce Willis) and the troubled boy (Haley Joel Osment) who can see dead people. Now that we know the twist, it’s fun to watch how artfully Shyamalan executes his sleight-of-hand.
“Futuro Beach” — In this Brazilian drama, a tragic swimming accident brings together a young lifeguard and a German veteran of Afghanistan. The encounter spins their lives off into directions they never imagined, and the film follows them over the next decade as they make choices that can’t be undone.
Pick of the week: “Wet Hot American Summer“ — Now that the word is out that Netflix has a new prequel series featuring most of the original cast premiering on July 31, it’s high time to revisit David Wain’s brilliant sendup of ’80s summer-camp sex comedies. I’m curious to see if Paul Rudd can still do that horrible “stud” smile.
Pick of the week: “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” — Here’s my full review. Ana Lily Amirpour’s debut is an intoxicating mix of genres — vampire movie, Spaghetti Western, French New Wave romance — all lovingly mixed together into something fresh and new. I can’t wait to see what Amirpour does next.
“Fed Up” — My full review is here. This illuminating documentary looks at what’s really in the foods we buy at the grocery store, and how that low-calorie yogurt may be worse for us than the regular kind. While it may sound like the usual eat-your-veggies health documentary, the film gives you a lot to chew on.
“National Treasure” — It’s fun to watch Nicolas Cage tamp down his usual wild-man persona into PG territory with this much-parodied but highly watchable Disney adventure about a treasure hunt among America’s prized historic relics. I mean, have they tried pouring lemon juice on the Constitution?
“The Escapist” — Bryan Cox leads a crackerjack British cast in this classic prison-break film that builds suspense by keeping the action as real as possible.
“Five Minutes of Heaven” — Liam Neeson turns in a rare indie performance as a reformed IRA terrorist who agrees to meet with the brother (a twitchy James Nesbitt) of a man he killed decades ago, unaware that the brother has revenge on his mind.
The Instant Gratification column took the week off while I was immersed in covering the 2015 Wisconsin Film Festival (check out all my reviews here.) But it’s back, headed by one of the best horror films in recent years.
Pick of the week: “The Babadook“ — My full review is here. There may be nothing scarier than being a parent, as shown by this wonderful Australian horror film in which a harried single mother comes across a mysterious pop-up book that tells of a fearsome creature menacing a family . . . very much like hers.
The start of a new month means a whole mess o’ new movies arriving on Netflix. Some of these I swear have been on Netflix before, but, either way, they’re here now!
Pick of the week: “Life Partners“ — My full review is here. In this very funny comedy about female friendship, Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester play lifelong buds whose bond is tested when Jacobs falls into a serious relationship. The fact that one of the two friends is gay is the source of some gags but is otherwise refreshingly irrelevant.
Pick of the week: “Kingdom of Dreams and Madness” (Netflix) — My full review is here. This illuminating fly-on-the-wall documentary looks inside the unassuming home of Studio Ghibli, as Hayao Miyazaki and his team of hand-drawn animators work on “The Wind Rises” and idly wonder if it will be their last film.
Madison Movie 