After a long and boring drought, there is finally an appealing menu of movie choices in theaters:
- Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly time to the beat of music.
- The Journey is a fictional imagining of a real historical event and is an acting showcase for Colm Meaney and Timothy Spall as the two longtime blood enemies who collaborated to bring peace to Northern Ireland.
- Okja, another wholly original creation from the imagination of master filmmaker Bong Joon Ho, is streaming on Netflix and opening in theaters.
- The delightfully smart and character-driven Israeli comedy The Women’s Balcony with a community of traditional women in revolt. The longer you’ve been married, the funnier you’ll find The Women’s Balcony.
- The character-driven suspenser Moka is a showcase for French actresses Emmanuelle Devos and Nathalie Baye.
- The bittersweet dramedy The Hero has one thing going for it – the wonderfully appealing Sam Elliott.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the darkly realistic Western Dead Man’s Burden. Dead Man’s Burden is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Google Play.
Tonight on TV, Turner Classic Movies presents Raw Deal (1948), with some of the best dialogue in all of film noir, a love triangle and the superb cinematography of John Alton.
Later this week on July 11, TCM offers the very best Orson Welles Shakespeare movie, Chimes at Midnight.
And on July 12, TCM airs Days of Wine and Roses, Blake Edwards’ unflinching exploration of alcoholism, featuring great performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick (both nominated for Oscars) and Charles Bickford.
