The film I’m most excited about is The Other Side of the Wind, a great Orson Welles film from the 1970s finally completed after his death. I’ll be writing about it and two companion documentaries soon.
OUT NOW
- The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
- Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.
- The Great Buster: A Celebration is Peter Bogdanovich’s biodoc of the comic genius Buster Keaton, filling in what we need to know of Keaton’s life and body of work.
- Lady Gaga illuminates Bradley Cooper’s triumphant A Star Is Born. Don’t bring a hankie – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.
- Rodents of Unusual Size is a charmingly addictive documentary about a bizarre subject.
- What They Had is an authentic and well-crafted dramatic four-hander with Hilary Swank, Michael Shannon, Blythe Danner and Robert Forster.
- Quincy is Rashida Jones’ intimate biodoc of her father, that most important and prolific musical figure Quincy Jones.
ON VIDEO
My Stream of the Week is the wonderfully dark comedy I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore. Melanie Lynskey plays a workaday schlub who suffers one indignity too many and goes postal. This movie is available to stream on Netflix Instant.
ON TV
On November 10, Turner Classic Movies presents Where Eagles Dare, a crackerjack thriller from the WWII commando subgenre (think The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen). The seemingly impossible target is a cliff-side Nazi stronghold only accessible via a funicular. And not all the commandos understand the true mission. The oddly matched stars are Richard Burton (nearing the end of his second marriage to Elizabeth Taylor) and Clint Eastwood (after the Leone spaghetti westerns but before his Dirty Harry franchise). It all works.
