OUT NOW
- The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
- The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
- The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
- Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a film biography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
- So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
- Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
- The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON VIDEO
For the second straight week, I have the perfect film to kick off the summer – the marvelously entertaining dark comic thriller Headhunters. You can stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play.
ON TV
On July 2, Turner Classic Movies is presenting Chandler, the 1971 neo-noir starring Warren Oates as a seedy private detective who gets in over his head. I mention, but don’t dwell on Chandler in my essay Warren Oates: a gift for desperation. Look for film noir icons Charles McGraw and Gloria Grahame in supporting roles.
And on July 3, TCM airs Laura, perhaps my favorite thriller from the noir era, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.
