This week, two new foreign films – one of them is brilliant. Plus an overlooked masterwork from 1964.
ON VIDEO
About Endlessness: The master of the droll, deadpan and absurd probes the meaning of life. One of the best movies of the year, but NOT FOR EVERYONE. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Bad Tales: Middle schoolers must navigate adolescence in this Italian coming of age film while their fathers radiate toxic masculinity. Droll and dark – perhaps too dark. Virtual Cinema, including Laemmle.
IN THEATERS
- The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. In theaters and also streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play
- Undine: slow burn, barely flickering.
MORE ON VIDEO
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play .
- Billy Graham: the need to pray with Presidents. PBS.
- We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company: what they endured. HBO Max.
- Hamlet/Horatio: More tragedy, less angst. Streaming widely.
- Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
- That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
- Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
- Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
- The Times of Harvey Milk: my favorite political documentary. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, HBO Max and Criterion Channel..
- Tab Hunter Confidential: heartthrob in the closet. Amazon.
- Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street: the origin story of an institution. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.
- The Face of Love: Who is she really in love with? Amazon.
- Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
- The Brainwashing of My Dad: some insight into our national madness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On June 13, Turner Classic Movies will present an overlooked masterwork. Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily (1964) is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing Englishwomen for the brass. Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War. She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.
Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy. Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it. Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.
It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network. Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe. Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.
One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.
