I am completely absorbed with Silicon Valley’s own film festival, Cinequest. Check out my up-to-the-moment coverage both on my Cinequest page and follow me on Twitter for the latest. I especially recommend tonight’s world premieres of Heaven’s Floor and Lost Solace. Both films will screen again Sunday night. You’ll also have a final chance to Lost Solace on Thursday and Heaven’s Floor on next Friday.
In theaters:
- The Oscar-winning Best Picture Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
- The movie that should have won Best Picture, The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN. I predict that The Revenant will be the biggest winner at the Oscars.
- The movie that I admired more than either of those, the Irish romantic drama Brooklyn, an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
- The deserved Oscar winner for Screenplay, The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.
The Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar contains some cool Hollywood parodies.
In honor of the opening of this year’s Cinequest, this week’s DVD/Stream of the Week is the Danish drama The Hunt from the 2013 Cinequest. The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and PlayStation Video.
Here are two very contrasting recommendations for movies playing on Turner Classic Movies this week. First, 0n March 8, we have a time capsule comedy from the master of movie silliness Richard Lester (Help, The Three Musketeers). The Ritz is a farce set in a gay bathhouse – in 1976, when this was a remarkably novel setting. Look for the not-yet-famous F. Murray Abraham, Treat Williams and John Ratzenberger. Then on March 10, TCM screens M (scroll down for comments), a proto-noir and a most darkly compelling serial killer movie from 1931.
