I recommend the totally unpredictable and well-crafted drama Take Me to the River, a very strong feature debut for writer-director Matt Sobel, a San Jose native.
Thriller meets thinker in Eye in the Sky, a parable from modern drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and with a wonderful final performance from the late Alan Rickman.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the character-driven The Gift, even more than the satisfying suspense thriller that it is. It’s also a surprisingly thoughtful film and a filmmaking triumph for writer-director-producer-actor Joel Edgerton. The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and a host of cable/satellite PPV platforms.
On April 7, Turner Classic Movies showcases the films of one of the earliest female directors, the movie star Ida Lupino. In her early 30s,she broke the glass ceiling by writing and producing her own low-budget topical movies. TCM is screening Hard, Fast & Beautiful, Never Fear,The Bigamist and Outrage (one of the very first movies about rape). Lupino’s signature movie is the noir thriller The Hitch-Hiker. The bad guy is a sadistic serial killer played by William Talman (most well known as DA Hamilton Berger in Perry Mason). He kidnaps and terrorizes two guys played by noir favorites Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy. It’s a tension-filled story that still holds up today.
