Three movies to see in theaters this week:
- My top recommendation is The Lost City of Z, a thoughtful and beautifully cinematic revival of the adventure epic genre.
- Free Fire is a witty and fun shoot ’em up.
- Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
And four to avoid:
- Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
- I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
- Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
- Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
My Stream of the Week is the important and absorbing documentary Zero Days, which traces the story of an incredibly successful cyber attack by two nation states upon another – and its implications. It’s that rare documentary which has become even more topical today. Since Zero Days’ release last June, we have endured the successful Russian cyber attack on the US election process. And we face an unpredictable foe in North Korea, and our only practical protection against North Korea’s nuclear threat may be our own preemptive cyber attacks. Zero Days is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On May 1, Turner Classic Movies will be broadcasting one of the great movies that you have likely NOT seen, having just been released on DVD in 2009: The Earrings of Madame de… (1953). Max Ophuls directed what is perhaps the most visually evocative romance ever in black and white. It’s worth seeing for the ballroom scene alone. The shallow and privileged wife of a stick-in-the-mud general takes a lover, but the earrings she pawned reveal the affair and consequences ensue. The great Italian director Vittorio De Sica plays the impossibly handsome lover.
