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.
- Mindy Kaling’s very smart, privilege-skewering comedy Late Night stars Emma Thompson (and contains a performance gem by John Lithgow).
- 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.
- 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
My stream of the week, the documentary Project Nim, is the extraordinary story of a chimpanzee that was taught a human language – American Sign Language – by some far less reliable humans. Project Nim can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On July 8, Turner Classic Movies is airing the always entertaining 1946 film noir Gilda. Glenn Ford plays a shady gambler who shows up in exotic Buenos Aires, where he lucks into a job with a casino operator; turns out that his new boss has a gorgeous young wife (Rita Hayworth). The Ford and Hayworth characters shared a past relationship that ended ugly. There are plot twists aplenty, including a faked death, former Nazis running a tungsten cartel, and a love affair that is on-again, off-again and on-again. Glenn Ford’s character spins like a top through sap-hero-jerk-hero. The wonderful actor Joseph Calleia comes brooding through the story. Gilda is almost worthwhile just for the dramatic cinematography of Rudolph Maté (D.O.A.) and for Hayworth’s stunning wardrobe.
