Yet more movies to watch at home, still topped by the excellent crime thriller The Whistlers.
ON VIDEO
In the absorbing crime thriller The Whistlers, a shady cop and a mysterious woman are walking a tightrope of treachery. The Whistlers was a hit at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but COVID-19 impaired its 2020 theatrical release in the US. You can stream it from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Because the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) was supposed to be underway now (it’s been cancelled for the COVID-19 emergency), here’s a film from SFFILM’s 2017 program: The Lost City of Z revives the genre of the historical adventure epic, with all the spectacle of a swashbuckler, while braiding in modern sensitivities and a psychological portrait. This is a beautiful and thoughtful film. The Lost City of Z is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Other recent streaming recommendations:
- The Wild Goose Lake
- Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project
- Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blache
- Rojo
- Panic in the Streets
- Buck
- A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
- Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
- Gone Girl
- The Commitments
- Short Term 12
ON TV
“I’m suggesting Mr President, there’s a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday…”
John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) is a master of the thriller, and his 1964 Seven Days in May is a masterpiece of the paranoid political thriller subgenre. Edmond O’Brien’s performance is best among outstanding turns by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March and Whit Bissell. Douglas showed his range by playing a profoundly decent man, for whom “patriotic” meant “devoted, dutiful and loyal to the nation’s principles”, not “jingoistic”. April 23 on Turner Classic Movie.
