This week: The most original teen coming of age movie you’ll ever see, and a historical documentary with insights on two forgotten years of MLK’s life. Plus the most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find anywhere.
ON VIDEO
Electrick Children: A female filmmaker, in her first faeture, has created an entirely unique teen coming of age story – a magical tale of Mormon runaways in Vegas. Julia Garner, currently the best thing about the Netflix series show Ozark, stars. Electrick Children can be streamed from Amazon (included in Amazon Prime) and can be purchased from several other VOD platforms.
King in the Wilderness: This superb documentary follows Martin Luther King, Jr., through his turbulent final two years, when he was facing a big fat case of What Have You Done For Me Lately? It originally aired on HBO and won an Emmy for best historical documentary. King in the Wilderness is now widely available on streaming platforms.
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Driveways: I can’t think of a more authentic movie about intergenerational relationships than this charming, character-driven indie.
- The Lovebirds: A rom com with a playful plot and a truthful relationship.
- The Bandit: A Hollywood buddy documentary that features some amazing movie stunts.
- Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.”
- Unfriended: Teenagers find horror on their own webcams.
- Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope.
- Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe.
- Outside In: A story of self-discovery with an astonishing performance by Edie Falco.
- The T.A.M.I. Show: The first concert film, featuring eight future Rock and Roll Hall of Famers.
- Cold Case Hammarskjöld: An investigatory documentary that sends-up the genre.
- Spaceship Earth: A visionary scientific experiment, unraveled from human foibles.
- Night on Earth: This indie has the funniest vignette and the saddest – all in one movie.
- Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons.
- The Whistlers: a shady cop and a mysterious woman walk a tightrope of treachery.
- The Wild Goose Lake: vivid nights in the Chinese underworld.
- The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot.
- Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project: it seemed crazy at the time…
- Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land.
ON TV
On June 22, Turner Classic Movies will air one of my personal favorites from the 1960s, Blow-up. Set in the Mod London of the mid-60s, a fashion photographer (David Hemmings) is living a fun, but shallow, life filled with sports cars, discos and scoring with supermodels (think Jane Birkin, Sarah Miles and Verushka). Then he discovers that his random photograph of a landscape may contain a clue in a murder and meets a mystery woman (Vanessa Redgrave). After taking us into a vivid depiction of the Mod world, director Michelangelo Antonioni brilliantly turns the story into a suspenseful story of spiraling obsession. His L’Avventura, La Notte and L’Eclisse made Antonioni an icon of cinema, but Blow-up is his most accessible and enjoyable masterwork. There’s also a cameo performance by the Jeff Beck/Jimmy Page version of the Yardbirds and a quick sighting of Monty Python’s Michael Palin in a nightclub.
