This week: a handful of excellent new documentaries explore American history, true crime and pop music.
I also recommend this wonderful NYT interview with Mads Mikkelsen, who really used to be professional dancer (who knew?) and touches on his exhilarating dance scene in Another Round.
ON VIDEO
MLK/FBI: Sam Pollard, the master of the civil rights documentary (Eyes on the Prize), takes on the FBI’s quest to discredit and even destroy Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK/FBI is gripping history, with much to say about American then and America now. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer: This limited series about a roller coaster of a whodunit and a man hunt is elevated by the intoxicating storytelling of a genuinely good guy. Netflix.
The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: This very well-sourced showbiz doc tells the story of a band and that of a family, especially from the perspective of the affable Barry Gibb. We see some very young kids with what seems like ridiculously audacious ambition becoming an Aussie version of a British Invasion success. As pop music evolves, they keep reinventing themselves until the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack takes them to unsurpassed heights. Then, when the Disco Sucks movement caught fire, the brothers again reinvented themselves as songwriters for other pop, rock, soul and country stars. It’s a bit reverential, but not fatally so. HBO.
And some more current films:
- Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom: searing, with an electric performance. Netflix.
- The Personal History of David Copperfield: Dickins alive, at last. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
- Another Round: Humanity buzzed. Amazon.
- Mank: biting the hand. Netflix.
- One Night in Miami: four icons share one pivotal moment. Amazon.
- My Psychedelic Love Story: Errol Morris and the unreliable narrator. HBO.
- Martin Eden: Jack London in an art film (link goes live soon). Laemmle.
- The Mystery of D. B. Cooper: the hijacking that keeps on giving. HBO.
- Belushi: more texture to the story that you already know. Showtime.
- Ammonite: When the slow burn is a dud. Amazon.
- On the Rocks: waste of talent. AppleTV.
- The Prom: airy confection. Netflix.
ON TV
On January 24, Turner Classic Movies will offer the delightful Peter Bogdanovich screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? The nerdy academic Howard (Ryan O’Neal) and his continually aggrieved fiance Eunice (Madeline Kahn) travel to San Francisco to compete for a career-launching grant. The luggage with Howard’s great discovery (musical rocks) is mixed up with two identical suitcases, one containing valuable jewelry, the other with spy secrets, and soon we have juggling MacGuffins.
That’s all funny enough, but Howard bumps into Judy (Barbra Streisand), the kookiest serial college dropout in America, who determines that she must have him and utterly disrupts his life. Our hero’s ruthless rival for the grant is hilariously played by Kenneth Mars (the Nazi playwright in The Producers). Austin Pendleton is wonderful as the would-be benefactor.
The EXTENDED closing chase scene is among the very funniest in movie history – right up there with the best of Buster Keaton; Streisand and O’Neal lead an ever-growing cavalcade of pursuers through the hills of San Francisco, at one point crashing the Chinese New Year’s Day parade. I love What’s Up, Doc? and own the DVD, and I watch every time I stumble across it on TV. Bogdanovich’s hero Howard Hawks, the master of the screwball comedy, would have been proud.
