This week: New reviews of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn, the Alanis Morissette biodoc Jagged. Coming up on TV – an under-appreciated movie filmed in Stockton.
CURRENT FILMS
- Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
- Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. In theaters.
- Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
- The Power of the Dog: One man’s meanness, another man’s growth. Netflix.
- Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
- The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
- Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: completely different than any movie you’ve seen. AppleTV, Drafthouse On Demand.
- Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
- Jagged: clear-eyed, but not that angry after all. HBO.
- House of Gucci: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in this modern tale of Shakespearean family treachery. In theaters.
- Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
- The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
- Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
Remember to check out all of my Best Movies of 2021.
MORE RECOMMENDATIONS ON VIDEO
- Dance of the 41: overreaching while gay. Netflix.
- Western: alienated man goes native. Criterion Channel, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube
- Styx: a confident woman with no good choices. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
- Light from Light: a haunted house movie that isn’t. Amazon, AppleTV.
- The Heist of the Century: improbable, ingenious and all too human. HBO Max, Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
- The Friends of Eddie Coyle: when all the choices are bad. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On February 9, Turner Classic Movies presents John Huston’s under-appreciated Fat City (1972). Stacy Keach plays a boxer on the slide, his skills unraveled by his alcoholism. He inspires a kid (a very young Jeff Bridges), who becomes a boxer on the rise. Keach and Susan Tyrrell give dead-on performances as pathetic, sad sack barflies. Tyrrell was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Filmed in Stockton.
