VOD

Movies to See Right Now

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Lake Bell in her IN A WORLD...

In A Word… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one. 

The powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station are both on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

My other top recommendations:

  • The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
  • Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
  • The very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

My other recommendations:

Also out right now:

You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand.  There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD of the Week is the riveting IRA thriller Shadow Dancer, with Clive Owen.  Shadow Dancer is available on DVD from Netflix.  Also check out my newest movie list: Best Movies About The Troubles (Northern Ireland).

On September 10, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the great French heist movie Rififi. And on September 12, TCM will air one of the greatest examples of film noir, Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas.

OUT OF THE PAST

Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship: why watch these guys?

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BERT AND ARNIE'S GUIDE TO FRIENDSHIP

Now out on VOD, Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship is an odd couple comedy with the promising premise that the two main characters become entangled when one has an affair with the other’s wife. The good news is that the comedy is driven by the characters, one an abrasive womanizer and the other a pretentious and self-involved minor novelist.  The bad news is that the broad characters are neither textured or interesting or sympathetic enough to sustain a movie of longer than 49 minutes (which is when I stopped watching).  And worse, Bert and Arnie wastes a supporting performance by the delightful Anna Chlumsky.

Bert and Arnie’s Guide to Friendship is available  streaming from Amazon and iTunes.

Sun Don’t Shine: shaky cam noir

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Kate Lyn Shein and Kentucker Audley in SUN DON'T SHINE

Thirtyish Crystal and Leo are on the run and coaxing his weathered (and probably uninsured) sedan through central Florida.  Crystal is a white-hot mess.  I was going to describe her as needy and erratic, but those adjectives seem inadequate.  She is a unfiltered, explosive bundle of nerves, filled with impulses that are unfailingly ruinous.  The suspense in Sun Don’t Shine stems from whether Leo can navigate an escape path through her emotional minefield; we can tell from the neo-noir undercurrent that she’s going to bring him down no matter what.

In her first feature, writer-director Amy Seimetz combines a command of pacing with a Malickesque visual sense.   Watching her sweaty characters, we can feel both the Floridian humidity and the relief from air conditioning in a tourist trap. (A promising actor, Seimetz just turned in a compelling performance in the controversial Upstream Color.)  

The strength of the screenplay is that the audience only gradually learns why the two are on the run, from what and to where.  However, those revelations are not surprising.  Fortunately, Seimetz has chosen not to send her characters on yet another hyper-violent nihilistic crime spree.

But why doesn’t Leo leave Crystal on the side of the road and drive the hell away?  After about fifteen minutes, we know that’s his only chance.  He’s not very bright, but he is grounded in reality, and we wonder why he is so drawn to this wackadoodle. It may be a fim noir, but she sure isn’t Mary Astor’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy in Maltese Falcon. 

Watching Sun Don’t Shine is a 96-minute simulation of having an annoyingly clingy and scarily volatile girlfriend.  Long ago my friend Steve advised me, “Never sleep with anyone crazier than you are”.  Sage words, my friend.

Sun Don’t Shine is available for streaming from Amazon Instant and other VOD outlets, and is beginning a limited theatrical release.

2012 at the movies: pre-theatrical VOD

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KING KELLY

Pre-theatrical Video on Demand is emerging as a mainstream platform for movies.  In 2012, I watched thirteen movies on Amazon VOD, YouTube and DirecTV BEFORE they appeared in theaters.  These films included Take This Waltz, the Sarah Polley film that made it to my Best Movies of 2012, as well as three other movies that I really liked, the affectionate documentary Paul Williams Still Alive, the rip-roaring satire King Kelly and the thriller Deadfall.   Of course, I also saw a higher proportion of  stinkers on VOD than in theaters.  Anyway, I find that nowadays it’s well worth checking the pre-theatrical VOD offerings (which I do on IndieWire).