‘Damsels in Distress,’ ‘Bernie’ and More Streaming Gems
‘Damsels in Distress’ (2012)
Eleven years in the past, the “Barbie” mastermind Greta Gerwig was identified not because the director behind a billion-dollar blockbuster, however as one of the charismatic actresses on the indie movie scene. Her abilities are properly showcased on this sharp-witted, ceaselessly quotable comedy of manners and satire of campus life. The author and director is Whit Stillman, who helped outline sensible, talky ’90s indies along with his triple play of “Metropolitan,” “Barcelona” and “The Last Days of Disco”; this, his first characteristic in 13 years, was a welcome return to kind. Gerwig is at her difficult finest as Violet, who helps her associates (Megalyn Echikunwoke, Carrie MacLemore and Lio Tipton, all memorable) navigate the unlucky males of the fictional Seven Oaks College; Adam Brody is likably squirrelly because the campus cad.
‘The Seagull’ (2018)
Gerwig’s frequent main girl Saoirse Ronan is among the many acquainted faces within the ensemble forged of this well-crafted adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s theatrical traditional. Brian Dennehy, Billy Howle, Elisabeth Moss and Corey Stoll additionally seem, as residents and guests of a picturesque nation property exterior Moscow, although Annette Bening shines brightest within the showcase position of Irina Arkadina, the comically useless and heartbreakingly difficult diva of the Russian stage. The director Michael Mayer works a bit to exhausting to jazz up the textual content with showy digicam actions and extreme protection, however these momentary distractions can’t detract from the nice appearing on show right here.
Liam Neeson’s third act as a hero of pulpy motion footage has seen its ups (“The Grey”) and its downs (the “Taken” sequel of your selecting), however this tightly-wound potboiler is among the real highlights. He stars as Bill Marks, an ex-cop-turned-air-marshal battling a mysterious killer who’s bumping off the passengers — one each twenty minutes — of a global flight. The director Jaume Collet-Serra takes the precise method to this considerably foolish premise, crafting the image as a cross between Agatha Christie, “Airport” and “Speed,” and the ensemble forged (which incorporates Michelle Dockery, Scoot McNairy, Julianne Moore, Lupita Nyong’o, Linus Roache and Shea Whigham) helps preserve this wild flight heading in the right direction.
‘Drug War’ (2013)
The celebrated Hong Kong motion auteur Johnnie To (“Election,” “Triad Election,” “Breaking News”) introduced his many years of movie craft to bear on this fast-paced, furiously entertaining crime epic. There are characters galore and subplots aplenty (as is To’s customized), however the underlying premise is straightforward: a nasty man (Louis Koo’s ruthless drug kingpin), an excellent man (Sun Honglei’s devoted undercover cop) and a pursuit. To’s breathless set items are as relentless as ever, however the image is about greater than mere motion; he offers dimension to what might have been cartoon characters, and surveys the human penalties of the titular battle.
The true story of how a beloved East Texas mortician murdered a rich widow might’ve made for a probing character research (or, maybe, a cheesy Netflix true crime docuseries). Instead, the director and co-writer Richard Linklater achieves a fragile and exact combination of darkish comedy and small-town portraiture, thanks in no small half to a forged that features Jack Black (Linklater’s “School of Rock” star) because the mortician, Matthew McConaughey (Linklater’s “Dazed and Confused” star) because the district legal professional who prosecutes him and the good Shirley MacLaine because the sufferer, a characterization she pitches someplace between Ouiser from “Steel Magnolias” and Beelzebub.
‘A Hologram for the King’ (2016)
Tom Hanks motion pictures have been nonetheless an occasion in 2016, but few paid a lot consideration to this gentle but lofty adaptation of Dave Eggers’s novel. Perhaps it was only a bit too odd, too steeped within the hands-off type and indie sensibility of its director Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run”), however it’s an undiscovered gem of Hanks’s late interval. He stars as Alan Clay, a lately divorced and undeniably determined American marketing consultant in Saudi Arabia for what is meant to be a short gross sales pitch to the Saudi authorities. But days move as he waits for his viewers with the Saudi king, leading to an unexpectedly efficient mixture of insightful character research and “Waiting for Godot”-inspired absurdism.
‘Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story’ (2017)
Few movie stars of the Nineteen Thirties have been as shimmeringly seductive because the Viennese vamp first known as Hedy Kiesler, and first identified for her then-shocking in-the-buff flip within the 1933 Czech import “Ecstasy.” But that is no mere story of Old Hollywood stardom. Lamarr lived an eventful and thrilling life, of sin and scandal and, most notably, invention — notably her improvement of a communication system that shaped the inspiration of contemporary Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. She was a girl extra dynamic and sophisticated than any of the characters she performed, and Alexandra Dean’s documentary tells her story with pleasure, verve and plentiful (to not point out well-earned) sympathy.
‘Radio Unnameable’ (2012)
For many years, Bob Fass was a comforting voice for nocturnal New Yorkers — the in a single day host on WBAI-FM, an early developer and practitioner of “free-form radio,” opening his telephone traces and airwaves to an assortment of looking out callers and outlaw entertainers. Paul Lovelace and Jessica Wolfson’s affectionate documentary tells the story of Foss’s present and his life (to the restricted extent that they have been separate in any respect), through a riveting assortment of archival audio recordings, pictures, movies and reminiscences, from his early looking out days to the loosely organized and infrequently out-of-control gatherings of what he known as his “cabal” of loyal listeners. On Fass’s present, insomniacs and evening staff and eccentrics discovered not solely a megaphone, however a group; Lovelace and Wolfson’s movie gently attracts the road to up to date high-tech counterparts, whereas nonetheless eager for the idealism and chance of the previous.
Source web site: www.nytimes.com