James Garner established himself as a natural for the comic western with the TV series Maverick, playing the reluctant hero who avoided conflict and gunplay with charm, wit, and a con-man’s knack for keeping his opponents off balance. The brought that sensibility to the big screen with Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), playing a drifter […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Superheroes meet the supernatural in “The Nevers: Season 1” (TV-14), a mix of mystery, thriller, period piece, and steampunk action set in Victorian London after a cosmic event gives hundreds of people—mostly […]
A lovely film about regret, self-punishment and redemption on a scale both human and mythic (or at least American folkloric), Get Low (2009) is a feature film with the personality of a short story, filled with quietly offbeat characters and directed with a deft balance of comedy and tragedy. Which is why it had a […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The hand-painted animated feature “Bombay Rose” (India, 2021, PG-13) is a romantic drama of two outsiders—a Muslim refugee and a Hindi girl escaping an arranged marriage—who dream of a Bollywood movie escape […]
Iron Sky (Germany, 2012) is an inspired concept—Hitler escaped Germany with a cadre of Nazi loyalists and established a colony on the dark side of the moon—executed with total conviction, at least in the physical details. This isolated outpost lives in a steampunk world forged from the legacy of Krupp machineworks, all giant gears and […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Kate Winslet plays fossil hunter Mary Anning and Saoirse Ronan is a young woman sent to the sea for her health in “Ammonite” (2020, R), a fictional love story inspired by the real […]
Billy Wilder was a master at sneaking sex into films like The Apartment and Irma la Douce in the years before the ratings system, but this is his most gleefully cynical and brash sex comedy Kiss Me, Stupid (1965) was so maligned on release it almost sunk Billy Wilder’s career. Dean Martin plays a parody […]
Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is the big screen debut for both the Paul Reubens alter ego Pee-wee Herman, the children’s TV show character he originally created in a live comedy revue, and director Tim Burton, and it was a perfect melding of sensibilities. Pee-wee, the spastic child with a neat, out-of-date preppie suit and a […]
Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Frances McDormand is superb as a widow who lost her home in the recession and lives out of a van in “Nomadland” (2020, R), a poignant portrait of modern migrant life. The […]
