In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Michael Keaton gives a sly performance as an aging hitman who’s just discovered he has a sort of fast-moving dementia; before he completely loses his facilities, he decides to help out his estranged son, who arrives on his doorstep bloodied and telling a wild story.

 

 

Director Keaton has helmed an effective contraption, with Gregory Poirier’s script doing double duty a cleverly constructed yarn and a psychological character study. It isn’t flawless, but it remains interesting until the final shot. There are also brief but memorable supporting bits by Marcia Gay Harden and Al Pacino.

 

 

 

Much Ado About Dying 

Simon Chambers’ moving and intensely personal documentary follows his eccentric Uncle David, whom Chambers chronicles for several years after he gets an email from David asking him to come over because he is “dying.” Chambers shows David as a lively, performative character who quotes Shakespeare speeches (King Lear is a special favorite) but remains riveting throughout.

 

 

It’s an often difficult watch, but it’s filled with humor and empathy that makes this positively life-affirming, despite the fact that we are watching an elderly man suffering greatly, at least physically, before dying. 

 

 

 

One Life 

Based on the true story of Nicolas Winton, a British stockbroker who, while in Czechoslovakia in 1938, just after the Nazis took over, help bring many Jewish children to safety in England, James Hawes’ drama is no Schindler’s List, but a low-key, unabashedly sentimental tale of goodness triumphing, at least a little, over evil.

 

 

The ending recreation of Winton discovering the great good that he’s done is genuinely touching, and it’s all enacted with intensity by Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn as the elderly and younger Winton; the unsung actress Romola Garai as Doreen Warriner, a humanitarian who helped Winton; Helen Bonham Carter as Winton’s forceful mother, Babi; and the great Lena Olin as Winton’s wife Grete.

 

 

 

Remembering Gene Wilder

Ron Frank’s lovely but ineffably sad valentine to the beloved comic actor, who died of Alzheimer’s in 2016, makes for bittersweet but elevating viewing.

 

 

Letting Wilder himself narrate his own life story (thanks to an audiobook he recorded years earlier), Frank adroitly mixes film clips, vintage interviews and on-set tomfoolery with poignant talking-head reminiscences from many people in Wilder’s personal and professional life, including his widow, Karen; Richard Pryor’s daughter, Rain; writer Alan Zweibel; and, last but not least, Wilder’s partner in crime for two of their most memorable cinematic collaborations, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks.

 

 

 

4K/UHD Release of the Week 

I had thought that a musical version of Alice Walker’s classic novel—and, by extension, Steven Spielberg’s classic 1985 film adaptation—was unnecessary, although the Broadway staging I saw in 2015, starring Cynthia Erivo, at least allowed her to blow the roof of the theater.

 

 

But Blitz Bazawule’s movie adaptation of the stage musical is mainly arid, despite lively performances by Fantasia Barrino, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and even Jon Batiste in a small role. But musically this Color Purple can’t hold a candle to Walker’s prose or Spielberg’s camera; dramatically, it hits all the beats but never feels organic or lived-in. The UHD transfer looks fantastic; extras include interviews and featurettes.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Director Christian Carion has made a darker Driving Miss Daisy in this contrived but entertaining melodramatic vehicle about middle-aged Parisian cabbie Charles desperate for a good fare who picks up  Madeleine, a spry, ornery 92-year-old going to live in a home for the infirm and wants one last drive through her beloved Paris beforehand. Madeleine’s dramatically eventful life includes many flashbacks, which Carion handles adroitly if predictably.

 

 

Like Miss Daisy, Carion’s film is anchored by superb acting by Alice Isaaz is a winning and energetic young Madeleine who charmingly complements the brilliant performance of force of nature Line Renaud as old Madeleine as well as the always reliable Dany Boon who makes the one-dimensionally written Charles into a realistically crusty but sympathetic foil. There’s an excellent hi-def transfer; the lone extra is a Carion post-screening interview.

 

 

 

Rick and Morty—Complete 7th Season 

For seven seasons and 71 episodes, this nuttily gleeful animated series about mad scientist Rick and always supportive grandson Morty keeps building new levels of insanity, both visually and verbally. The latest 10-episode season was the first without voice work by co-creator Mark Roiland, dropped from the show after abuse allegations—later dismissed—surfaced against him.

 

 

But the lunacy is still there; among many guest voices are Hugh Jackman (as himself!), Liev Schreiber, Christina Hendricks and Ice-T.  It’s all colorfully dazzling on Blu-ray; extras include features Inside the Episodes, Directing Unmortricken, The Characters of Season 7 and Inside Season 7.

 

 

 

DVD Release of the Week

Japanese writer-director Yujiro Harumoto’s often perplexing but fascinating chamber drama closely looks at broadcast journalist Yuko (Kumi Takiuchi) who, while working on a story about the grieving families of children who committed suicide after being bullied, discovers that her father holds a dark secret that she must deal with.

 

 

Although the film clocks in at a lengthy 150 minutes, Harumoto sharply focuses on the moral dilemmas of Yuko, who is embodied with complexity and subtlety by Takiuchi. 

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week 

German composer Richard Strauss (1864-1949) did his best work for the voice, in both his operas and songs; and his Four Last Songs are the very pinnacle of his artistic achievement, a valedictory climax to a lifetime of writing beautifully, especially for the female voice. This compelling disc presents the song set twice—in the original orchestral version and the less frequently heard piano version.

 

 

Soprano Asmik Grigorian sounds radiant in both versions, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under conductor Mikko Franck providing tasteful accompaniment a la the final scene of Strauss’ final opera Capriccio. The version for piano (played exquisitely by Markus Hinterhäuser) finds Grigorian in a more intimate mode; if the orchestral version is ultimately preferable, Grigorian makes mighty cases for both.