[WGH]

I have pages and pages of films and streaming video to keep an eye out for, this is a golden age for videophiles. Our local PBS station recently screened "The Maltese Falcon" without commercials. The film still holds up.

The NY Times sends out a couple of newsletters every week, one for streaming video and one for films although even the NYT had a hard time recommending new films in January. With spring around the corner new releases are ramping up: "Drive My Car" will be available on your home screen soon, our local independent theater is screening it now.

The Times has a article about the Berlin International Film Festival, time to start a new list...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/16/movies/berlin-film-festival-alcarras.html

"BERLIN — The top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Golden Bear for best feature film, was given on Wednesday to “Alcarràs,” a contemplative work about peach farmers in a village in northern Spain.

“Alcarràs,” the melancholic second feature by the Spanish director Carla Simón, who herself comes from a family of farmers, uses nonprofessional actors. The film focuses on a family that has been cultivating its land since the Spanish Civil War and is forced to make way for a company wanting to build a solar farm on the property.

"In an emotional acceptance speech, Simón dedicated the award to the modest farmers “who cultivate the land every day to bring the food to our plates” in a way that is “a form of resistance.”

"This year’s jury was led by the director M. Night Shyamalan and included the Danish actress Connie Nielsen and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, the Japanese director of this year’s Oscar-nominated “Drive My Car.”

"The runner-up prize was given to the prolific South Korean filmmaker Hong Sangsoo for “The Novelist’s Film,” a subtle, conversation-driven drama focused on a series of encounters by a writer interested in making a movie. Hong had won the award for best director at the Berlinale (as the festival is known in Germany) only two years ago. A special jury prize was awarded to “Robe of Gems,” a debut film set in rural Mexico from the director Natalia López.

"The award for best director was given to Claire Denis for “Both Sides of the Blade,” a searing melodrama starring Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon. Laila Stieler won the best screenplay award for the German film “Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush,” a forceful drama about a Turkish-German woman’s real-life legal battle to have her son released from detention in Guantánamo Bay. The latter film also garnered the festival’s best lead actor award for Meltem Kaptan, a Cologne-based comedian who portrayed Kurnaz. Best supporting actor was given to Laura Basuki of “Before, Now & Then,” for playing a woman who befriends her lover’s wife in 1960s Indonesia."

[Bob2]

At this time the ability find and view so many great movies, documentaries and obscure videos is manifold.
I have found a plethora of vids that were never previously available until streaming became viable. So much to see so little time.
if you can't find it look between the lines. Very much enjoying the new Reacher series. He's a blues fan, how cool is that?
I have a lot of flicks in my watch list.

[mresseguie]

WGH,

Thank you for mentioning the NYT video newsletter. I hadn't known about this until you mentioned it. I've now subscribed to it. 

[Tyson]

At this time the ability find and view so many great movies, documentaries and obscure videos is manifold.
I have found a plethora of vids that were never previously available until streaming became viable. So much to see so little time.
if you can't find it look between the lines. Very much enjoying the new Reacher series. He's a blues fan, how cool is that?
I have a lot of flicks in my watch list.

Yes, in the old days you were really limited to the things that were carried in your local video store, usually Blockbuster.  That was just a tiny drop compared to what you can watch now, without even leaving your house.

[Bob2]

"in the old days you were really limited to the things that were carried in your local video store, usually Blockbuster.  That was just a tiny drop compared to what you can watch now, without even leaving your house."

Very true. Now I can find shows I watched when I was a kid. First episodes of shows that I can't remember seeing although I know I did.
Like the Rifleman, Super Car, My Favorite Martian, Sky King, Spin and Marty, Hop Along Cassidy and Highway Patrol.  Not much for production quality but brings those times back.

[WGH]

New addition to my list:

Lincoln's Dilemma on Apple TV+ starting Friday 2/18/2022

Docuseries offers a more complete history of Lincoln's journey to end slavery
NPR's Leila Fadel talks to directors Jacqueline Olive and Barak Goodman about the Apple TV+ docuseries, Lincoln's Dilemma, and how the fight for emancipation was larger than one man.
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/17/1081387062/docuseries-offers-a-more-complete-history-of-lincolns-journey-to-end-slavery



https://tv.apple.com/us/show/lincolns-dilemma/umc.cmc.7003fizrrxznfhz1s20vv7ewy

[WGH]

New additions:

The Worst Person in the World
97% on RT

I'm Your Man - Dan Stevens plays a dreamy, pleasure-driven android in this delightful near-future romance. - NYT
96% on RT

Rising Wolf - B movie Australian combo of elevator death trap hostage thriller and sci-fi fantasy. The trailer looks exciting and bad at the same time.
45% on RT

NY Times Review - Speaking of telegraphed twists, there’s a doozy in Antaine Furlong’s “Rising Wolf,” but it’s semi-peripheral to the action as opposed to the foundational role it plays in “Last Survivors.” Just go along and pretend to be surprised.

This supernatural action movie centers on Aria Wolf (Charlotte Best), whom we first meet bound, blindfolded and gagged in a high-tech elevator servicing a Shanghai building still under construction. She quickly manages to free herself of her restrictions, but her problems aren’t over: Aria can’t get out and remains at the mercy of a mysterious presence that sends the elevator on a series of gravity-defying plunges and vertiginous climbs. Worse, the screen inside shows Aria’s father (Jonny Pasvolsky) being brutally tortured by Russian baddies in real time.

This is a pretty standard one-room-thriller premise, but it gets interesting when the movie (titled “Ascendant” in its native Australia) adds flashbacks to young Aria (Tahlia Sturzaker) and her twin Zara (Karelina Clarke), who appear to have special powers.

Don’t try to follow the plot too closely, because it seems that the screenwriters themselves (Furlong and Kieron Holland) did not. What matters is a terrific payoff and a sterling performance from Best, who deserves to emerge as a new heroine for the Y.A. crowd.

[LostInPA]

Call me sensible, please, but I have always thought that movies [and even most TV] are all about the use of plot, dialog, scenery, and ambient sounds to present a story.   Alas, there is the almost universal presence of that nonsensical added noise that most call "music" when it is, in fact, merely aural wallpaper used to divert the viewer from the inadequacies of plot, dialog, scenery, and ambient sounds.   What to do when watching on TV or on internet?   The solution is easy: turn on captions, and mute the sound.   This does, however, also remove ambient sounds.

I will recommend one movie:  Kwaidan.   This 1965 release is a movie with four strange tales, from the basis of the 1904 book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn.   Be certain that you see the 4-tale version, not the shortened 3-tale version.   Excellent plots and scenery.   Dialog is in Japanese, and is very distorted.   The longest of the tales is Hoichi the Earless, a well known figure from Japanese folklore.   

[wushuliu]

I will recommend one movie:  Kwaidan.   This 1965 release is a movie with four strange tales, from the basis of the 1904 book Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn.   Be certain that you see the 4-tale version, not the shortened 3-tale version.   Excellent plots and scenery.   Dialog is in Japanese, and is very distorted.   The longest of the tales is Hoichi the Earless, a well known figure from Japanese folklore.

Kwaidan is a masterpiece.

[Tyson]

Kwaidan is a masterpiece.

Indeed it is.  It's streaming on the Criterion Channel:

https://www.criterionchannel.com/search?q=kwaidan

There's also a LOT of other masterpiece level movies on that channel.  Very much worth the $11 per month.

[WGH]

"From" starring Harold Perrineau (the annoying character on "Lost")

New horror series on Epix by the producers of "Lost", starts streaming 2-20-2022

Trailer: https://youtu.be/11ngcrNjE2A

No RT score yet

[WGH]

Critic Bob Mondello also makes movie lists, here are his picks that will be in theaters before Memorial Day. Looks like a little something for everyone.

DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS starring BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE starring JUDE LAW as Dumbledore

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE, a movie about an aging Chinese American immigrant named Evelyn

THE BATMAN starring PAUL DANO: (As The Riddler) and ROBERT PATTINSON: (As Batman)

MORBIUS, a new Marvel character starring JARED LETO as Dr. Michael Morbius, a doctor who, in trying to cure his rare blood disease, uses bat something-or-other and gets increased strength and speed. The ability to use echolocation, an overpowering urge to consume blood.

THE LOST CITY starring CHANNING TATUM, SANDRA BULLOCK, DANIEL RADCLIFFE in a comedy about action star celebrities who find themselves pressed into actual action in the real world.

OPERATION FORTUNE: RUSE DE GUERRE starring JASON STATHAM, a summary of the plot is not needed.

THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT OF MASSIVE TALENT stars NICOLAS CAGE playing Nicolas Cage, a movie star who's broke and can't seem to get cast anymore. NEIL PATRICK HARRIS and TIFFANY HADDISH co-star.

THE DUKE stars JIM BROADBENT as a taxi driver who steals a portrait of the Duke of Wellington from London's National Gallery in 1961 - true story. He offers to return it if Britain provides free TV to the elderly, which makes him something of a folk hero.

MOTHERING SUNDAY a 1920s drama juxtaposes the pain of families who've lost sons in World War I with the desires of the surviving sons.

NITRAM stars CALEB LANDRY JONES who won the best actor award at last year's Cannes Film Fest, is a biopic about Australian mass murderer Martin Bryant who committed the 1996 Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania, Australia. "Nitram" is Martin backwards. In the film, Bryant has a complicated relationship with his mother, who remembers him as a small child.

THE OUTFIT is a drama that centers on a tailor but that isn't about outfits he makes but about the gangster customers who buy them.

ALICE is about an escaped slave who discovers an unexpected world outside the plantation.

HAPPENING charts a student's attempts to terminate a pregnancy in the 1960s when even talking about abortion could land her in prison.

HUDA'S SALON which finds a young mother in peril when she's blackmailed by a hairdresser who is herself being blackmailed.

THE NORTHMAN stars ALEXANDER SKARSGARD as Amleth in a Viking. Written and directed by Robert Eggers, the writer-director of the "The Lighthouse" so it should be weird and interesting. The film is about a Viking prince who seeks revenge for his murdered father. Steeped in Icelandic mythology, the story is based on the tale of Amleth, the inspiration for Prince Hamlet. Eggers wrote the screenplay with the Icelandic poet Sjón, so we can surely expect an epic with epic writing to match. There’s also a stellar cast, including Alexander Skarsgård, Nicole Kidman, Ethan Hawke, Anya Taylor-Joy, Willem Dafoe — and Björk as a witch. The scheduled premiere is April 22.

Heads will roll - The Northman trailer:
https://youtu.be/oMSdFM12hOw