The Bloodhound (Arrow Video Blu-ray)
Sunlight slips warily into the modernist mansion where JP (Joe Adler) lives alone with his twin sister—until childhood friend Francis (Liam Aiken) accepts his invitation to visit. They are as awkward with each other as former lovers and hadn’t been in touch for years. Francis’ life seems at loose ends while JP—heir to a vast fortune—has emotionally regressed into adolescence. Director Patrick Picard’s 2020 feature debut is an interesting take on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” JP’s mansion is a labyrinth of long dark corridors and stairways designed for disorienting feng shui. The mood is enclosed and entrapped and the acting is stylized and Expressionistic. Adler wouldn’t look out of place in a film by F.W. Murnau. (David Luhrssen)
That Click: The Legendary Photography of Douglas Kirkland (Minibus Entertainment DVD)
At a time when everybody takes pictures, That Click celebrates a real photographer. Douglas Kirkland is thought of as the celebrity photographer who took classic poses from Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. He hung around movie sets snapping everything from The Sound of Music to Titanic. Sharon Stone, interviewed for this documentary, remarks that his Sound of Music shots were almost better than the film. Kirkland was a photojournalist by training and his best pictures tell stories and capture the character of his subjects. Along with the glamor portraits and the Hollywood scenes, he shot a New York Times photo essay on ‘80s Detroit (as it deindustrialized) in stark black and white. (David Luhrssen)
Thunder Force (Streaming Friday April 9 on Netflix)
Poking fun at comic-book heroes, Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer, portray middle-aged crime-fighters. Lydia (McCarthy) makes a surprise visit to her estranged childhood friend, Emily (Spencer). While attempting to explain her research into chemical cocktails that may give extraordinary powers to ordinary people, Emily is unable to prevent Lydia from accidentally injecting herself. When Lydia becomes super-strong, Emily also injects herself and receives the power of invisibility. The women team up to protect Chicago from a supervillain called The King (Bobby Cannavale). Jason Bateman appears as The Crab, clawing out a sarcastic path of destruction before agreeing to help the gals. McCarthy’s husband, Ben Falcone, wrote and directed this wisecracking Netflix farce. (Lisa Miller)
The Tunnel (Streaming Friday April 9 on AppleTV & FandangoNOW)
Over 1100 tunnels thread along Norway’s mountain roads. On Christmas Eve, a truck jack-knifes, blocking both lanes inside a five-mile-long tunnel. Hundreds of stuck travelers panic when the wrecked truck catches fire, unleashing a deadly wall of black smoke. Disaster-movie formula calls for a family drama, and The Tunnel obliges. Stein (Thorbjorn Harr) is a first-responder to the scene when he learns his estranged teen daughter Elise (Ylva Lyng Fuglerud) is one of those trapped inside. Reaching the victims is further complicated by icy roads and a raging blizzard. Realistic effects are a plus, although, too often, the tension fades. A springtime U.S. release was good thinking, though a summer release would have been even better. (Lisa Miller)
Women Without Men (Indiepix Films DVD)
Munis is a silhouette draped in a black chador against the bright blue sky. She steps to the roof’s edge. She’s distressed. Jump? Set in 1953 Iran, at a turning point in that country’s history, Women Without Men follows several women grappling with their secondary status at a time of larger turmoil. Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh, was about to be overthrown by a CIA-supported coup because of the politics of petroleum. Iranian expatriate visual artist Shirin Neshat’s 2009 debut film is uncategorizable, a visual poem whose characters express many political messages; it shifts between perspectives while caricaturing no one and moves like a dream from real to surreal. Women Without Men is not the granular neo-realism associated with Iranian cinema but a gorgeous composition, stylized and well-staged. (David Luhrssen)
