The Belles of St. Trinians (Film Movement Classics Blu-ray)
In The Belles of St. Trinians (1954), the great British comic Alastair Sim plays two roles: a roguish gambler and his twin sister, a girl’s school headmistress—a gender bend more comfortable in British cinema than in ‘50s Hollywood. Fans of postwar British comedy will find much hilarity in this spoof of ostensibly elite boarding schools and a middle class heavily mortgaged and dismayed by changing times. The run-amok schoolgirls of that boarding school distill gin in chemistry class and place bets on horses with their new classmate, the daughter of an oil rich sultan. The sly geopolitical subtext concerns the eclipse of British power in the Middle East by America along with the enduring pull of English culture—the girls school where the sultan sends his daughter is down the road from where he stables his race horses. (David Luhrssen)
Boss Level (Streaming March 5, on Hulu)
Pity poor Roy (Frank Grillo). When we meet him, he’s 139 days into a time loop that finds Roy being killed by a parade of assassins. A depressed, retired special forces operative, Roy’s in it to win it because only he can save his estranged wife Jemma (Naomi Watts) and their young son (Rio Grillo) from cigar-chomping baddie, Col. Clive Ventor (Mel Gibson). Roy learns swordsmanship and following each of his deaths, humorously gathers the intel to evade or defeat his executioner. A decade-long passion-project for Grillo, the script attracted director Joe Carnahan, who lost his Fox Studio deal over insisting that Grillo star. Thankfully, Hulu came to the rescue. (Lisa Miller)
Coming 2 America (Streaming March 5, on PrimeVideo)
This sequel to 1988’s Coming to America scripts Eddie Murphy reprising his role as Zamunda’s Prince Akeem. Following his father’s death (James Earl Jones), now King Akeem, returns to Brooklyn to meet his son (Jermaine Fowler), who has no idea he’s the heir to Akeem’s throne. This prompts family consternation because Akeem’s wife (Shari Headley), along with the pair’s eldest daughter (KiKi Layne), believe she’s the rightful heir. Filmed in 2019, Jones, then 87, performed his scenes off-set, and was digitally inserted into the final print. Since Covid-19 prevented the film’s 2020 theatrical release, Amazon secured its release rights for $125 million. (Lisa Miller)
Rosebud (Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
Otto Preminger was one of Hollywood’s premiere directors with a portfolio that included Laura (1944), The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). But like many filmmakers of his generation, the industry moved on and his ability to spin gold out of pulp eluded him. Rosebud (1975) was among his last films. Based on a French bestseller about Palestinian terrorists who kidnapped a yacht full of wealthy young women, the screenplay by Preminger’s son Eric had holes big enough for a truck to drive through. The production was plagued with other problems. Robert Mitchum left after filming began and was hastily replaced by Peter O’Toole, who brought a welcome splash of louche panache to the proceedings. (David Luhrssen)
Runaway Train (Kino Lorber Blu-ray)
Andrei Konchalovsky has one of the most checkered careers of any filmmaker. He worked under Russian master Andrei Tarkovsky and made several movies during the Soviet period, including Siberiade (1979), which garnered enough attention the West to open doors in Hollywood before he returned to his homeland and turned to documentaries. Runaway Train (1985) was among his American productions. Based on an Akira Kurosawa screenplay, it stars Jon Voight as a dangerous killer who somehow busts out of a brutal, maximum security Alaska prison in minus-30 weather and rides a rapid river to the nearest train station. He boards a freight—and after the engineer drops dead from a heart attack, he’s on… you guessed it, a runaway train. (David Luhrssen)
