oliver oppitz photography
Crescendo (Kino Lorber)
Israeli director Dror Zahavi visualizes his film’s message well. In Tel Aviv, upper-middle class Jewish youth Ron practices violin in air-conditioned comfort. On the West Bank, Palestinian Layla must stop when tear gas seeps through her window, stinging her eyes. They are brought together with less than perfect harmony when the European Union finances a concert by a joint Jewish-Palestinian youth orchestra and commissions a reluctant German conductor as music director. Crescendo doesn’t flinch from the visceral hate and bigotry that permeates the collaboration, nor the pressure on Layla to abandon music and conform to social custom. Amidst all the shoving and yelling, a Romeo and Juliet situation develops between two musicians from opposing sides. (David Luhrssen)
The Ipcress File (Kino Lorber)
Producer Harry Saltzman had just launched the Bond franchise, but The Ipcress File (1965) presented a secret agent far different than 007. Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer, a ladies man to be sure yet as unassumingly sophisticated and cheerfully insouciant as John Lennon in the early days of Beatlemania. Palmer’s work never takes him to glamorous casinos around the world but only squalid London flats for shifts at surveillance; the high security areas are hidden inside drab old buildings housing a spy bureaucracy as concerned with paperwork as legwork. Palmer’s new case involves the kidnapping of top government scientists who return strangely unable to recall their research. He must navigate double and triple crosses, and endure some psychedelic psychological manipulation, in this well-composed thriller by director Sidney J. Furie, out on Blu-ray. (David Luhrssen)
The Lie (Streaming October 6 on Amazon)
This thoughtful drama remakes the German film Wir Monster (We Monsters). After Kayla (Joey King) impulsively kills her best friend during an argument, Kayla’s parents (Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos) conspire to hide their only child’s crime. Recently divorced and still raw, corporate lawyer Rebecca and professional rock musician Jay can’t bear to see Kayla ruin her life by confessing. Their lie becomes more complicated when, the dead girl’s father (Cas Anvar) comes sniffing around. Consciences dirty as their hands, Rebecca and Jay begin to question the wisdom of their actions after Kayla appears indifferent to the killing. Unintended consequences pile on with the effects of lying eating these players from the inside out. (Lisa Miller)
“Penny Dreadful City of Angels: Season One” (Showtime)
Penny dreadfuls were the pulp fiction of Victorian England and their gothic tendencies inspired the Anglo-American horror series “Penny Dreadful.” The latest iteration moves the setting forward to 1930s Los Angeles. It’s B-movie Chinatown with a supernatural twist as a malevolent entity from Mexican folklore plots apocalypse on the LA streets. “City of Angels” stars Daniel Zovatto as the first Chicano detective in an LAPD that hates Chicanos; covering him is flinty, cynical homicide squad veteran (Nathan Lane). Get past the cheesy pyrotechnics and you’ll get a reasonably accurate depiction of ‘30s LA, a sunshine city governed by Protestant fundamentalists, avowed racists, anti-labor and anti-immigrant agitators and corruption as neighborhoods and people are cleared away for profit and power. The anxieties resemble 2020 America. “Season One” is out on DVD with bonus features. (David Luhrssen)
Spontaneous (October 6 on FandangoNOW & VUDU)
Aaron Starmer’s 2016 young adult novel is adapted for an R-Rated film that hooks viewers with the idea of spontaneously combusting teens. Snarky Mara (Katherine Langford) is the story's protagonist. After witnessing a school chum spontaneously explode, Mara struggles to find meaning. Enter Dylan (Charlie Plummer), her sweet classmate, inspired to confess his crush on Mara before one of them goes kaboom. She’s funny, bright and roaring to disparage the dead as only a 17-year-old can. The combustion mystery is blown-off in favor of Mara’s romantic and philosophical journeys. Billed as both a horror and a comedy, critics applaud the story’s unusual approach, but Starmer’s readers complain it's unfair to drop the explosive storyline with a thud. (Lisa Miller)
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