Viral
It starts with flu season, but it’s no ordinary cough and chill. The inflection is carried by an unknown parasite that seizes the host body, turning victims into bloodthirsty berserkers. Directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, Viral is among the best recent zombie films as opposite-personality sisters, shy-serious Emma (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and promiscuous-glib Stacey (Analeigh Tipton) confront quarantine, martial law and the probable breakup of their parents’ marriage. Viral builds tension as the infection spreads.
Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made
Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala and Jayson Lamb were 11 year olds when they began to replicate their favorite movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, scene by scene. For some of them, this filmmaking exercise was an escape from unpleasant reality into the grandiose heroism of Indiana Jones. Years later the boys reunited to shoot the climactic scene. A hit at Sundance, Raiders! is an amusing documentary on a quixotic quest in the outer limits of movie geekdom.
Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon
It was a brave move for an actress who hadn’t yet established herself. In Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon (1970), Liza Minnelli wears a disfigured face as the victim of an attack by a psychotic boyfriend. Directed with avant-garde flair by Otto Preminger, the film is a bittersweet look at a surrogate family of outsiders: Minnelli’s scarred woman, a young epileptic and a gay paraplegic banding together against an uncaring society.
Wild in the Streets
A devastating parody of ’60s culture and politics, this 1968 satire stars Christopher Jones as a rock star who marshals the power of youth to change the Constitution and become president—as a GOP candidate! Shelley Winters plays his preposterous mother, an oldster trying to be young. Wild in the Streets endures as a spoof of media spectacle, demagoguery, populism and the maxim that revolutions eat themselves. It also includes some great original rock songs.
On Guard/Five Day Lover
Antoine (Jean-Pierre Cassel) is a gigolo with a wandering eye and a smile endearing enough to win over a young married woman, Claire (a coquettish Jean Seberg) with barely more than a glance. French director Philippe de Broca’s Five Day Lover (1961) is a charmingly acted, bittersweet erotic comedy about love, delusion, infidelity and deception set in the swank world of high couture. It’s packaged on Blu-ray with De Broca’s swashbuckling On Guard (1997).
