Things to Come
Nathalie’s ordered life as a philosophy lecturer begins to unravel. Her publisher is unhappy with her for not “making market expectations”; her mother is suicidal; and then one day, her husband, a fellow academic, tells her he’s leaving her for another woman. Isabelle Huppert leads the cast in fine, low-key performances. Emotions are etched on faces in this leisurely ramble through the life of a mind under pressure. French director Mia Hansen-Løve avoids every Hollywood expectation.
The Pied Piper
The Pied Piper (1972) was a movie of its time—the ’60s counterculture more than the medieval Germany of its setting. It stars Donovan as a wandering minstrel during the plague years whose piping can cure all ills, and Donald Pleasence as the greedy ruler he encounters. Donovan’s ballads sound more 1960s than 1340s, but director Jacques Demy endows the fairytale with bright colors and costumes. Donovan looks much at home in the Piper’s elfin garb.
Broken Arrow
Although some of it looks stilted from a 21st-century standpoint, Broken Arrow represented social progress when it was released in 1950. James Stewart plays a decent man angered by the genocidal war his countrymen are waging against the Apache and is determined to make peace. The odds are against him, especially given the understandable skepticism of Native Americans, but Stewart’s strong ethical sense gives him courage. Heavily made-up Jeff Chandler plays Cochise, the Apache leader.
“Ice: Season One”
The name doesn’t refer to Immigration and Customs Enforcement but to diamonds—cold, hard and illegally sourced. The cable show is the aesthetic descendent of Michael Mann’s Los Angeles crime dramas. The edges are hard as the men involved in the cocaine-fueled motel room meetings where deals go awry. Diamonds, like dope, are cash and carry business. Family ties are strained but hold. Among the show’s stars are Cam Gigandet, Ray Stone and Donald Sutherland.
