The Wild Goose Lake (2019)
“The Outsider: The Complete First Season” (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
Anderson (Ben Mendelsohn) won’t let go of a puzzling case whose pieces just won’t fit. A toddler was brutally murdered; eyewitnesses and DNA place the Little League coach (Jason Bateman) at the scene. But television footage shows the coach many miles away in a conference at the exact time of the killing. A vigilante murders the coach. The case won’t go away.
“The Outsider” is based on a novel by Stephen King, whose particular genius was always to locate horror in the heart of everyday America. Set in a small town, “The Outsider” depicts the self-righteousness and rage of contemporary society while looking at criminal justice, mob frenzy and the media’s warping of facts. But the main problem faced by the empirical Anderson is the disruption of normality by the intrusion of the weird. Uncanny elements creep slowly into the drama, whose visual composition is dark and outstanding for conveying alienation.
The Wild Goose Lake (Film Movement)
A nocturnal encounter between strangers on the street—a gangster and a mysterious woman—triggers a story of fugitives on the run. Chinese director Diao Yinan’s The Wild Goose Lake (2019) is among the best films noir in years, making use of lurid reds and electric pinks against inky pools of blackness. Much of the tense story unspools at night—and it’s often raining. The cinematography is superior to most anything coming from Hollywood nowadays.
Hands of God (Film Movement)
The giant, Quonset-shaped structure could be an Olympic training facility anywhere in America. But the high-fiving athletes are in Baghdad, members of Iraq’s Olympic boxing team, and they face unusual problems. Hands of God opens in 2014 as ISIS begins its drive to conquer Iraq. They are only 30 miles from Baghdad, some boxers are called to military duty and the facility is bombed. The documentary is a record of determination in the face of adversity.
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