New to Theaters:
Sometimes I Think About Dying (**1/2) Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is a bored office worker whose life is suddenly upended by the arrival of a new employee with romance on his mind. Rachel Lambert directs this adaptation of a stage play that features a great lead performance but doesn’t go far enough from a narrative standpoint. Also, like just about every other indie film being released these days, it suffers from a non-ending indicating a laziness in the scripting department.
Photo: Daisy Ridley in Sometimes I Think About Dying
New to Streaming: (Netflix)
The Great Night in Pop (***1/2) The story behind the creation of the star-studded pop song, “We Are the World,” is the subject of this transcendent documentary from director Bao Nguyen. The film manages to move the viewer emotionally while simultaneously illuminating the creative process in a way that few films manage to do. Highly rewarding and recommended.
New to Disc:
Criterion:
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) Robert Altman’s revisionist western, starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, comes to 4K in a new edition that also retains the bonus materials included in the Blu Ray edition from several years back.
Scream/Shout Factory:
The cable TV staple from the early 1980s, Funeral Home (1982), gets a well-deserved Blu Ray release in a new set that also includes a nice amount of bonus material along with the remaster of the film. The film, directed by William Fruet, is a Canadian horror entry concerning a girl spending the summer with her grandmother in a former funeral home. Extras include a commentary and interviews.
Also being issued by the label this week is the adaptation of the Michael Crichton novel, The Terminal Man (1974), starring George Segal as a man whose violent impulses are controlled by a brain implant.
Kino:
TV horror maestro Dan Curtis’s rare entry into feature films, the haunted house chiller, Burnt Offerings (1976), starring Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis, gets a reissue this week on Blu Ray and includes two commentary tracks, interviews and a trailer.
William Wyler’s nearly three hour western starring Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons and Charlton Heston, The Big Country (1958), also gets a Blu Ray issue that comes packaged in an attractive slipcase and sports a boatload of bonus features including commentary and interviews.
Other releases this week are Blu Ray reissues of Billy Wilder’s superb courtroom drama, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and the classic heist film from the recently deceased director Norman Jewison, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). Both contain commentary tracks.
OSS 117: Five Film Collection (1963-68) collects all of the classic spy films starring Kerwin Matthews that were targeted to compete with the James Bond franchise. Films included in the set are: OSS 117 Is Unleashed / OSS 117: Panic in Bangkok / OSS 117: Mission For a Killer / OSS 117: Mission to Tokyo / OSS 117 – Double Agent.
Magnolia:
Joan Baez: I am a Noise (2023) The life of singer and activist, Joan Baez, is recounted in this extremely candid film that offers, through the use of well-chosen archival material, a well balanced portrait of the renowned public figure.
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