Welcome to this week's Stay-At-Home Seven and if you're looking for more streaming suggestions, check out our May Day spotlight on the union movement.
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| Citizen Kane |
Citizen Kane, BBC4, Thursday
Orson Welles' film has been back in the news cycle recently because of the attention David Fincher's Mank - about its co-writer Herman J Mankiewicz - received at the Oscars and because Paddington 2 overtook it in the best reviewed stakes on Rotten Tomatoes. If you haven't seen it before, now's your chance to see what all the fuss is about as Welles' superior tale, which sees a reporter (William Alland) piecing together the story of the life of a newspaper magnate (Welles) after his death. A masterclass in technique from cinematographer Gregg Tolland, from the oppressive ceilings and deep focus that pulls you in to its Dutch angles and chiaroscuro, it is matched by Welles' muscular performance at its heart. I'll leave you to decide if it deserves its oft touted 'best film ever' tag, but it's most certainly up there. Read our full review
Shirley, Netflix
Despite not receiving a Best Actress nomination at this year's Oscars, for my money Elisabeth Moss put in two of the year's best - and diverse - performances, that of an abused wife in The Invisible Man and here, as writer Shirley Jackson, entrenched in a very different type of emotional warfare with her husband. Director Josephine Decker and screenwriter Sarah Gubbins take their lead from Susan Scarf Merrell's source book Shirley: A Novel, which blends factual detail with a fictional framework to present a psychodrama snapshot of the horror writer's life. Set at the height of Jackson's fame, the story revolves around the arrival to the home she shares with her husband Stanley (Michael Stuhlbarg) of a young couple (Odessa Young and Logan Lerman) building a disturbing atmosphere that draws on the sexual politics of the period as well as Jackson's own life to immerse us in the gripping power play of the house. Read our full review.
And Then There Were None, 9pm, Tuesday, May 4, Talking Pictures TV (Freeview Channel 81)
As with so many Agatha Christie adaptations, it's the depth of the cast that sells this adaptation about guests being bumped off one by one after being invited to a remote hotel, with this one reading like a Seventies who's who, including Oliver Reed, Herbert Lom and Gert Fröbe not to mention Richard Attenborough and Charles Aznavor (who even strikes up his favourite tune at one point). Shot with stylish verve by Peter Collinson and veteran Spanish cinematographer Fernando Arribas, it may look rather kitsch now, but somehow that only adds to the charm and the central whodunnit proves as intriguing as ever. Read our full review.
Ain't Them Bodies Saints, My5.tv
Bob (Casey Affleck) and Ruthie (Rooney Mara)are at the point of love where much of what goes on between them passes in unspoken understanding and, with a baby on the way, what could go wrong? Just about everything as it turns out, thanks to the pair's criminal tendencies. Jailed after a bungled job, Bob breaks out and soon Ruthie is facing tough choices about the future for her and her daughter, while Bob is being hunted by more people than just the law.David Lowery's film has timeless and geographically vague quality that gives what is happening an mythical sweep, heightened by his dreamlike approach as he withholds key events from the audience in favour of focusing on the build-up to them and the aftermath and the magic hour warmth lent to the framing by DoP Bradford Young. Read our interview with Lowery and the full review.
Dangerous Liaisons, BBC iPlayer until May 25
The sexual scheming of the 18th century French aristocracy is brought to vivid life in Stephen Frears' costume drama, adapted by the consistently good Christopher Hampton and propelled by star power. John Malkovich and Glenn Close spark off each other as a rake and a marquis embarked in psychosexual gamesmanship over the bedding of a virginal youngster (Uma Thurman), which spirals into a greater challenge - the deflowering of the virtuous and God-fearing Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer). Although Malkovich flirts with overplaying his character, Close skewers every line with precision and Pfeiffer's performance also fits the brittle Madame like a silk glove. Read our full review.
Foxtrot, BBC iPlayer until May 26
Samuel Maoz's drama takes us on a dance that wrong-foots the viewer's expectations almost every step of the way. Young Israeli soldier Jonathan Feldman is dead to begin with and we see his mother (Sarah Adler) and father (Lior Ahkenazi) being told the news. But all may not be as it seems in this often surreal, always gripping journey into family tragedy - reflecting the state of a nation - that plays out across three parts, each as visually daring and thematically challenging as the last. How it failed to make the Oscar International Film shortlist (losing out to the likes of the solid but inferior Loveless and The Insult) is a mystery of our times. Read our interviews with Maoz, Maoz and Ashkenazi and Ashkenzai and our full review.
Tangerine, Amazon
Sean Baker's film - which was shot using an $8 app on an iPhone - was a breakout surprise from Sundance, where it was not in the main competition but rather in the Next section, where many of the festival's more interesting and edgy movies have been found in recent years. This is a late night adventure through LA in the company of transgender street workers Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) and Alexandra (Mya Taylor) as they try to track down Sin-Dee's cheating pimp boyfriend. The whole film - from its real-time, freewheeling energy to its high-colour visuals and surprising emotional underbelly - crackles with life. Read our full review.
Our short selection this week is another of this year's Oscar-nominated short documentaries, Do Not Split, a strong reportage film that takes us inside the Hong Kong protests as the government response escalates.
Field of Vision - Do Not Split from Field of Vision on Vimeo.
