One, no, TWO Good Films: “Crazy Love” and “Mother”
Resurfacing on VOD: A twisted New York love story and early Bong Joon ho -- plus the latest edition of Ty's Movie Club.
A regular feature for paid Watch List subscribers: I suggest one a few reasonably under-the-radar movies from the recent or distant past, and you do what you want with that information.
Note to local readers: I’m doing another installment of Ty Burr’s Movie Club at the West Newton Cinema tomorrow night (Thursday March 13) at 6:30 p.m. (More info and advance tickets here; proceeds go to the West Newton Cinema renovation fund.) Up to now, I’ve chosen challenging cinematic works that make for meaty discussion; “What’s Up, Doc?” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, 1972) is not one of those. It is, however, one my favorite movie comedies of all time (based loosely on another of my favorite movie comedies of all time), and it may be what you need in terms of two hours of escape as the country falls down around our ears. I periodically return to Peter Bogdanovich’s peerless farce, starring Barbra “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” Streisand and Ryan “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard” O’Neal, and I can attest it holds up beautifully and, if anything, is funnier the fourth or fifth time around. And, courtesy of the late, great Buck Henry, it has some of the sharpest comic dialogue in the business, to wit:
"First there was this trouble between me and Hugh.”
“You and me?”
“No, not you, Hugh.”
(Hugh) “I am Hugh.”
“You are me?”
(Hugh) “No, I am Hugh.”
“Stop *saying* that.”
See you there. (Love love love this 1972 meta-trailer for the film, by the way, with Bogdanovich's control-freak habit of giving his actors precise line readings adorably visible at the 2:16 mark.)
On to the recommendations. Two excellent movies I reviewed back in the day for the Boston Globe have surfaced on streaming platforms, and I can recommend them both. One is a documentary about what may possibly be the most dysfunctional couple in the history of New York City – and that’s saying a hell of a lot – and the other is an early, unsettling near-masterpiece from South Korea’s Bong Joon ho (currently represented in theaters by “Mickey 17”), about whom I predicted in 2010 “has a mother of a movie in him [someday], and if we’re lucky we’ll get to see it.” (I was right; it was the 2019 Best Picture winner “Parasite.”)
The original reviews are no longer extant on the Internet, so I’m putting them here for your reading pleasure.
