What to Watch: 10 on Prime Video
For your weekend viewing pleasure, 10 good movies on Amazon, plus choice picks for other VOD plaforms.
Every month or so, Amazon Prime Video dumps 250 or so movies onto the service like a college kid coming home with their laundry: They dump it all on the floor and leave it to you to sort out. The great majority of the films are what my wife’s grandmother would have called treyf – unkosher, unclean junk with titles like “Assault of the Party Nerds” and “Baby Frankenstein.” (Really.) But there’s choice stuff there if you go a-gleaning – or leave it to the scarred professionals like the Watch List. So here are ten movies newly landed on the service, none of them four-star classics but all worth a look if the cast or subject interest you. Plus one pick each for the other major services. My Washington Post movie reviews for this week – “Fly Me to the Moon” (⭐ ⭐ 1/2) and “Dandelion” (⭐ ⭐ 1/2) are reprinted at the bottom. Have a good weekend and stay hydrated, okay?
“The Best of Times” (1986, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) – I’ve long had a soft spot for this broad heartland comedy, in which Robin Williams gives one of his best unknown performances as a small-town schnook who dropped the ball in the big game back in high school and hasn’t stopped obsessing about it since, to the point of convening his middle-aged teammates to replay the game. Kurt Russell is perfect as a former golden-boy quarterback living out the disappointment that is the rest of his life, and Pamela Reed and Holly Palance (Jack’s daughter) offer semi-sympathetic support. But it’s William’s show, and he squeezes every bit of anxious flop-sweat pathos out of his role.
“Ennio” (2021, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐) – As in Morricone, the tireless film composer who wrote more than 400 movie scores in his 91 years and who tells us all about them in charming interviews filmed before his death in 2020. Given the subject, it’s fitting that the film’s 2 1/2 hours long – digest it in chunks, if necessary – and fitting, too, that the documentary’s director is Giuseppe Tornatore, for whose “Cinema Paradiso” Morricone wrote one of his most memorable scores. Lots of surprising talking heads in this love letter to a maestro: Clint Eastwood and John Williams, sure, but Joan Baez and Bruce Springsteen?
