What to Watch: Animal Shelters
Bless the beasts and the ... never mind, just bless the beasts. Plus: movies to remember Val Kilmer by.
Either you’re of a mind to treat this weekend as a time to head out, hit the streets, and make some good trouble or stay in and hide your head in the sand of a good movie or TV show. May I suggest you allow yourself to do both? Follow the link above for information about what’s happening near you this Saturday April 5th and how you can be a part of it – you’d better believe I’ll be – and read on for the viewing recommendations.
Some housecleaning first: For those of you within driving distance of the West Newton Cinema, my monthly discussion group, Ty Burr’s Movie Club, will be taking pace next Thursday night, April 10, at 6:30 p.m. The movie being screened and dissected is 2009’s “A Serious Man” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐), possibly the Coen brothers’ greatest achievement and also possibly the only time, bar “No Country for Old Men,” they’ve ever dropped their pose of jaded remove and actually meant it. Well, maybe; not for nothing have I always thought of Joel and Ethan as the Becker and Fagen of movies. Anyway, lots to discuss with this one, including (and especially) Schrödinger’s Cat. You can buy advance tickets here; proceeds go in part to the theater's renovation fund.
Val Kilmer died this week at 65 of pneumonia following a decade of rough health. As a performer he was mercurial, inimitable, naturally charismatic and by all accounts a huge pain in the ass to work with in the early years. That rep may have accounted for his absence from the top ranks of stardom after the initial efflorescence of his mid-1990s above-the-title run (“The Doors,” “Batman Forever,” “Heat,” “The Saint”), but he also had his boosters and you could easily argue that Kilmer was one of those “great actors” best suited to comedy and character roles, where he could uncork the deadpan wit that animated him more than anything else. With that in mind, and if you’re looking for an impromptu at-home Val-edictory, I would cue up “Real Genius” (1985, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, $3.99 on Amazon and Apple TV), the first film to showcase his offhanded comic sex appeal; “Tombstone” (1993, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, streaming on Hulu, $3.99 on Amazon and Apple TV), in which he steals the entire movie as a tubercular, orotund Doc Holliday; the demented, druggy thriller “The Salton Sea” (2002, ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, $3.99 on Amazon and Apple TV); “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” (2005, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, $3.99 on Amazon and Apple TV), a Robert Downey comeback vehicle with a tart turn by Kilmer as a private eye named Gay Perry; and “Val” (2021, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, streaming on Prime Video), a bio-doc as wonky, unguarded and mysterious as the man himself.
Following are this week’s film recommendations, the first batch pegged to the notion that, since human beings have turned out to be so untrustworthy of late, we might want to take solace in (and take care of) the animals in our midst. To wit:
