Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of May 24th – ‘Funny Face’ and ‘Super 8’ in 4K

Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, we have Super 8 debuting in glorious 4K, along with the indie title Funny Face, highlight-wise. In addition, we have Nightmare Alley coming to Criterion, ahead of the hotly anticipated Guillermo del Toro remake. Read on for more…

Joey’s Top Pick

Super 8 (4K)

J.J. Abrams‘ Super 8 was much hyped when it was coming out, but perhaps met was a slightly more muted reaction than expected. Personally, I loved it, seeing it as a throwback type of flick. Genuinely exciting and evoking some of what makes Steven Spielberg such a master, this film is a ton of fun. In 4K, it looks as good as ever, too. If you’ve never seen the movie, now is a perfect time to give it a shot!

Recommended Viewing

Funny Face

This independent character study makes you think it’s going to be one thing. Then, it turns into something very different. Funny Face initially presents itself as a Joker-type origin story, but it ends up being more like a Safdie Brothers work. In my review (here), I had this to say about it:

Funny Face is a film that doesn’t ever bend to your expectations. The initial set-up does suggest a revenge tale, perhaps even a superhero origin story. There are sporadic hints of something like that, but largely, this is a character study. More than anything else, we watch as people at crossroads deal with a modern evolution of Brooklyn that leaves little room for long time residents.

Also Available This Week

Benny Loves You

Chaos Walking

Happily (Kerry Bishé interview here)

Infinity Train: Book Two (TV)

Long Weekend

The Sound of Silence

Supernatural: The Complete Fifteenth & Final Season (TV)

Supernatural: The Complete Series (TV)

Criterion Corner

Nightmare Alley

From The Criterion Collection: “Darkness lurks behind the bright lights of a traveling carnival in one of the most haunting and perverse film noirs of the 1940s. Adapted from the scandalous best seller by William Lindsay Gresham, Nightmare Alley gave Tyrone Power a chance to subvert his matinee-idol image with a ruthless performance as Stanton Carlisle, a small-time carny whose unctuous charm propels him to fame as a charlatan spiritualist, but whose unchecked ambition leads him down a path of moral degradation and self-destruction. Although its strange, sordid atmosphere shocked contemporary audiences, this long-difficult-to-see reflection of postwar angst has now taken its place as one of the defining noirs of its era—a fatalistic downward slide into existential oblivion.”

Stay tuned for more next week…