Joey’s Home Movies For the Week of June 13th – A Dose of Bayhem with ‘Ambulance’ and Paul Verhoeven’s Wildness with ‘Benedetta’

Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, we have two very different films competing for top honors. In one corner, there’s Michael Bay‘s Ambulance. In the other corner, there’s Paul Verhoeven‘s Benedetta. Both are insane. Which movie emerged victorious this week? Read on to find out for yourself…

Joey’s Top Pick

Benedetta

Paul Verhoeven is a nut. We all know that by now. At the New York Film Festival last year, I saw his newest flick, and it’s a lot to take in. At the same time, it’s wildly effective, making for a really interesting watch. My review (here) of Benedetta out of NYFF had this to say;

Benedetta is funny, ridiculous, sarcastic, sexy, and consistently compelling. That’s the secret sauce here. Despite potential for something plodding, it never even comes close to being boring. Avoiding boredom is clutch here, since so many other films of this ilk, not helmed by Verhoeven, would end up with that fate. Now, on the flip side of the equation, it’s fair to wonder if this movie adds up to much. It could well be more of a shallow endeavor than usual for the director, but damn if it doesn’t entertain more than you think it will.

Also Available This Week

5 Film Collection: Final Destination

Ahed’s Knee

Ambulance

Billions: Season Six (TV)

Butter

Conjuring 7-Film Collection

Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Eleventh Season (TV)

Fatherhood

Father Stu

Gold

Hacks: The Complete First Season (TV)

Infinite Storm

MacGyver (2016): Seasons 1-5 (TV)

Morbius

Rutherford Falls: Season One (TV)

Sailor Moon: The Complete First Season (TV)

Titans: The Complete First & Second Seasons (TV)

The Witches

Criterion Corner

Farewell Amor

From The Criterion Collection: “In her luminous feature debut, filmmaker Ekwa Msangi chronicles a broken family’s journey to wholeness with empathy and insight. Seventeen years after his family was separated by the civil war in Angola, a New York taxi driver (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is reunited with his now devoutly religious wife (Zainab Jah) and teenage daughter (Jayme Lawson) when they are finally able to follow him to America. But after living thousands of miles apart for so long, the three find they must discover one another’s strengths, forgive one another’s weaknesses, and bridge cultural and generational divides in order to build a life together. Told in three perspective-shifting chapters that honor the multitude of struggles and emotions that make up the immigrant experience, Farewell Amor is a bittersweet, compassionate evocation of how it feels when your heart and your home are in different places.”

Stay tuned for more next week…