Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! This week, we have The Friend making its way home leading the charge. Also hitting shelves today, new release-wise, there’s Drop and A Working Man, so there’s some genre options as well. The slate also includes a new Criterion Collection debut in The Wiz, making for a nice little mix. What else is coming out? Read on for more..
Joey’s Top Pick
The Friend
I’m a sucker for dog movies, though The Friend is far from a traditional one. It’s far more about grief and how one processes death, be them canine or human. Naomi Watts is excellent, while Bill Murray is very good in his smaller role, but it’s Bing the Great Dane playing Apollo the dog that stands out, as it’s an all-timer of an animal performance. I spoke to filmmakers Scott McGehee and David Siegel here about the work, which is well worth checking out. My review back at the Telluride Film Festival here began with a personal touch, like so:
My dog loved my mom. He’s my dog, sure, but he had a special bond with her. When she suddenly passed away last year, he grieved her as noticeably and as strongly as I did, as my sister did, or as my dad did. He laid around, waiting to see her. He didn’t want to eat. He would pace around, unable to relax. What was I doing? Not eating, pacing around, not relaxing. The Friend features the line “how do you explain death to a dog?” and that’s a sentence I thought to myself multiple times. The grief I was experiencing was compounded by the despair over not being able to explain any of it to him, or to make him feel better. We were just in it. I tell you all that because, sometimes, what you bring to a movie matters. For most people, The Friend will be a moderately light drama about grief. For me, however, this was one of the harder cinematic experiences in some time. Playing at the Telluride Film Festival, it’s an evocative and well-made work, just one that left me in shambles.
The Friend is at its best when focused on the absolutely stunning Great Dane at the core of the story. Subplots and anything focused more on the literary elements of the flick are more hit or miss. When it’s dog focused, however, things are nearly flawless. This is not a traditional “dog movie” in the slightest, and it’s all the better for it.
Also Available This Week
Borderline
The Creep Tapes: Season One (TV)
Dexter: Original Sin (TV)
In the Lost Lands
The Return of the Living Dead (4K)
Sean Connery 007 James Bond Collection (4K)
Criterion Corner
The Wiz
From The Criterion Collection: “L. Frank Baum’s timeless story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz gets a funky reimagining in this lavish adaptation of a landmark Broadway show based on the book. Diana Ross brings her showstopping star power to the role of Dorothy, here a Harlem schoolteacher who is magically transported to a surreal fantasyland that resembles New York City, complete with man-eating trash cans and a disco paradise. Propelled by the musical contributions of Quincy Jones and an all-star cast that includes Michael Jackson, Richard Pryor, and Lena Horne, this dazzling soul spectacular from legendary director Sidney Lumet reframes a beloved tale through the Black American experience, creating a powerful celebration of self-determination.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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