Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, we have a sadly slept upon film from the festival circuit last year leading the way in Twinless. This week also has a pair of intriguing Criterion Collection releases, as well as some 4K re-releases of note to consider. What else is hitting shelves? Read on to find out…
Joey’s Top Pick
Twinless
Dylan O’Brien is amazing in Twinless, a really strong Sundance Film Festival award winner that never really found an audience last year, despite being worthy of some awards consideration. It’s admittedly tricky material, to be sure, but O’Brien is outstanding here. James Sweeney‘s movie asks a ton of him, but he’s more than up to the challenge. I spoke to O’Brien and Sweeney here about it, my latest conversation with the actor, who is always fun to chat with. My Sundance rave review here began like so:
The Sundance Film Festival is full of surprises. Sometimes, it’s an actor or actress showcases skills we’ve never seen before. Other times, it’s a movie that takes risks. In the case of Twinless, it’s how surprising the effectiveness of the film is, given how it could easily have gone off the rails. Plus, it features a wonderful performance from Dylan O’Brien, who has been aching for a role like this one. This is, without question, the best thing I’ve seen at Sundance this year.
Twinless has an edge to it, but also plenty of sweetness. That combination is hard to pull off, especially when there’s a mid-movie turn that’s fairly shocking. However, the comedy, the drama, and the emotions of it all never feel anything less than authentic. It’s dark and messy, to be sure, but it’s also very well done, making for an entertaining and supremely compelling work.
Also Available This Week
Bridesmaids (4K)
Fight Club (4K SteelBook)
A Kiss Before Dying (Blu-ray)
Moneyball (4K)
Ultraman Great / Ultraman Powered: The Complete Series (TV)
Criterion Corner
The Delta
From The Criterion Collection: “The complexities of race, class, and sexuality collide within a Memphis community in the strikingly raw debut feature from director Ira Sachs. With neorealist immediacy, The Delta tells what at first appears to be a simple love story: two young men—Lincoln (Shayne Gray), a closeted white teenager, and Minh (Thang Chan), a Black Vietnamese immigrant—meet at a cruising spot and embark on a nighttime journey by boat down the Mississippi River. But soon, imbalances of power and privilege emerge between them, as the film develops into a devastating vision of lost, wounded souls reaching out in the dark for human connection.”
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Peter Hujar’s Day
From The Criterion Collection: “A loving snapshot of a vanished New York, director Ira Sachs’s captivating cultural time capsule is a warm, witty, graceful re-creation of a real-life conversation that took place between photographer Peter Hujar (Ben Whishaw) and writer Linda Rosenkrantz (Rebecca Hall) in 1974. Peter Hujar’s Day eavesdrops on the two friends’ leisurely, affectionate hangout as Hujar recounts his previous day’s activities, offering insights into both his art and his everyday life. What emerges is a touching celebration of creativity, connection, and simply being present, made exceptionally vivid by Sachs’s cinematic flourishes and wonderfully tender performances from Whishaw and Hall, whose chemistry gives the film its heart and soul.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
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