Toni Erdmann; The Salesman; Jackie; Who’s Gonna Love Me Now? and more

Maren Ade’s parent-child comedy is a triumph, while Asghar Farhadi’s domestic suspense film doesn’t match his bestI am writing this week’s column in the balmy rosé-and-Nurofen glow of the Cannes film festival, where Pedro Almodóvar’s jury is about to dish out its prizes. If things go as they usually do, critics will feel alternately vindicated and perplexed by the winners, and a masterpiece or two will go entirely ignored and be just fine anyway – just ask Toni Erdmann (Soda, 15). This time last year, Maren Ade’s ingenious, elastic twist on the parent-child comedy earned the most ecstatic reviews of…
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Breastmilk

Recommended Director: Dana Ben-AriYear: 2014For a natural experience that is older than modern, upright homo sapiens and is shared among countless species of mammal across the globe, breastfeeding carries a stigma around inside the borders of our society that is as nonsensical as it is undeniable. Whether it occurs at the hospital after birth, at work in a dark room, at a restaurant table, or at home lying comfortably on a bed, breastfeeding is constantly under judgement and scrutiny. Women are told how to feel about it, men are taught to look away from it, strangers become entitled to share…
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Broad City: Season 3

Highly Recommended The Show: Yas, Queen. Stoners Abbi and Ilana are back at it in season 3 of the New York-set Broad City. As in the offbeat sitcom's earlier seasons, this batch of 10 episodes maintains a slacker-Seinfeld vibe of busy aimlessness while intermittently forcing its characters to confront their own selfish failings and grow up a little.Creators and stars Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer don't majorly shake up the "smoke weed and act self-absorbed" formula that has been such a winner up until this point. As ever, their characters' bulletproof friendship anchors a show that otherwise takes off in…
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Lion; Hacksaw Ridge; Sing and more – review

Sunny Pawar is extraordinary as a child lost abroad in the heartbreaking Lion, while Mel Gibson typically makes a bloody mess of Hacksaw RidgeThere are films against which one’s head puts up a fight until, finally, the heart simply wants what it wants. Lion (eOne, PG) is one. This sweeping, sun-baked account of a life fatefully divided in childhood between two countries and families risks applying a glib National Geographic gloss to a unique existential crisis, until its sheer blunt force of feeling takes hold and the tear ducts are unlocked. Its opening stages, vividly conveying young Saroo Brierley’s accidental…
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Inside Amy Schumer: Season Four

Recommended In 10 Words or LessThe likely end of another Comedy Central sketch successReviewer's Bias*Loves: Sketch comedyLikes: Amy Schumer, dark comedyDislikes: Gender politicsHates: The twisted interpersonal relationships between women, short-run seriesThe Story So Far...Before Amy Schumer became a household name thanks to her film Trainwreck, an assortment of advertising campaigns and her friendship with Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Schumer was a raunchy stand-up comic and the star of Inside Amy Schumer, a brilliant sketch comedy series on Comedy Central that took aim at a variety of social issues, particularly those that women face. But as with many of the network's big…
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La La Land; Manchester By the Sea; Graduation and more – review

Damien Chazelle’s sun-drenched musical is even lovelier on second viewing, while Casey Affleck’s janitor evokes BrandoStunningly losing the best picture Oscar may turn out to be the best thing that could have happened to La La Land (Lionsgate, 12), Damien Chazelle’s sun-bright, sour-sweet satsuma of a musical. Formally released from the prestige pressure bestowed by such a title, the film that inspired such a hysterical pre-Oscar backlash as to be labelled “fascist propaganda” in certain quarters of the internet can be cherished once more as the bijou beauty it is – a film out not to change the world, but to wistfully warm…
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Bikes vs. Cars

Recommended .or A Tale of Five Cities: Los Angeles, Sao Paolo, Copenhagen, Toronto and Bogota are the main focus of Swedish filmmaker Fredrik Gertten's cross-continental look at the ever-present problems of humans' desire to get from Point A to Point B as easily and quickly as possible. Having spent the entire 1980s in the city of Davis, CA which is regarded as at least one of the world's bicycle capitals (another city claims that honor here) I've had drilled into my head for a long time the idea that cars are costly, consume too much energy and cause pollution while…
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Hawaii Five-O: The Complete Series

Highly Recommended I've never been to Hawaii, alas, but if I ever did I kind of wish that, somehow, it would resemble the Hawaii of Hawaii Five-O, the 1968-1980 cop series starring Jack Lord. At the time of its cancellation it had been the longest-running police procedural show in TV history. It was innovative, unique, and at its best enormous fun. It had production values and a style that resembled big budget movies of the period, while Lord and his supporting cast, the initial line-up especially, not to mention catch phrases like "Book em, Danno" and those amazing opening titles…
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Lake Eerie

Skip It Director: Chris MajorsStarring: Meredith Majors, Betsy Baker, Anne Leigh CooperYear: 2016You may think you've seen painful acting before, but you have yet to meet Lake Eerie, a film that is as bizarre, awful, and unimaginative as its title. I'm not sure if my words can prepare you for such a film failure, an amateur attempt at something, I don't know what, that could not possibility have resulted in what the filmmakers were aiming for. Because, if this is the movie that they were trying to make, someone needs to take away their cameras and put them under lock…
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Just About Famous

Rent It In 10 Words or LessPlaying pretend for a livingReviewer's Bias*Loves: DocumentariesLikes: a good tribute showDislikes: Delusional peopleHates: Bad impersonatorsThe MovieConfessions of a Superhero is a fantastic documentary about the people who dress up like caped crusaders in Hollywood in search of fame or money, exploring their lives and all the questions you'd have about those folks. There are moments where Just About Famous approaches those topics, but it's mainly satisfied with keeping its distance from the celebrity impersonators it profiles and acting as a tourist in their world, focusing on the Sunburst Convention, an annual gathering of "tribute…
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The Migrants

Recommended Director: Tom GriesStarring: Ron Howard, Cloris Leachman, Sissy SpacekYear: 1974The Migrants is a film that has almost completed its slide away from our memories, becoming something of the past that very few remember and even the internet can't firmly hold captive in time. Made for television in 1974, this movie is an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams story, living in that on-stage feeling that Williams perfected, but also bringing a Steinbeck air to the screen with its focus on the traveling worker and his family's plight. Not much remains of The Migrants except a barely-seen IMDb page, perhaps one…
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Silence; Passengers; A Monster Calls and more – review

Martin Scorsese repays his fans’ faith with his most rewarding film in years – but Passengers is a slight tale of lust in spaceNeither cinemagoers nor awards voters made much noise about Silence (Studiocanal, 15), though that was to be expected. If Martin Scorsese’s long-cherished, serenely austere passion project had been an easy sell, it wouldn’t have taken him over a quarter of a century to develop. Two hours and 40 minutes of 17th-century Jesuit priests suffering for their faith in feudal Japan is a pitch itself designed to test the religiosity of Scorsese worshippers. The reward for those who…
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The Mysterious Airman

Highly Recommended The Serial:Movie serials were a staple of movie matinees in the 30's and 40's,but they were incredibly popular in the silent era too.Unfortunately, there are few chapterplays from the 1910's and 20'sthat still exist in complete form. That's why it's so exciting thatSprocket Vault has unearthed, restored, and released a complete 10chapter serial from 1928: The Mysterious Airman. Not only isthe film of interest to historians however, but it's a funcliffhanger in its own right. The tinted picture looks amazing too,especially for a film this old that was presumed lost for decades.Jack Baker (Walter Miller) is the owner…
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The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: The Vault Series Volumes 7-12

Rent It The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson DVD Set ReviewThe TonightShow StarringJohnny Carson was a long-running NBCtelevision talk show and variety program which airedfor 30 seasons from 1962-1992. The series was beloved, in part, becauseof itslegendary host. Carson is highly regarded as one of the best televisionhostsin history. Johnny Carson hasoften been hailed as the father of modern late night television withhis use ofstand-up comedy and a format of television variety programming whichhas beenused in large part since. Though late night television has certainlyhad someupdates or tweaks over time, Carson's method of a comedy openingmonologue andintervie...Read the entire review…
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Hee Haw: The Collector's Edition

Recommended Hee Haw DVD Collection ReviewHee Hawbeganas a variety entertainment series on the CBS network in 1969.  Though the series received impressivetelevision ratings, CBS decided to cancel many programs at thetime-period thatreflected country programming and Hee Hawgot the axe. However, the series continued in syndication and went onto becomeone of the longest running syndicated series in history with 21additionalseasons.There's no plot: theseries revolves solely around entertaining the audience. Hosts BuckOwens andRoy Clark lead an ensemble group of performers each week in a series ofsketchesand musical pe...Read the entire review Source: DVD Talk
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Casting JonBenet; Why Him?; I.T.; Diving Into the Unknown and more – review

Kitty Green’s study of the unsolved murder of the child beauty queen is a multilayered masterpiece – and clever Netflix have acquired itThe risk of repeating oneself too frequently in a weekly column is one to be carefully considered, though sometimes the vagaries of the release schedule make it unavoidable: for the second week running, a Netflix premiere handily trumps any new offerings on the DVD shelf. The streaming giant’s intelligent taste in documentary cinema has been known for some time now, but in grabbing Casting JonBenet straight from the festival circuit – it premiered in Sundance only three months…
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