In this week’s long review I consider the latest Blu-Ray release from the Criterion Collection: a two-disc set collecting three screen adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s classic short story “The Killers” (directed by Robert Siodmak in 1946, Andrei Tarkovsky in 1956, and Don Siegel in 1964). And Ben Sachs takes a look at Samba, the latest interracial drama by French writer-directors Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano (The Intouchables).
Opening this week and freshly reviewed: All of Me, a documentary about Mexican villagers who prepare food for the migrants passing through by rail; 54: The Director’s Cut, a new restoration of the 1998 drama about Studio 54 and its flamboyant owner, Steve Rubell (Mike Myers, believe it or not); It’s Trad, Dad!, a madcap British musical comedy from 1962 that served as Richard Lester’s audition reel for the Beatles; Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation, the latest entry in Tom Cruise’s signature action franchise; Number One Fan, a creepy thriller that screens at Music Box as part of the Chicago French Film Festival; Paper Towns, a teenage romance from the folks who brought you The Fault in Our Stars; A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, the final installment in the deadpan comedy trilogy of Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson (You, the Living); The Stanford Prison Experiment, a dramatic re-creation of the notorious 1971 psychological study that cast college students as prisoners and prison guards; and Vacation, a sequel to the 1983 Harold Ramis comedy National Lampoon’s Vacation.
Best bets for repertory: Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Saturday and Tuesday at Gene Siskel Film Center; David and Albert Maysles’s Grey Gardens (1976), Saturday and Wednesday at Film Center; Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), Saturday afternoon at Film Center; and The Lost World (1925), with stop-motion animation by Willis O’Brien (King Kong), next Thursday at the Pickwick in Park Ridge as part of the Silent Summer Film Festival.
