Joey Magidson
Welcome back to my Home Movies! Today, we have back to back weeks of Steven Soderbergh taking top honors. Last week, it was Black Bag. This week? It’s Presence, which marks his other early 2025 release. What else is hitting shelves, in addition to a pair of Criterion Collection releases celebrating the collaborations of Richard E. Grant and Bruce Robinson? Well, you can read on to find out…
Joey’s Top Pick
Presence
Steven Soderbergh never plays it safe. So, when he attempted a horror movie with Presence, the results were anything but generic. The more I’ve sat with this one, the more I’ve been struck by subtle elements of the flick. In some ways, it’s as experimental as Soderbergh has been in some time. My review from back at the Toronto International Film Festival last year (here) began like so:
Watching Steven Soderbergh experiment is always an interesting experience. He plays with form and upends expectations more or less no matter what he’s making. So, seeing him enter the realm of horror obviously is going to make for something unique. While one can draw comparisons to A Ghost Story, Presence is a different beast, both more unusual and more mainstream, depending on the scene. Playing on Day One of the Toronto International Film Festival, it’s an interesting movie that occasionally suggests something more.
Presence manages to be extremely confident in its experimental nature. It’s only when things get more traditional, or when the film takes a hard turn in the final section, that it feels like a lesser work. However, when it comes to Soderbergh, even a lesser work is still one more than worthy of serious consideration.
Also Available This Week
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (4K)
Jason X (4K)
A Knight’s Tale (4K)
Oliver! (4K)
Criterion Corner
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
From The Criterion Collection: “Writer-director Bruce Robinson and star Richard E. Grant, the cracked comic geniuses behind the cult favorite Withnail and I, reteamed for this diabolically dark satire of runaway capitalism in Margaret Thatcher–era England. Grant gives a virtuosically crazed performance as an ambitious advertising exec whose latest assignment—devising a campaign for a pimple cream—has him on the edge of a nervous breakdown. When he sprouts an enormous boil on his shoulder—one that not only talks but has evil ambitions of its own—a twisted battle of wills ensues. With fantastically fleshy body-horror effects and flourishes of gonzo surrealism, this tour de force of verbal jousting and physical comedy is a caustic Jekyll-and-Hyde tale for the greed-is-good 1980s.”
–
Withnail and I
From The Criterion Collection: “The ultimate cult British comedy, Bruce Robinson’s semi-autobiographical cinematic bender is a feast of delectably florid dialogue delivered with deadpan relish by stars Richard E. Grant and Paul McGann as, respectively, Withnail and “I,” a pair of perpetually soused, unemployed actors in 1960s London who, desperate to escape their nightmarishly grimy flat, embark on a hilariously misbegotten country getaway beset by menacing locals, bare cupboards, and a randy uncle—all of which they may be able to withstand as long as they don’t run out of alcohol. While Robinson’s dazzling script yields quotable moments galore, it’s the film’s bittersweet evocation of a friendship gradually unraveling that gives this beloved end-of-youth tale its lasting poignancy.”
Stay tuned for more next week…
Comments
Loading…