Filmstruck offers a Texas-size tribute
The overflowing riches of Texas’ cinematic legacy are on display in “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” a selection of films recently made available for Filmstruck subscribers as part of the streaming service’s everevolving library.
Classic movie buffs will be no strangers to the epic drama of George Stevens’ “Giant” (1956) or the overpowering sadness of Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show” (1971). Lovers of American independent cinema can thrill to two of the most important breakthrough films of the ’80s, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Blood Simple” (1984) and Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” (1989).
That decade looms large in this collection, which includes “The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez” (1982), “The Trip to Bountiful” (1985) and, perhaps best of all, Wim Wenders’ masterpiece, “Paris, Texas” (1984). — Justin Chang Movie recommendations from critics Justin Chang, Kenneth Turan and other reviewers.
Annihilation
Natalie Portman plays a biologist who joins an allfemale expedition into the heart of an environmental disaster zone in this eerily beautiful and hypnotically unsettling mind-bender from “Ex Machina” writerdirector Alex Garland. (Justin Chang) R.
Black Panther
A superhero movie with characters who have integrity and dramatic heft, filled with engaging exploits and credible crises grounded in a vibrant and convincing reality, laced with socially conscious commentary as well as wicked laughs, this is the model of what an involving popular entertainment should be. And even something more. (Kenneth Turan) PG-13.
Call Me by Your Name
Timothée Chalamet and Armie Hammer give superb performances as two young men falling in love in the northern Italian countryside in this rapturously beautiful collaboration between director Luca Guadagnino and screenwriter James Ivory. (Justin Chang) R.
Journey’s End
A tense, absorbing, superbly acted look at a band of British soldiers in World War I as they wait to fight and ultimately battle German troops over the course of several ill-fated days in March 1918 — exactly 100 years ago. (Gary Goldstein) R.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Uncommon writer-director Martin McDonagh and a splendid cast top-lined by Frances McDormand, Woody Harrelson and Sam Rockwell present a savage film, even a dangerous one — the blackest take-no-prisoners farce in quite some time. (Kenneth Turan) R.