FLIX TO SEE
TOP NEW MOVIES INCLUDE BILLIE HOLIDAY FILM, ‘THE GODFATHER, CODA’AND‘BLACK BEAR’
Here’s a rundown of those films opening this week that Variety has covered, along with links to where you can watch them. Find more movies and TV shows to stream here.
‘The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone’
In select theaters, Blu-ray and digital
Here’s the news and the everso-slight scandal: It’s the same damn movie. The one impactful change is the new opening scene. The film now begins with the let’s-make-a-deal negotiation between Michael and Archbishop Gilday (Donal Donnelly). Taking that scene, which previously came about half an hour in, and moving it to the front gives the film a kick-start, and it clarifies the underworld-meets-Catho
lic-Church-corporate-business plot that didn’t actually need clarifying. Once that happens,
the movie proceeds along in exactly the same way it did before, except that Coppola has made about five minutes’ worth of trims.
‘All My Life’
Now in select theaters; and coming to Netflix Dec. 18
In these highly cynical times, it might be hard to process the true-life tale of a young couple’s romance cut short by terminal illness. But the warmth and touching tenderness of “All My Life” melts even the coldest of hearts in its quest to deliver happy and sad tears. Unlike the phony, syrupy, and predictably manipulative devices of a Nicholas Sparks romance, this three-hankie weepie holds a surprising amount of heart and hope to accompany all the cathartic crying. The dramatic underpinnings of this true-life story function effortlessly without tipping the scales into movieof-the-week melodrama.
‘Billie’
In theaters and On Demand
“I want to know why all the girl singers crack up. They crack up!” That’s Tony Bennett, in voiceover, musing aloud about the fate of the subject of “Billie,” an absorbing new documentary about master jazz singer Billie Holiday. The filmmakers have said they turned a good deal (not all) of that black-andwhite into color to help make Holiday feel vital and relevant to a younger audience. There’s a decent argument to be made for a more purist position, too, but here, having Holiday brought closer to life visually might serve the purpose of making her death feel more tragic, too.
‘Black Bear’
In theaters, On Demand and via digital platforms
Levine’s first two directorial features were idiosyncratic indie hipster comedies of a familiar stripe. His third is a much trickier proposition, a kind of narrative puzzle box in which one might be hard-pressed to find a solution, or even determine there is one. Aubrey Plaza plays an actress turned writer-director of “small, unpopular films” whose latest creative drought lands her on the doorstep of Christopher Abbott and Sarah
Gadon. Rebooting midway to completely reframe its prior storytelling in very meta film-within-a-film-aboutmaking-a-film terms, this
adventurous seriocomedy has enough surprising elements and off-kilter humor to keep one intrigued, even if the payoff is debatable.