Some recent movies to stream….or not.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It starts like a game of Clue. First there’s the scene of the crime. Then there’s the murder weapon. Then everything goes haywire. Eventually we question the murder itself — before or after the dead man wakes.

The story starts with a well-meaning young priest: a former boxer who once killed a man in the ring. He is assigned to be the number two at a small church in New York State. The number one is a manipulative, insulting spiritual dictator who has reduced his congregation to a small group of suspect characters. And suspects are what they will become.

Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig) is the Hercule Poirot of this mystery which will recall Agatha Christie. Is he on the verge of a brilliant reveal? Or has he lost the plot? True to form for the genre, it is the most innocent looking who you suspect of being guilty and vice versa.

This third of the Knives Out mysteries boosts a strong cast. And it works in a touch of humor and social commentary while pushing you toward the edge of your seat.

(Available on Netflix)\

If I had Legs I’d Kick You ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

If the lead character Linda had legs she’d kick: her husband, her daughter’s doctor, her therapist, her patients (yes, she’s a therapist too), her landlord who won’t fix the giant hole in her ceiling, the clerk in the motel where she’s staying waiting for repairs, the parking garage attendant and the fellow motel resident who tries to be nice and help her get drugs (yes, that’s ASAP Rocky).

Linda does in fact have legs. What she doesn’t have is the wherewithal to deal with all of the aforementioned life pressures. So she rants, shouts, fights with everybody, hides and drinks. 

Watching this woman spiral downward as a parent, wife, and therapist may not sound like good entertainment but this movie is so much better than my description would lead you to believe. There’s some interesting techniques used by the director like not showing the face of the ill child and dreams of scenarios that are even worse. The movie generates a constant tension. Will Linda do something yet more self-destructive or will she rally?

We’ve all had bad days when parenting, housing and job-related problems seemed overwhelming. You won’t learn how to handle that by watching this movie but it might give you a boost to know you didn’t kick anybody.

(Rent or purchase from Prime Video or Apple TV)

Nuremberg ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A young army psychologist is sent to Nuremberg to treat the Nazi officials who are about to stand trial. His assignment: keep them from killing themselves before they’re tried and likely executed.

The movie explores the relationship between the psychologist, Douglas Kelley, and Herman Goring, Hitler’s second in command and the highest ranking Nazi at Nuremberg. Like any psychologist, I suppose, Kelley works to earn the trust of his prisoner/patient. He does. He befriends him. He runs letters back and forth to Goring’s wife and daughter. And he betrays him. There are times when I felt the movie was humanizing Goring which was uncomfortable.

Speaking of which, parts of this film are hard to watch. There are horrific scenes, shown at the Nuremberg trial, of what the allies found when they entered the concentration camps. And there’s some gut-wrenching stories told.

The movie is based on the book “The Nazi and the Psychologist.” I felt some things could be a stretch. Was Kelley really a key factor in Goring’s conviction? Was the American prosecutor Robert Jackson really such a bumbler? And what about the part where Kelley spills the beans about Goring to a very attractive journalist he meets in a bar?

The movie is heavy and emotional. It’s full of history that there is no doubt about. And it raises important questions. One is the limits of confidentiality in a doctor/patient relationship. And more importantly the issue of how something like this could happen. You can’t consider that and not think of some of the stuff happening now.

(Rent or purchase from Prime Video or Apple TV)

Sentimental Value ⭐️⭐️

A dreary affair, dripping with family angst. The family is Gustav Borg and his two daughters. Borg is a filmmaker of note who has been inactive for the last decade. Nora, the older daughter, is an actor with stage fright who nonetheless seems to get leading roles on local theater productions. Her sister Agnes is the voice of reason in this group with a husband and daughter of her own.

Oh, one more thing about this family. Borg apparently flew the coop and disappeared while the girls were growing up.  So when he shows up after their mother’s death with a plan to produce one more movie, a movie about Nora that he wants her to star in, he is not what you’d call welcomed with open arms. Instead, a lifetime’s worth of anger and resentment surfaces.

Behind a tale of relationship trial and error, the stories of three generations of this family are told. It is a story that includes persecution, torture and suicide.

There is some sentimental value mixed in with all the anxiety. But it’s a slow churn. The pacing reminds me of Ingmar Bergman. (Nothing else does.)  Don’t get too comfortable on the couch if you want to make it to the end of this one.

(Rent or purchase from Prime Video or AppleTV)