The Pope of Greenwich Village — Prime Video
Director Stuart Rosenberg’s cult favourite buddy crime caper is more than just a reminder of the gritty anxiety of 1980s’ New York and the boyish charms of Mickey Rourke — two things that sadly no longer exist.
Adapted from his own novel by Vincent Patrick, the story follows the misadventures of two cousins — Charlie (Rourke) and Paulie (Eric Roberts) — one trying to get by as best he can, the other always looking for shortcuts. When an ill-advised heist puts them in the sights of the local mob bosses, things start going from terrible to potentially fatal. The film has gained a deserved cult following over the years and served as a key reference for David Chase when he created The Sopranos.
Welcome to LA — Prime Video
Robert Altman produced this feature debut from Alan Rudolph, who went on to carve his own niche as a sharp and tender observer of the era’s complicated romantic relationships and self-indulgence.
Featuring a star-studded cast, including Keith Carradine, Harvey Keitel, Geraldine Chaplin and Sissy Spacek, it’s a relationship dramedy that also serves as a bittersweet love letter to a Los Angeles that now exists only on celluloid.
African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama — Mubi.com
May is Africa month and Mubi has curated a selection of African masterpieces that showcase the wide variety and history of the continent’s cinema, including Youssef Chahine’s 1954 Egyptian drama The Blazing Sun, Med Hondo’s blistering 1970 essay Oh, Sun, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s 2002 classic Abouna and Mauritanian legend Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako from 2006. There’s plenty of proof that many of the continent’s filmmakers have managed to persevere, despite many obstacles, and tell their own stories on their own terms.
52 Pick-Up — Prime Video
John Frankenheimer, the 1960s-era thriller master, was out of fashion in 1986 when he teamed up with the notorious maniacs at the infamous Cannon Group to produce this slow-boiling adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s 1974 bungling criminal caper noir.
Roy Scheider is Harry Mitchell, a wealthy LA construction magnate married to Barbara (Ann-Margret), who is about to enter local politics. When Harry is blackmailed by a gang of stick-up artists who have evidence of his extra-marital activities, he’s determined to show them that they’ve messed with the wrong rich guy, and best-laid plans soon start to unravel.
House of Games — Prime Video
Before he became a raving lunatic and die-hard Trump evangelist, David Mamet was the leading light of the new emerging voice of the 1980s US theatre scene.
This 1987 debut feature, written and directed by Mamet, served as the upstart playwright’s calling card for a new chapter as one of the next decade’s most distinctive and compelling directors of distinctively twisted psychological puzzles and sharply scripted indie films.
Lindsay Crouse stars as a psychiatrist who attempts to assist a compulsive gambler patient and finds herself drawn into a complex web of smoke and mirrors woven by long-time Mamet collaborator Joe Mantegna’s smooth-talking conman.
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