Blue Moon — Rent or buy Apple TV+
Director Richard Linklater released his French New Wave homage Nouvelle Vague and this tightly controlled but bittersweet chamber piece last year. Blue Moon is about the work and final days of American musical theatre genius Lorenz Hart, played by Ethan Hawke, who shows exceptional sensitivity and range. It is written by Robert Kaplow and draws on letters Hart wrote to a young woman, Elizabeth Weiland. The story plays out like a stage play set in a bar in 1943, after the premier of Oklahoma!. The musical was the first collaboration between Hart’s former partner, Richard Rodgers, and his new writer, Oscar Hammerstein II — one of the most successful partnerships in the history of musical theatre. Hart, who struggled with alcohol for most of his life, died just months later — weighed down by his demons and closeted homosexuality — unable to adjust his talent to the populist sentimentalism of World War 2 audiences. However, he did leave behind a slew of hits, including the one from which the film takes its title.
The Lowdown — Disney Plus
Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo’s comedy noir series takes elements from the works of Kinky Friedman, Elmore Leonard and Jim Thompson and mashes them up into a satisfyingly twisty mystery set in present-day Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is another vehicle for the mid-career talents of Hawke, who plays secondhand bookdealer and self-described Tulsa “truthstorian” Lee Raybon. His articles for a local magazine about the shady dealings of the wealthy Washberg family land him in a web of intrigue linking an apparent suicide, Native American land claims and white Christian nationalists. Hawke’s effortlessly cool performance and smart writing hold it together and keep you guessing until the end.
Bugonia — Rent or buy from Apple TV+
Yorgos Lanthimos reunites with stars Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons for a timely, disturbing drama fuelled by conspiracy theories and mistrust that mirror the absurdities of America in the second Trump era. Plemons plays Teddy, a conspiracy-obsessed everyman who is convinced that Stone’s Big Tech CEO is a representative of an alien super race bent on global mind control. He kidnaps her and holds her hostage until she admits the truth. Grim, even by the standards of Lanthimos’ previous work.
Cover-Up — Netflix
In another universe, the one envisioned for him by his dry-cleaning store owner father, Seymour Hersh may have been just another hard-working son of Jewish immigrants running the family business. Luckily for Hersh fate had other plans. Hersh, gifted with natural writing ability from an early age, entered journalism at the start of the 1960s, a momentous time for American society. He used his stubborn determination and ability to make friends and contacts to become one of the era’s most successful and respected investigative journalists. At the end of the decade, he was the first journalist to report on the shocking events of the Mai Lai massacre in the Vietnam War.
La Chimera — Mubi.com
Director Alice Rohrwacher’s critically acclaimed fever dream of a film stars Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini. The surreal drama features a Fellini-style gallery of memorable characters committed to their mission to steal antique treasures as a means of avoiding the drudgery of work and achieving easy wealth, without necessarily considering what the ultimate psychological and emotional costs may be.
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