“Women of the 20th Century” (June 27)
Writer and director Mike Mills (“Beginners”) based this coming-of-age story in 2016 on his own teenage years and the single mother who raised him. In his film, it’s Dorothea (a great Annette Bening), who rents the guest rooms in her big, chaotic house to William, a handsome carpenter (Billy Crudup), and Abbie, a hip young photographer (Greta Gerwig). Hoping to raise her teenage son to be a sensitive young man, she turns to Abbie and her son’s best friend, Julie (Elle Fanning), for help. The late 1970s backdrop sets the stage for nostalgia, and the sunny Southern California setting promises plenty of good vibes. But Mills isn’t interested in sticking to what was before; this is a confused, complicated accounting.
Stream here
‘Tales of the City’: Season 1 (June 27)
The television adaptations of Armistead Maupin’s richly textured series of San Francisco novels have appeared on a variety of networks for more than two decades, most recently with Netflix’s own revival in 2019. But it all started with that 1993 miniseries in the Mary Ann Singleton (Laura Linney) moves to San Francisco in the summer of 1976. However, she is just one of many fascinating characters in Maupin’s tapestry of Life in a Vibrant Time. Olympia Dukakis, Barbara Garrick, Mary Kay Place, Ian McKellen, Janeane Garofalo and Chloe Webb belong to the bulging ensemble.
Stream here
‘A Bridge Too Far’ (June 30th)
This 1977 World War II epic poem by Richard Attenborough is like the who’s who of the ’70s stars: Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Elliot Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford Red, and Liv Ullmann all show up, and even if few of them share scenes, indulging in the movie star’s sheer performance is still fun. Connery makes the most of his time as a major in the British Airborne Division realizing the seemingly tough mission may not be successful. But Hopkins quietly steals several scenes as a gentleman commanding officer, whose manners occasionally disrupt his mission.
Stream here
‘Bonnie and Clyde’ (June 30th)
“This is Miss Bonnie Parker and I’m Clyde Barrow,” says Warren Beatty. “We’re robbing banks.” And they did so across the United States during the Great Depression, when the desperation of the time turned them from common criminals to folk heroes. This 1967 crime drama by Arthur Penn took that mythologization even further, filling the title roles with glamorous movie stars (Faye Dunaway plays Bonnie) and telling her story with a style and moral malleability borrowed from European art cinema. The results changed American filmmaking and spawned a new movement of intricate antihero and cinematic experimentation.
Stream here
