Series 7: The Contenders (Starz on Demand)
Frankly, Elio Petri and Peter Watkins were here first, with The 10th Victim (1965) and The Gladiators (1969), respectively. But Minahan's 2001 version of a human-hunting reality show is up-to-date and never drops the could-be-real cannonball, as randomly selected Americans, including pregnant show champ Brooke Smith, run each other down for fame and liberty.
Das Experiment (Starz on Demand)
Another kind of contrived dystopia, this 2001 German film is based loosely on a real U.S. psychological experiment in which men take roles as prisoners and guards in a fake prison, and end up drunk with conflict and at each other's throats, Lord of the Flies-style. Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, known around here for one home run (Downfall) and one big whiff (The Invasion).
Extract (Showtime on Demand)
Mike Judge is a low-brow TV mogul, but it's time we take him seriously as a comic filmmaker. Idiocracy (2006) is the decade's least-seen must-see satire (and the fact that it was barely distributed was no accident), while Office Space (1999) and Extract (2009) are gentle, idiosyncratic, character-driven comedies that failed to draw box office flies (they weren't "events," and you get the sense Judge didn't want them to be), and then both accumulated loyal fans on video and cable. Extract involves Jason Bateman as a sexually frustrated owner of a hardly-working flavor-extract factory, beset by alluring con artists, worker rebellions and other low-boil dilemmas, but the rhythms and textures are everything.
David Lynch's howling version of The Wizard of Oz, or maybe just the estrogenic B-side of Blue Velvet (which may be the same thing). It stars Nicolas Cage doing Elvis, Laura Dern lost in her part and in her pants, and Willem Dafoe getting his stocking-covered head blown clean off. Released in 1990, and like all Lynch movies subject only to its own rules.
The Lark Farm (Eurocinema)
The latest film, unreleased here, by veteran brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, this epic 2007 period piece tackles a still dicey subject in international relations -- the WWI genocide of a million Armenians by the Turks. Fiery and despairing, the film is packed with famous film-fest faces, including Tcheky Karyo, Paz Vega, Moritz Bleibtrau (also the star of Das Experiment), Andre Dussollier, Angela Molina and Mrs. Atom Egoyan, Arsinee Khanjian.
Taking Woodstock (Cinemax on Demand)
Ang Lee's career reads like an EKG, and so after Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution, we should've expected a frivolous, goofy, sideways softball -- which is what this saunter through the American '60s is, Lee focuses on the farm family that rented out the countryside to the eponymous fest, not on the music, the politics, or even Wavy Gravy. For some reason Liev Schrieber shows up wearing a dress and a gun.
Fallen Angels (Cinetic Filmbuff)
Like director Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express, this rambunctious 1995 ode zooms around the tight corners of contemporary Hong Kong with crazy love, involving on one hand an embittered hitman (Leon Lai), whose life migrates anonymously from job to job as proscribed by the Agent (Michele Reis), an efficient gal Friday who sets up his temporary pads, does the paperwork, pays him and is, secretly, in love with him. On the other, a mute and slightly deranged ex-con (Takeshi Kaneshiro) whose ersatz living is made by breaking into shops after closing and maniacally compelling reluctant customers to buy from him. These engaging and often hilarious tales criss-cross at several points; in Wong's Hong Kong, everybody is abandoned and searching -- however super-cool -- for evasive connections.