Actress Julianne Moore brings nuance to role of Alzheimer’s struggler
What’s new to watch this week on pay-per-view and streaming services:
Pay-Per-View / Video On Demand
Julianne Moore won her first Academy Award for “Still Alice,” playing a renowned linguistics professor who is diagnosed with a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease while in the prime of a rich and happy life. It veers between familiar disease-of-the-week drama and touching portrait of a smart, resilient woman helplessly watching her identity disappear. Moore’s committed and nuanced performance makes it work; her whole body seems to deflate as she deteriorates. Alec Baldwin and Kristen Stewart co-star. Rated PG-13 for language.
“Every Secret Thing,” a thriller with Elizabeth Banks investigating the disappearance of a young girl and Dakota Fanning as a prime suspect, and “Slow West,” a dark Western starring Michael Fassbender, are available on Cable On Demand the same day they open in select theaters. Both are rated R.
Netflix
“ Fruitvale Station” (2013), which won two top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival, reminds us of the human life behind the news story. Michael B. Jordan plays 22-year-old Oscar Grant, a single father and petty drug dealer in Oakland trying to get his life together, who was killed in an unprovoked shooting by transit officers on early New Year’s Day 2009. A touching and provocative drama. R for violence, drug use, and language.
Tommy Lee Jones is “ The Homesman,” a “no-account drifter” saved from a lynching by a tough, capable settler (played by Hilary Swank) in exchange for help transporting three afflicted women across the unforgiving plains. This elemental, at times tragic 2014 frontier drama deserves a second look. R for violence and brief nudity.
“The Identical” (2014), featuring Ray Liotta and Ashley Judd, is a Christian-themed drama about an Elvis-like figure and his twin brother (PG), and “ The Liberator” (2013) is a historical epic from Venezuela starring Édgar Ramírez as 19th century South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar (in Spanish, French, and English with subtitles).
New nonfiction: “ Anita,” a portrait of Anita Hill directed by Oscar-winning documentarian Freida Lee Mock; “ Meet the Mormons,” profiles of six members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; and “Give Me Shelter,” a look at the abuse and neglect of animals in the pet industry, factory farming, and in the wild.
Amazon Instant Prime
“ Defiance: Season 2” – SyFy’s original series, set in a devastated future where humans and alien invaders live together in a shaky détente, is like science fiction in the Wild West frontier. This season, the independent frontier town is taken over by a dubious self-proclaimed government.