5 things to watch this weekend – 16 to 18 August

Where’s it on? Eureka Classics Blu-ray

“You touch that switch and I’ll tear your arm off.” The first words spoken by Martin Sheen in his cinematic career, introduced in Larry Peerce’s The Incident as one half of a sociopathic duo terrorising passengers on the New York subway. It’s a neat find by team Eureka, and hits UK Blu-ray looking better than it likely ever has. Structurally and generically, it plays somewhere between disaster movie and home invasion flick, using most of its first hour to introduce the various passengers of the train, before bringing them all together in the fateful carriage for Sheen and cohort Tony Musante’s arrival. The message of passivity in the face of violence and the gallery of archetypes populating the carriage may want for subtlety, but the filmmaking is stark and confrontationally effective. A fresh-faced Beau Bridges also stars, unbelievably by 1967 already a screen veteran of almost two decades.

Where’s it on? Barbican, London

While it’s been readily available online in barely watchable quality for some years, Robert Frank’s snorts-n-all account of the Rolling Stones’ US tour in support of their Exile on Main St. album rarely gets a big screen outing. Said scarcity is the result of a court order that has prevented the film from being screened more than four times a year, and only in the presence of its director. Quite what the deal is with this outing at the Barbican is anyone’s guess, but what an opportunity. “Except for the musical numbers, the events depicted in this film are fictitious,” reads the opening title card, in part the band’s disclaimer that the on screen drug use was faked – even if Frank later admitted staging the groupie sex scenes aboard the band’s jet, The Lapping Tongue. At its best when Mick and co get away from the backstage circus – as in a southern road trip to shoot pool with Muddy Waters – Cocksucker Blues may be no Gimme Shelter (1970), as far as the music goes, but it’s still a far cry from the band-approved merch-docs they churn out with every tour these days.

Where’s it on? Eureka Classics Blu-ray

Two car dealerships on opposite sides of the street, run by competing twins (Jack Warden, both) form the battleground for Robert Zemeckis’ obscenely entertaining sophomore feature, made at the turn of the decade he’d achieve huge commercial success with Romancing the Stone (1984) and Back to the Future (1985). Kurt Russell is the hotshot salesman, desperate to prevent a hostile takeover when his boss kicks the bucket, effecting a Weekend at Bernie’s-style coup to fool the dead man’s brother. Zemeckis’ formal virtuosity is already in full flight just two films in, from his pile-on of opening gambits to the pile-up of the finale’s demolition derby. “A Frank Capra comedy where everybody lies,” Zemeckis calls the film in his essential commentary, taking satirical aim at blue collar capitalism, while serving up an irresistible antihero happy to use the bodies of suckers as a boost to political ambition. Zemeckis’ best film? You’ll find little argument here.

Where’s it on? Arrow Academy Blu-ray

1999 seems to be getting all the press these days, so what better opportunity to revisit one its most (belatedly) beloved cases, courtesy of Arrow Academy. In memory, Being John Malkovich is a meta-curio that followed on the heels of Wes Craven’s Scream (1996), albeit with idiosyncratic hipster credentials. In retrospect, while the opening act amps up the non-sequitur weirdness, the film’s long game feels much more confrontational in its melancholic, disembodied force. For the 1% that might not know the set-up, it involves a disheartened puppeteer (John Cusack) discovering a portal into the mind of John Malkovich, allowing him – and paying customers – to experience the actor’s day-to-day existence for 15 minutes at a time. Ultimately, the feature directorial debut of Spike Jonze (and the first produced screenplay by Charlie Kaufman) charts a darker, humanised path into loneliness and the metaphysical anxieties of its protagonists, not least when it comes to the trans-narrative of Cameron Diaz. A film with much more to say than has so far been said, this one – twenty years after the fact – still looks like a grower.

Where’s it on? Netflix

Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra came to international attention when his black and white, hallucinatory plunge into the depths of the Amazon, Embrace of the Serpent (2015) secured an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language film. His follow-up, Birds of Passage (2018) – an unexpected drug war epic and passion project years in the making – earned him and his co-director, Cristina Gallego an Honourable Mention at last year’s London Film Festival awards ceremony. Now he’s turned his attention to the small screen, delivering an eight-episode limited series for Netflix which hits the service in its entirety today. Set in the Amazon again, at the border between Colombia and Brazil, Green Frontier is a crime thriller whose official synopsis promises ‘magic, an evil plot… and Nazis.’ The two episodes we’ve seen suggest a jungle True Detective (2014-), heavy with psychedelic tribal mysticism and ritual, and richly atmospheric.