Want to know what’s coming soon to digital and what to watch right now on Vudu? Here is your weekly guide to the latest releases:
What are the latest new releases to watch right now?
Dry up your tears and wash off the running mascara because The Eyes of Tammy Faye is now available to watch at home for the first time — as a digital purchase on Vudu. The biographical drama features one of the best performances of the year as two-time Academy Award-nominee Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) portrays the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker in all her glam and glory, as well as her shame. She’s got the voice and makeup down perfectly but it’s never a caricature.
Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man) is also pretty good as her corrupted husband, Jim Bakker, in the depiction of the couple’s rise and fall during the peak era of religious celebrity, while Cherry Jones deserves praise in the thankless role of Tammy Faye’s hard-to-please mother. Buy it now and see why Chastain is likely to earn her third Oscar nomination this year.
Speaking of awards contenders, The Alpinist is also new to Vudu, available to rent or purchase digitally. The film was recently nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Sports Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and features climber Alex Honnold, subject of the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo.
The focus of The Alpinist, though, is another climber: Marc-André Leclerc, a free-spirited Canadian considered to be the best in the very difficult area of mountaineering known as alpinism. Sadly, he died while doing what he loved, and he also left behind a lot of questions that the documentary digs into.
What movies are great to pair with those new releases?
The best movie to pair with The Eyes of Tammy Faye is the documentary of the same name that inspired the biopic. Narrated by RuPaul and directed by the duo behind Party Monster and Inside Deep Throat who also produce RuPaul’s Drag Race, the film covers the same story only with actual footage of the Bakkers — some of which was re-created for the new dramatic version.
I also recommend pairing The Eyes of Tammy Faye with any of the following recent biopics: I, Tonya, about disgraced figure skater Tonya Harding; The Social Network, which also co-stars Andrew Garfield; The People vs. Larry Flynt, which also features Reverend Jerry Falwell as a character. Plus, you should check out Chastain’s previous and very, very different Oscar-nominated performances in The Help and Zero Dark Thirty.
As for The Alpinist, you’ll want to make a double feature with that and Free Solo, the Oscar-winning documentary following Alex Honnold. If you want more climbing documentaries, there’s also Meru (from the directors of Free Solo) and Fine Lines, which features Honnold and director Free Solo co-director Jimmy Chin as well. Jennifer Peedom’s Mountain is another one worth watching, and it’s available for free on Vudu this month.
Are there any other big movies coming out this week?
Clint Eastwood’s latest movie, Cry Macho, arrives on Vudu this Friday, November 5. The 91-year-old filmmaker and actor also stars in the neo-Western character-driven drama as a former rodeo star who takes a job escorting his former boss’s teenage son (Eduardo Minett) home from Mexico. Dwight Yoakam (Panic Room) co-stars as the father. You can pre-order the movie today.
What are some great movies about families to buy this week?
Get ready for Thanksgiving later this month by spending time with memorable film families this week. Vudu has a sale on movies about dysfunctional families, and I have some favorites to recommend Ron Howard’s ensemble drama Parenthood, Rian Johnson’s mystery flick Knives Out, the Coen brothers comedy classic Raising Arizona, the Wes Anderson duo of The Royal Tenenbaums and The Darjeeling Limited, Park Chan-wook’s Stoker and Ruben Östlund’s bad dad drama Force Majeure.
And speaking of families, Vudu also has a Family Nostalgia sale full of titles you’ll want to watch with your own real close relatives. Movies included in this group include these picks I love to watch with my own kids: The Wizard of Oz, the Disney classics Swiss Family Robinson, The Parent Trap and Mary Poppins, the teenage adventure The Goonies, the mystery comedy Clue, the sports-driven favorites The Karate Kid and Space Jam and the animated features An American Tail and Charlotte’s Web.
Are we celebrating any big movie and TV anniversaries this week?
This week marks the 20th anniversary of the London premiere of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, first installment of the long-running Harry Potter series and now Wizarding World franchise. It’s also the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Robert Altman’s Gosford Park and the theatrical releases of Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. and the Jet Li action movie The One, plus the broadcast debut of the action-drama TV series 24.
Turning 25 this week are Baz Luhrmann’s take on Romeo + Juliet, as well as the Kurt Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night while Jodie Foster’s Little Man Tate, Wes Craven’s The People Under the Stairs and Mike Newell’s Enchanted April all turn 30.
Going back further, Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits was released in the U.S. 40 years ago this week. Also, John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 turns 45, the musical Fiddler on the Roof turns 50, Francois Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 turns 55, the John Wayne action-Western drama The Comancheros turns 60 and the Disney nature documentary Secrets of Life turns 65.
More recent titles with anniversaries include Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, which turns 15, and Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar turns 10 alongside The Muppets, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas, Tower Heist and Steven Soderbergh’s Haywire. Also, it’s already been 5 years since the releases of Marvel’s Doctor Strange, the award-winning war movie Hacksaw Ridge, the DreamWorks animated feature Trolls and Jeff Nichols’ historical drama Loving!
Can you recommend some more great movie deals on Vudu?
With Cry Macho coming out on digital this Friday, Vudu will have a mix & match deal on other Clint Eastwood movies. And speaking of Eastwood, there’s already a sale on Westerns going on with such Clint classics as The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, Unforgiven, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, High Plains Drifter and The Outlaw Josey Wales and Pale Rider — which are both also available together in a bundle. Be sure to get some non-Eastwood essentials, too!
The latest Actor’s Spotlight deals focus on the films of Oscar-winner Tom Hanks, Oscar-nominees Salma Hayek and Don Cheadle, and likely future Oscar-nominee Kristen Stewart. Here are my recommendations for under-seen or under-appreciated picks from each: early Tom Hanks dramedies Punchline and Nothing in Common, for Hanks; Savages and Tale of Tales, for Hayek; The Guard and The Family Man, for Cheadle; and Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, for Stewart.
What are the 10 most popular movies on Vudu?
After four weeks on the top of the chart, Free Guy is still going strong in third place this week while the animated sequel The Addams Family 2 took over as the most popular movie on Vudu for the past seven days. Others either new or returned to the list include the comic book movies The Suicide Squad and Black Widow, the horror sequels Don’t Breathe 2 and Candyman and the Matt Damon drama Stillwater.
See the full top 10 list below.
1. The Addams Family 2
2. The Suicide Squad
3. Free Guy
4. Old
5. Black Widow
6. Don’t Breathe 2
7. Stillwater
8. After We Fell
9. Candyman
10. Jungle Cruise
