Film Shorts: Valley Cinemas, Streaming, The Worx

It's still a Star Wars New Year at Valley Cinemas, as Star Wars: The Force Awakens stays on for a fourth almost unprecedented week. It's joined by The Revenant, Oscar-winner Alejandro González Iñárritu's film about Hugh Glass, the historical figure who scouted for trappers in Montana and thereabouts in the early 1800s.

For the past few seasons and for the foreseeable future, we've been surrounded by remakes and reboots. That man from U.N.C.L.E., James Bond, the Mission Impossible team. The Hateful Eight is more or less a remake of Reservoir Dogs, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a remake of Star Wars (1977). Soon we'll be getting Twin Peaks and The X-Files again, plus the latest iterations of comic book franchises.

Even The Revenant is a remake of sorts, as it tells the same tale as the 1971 cult film Man in the Wilderness, with Richard Harris. But at least The Revenant has something new to say about survival, race relations, and revenge. As Hugh Glass struggles to get back to the fort, he confronts visions of his wife and real short-term friends, enemies, and helpful hands.

Leonardo DiCaprio is stirring in a mostly wordless role, and the photography of Oscar-winner Emmanuel Lubezki is a moral statement of its own, as his camera glides as if on a drone linking everything – human beings, nature's hostility, and the hatreds of people – into one inextricable landscape. The Revenant is a must-see.

January is a dull month for new movies, historically, but great for streaming shows and films on your computer or Blu-Ray High-Def setup.

Netflix is adding TV shows such as the Angry Birds cartoon for the kids, and for adults the ESPN 30 for 30 sports documentary Four Falls of Buffalo.

Among the movie offerings are Training Day (Jan. 4), the Coen brothers remake, The Ladykillers (Jan. 12), and the weather-appropriate series Frozen Planet (Jan. 28).

Hulu is coming up with The X-Files, Season 10 (Jan. 25) in anticipation of the revived show appearing on the Fox channel around the same time. Was Fox Mulder named after the network?

For movies, the service is offering Catch-22 directed by the late Mike Nichols from the Heller novel, and platooned with a wide cast of eccentric '70s character actors, and the suspenseful true crime documentary The Thin Blue Line (Jan. 7).

Amazon Prime is providing Dazed and Confused, the wise teen comedy set in Texas, and introducing many future stars, and Margin Call (as of Jan. 4), the gripping film about one day in the life of an economic crisis. Bone Tomahawk (as of Jan. 1), the eccentric western, Roger Corman's fascinating The St. Valentine's Day Massacre from 1967, and the underappreciated comedy Hot Tub Time Machine (Jan. 9) also appear.

For TV there is season six of the culture referential The Venture Brothers. Followed later by its big TV debut American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson (Jan. 18).

Showtime has a new original series that has good advance word, though that is rarely to be trusted these days, Billions, about an entrepreneur versus an investigator.

On Jan. 22, it's offering the nostalgic documentary Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon.

HBO has Mad Max: Fury Road (Jan. 9) and The Godfather Epic (Jan. 17).

The Worx, the local video shop at 700 1/2 1st Ave N (228-4474), has two excellent films this week. The Walk came and went from the screens quickly, and that's where this otherwise-3-D movie about the acrobat who crossed the then-unopened Twin Towers on a tightrope, but after a shaky start, the film tells an interesting story about obsession.

Also on hand is one of the best films of last year, Sicario, about a federal cop who is drawn into a complex conspiracy between governments and crooks at the Mexican border. The film has superb photography by Roger Deakins.

At the Glasgow City-County Library (408 3rd Ave S, 228-2731), you can find Crazy Heart, the story of an on the rocks country singer who finds inspiration in a young performer, with Jeff Bridges turning in an Oscar winning performance.