Something to watch tonight: Thursday 29 May

Behind the Candelabra (Soderbergh, 2013)

On this day in 2019, I pre­viewed some titles from that year’s DocEdge fest­iv­al and it is dis­pir­it­ing to note that none of those recom­mend­a­tions are cur­rently avail­able online in NZ. All the more reas­on to take a look at the pro­gramme for the 2025 edi­tion and make a book­ing or two. We used to joke about the num­ber of films com­ing back from NZIFF each year, but it is increas­ingly the case that fest­ivals like DocEdge are the only times these films will get a run out here.

Any time a Soderbergh pic­ture arrives on one of the main stream­ing ser­vices, I feel duty bound to point it out so here’s your noti­fic­a­tion that Behind the Candelabra – his Liberace biop­ic (and show­case for what we might sur­pris­ingly call “Matt Damon’s range”) – has just dropped on Prime. I pre­viewed it pri­or to the 2013 New Zealand International Film Festival:

Behind the Candelabra is dir­ec­ted by Steven Soderbergh (pho­to­graphed and edited by him too under his cus­tom­ary ali­ases Peter Andrews and Mary Ann Bernard) from a script by Richard La Gravanese about the pred­at­ory and manip­u­lat­ive romantic prac­tices of the closeted enter­tain­er Liberace. Brilliant Matt Damon plays the spurned lov­er Scott Thorson and Michael Douglas is the dia­mond and fur-clad pian­ist. Everything that Soderbergh does here elev­ates a fairly run-of-the-mill screen­play, and the res­ults are nev­er less than enter­tain­ing. Look out for screen legend Debbie Reynolds and note that this film was the late Marvin Hamlisch’s final screen credit.

Also in that pre­view column: Nicolas Philibert’s won­der­ful doc­u­ment­ary, The House of Radio; Andrew Bujalski’s Computer Chess; Tom Schilling’s Oh Boy, Emir Baigazin’s Harmony Lessons; Curtis Vowell and Sophie Henderson’s Fantail; Roger and Shirley Horrocks’ Venus: A Quest; Kim Mordaunt’s The Rocket (which we’ll come back to here one day); Dylan Mohan Grey’s Fire in the Blood; Dror Moreh’s The Gatekeepers; Sebastian Junger’s Which Way is the Front Line from Here?; Shirley Clarke’s Robert Frost: A Lover’s Quarrel with the World and (newly-minted multi-Oscar-winner) Sean Baker’s Starlet. I was on fire that year!

Saturday is my birth­day so I’m tak­ing tomor­row off (still plan­ning to appear on RNZ at 9.30, no wor­ries there, ED). And Monday is a pub­lic hol­i­day in Aotearoa so the next new releases update will appear on Tuesday.

Where to watch Behind the Candelabra

Aotearoa & Australia: Streaming on Prime Video

Canada: Streaming on Crave

Ireland: Digital rental

India: Streaming on Hotstar

USA: Streaming on Max

UK: Streaming on SundanceNow