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The Lost City of Z, pronounced “zed”, is based on the life of British explorer Percy Fawcett.

In 1905, British Army Major Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) is asked by the Royal Geographical Society to act as a referee between Bolivia and Brazil and map out the border between the two countries. Fawcett agrees to the arduous journey because success would mean his vindication as the son of a disgraced ex-military man. He is joined by his appointed aide-de-camp Henry Costin (Robert Pattinson) on his dangerous mission to Amazonia, where apart from the starvation, infernal heat, hostile indigenous Indian tribes, and wild animals, they find evidence of advanced, non-white civilizations. Despite being ridiculed by the scientific establishment who regard indigenous populations as “savages,” the determined Fawcett, supported by his devoted wife (Sienna Miller) and Costin, returns time and again to his beloved jungle in his attempt to prove his case. His last trip is in 1925 with his now grown son (Tom Holland) acting as his aide de camp. He and his son disappear. Did they die or did they discover the lost city from which they do not want to leave?

The most ambitious film to date from director James Gray (The Immigrant), the film is a rather old-fashioned adventure of the sort that was popular in the 1930s (Stanley and Livingstone, Suez), albeit with the grander look of Werner Herzog’s 1970s epics (Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Fitzcaraldo). You would have to go back to Bob Rafelson’s 1990 film, Mountains of the Moon about Capt. Francis Burton and Lt. John Hanning Speke’s 19th Century expedition to find the source of the Nile, to find a film of similar ambition and scope.

As with all of Gray’s films, it is finely acted by its cast, particularly by Hunnam in his best big screen performance since 2002’s Nicholas Nickleby, which provided a stellar supporting role to the original Billy Elliott Jamie Bell. Tom Holland, who plays Hunnam’s son here, came to fame in the London musical version of Billy Elliott and can be seen in a guest appearance in 2014’s Billy Elliott: The Musical Live. This, however, is not the current Tom Holland film everyone is talking about. That would be Spider-Man: Homecoming. This one, though, is nevertheless worth catching.

The Lost City of Z is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

With the release of Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated Dunkirk just days away, the home video release of Lone Sherfig’s Their Finest is extremely well timed.

The new film from the director of An Education is a bittersweet film about the making of a 1940 British film about the then recent evacuation of Dunkirk. The purpose of the film is to arouse sympathy from America to join the allies in the war at a time when movies from and about Britain focused on the lives of the upper classes, not the middle-class heroes who would be the emphasis of the film.

Incongruously sold as a comedy, the film, based on the novel Their Finest Hour and a Half, is a dramatic work infused with dark humor to relieve the tragedy that occurs throughout.

Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace) stars as a fledgling writer in the film branch of the British Ministry of Information who is slow to accede to the affections of her fellow writer, a de-glamourized Sam Claflin in glasses and moustache, while buttressing the bruised ego of fading star Bill Nighy, and the continued nurturing of her live-in lover, artist Jack Huston. Scenes of destruction abound as German bombs fall all over London during the Blitz.

The film and the film within a film come together brilliantly in the film’s climax, set in a London movie house in this very fine film about the art of making movies then as now.

Their Finest is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Long unavailable in the U.S., Olive Films has released Nicholas Ray’s 1960 film, The Savage Innocents on Blu-ray.

Highly controversial and long decried as an inaccurate portrayal of the Inuit (Eskimo) life, the film nevertheless provided Anthony Quinn with one of the three films he was most proud of, the other two being La Strada and Zorba the Greek.

Quinn plays a newly married Inuit who is befriended by a missionary priest and is insulted when the priest declines Quinn’s offer of sleeping with his wife, resulting in Quinn’s accidentally killing him. Pursued by two policemen (Peter O’Toole, Carlo Guistini), Quinn saves O’Toole’s life who in turn must decide whether to arrest him. For some odd reason, O’Toole’s voice was dubbed by an unknown American actor resulting in O’Toole’s demanding his name be removed from the credits.

The film opened in New York to mixed reviews as the second half of a Paramount double bill with the Dean Martin-Shirley MacLaine comedy, All in a Night’s Work. Ray, the legendary director of Johnny Guitar and Rebel Without a Cause would direct just two more films, King of Kings and 55 Days at Peking.

Criterion has released a Blu-ray restoration of Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy consisting of Rome Open City, Paisan, and Germany Year Zero.

The term “neorealism” was coined to describe the making of Rome Open City in the waning days of World War II. The unflinching tribute to the men and women of the resistance starred beloved Italian music hall star Aldo Fabrizi as the priest and fiery Anna Magnani as the martyred mother, both at the top of their craft. Named one of 1946’s ten best films by the National Board of Review, Magnani received their award for Best Actress.

The equally unforgettable Paisan is about the Allied invasion of Italy from Sicily in July 1943 to Venice in winter 1944. Named Best Picture of 1947 by the National Board of Review, Rossellini received his only Oscar nomination for Best Story and Screenplay for this one.

The desperate life of a 12-year-old boy in war ravaged Germany is the subject of Germany Year Zero, which the National Board of Review named as one of the ten best film of 1949, the year it gave their Best Picture award to fellow Italian filmmaker Vittorio de Sica’s Bicycle Thieves.

This week’s new releases include Grantchester Season 3 and the Blu-ray upgrade of Stormy Monday.

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