‘Get On Up’ (March 16)
The current vogue of jukebox biopics shows no sign of slowing, thanks to the impressive grosses of films like “Bob Marley: One Love,” even though most of these dramas are still trafficking in tropes that should have been decimated by the pitch-perfect satire of “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” a decade and a half ago. But credit where due: Tate Taylor’s biopic about the “Godfather of Soul,” the hardest-working man in show business, the one and only James Brown, zigs where most of these movies would zag. The inventive screenplay by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth hopscotches through his life, eschewing the cradle-to-grave march of so many biopics for a more stream-of-consciousness approach, with Brown frequently breaking the fourth wall to address his audience (and comment on the action) directly. There are some telling erasures, personally and politically, but the picture moves fast, and is loaded with great songs (Mick Jagger is a producer of both the film and its music). Also top-notch is its ensemble cast, including Dan Aykroyd, Nelsan Ellis, Craig Robinson, Jill Scott and Tate’s “The Help” stars Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, and Chadwick Boseman convincingly fills Brown’s (big, tall) shoes.
‘Savages’ (March 16)
After a rough run in the early 2000s, the director Oliver Stone took a shot at recapturing some of his “Natural Born Killers” juju with this 2012 adaptation of Don Winslow’s crime novel. It’s not altogether successful — mostly because of the severe lack of charisma and danger from its stars, Taylor Kitsch and Aaron Taylor-Johnson — but Stone keeps things moving at a brisk pace, and gets excellent late-period performances out of three key supporting players: John Travolta, as a cheerfully corrupt D.E.A. agent; Benicio Del Toro, as an utterly amoral enforcer for a Mexican drug cartel; and best of all, Salma Hayek as the head of the cartel, turning her customary purring sexiness into eye-opening menace.
‘John Wick’ (Chapters 1-3) (March 30)
Stream “John Wick” here, “John Wick: Chapter 2” here and “John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum” here.
It’s safe to say that when “John Wick” quietly slipped into theaters in the fall of 2014, no one expected it to turn into a world-building, big-budget, four-film (and counting) franchise. It seemed like a B-movie at best, distinguishable from straight-to-VOD action flicks only by the presence of Keanu Reeves in the title role — a tale of violence and vengeance from the first-time director Chad Stahelski, best known then as Reeves’s stunt double. But in the first film and its follow-ups, the action sequences are astonishing, the pathos is genuine and the wit is winking. The universe that’s set up for Wick — a former master assassin returning to that world for revenge — and fleshed out with each installment is remarkably clever, masterfully deploying intricate logistics and stellar casts of tiptop character actors.
‘Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)’ (March 31)
A slew of films from the ill-fated “DC Extended Universe” will leave Netflix at the end of March, and very few are worth your time. (“Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” for example, boasts an unpleasantness and incompetence rarely rivaled in recent mainstream moviemaking.) But there is fun to be had in “Birds of Prey,” which spins off Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn from “Suicide Squad” into a candy-colored stand-alone adventure, as she assembles her own crew of tough girls — including Rosie Perez, Jurnee Smollett and Mary Elizabeth Winstead — to take down a vile underworld boss, played to slimy perfection by Ewan McGregor.
‘Community’: Seasons 1-6 (March 31)
The writer Dan Harmon turned his own experiences as a community college student into one of the strangest, funniest and smartest sitcoms of its era — for most of its run, at least. Joel McHale stars as a hotshot, amoral lawyer whose disbarment (for lying about his degree) sends him back to school, where he forms a study group and makes friends (sorta) with a collection of oddballs and burnouts, brought to memorable life by Alison Brie, Yvette Nicole Brown, Chevy Chase, Donald Glover, Gillian Jacobs and Danny Pudi. Slyly mixing character comedy, surrealism and pop-culture satire, the first three seasons fire on all cylinders; skip Season 4, when the show struggled mightily after Harmon was tossed. Though it improved upon Harmon’s return in Season 5, the changes to the original ensemble meant it never quite returned to its previous heights.
