Oscar-winning editor Hal Ashby ( Harold and Maude ) cut his teeth as a director on this exuberant satire set in a pre-gentrification Park Slope, Brooklyn that no longer exists. By turns whimsical, dark, slapstick and surreal, The Landlord is both a hopelessly dated artifact of its times and a total dead-ringer for the kind of relentlessly quirky films guys like Wes Anderson have been passing off as original work. The script by Bill Gunn (writer-director of the cult classic black vampire film Ganja & Hess ) drips with juicy irony as mop-topped Beau Bridges buys a slum tenement building as an act of rebellion against his upper-crust family and (wouldn’t ya know it?) finds himself drawn into far more intimate relationships with his tenants than originally planned. Lee Grant is a standout as Beau’s waspy mother (in an Oscar-nominated performance), but this is a true ensemble piece with great character work throughout. Netflix copy is a nice widescreen transfer, but not HD.
I Like To Watch (Instantly): The Landlord
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