Another round of titles is ready to join the ranks of the 4xblu online store’s offerings. Today’s additions consist of Paul Schrader’s “The Comfort of Strangers,” Hammer Horror’s Seth Holt-directed “The Nanny,” and James Gray’s “The Yards.”
James Gray burst onto the scene with “Little Odessa,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival when he was only 25 years old. With his subsequent work — masterfully crafted character studies set in and around the working class neighborhoods of his native New York — he’s developed a devoted following overseas, especially in France, where it seems he’s practically a household name. For his follow-up to “Little Odessa” Gray helmed “The Yards,” in which Mark Wahlberg plays Leo, a guy desperate for a job after getting out of jail. He approaches his uncle (a big shot contractor played by James Caan), but instead of work he’s only offered a spot in a training program. Eager to provide for his aging mother, Leo soon takes up with Willie (Joaquin Phoenix, who would go on to star in Gray’s next three films), a guy that works for his uncle who’s involved in some pretty sketchy activities. Like many of Gray’s films, “The Yards” feels like a descendant of the gritty working class films of the early 1970s like “The Conversation,” “Mean Streets,” and “The Friends of Eddie Coyle.”