TV/Streaming

Stop making senses: An epidemic love story

“Perfect Sense” (89 minutes) is now available via IFC On Demand and can be rented or downloaded via iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, SundanceNOW, XBOX and PlayStation 3. The film will also begin a limited release in theaters on February 3rd.

by Jeff Shannon

The cause of the disease is unknown, and there is no cure. It could be a cluster of diseases, nobody knows for sure. The experts say it’s not contagious, but that’s just a futile ploy to prevent panic. It’s spreading throughout the world as a full-blown epidemic. The symptoms are brutal and unrelenting: Slowly but surely, your senses fall away — first you lose the sense of smell. Then taste, and eventually hearing…panic strikes you anyway, and the world around you ceases to make any kind of sense. How can you possibly survive the onslaught of sensory deprivation? What can you do when you’re overwhelmed by an escalating sense of infantile helplessness?

Welcome to the apocalypse of “Perfect Sense,” an imperfect yet deeply affecting film from David McKenzie, a British director who’s been quietly building a list of respectable credits (his latest is the rock ‘n roll comedy “You Instead”) since 1994. (He also regularly casts his actor brother Alastair, perhaps best known for his role in the popular BBC series “Monarch of the Glen.”) “Perfect Sense” was well-received at Sundance last year, but it’s not the kind of film that makes distributors see dollar signs in their eyes. It’s an actor’s showcase for Ewan McGregor and Eva Green, who meet the challenge head-on. Technically impressive and beautifully filmed (by Giles Nuttgens), quite frankly it’s too distinctive — choke on that, distributors! — to be easily pigeon-holed and marketed to the masses.

Billy the Kid, orphan outlaw

“American Experience: Billy the Kid” is available on demand at PBS.org after its January 10 broadcast at 9 p.m. (ET/PT). Check local listings.

Who hasn’t heard of Billy the Kid? He’s often portrayed in Westerns — sometimes as a blood-thirsty killer — but the PBS “American Experience” documentary “Billy the Kid” gives us a sympathetic portrayal of an orphan who “became the most wanted man of the west.” Instead of drama, blood, and lust in the dust, you’ll get a more multicultural view of a homeless kid gone wrong after being wronged.

The one-hour film, narrated by Michael Murphy, begins with a hangman’s noose. The date is April 28, 1881 and the 21-year-old man known as Billy the Kid is in the custody of Sheriff Pat Garrett. He escapes his appointment with the hangman, but he won’t be alive much longer.