I Saw the Light

Movies to See Right Now

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Devin Druid in LOUDER THAN BOMBS
Devin Druid in LOUDER THAN BOMBS

I’m still covering the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF); the fest runs through May 5. Throughout the fest, I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my SFFIF 2016 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.Here’s some of my SFIFF coverage:

I’m also writing about the fine slate of documentaries at this weekend’s International Film Festival of North Hollywood (IFFNOHO).

Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:

    • Critical reception has been mixed on the intricately constructed family drama Louder Than Bombs, but I strongly recommend it.
    • Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.
    • Thriller meets thinker in Eye in the Sky, a parable from modern drone warfare starring Helen Mirren and with a wonderful final performance from the late Alan Rickman.
    • Eccentric meets quirky in the historical comedy Elvis & Nixon, with Michael Shannon and Kevin Spacey.
    • I enjoyed every minute of Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakdown in Demolition (but was ambivalent about why I did).
    • Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule and an amusing frolic with lots of ball busting and girl chasing – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.  The mismatched buddy movie Dough is light, fluffy and empty – just like a Twinkie.

My Stream of the Week is the offbeat documentary Meet the Hitlers, about those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. Meet the Hitlers is available for streaming rental from Amazon Video and Vudu and for streaming purchase from iTunes.

Screenwriter Anthony Veiller fleshed out a very brief Hemingway short story, resulting in Robert Siodmak’s compelling 1946 film noir The Killers, which Turner Classic Movies airs on May 4. The Killers was the screen debut of former circus acrobat Burt Lancaster and the breakthrough for the 23-year-old Ava Gardner. The toughest of noir tough guys – Charles McGraw and Broderick Crawford are hunting down Lancaster for offending their mob boss…and the clock is ticking.

Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster in THE KILLERS
Ava Gardner and Burt Lancaster in THE KILLERS
Charles McGraw (left) and Broderick Crawford (center) are the title characters in THE KILLERS
Charles McGraw (left) and Broderick Crawford (center) are the title characters in THE KILLERS

Movies to See Right Now

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Ethan Hawke in BORN TO BE BLUE
Ethan Hawke in BORN TO BE BLUE

Here’s my slate of recommended movies in theaters this week:

  • I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups.
  • Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.
  • I enjoyed every minute of Jake Gyllenhaal’s breakdown in Demolition (but was ambivalent about why I did).
  • Everybody Wants Some!! is a dead-on 1980 time capsule and an amusing frolic with lots of ball busting and girl chasing – but probably more fun for a heterosexual male audience.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.

Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! is now in theaters, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.

The best night on TV this week is April 16, when Turner Classic Movies airs both the glorious sand-and-sandal epic Spartacus and Mel Brooks’ guffaw-fest Young Frankenstein.

If you haven’t watched Spartacus in a while, you probably remember it for Kirk Douglas’ macho tour de force, the ever stunning Jean Simmons and the sexual cat-and-mouse between Laurence Olivier and the Bronx-accented slaveboy Tony Curtis. But you might have forgotten the strength of the supporting performances by Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton and – my favorite – Woody Strode. And watching last year’s Trumbo, I was reminded that indie producer Kirk Douglas awarded the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo the screenwriting credit that others had denied him.

Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS
Kirk Douglas and Woody Strode in SPARTACUS

Movies to See Right Now

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MY GOLDEN DAYS
MY GOLDEN DAYS

I liked the evocative French drama My Golden Days, the beautiful tale of first love, with all its passion, importance, obsession, angst, conflict, breakups and makeups.  My Golden Days opens widely in the Bay Area today.

Try to find the entirely fresh and unpredictably contemporary drama Take Me to the River, an impressive directorial debut by San Jose native Matt Sobel.

Ethan Hawke’s performance makes the Chet Baker biopic Born to Be Blue a success.

Tom Hiddleston makes a believable Hank Williams, but that can’t save the plodding I Saw the Light, which fails to capture any of the pathos in Hank’s life and death.

Because Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!! open today, my DVD/Stream of the Week is its “spiritual prequel” – the coming of age Dazed and Confused is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video (free with Amazon Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.masterpiece Dazed and Confused.

OK, serious movie buffs – on April 13, Turner Classic Movies presents an evening of early German cinema to frame the documentary From Caligari to Hitler. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) is generally recognized as the first horror film in the history of cinema; it features Conrad Veidt (23 years later, Major Strausser in Casablanca). The Blue Angel (1930) is the classic old-fool-falls-for-a-girl story. I’ve only seen clips from Faust (1926), and I haven’t seen The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1927). If you’re going to watch just one, I recommend the 1922 Nosferatu, the Dracula tale with a hideously monstrous vampire played by Max Schreck.

Max Schreck in NOSFERATU
Max Schreck in NOSFERATU

I SAW THE LIGHT: but the theater was projecting this dull movie

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I SAW THE LIGHT
I SAW THE LIGHT

You really can’t blame Tom Hiddleston, Elizabeth Olson or any of the cast for the unremitting dullness of the biopic I Saw the Light.  The life of Hank Williams, Sr. was so filled with pathos and singular achievement that it should inspire a captivating movie.  After all, Hank’s songwriting genius (36 hits and six #1 songs in only six years) catapulted him from the obscurity of backwater Alabama to national celebrity.  Being a womanizing alcoholic with chronic back pain made him a less than ideal husband, resulting in martial carnage.  And his meteoric career ended when he died in the back seat of his Cadillac at age twenty-nine.  Now THAT’S a compelling life story.

Unfortunately, neither the singularity of Hank’s talent nor the urgency of his self-destructiveness comes through in the series of vignetted in I Saw the Light.  Marc Abraham is an able producer (The Commitments, The Hurricane, Children of Men) – writer-director not so much.  Halfway through, I was contemplating where to dine afterwards.

As Hank, Hiddleston impersonates Hank’s singing voice well and brings a special gleam to the performances.  But he can’t enliven this plodding movie.