Movies to See Right Now

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

I recommend the totally unpredictable and well-crafted drama Take Me to the River, a very strong feature debut for writer-director Matt Sobel, a San Jose native.

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.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the character-driven The Gift, even more than the satisfying suspense thriller that it is. It’s also a surprisingly thoughtful film and a filmmaking triumph for writer-director-producer-actor Joel Edgerton. The Gift is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and a host of cable/satellite PPV platforms.

On April 7, Turner Classic Movies showcases the films of one of the earliest female directors, the movie star Ida Lupino. In her early 30s,she broke the glass ceiling by writing and producing her own low-budget topical movies. TCM is screening Hard, Fast & Beautiful, Never Fear,The Bigamist and Outrage (one of the very first movies about rape). Lupino’s signature movie is the noir thriller The Hitch-Hiker. The bad guy is a sadistic serial killer played by William Talman (most well known as DA Hamilton Berger in Perry Mason). He kidnaps and terrorizes two guys played by noir favorites Edmond O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy. It’s a tension-filled story that still holds up today.

THE HITCH-HIKER
Frank Lovejoy, William Talman and Edmond O’Brien in THE HITCH-HIKER

Movies to See Right Now

Dan Cohen (RightI in ALIVE INSIDE
ALIVE INSIDE

Last night I saw Alive Inside for the second time, this time with The Wife, and it was as profoundly moving as the first screening.  This documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music is on my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far (along with three other movies in this post – Boyhood, Calvary and Locke).

Other top picks:

  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

The sci fi thriller Snowpiercer is both thoughtful and exciting, plus it features amazing production design; you can also stream Snowpiercer on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and DirecTV.   Lucy is a Scarlet Johansson action vehicle that rocks.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

There’s also an assortment of recent releases to Video on Demand:

  • I loved the rockin’ Spanish Witching and Bitching – a witty comment on misogyny inside a madcap horror spoof, which you can stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes and Xbox Video.
  • The oddly undisturbing documentary A Brony Tale, about grown men with very unusual taste in television shows. Brony Tale is available streaming on iTunes.
  • The Congress: a thoughtful live action fable followed by a less compelling an animated sci fi story. The Congress is available streaming on iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Robert Duvall’s geezer-gone-wild roadtrip in A Night in Old Mexico. A Night in Old Mexico is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

My DVD/Stream of the week is Locke, a thriller about responsibility – and it’s also on my list of the year’s best so far.  Locke is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

It’s another good week for film noir coming up on Turner Classic Movies.

  • On August 25, TCM will air the 1944 Murder, My Sweet. Rebelling against being typecast in the sappy musical roles that he knew he was aging out of, Dick Powell took on the role of hardboiled detective Philip Marlowe and knocked it out of the park. He rejuvenated his own career in a similar arc to what we’ve recently seen from Alec Baldwin and Matthew McConaughey.
  • The Hitch-hiker (August 27 on TCM) is notable for being the first film noir directed by a woman (the veteran noir actress Ida Lupino). The ruthless bad guy is played by William Talman, who Baby Boomers will remember as the luckless District Attorney Hamilton Burger on TV’s Perry Mason – kind of a proto-Wiley Coyote.
  • I’m going to be featuring the noir thriller D.O.A. in a post on Monday.

Movies to See Right Now

THE GRAND SEDUCTION
THE GRAND SEDUCTION

There are two MUST SEE movies out now. The first is the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction – the funniest film of the year so far and a guaranteed audience pleaser. The second is my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other.

Here are other good movie choices:

  • Words and Pictures is an unusually thoughtful romantic comedy.
  • Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro is a crowd-pleaser.
  • Locke is a drama with a gimmick that works.
  • In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret.
  • The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
  • Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.
  • My DVD/Stream of the Week is the powerful drama Short Term 12, newly available on Netflix Instant. It’s ranked as number 7 on my Best Movies of 2013. Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.

    This week Turner Classic Movies offers two fine revisionist Westerns from the 1970s.  A Man Called Horse (1970). In the early 19th century, Richard Harris is captured by American Indians and becomes assimilated into their culture.  Modern viewers will recognize most of the plot of Avatar herein.  Harris’ initiation into the tribe is one of cinema’s most cringe-worthy moments.  The film still stands up well  today.  Although why is it that when the white guy encounters a native girl, it’s always the chief’s beautiful, unattached, nubile daughter?

    In Sam Peckinpah’s 1973 Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, the title characters are played by James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson.  The great Katy Jurado and Chill Wills join Peckinpah company players, including Luke Askew, L.Q. Jones, Harry Dean Stanton, Slim Pickins, Jack Elam, R.G. Armstrong, Dub Taylor, Richard Bright (Al Neri in The Godfather) and Richard Jaeckel.  Bob Dylan also holds his own; Dylan wrote the score, including the iconic Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,   featured in a heartbreaking scene with Jurado and Wills.  I maintain that, if you delete the unfortunate scenes with Emilio Fernandez, you have a Western masterpiece.  Still, it’s one of my favorites.

    If you want some nasty film noir, there’s The Hitch-Hiker from 1953, directed by movie star Ida Lupino – one of the very few female directors of the 1950s. The bad guy is played by William Talman, who baby boomers will recognize as the never victorious DA Hamilton Burger in Perry Mason.

    Bob Dylan in PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
    Bob Dylan in PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID