Month: July 2016

I, DALIO: the Jewish star of two French masterpieces

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I, DALIO, OR THE RULES OF THE GAME
I, DALIO – OR THE RULES OF THE GAME

There are two programs of short films (Jews in Shorts) at this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and one of them features the documentary short I, Dalio – Or the Rules of the Game.  Covering the career of French Jewish actor Marcel Dalio, I, Dalio reflects on how Dalio’s Jewishness informed his life and film career.  It’s a documentary of special interest to cinephiles because of Dalio’s roles in three of the all-time greatest films.   One of those films is Casablanca, and Dalio  gets one of that film classic’s biggest laughs when his croupier says “Your winnings, sir” to Claude Raines’ Captain Renault.

Born in Paris as Israel Moshe Blauschild and adopting the stage name of Marcel Dalio, he became a prolific character actor in French cinema, specializing in weaselly, conniving and otherwise malevolent roles, often playing the foil to his real-life friend Jean Gabin. I, Dalio notes that the only two Dalio roles that were explicitly Jewish were his starring turns in the Jean Renoir masterpieces La Grande Illusion and The Rules of the Game.

Then, within a year of The Rules of the Game’s Paris premiere, the Nazis invaded Paris, and Dalio took his talent to Hollywood.  After the war, Dalio continued to work, producing over a hundred more screen credits in international cinema and television.

I, Dalio – Or the Rules of the Game will appeal to audiences interested in both cinema history and Jewish identity.  Running for 33 minutes, I Dalio anchors one of the two programs of short films (Jews in Shorts) at this years San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF36), where you can see it at San Francisco’s Castro on July 27 and at the Piedmont in Oakland on August 6.

FEVER AT DAWN: romance, identity and a moral choice

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FEVER AT DAWN
FEVER AT DAWN

The Hungarian drama Fever at Dawn is a little movie with an epic romance. Set just after the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps, Hungarian invalids who survived the camps have been sent to convalesce in hospital camps in Sweden. A young patient, Miklos, gets a dire diagnosis and determines to find love once more before he dies. A half century before internet dating, he concocts a scheme to get himself in front of every sick Hungarian woman in Sweden. When he meets his potential soulmate Lili, a moral question rises to the surface – should he share his diagnosis with the woman he is courting?

Some Holocaust survivors experienced ambivalence about the very Jewish identity that led to yellow stars on their clothes and, essentially, targets on their backs. This ambivalence becomes a significant thread of Fever at Dawn and is addressed more explicitly than is common for Holocaust (or post-Holocaust) movies.

Don’t read too much about this movie before seeing it. There’s an unexpected nugget at the end.

I saw Fever at Dawn earlier this year at its US premiere at Cinequest.  It’s being featured at this years San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF36), where you can see it at San Francisco’s Castro on July 26, at the Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theater on July 28, and at CineArts in Palo Alto on July 29.

DVD/Stream of the Week: TAKE ME TO THE RIVER – fresh, unpredictable and gripping

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TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

For the second week in a row, I’m featuring one of my Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. San Jose native Matt Sobel’s impressive directorial debut Take Me to the River is entirely fresh. Not one thing happens in Take Me to the River that you can predict, and it keeps the audience off-balance and completely engaged.  Here are some notes from an interview with Sobel.

A California couple and their teenage son drive to an annual family reunion in rural Nebraska. The son is gay and out, but that’s not going to be the drama here. There’s almost immediately an unexpected development that rocks the extended family. Then we settle in for over an hour of simmering unease and tense dread until something REALLY disturbing happens.

The story may be told from the teen’s point of view, but the real story turns out to be in the highly-charged relationship between his mom (Robin Weigert) and her brother Keith (Josh Hamilton). Keith, the boy’s uncle, is not a redneck rube, but very angry and very manipulative. By the end of the movie, we understand why. It’s an excellent performance by Hamilton, and whenever he’s on-screen, we fidget and wait for him to explode.

Weigert (Calamity Jane in Deadwood, Ally in Sons of Anarchy) is also excellent – her character is a Los Angeles physician who hasn’t lost the Nebraskan gift of never referring to the elephant in the room, no matter how huge. She embraces the Nebraskan imperative of avoidance with persistent geniality, covering up any unpleasantness with with niceties. My family is from rural Nebraska, which I have visited many times, so I know of what I speak.

The child actress Ursula Parker (the youngest daughter in Louie) is also especially outstanding here. Take Me to the River contains some sexual behavior by a child which is very uncomfortable for the audience, but central to the story and non-exploitative.

Take Me to the River played at Sundance in 2015, was finally released in the Bay Area in Spring 2016. Before its release, I viewed it at the Camera Cinema Club. You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

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Ewen McGregor and Stellan Skarsgaard in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR
Ewen McGregor and Stellan Skarsgård in OUR KIND OF TRAITOR

My running list of Best Movies of 2016 – So Far is out. For movies in theaters right now:

  • Our Kind of Traitor is a robust espionage thriller with a funny yet powerful performance by Stellan Skarsgård.
  • Free State of Jones effectively combines the elements of political drama, romance and war movies into an absorbing Civil War drama, one which connects the dots between the 19th Century and the 20th and beyond. With a sizzling Matthew McConaughey.
  • NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans.
  • Zero Days is a documentary on a jaw-dropping hacker mystery – who and how was able to get Iranian military computers to destroy the hardware for their own nuclear weapons program.
  • All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance. It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before. All the Way is still playing on HBO.
  • Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.

Here’s my early peek at next week’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream for the next two weeks is one of my Best Movies of 2016 – So Far.  San Jose native Matt Sobel’s impressive directorial debut Take Me To the River is entirely fresh. Not one thing happens in Take Me to the River that you can predict, and it keeps the audience off-balance and completely engaged. You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

On July 16 Turner Classic Movies presents the grievously underrated Don Siegel thriller  Charley Varrick.  Siegel was a master of crime movies (and was the primary filmmaking mentor to Clint Eastwood).  I particularly love Siegel’s San Francisco noir The Lineup, the guilty pleasure Two Mules for Sister Sara and John Wayne’s goodbye: The Shootist.  The 1973 neo-noir Charley Varrick is right up there with Siegel’s best.  Walter Matthau stars as the title character, an expert heist man who sets up a “perfect crime” bank robbery which, of course, goes awry.  Worst of all, it turns out that Varrick has stolen a secret Mob fortune being laundered by the bank, and now the underworld organization is after him.  Only his wits can save him.  I’ve rewatched Charley Varrick a couple times recently, and it still holds up for me.

Faithful readers know that I revere the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood/Ennio Morricone spaghetti westerns.  On July 19, TCM brings us A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and, of course, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Walter Matthau in CHARLEY VARRICK
Walter Matthau in CHARLEY VARRICK

 

just around the corner: SFJFF36

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sfjff36 banner

It’s time to get ready for one of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 36th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF36), which opens July 21, and runs through August 7 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. Here’s an early peek at the fest:

  • 51 features (33 Documentaries, 18 Narratives) from 13 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel).
  • 2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts), a web series and first two episodes of a thrilling television miniseries.
  • 14 world, North American or US premieres.
  • celebrity appearances by Norman Lear, Robert Klein, Adam (s0n of Leonard) Nimoy and a passel of filmmakers.

I’ll return with my my four top recommendations from the festival on July 20.  Here’s a tease:

  • A both funny and thought-provoking documentary about what would seem to be the most unfunny subject possible.
  • An addictive taste of an upcoming television miniseries that has the elements of the whodunit, the paranoid thriller, the perfect crime movie and the espionage procedural.
  • The world premiere of an entirely fresh and imaginative examination of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
  • An epic romance with both an exploration of identity and a moral choice.

One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF36 is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF36 will present 27-51 films at each of the main venues – the Castro in San Francisco, CineArts in Palo Alto and the Roda Theater at the Berkeley Rep. The festival will also screen at least 14 movies at both the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland.

You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. The fest also offers a handy iPhone app available from the App Store: sjff36. You can follow the Festival on Twitter at @SFJewish Film; and, of course, you can follow my coverage at @themoviegourmet.

TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: notes from a San Jose filmmaker Matt Sobel

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TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

I attended a pre-release screening of Take Me to the River  at the Camera Cinema Club, followed by a Skype interview by Tim Sika with writer-director Matt Sobel.  Here are some nuggets from that interview.

Like me, Sobel is a San Jose guy who has often visited family in rural Nebraska.  Sobel actually likes Nebraska, and pointed out the cultural differences are more complicated than “we Californians are open minded and right”.  That being said, he acknowledged that Take Me to the River is about that Midwestern resistance to talking about anything unpleasant, which can lead to “a conspiracy of silence”.

Sobel described Take Me to the River as a “movie about suspicion and fear” and pointed out the shame that adults put on kids for innocent behavior that can lead to later tragedy.

As a filmmaker, Sobel is comfortable with the Big Action happening outside the frame so the audience must figure it out most of it and live with some ambiguity.

SPOILER ALERT:  Sobel says that, in Take Me to the River , Keith has taught his daughter the “chicken fighting” game that made his own mother think that he was a pervert.

SPOILER ALERT:  Take Me to the River contains some sexual behavior by a child which is very uncomfortable for the audience.  Sobel was careful to work with the child actress Ursula Parker to make her acting experience on the set be a non-sexual game.  This scene is central to the story and, thanks to Sobel, non-exploitative.  Ursula Parker plays the youngest daughter on Louie.

You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

DVD/Stream of the Week: TAKE ME TO THE RIVER – fresh, unpredictable and gripping

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TAKE ME TO THE RIVER
TAKE ME TO THE RIVER

My DVD/Stream for the next two weeks is one of my Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. San Jose native Matt Sobel’s impressive directorial debut Take Me to the River is entirely fresh. Not one thing happens in Take Me to the River that you can predict, and it keeps the audience off-balance and completely engaged.

A California couple and their teenage son drive to an annual family reunion in rural Nebraska. The son is gay and out, but that’s not going to be the drama here. There’s almost immediately an unexpected development that rocks the extended family. Then we settle in for over an hour of simmering unease and tense dread until something REALLY disturbing happens.

The story may be told from the teen’s point of view, but the real story turns out to be in the highly-charged relationship between his mom (Robin Weigert) and her brother Keith (Josh Hamilton). Keith, the boy’s uncle, is not a redneck rube, but very angry and very manipulative. By the end of the movie, we understand why. It’s an excellent performance by Hamilton, and whenever he’s on-screen, we fidget and wait for him to explode.

Weigert (Calamity Jane in Deadwood, Ally in Sons of Anarchy) is also excellent – her character is a Los Angeles physician who hasn’t lost the Nebraskan gift of never referring to the elephant in the room, no matter how huge. She embraces the Nebraskan imperative of avoidance with persistent geniality, covering up any unpleasantness with with niceties. My family is from rural Nebraska, which I have visited many times, so I know of what I speak.

The child actress Ursula Parker (the youngest daughter in Louie) is also especially outstanding here. Take Me to the River contains some sexual behavior by a child which is very uncomfortable for the audience, but central to the story and non-exploitative.

Take Me to the River played at Sundance in 2015, was finally released in the Bay Area in Spring 2016.  Before its release, I viewed it at the Camera Cinema Club. You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

Best Movies of 2016 – So Far

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THE MEMORY OF WATER
THE MEMORY OF WATER

Instead of waiting for my year-end Top Ten list, I keep a running list throughout the year: Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. At year’s end, my list usually is comprised of 20-25 films with an Official Top Ten.  I’ll also be updating my list throughout the year as films become available to stream or to rent on DVD.  Right now, my list includes:

  • The Memory of Water
  • Eye in the Sky
  • Magallanes
  • Chevalier
  • Weiner
  • Frank & Lola
  • Take Me to the River
  • Lost Solace
  • Green Room

I usually start my list in April or May, and I don’t think that I’ve ever waited until July before.  I guess that’s because none of these early-in-the-year releases have popped out at me like Ex Machina from last year, Boyhood or Ida from 2014, Blue Is the Warmest Color or The Hunt (2013), Winter’s Bone (2010) and the like. But these are all really, really excellent films.

Eye in the Sky and Take Me to the River are available streaming or on DVD right now, (see Best Movies of 2016 – So Far for details) and Frank & Lola will be in theaters later this year.

I’m self-conscious about how many of these films can’t be seen right now (or maybe ever) because they don’t have US distribution. I really try NOT to be precious and list a bunch of super obscure films. I’m particularly wringing my hands over three gems from Cinequest – The Memory of Water from Chile, Magallanes from Peru and the Canadian indie Lost Solace. But I’m pretty sure that you’ll be able to find the rest of the movies on my list by year’s end.

I’m still waiting to see many, many contenders for my year-end list, including film festival favorites Loving, Manchester By the Sea, The Birth of a Nation and Toni Erdmann.  I also reserve the right to reshuffle the list.

Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY
Helen Mirren in EYE IN THE SKY

Movies to See Right Now

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FREE STATE OF JONES
FREE STATE OF JONES

Here are my (almost) ALL NEW movie recommendations.

  • Our Kind of Traitor is a robust espionage thriller with a funny yet powerful performance by Stellan Skarsgård.
  • Free State of Jones effectively combines the elements of political drama, romance and war movies into an absorbing Civil War drama, one which connects the dots between the 19th Century and the 20th and beyond. With a sizzling Matthew McConaughey.
  • NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans.
  • Zero Days is a documentary on a jaw-dropping hacker mystery – who and how was able to get Iranian military computers to destroy the hardware for their own nuclear weapons program.
  • All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance. It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before. All the Way is still playing on HBO.
  • Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.

My Stream of the Week is the perfect companion film to Weiner – it’s the inside story of ANOTHER campaign – one of Anthony Weiner’s opponents in the same 2013 mayoral election.  Hers to Lose: Inside Christine Quinn’s Bid for Mayor is an extraordinarily evocative political film, it’s only 30 minutes long and you can watch it for free here at the NYT.

Tonight Turner Classic Movies explores “America in the 70s” with four of the best films EVER – All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Network and The Conversation – along with the time capsule thriller Klute.

And on July 13, TCM presents the John Sturges masterpiece Bad Day at Black Rock with Spencer Tracy investigating a disappearance in an especially hostile, racist and sinister town.  Besides having Tracy at his best and being a great looking movie,  Bad Day at Black Rock is notable for its menacing crew of Bad Guys – Robert Ryan, Ernest Borgnine and Lee Marvin.

Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK
Spencer Tracy and Robert Ryan in BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire

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NUTS!
NUTS!

NUTS! is the persistently hilarious (and finally poignant) documentary about the rise and fall of a medical and radio empire – all built on goat testicle “implantation” surgery in gullible humans. Yes, a huckster named J.R. Brinkley really did surgically place goat testicles inside human scrota – and, more astonishingly, this actually became a craze in the 1920s. Now that’s enough of a forehead slapper, but there’s more, much more and that’s what makes NUTS! so fun.

Brinkley’s story is one that leads to celebrity mega wealth and a colossal miscalculation. Improbably, Brinkley’s wild ride touched Huey Long,William Jennings Bryan, Rudolph Valentino, Buster Keaton, June Carter Cash and Wolfman Jack. There’s a radio empire, a Gubernatorial election and a dramatic, climactic trial.

NUTS!
“Dr.” Brinkley at work in NUTS!

Director Penny Lane tells the story with animation (different animators for each chapter, but you can’t tell) seamlessly braided together with historical still photos, movies and a final heartbreaking recording. NUTS! tells a story that is too bizarre to be true – but really happened. It makes for a most entertaining movie.

I saw NUTS! earlier this year at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF).  It opens in Bay Area theaters today.