Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jessie Buckley in HAMNET. Courtesy of Focus Features.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – reviews of two overlooked films, Dennis Hopper’s searing drama Out of the Blue and the deliciously subversive Argentine comedy Human Resources. Slamdance is under way, and here’s my coverage:

Note: Two highly recommended movies – both Oscar-nominated – The Secret Agent and Mr. Nobody Against Putin are now available to stream at home. And all of the big Oscar movies are now available to watch at home.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Carmen Maura and Penelope Cruz in VOLVER.

On March 4, Turner Classic Movies plays Pedro Almodovar’s Volver. Almodovar’s signature is a female-forward movie that is a subversively hilarious exploration of dark subjects – and that fits Volver to a tee. There is murder and parentage secrets , along with a body conveniently stashed in a freezer, plus a ghost who isn’t. The mostly female cast is headed by Penelope Cruz (Oscar nomination) and Carmen Maura. Cruz, of course, is a global A-lister, and Maura, like Victoria Abril, Marisa Paredes and Roddy De Palma, we know best from her collaborations with Almodovar (Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom, Matador and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.).

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Wagner Moura in THE SECRET AGENT. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – the Slamdance film festival is under way right now:

Note: Two highly recommended movies – both Oscar-nominated – The Secret Agent and Mr. Nobody Against Putin are now available to stream at home.

REMEMBRANCES

Here’s my farewell to Robert Duvall, one of the essential figures in cinema in my lifetime.

Director Frederick Wiseman was one of the most influential documentarians; he didn’t invent cinéma vérité, but he was one of its most famous practitioners, beginning with his first film, the disturbing psychiatric prison exposé Titicut Follies in 1967. Some of his best work came when Wiseman was in his 80s: Boxing Gym, In Jackson Heights and Monrovia, Indiana.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Ingrid Thulin and Victor Sjostrom in WILD STRAWBERRIES

On February 21, Turner Classic Movies presents the one non-depressing Ingmar Bergman film, Wild Strawberries. There’s no denying that Bergman is a film genius, and he’s influenced the likes of Scorsese, Coppola, Altman, Kieślowski and basically much of the last two generations of filmmakers. But I don’t recommend that casual movie fans watch Bergman’s gloomiest movies just because they “are good for you” – I want you to have a good time at the movies.

Wild Strawberries is the story of an accomplished but cranky geezer. His indifferent daughter-in-law is taking him to be honored at his college. On their road trip, they pick up some young hitch-hikers and then a stranded couple. Each encounter reminds the old doctor of an episode in his youth. As he reminisces, he can finally emotionally process the experiences that had troubled him, helping him finally achieve an inner peace. It’s a wonderful film.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Wagner Moura in THE SECRET AGENT. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of The Secret Agent: ,one of the very best films of the year, now available on VOD, and Jodie Foster in A Private Life.

REMEMBRANCE

Bud Cort never matched his iconic performance in Hal Ashby’s subversive Harold and Maude.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

THEM!

On February 17, Turner Class Movies airs Them!, one of the earliest movies with the premise that nuclear bomb tests can mutate animals into giant monsters. Here, the nightmarish threat is ants the size of trucks. It’s bad enough to have them wandering the New Mexico desert, but then they show up in the storm drain system underneath Los Angeles. Yikes! Despite the state of non-CGI special effects in 1954, the ants are suitably terrifying. The reliable James Whitmore stars. Look for future television superstars James Arness and Fess Parker.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Pavel Talankan in the Oscar-nominated MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN. Courtesy of the SLO Film Fest.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a republished review of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, now Oscar-nominated and available to stream at home. Next week – a new review of A Private Life, with Jodie Foster acting in French, and a preview of the 2026 Cinequest, coming up in March.

REMEMBRANCE

Catherine O’Hara was a master of comic sensibility and comic timing. She was unforgettable in Best in Show as the endearingly goofy Cookie, who didn’t know that people who live in mobile homes aren’t supposed to win snooty national dog shows, and who was blissfully indifferent when her sexual past kept popping up to enrage her husband (Eugene Levy). She was also brilliant in A Mighty Wind as Mickey of the defunct folk duo Mitch and Mickey (again, with Levy), especially performing their hit A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow. As The Wife reminded me, those movies, along with Waiting for Guffman and For Your Consideration were Christopher Judge mockumentaries, where O’Hara and other cast members mostly improvised their own lines.  She was singularly funny in Beetlejuice, Schitt’s Creek and The Studio.

CURRENT MOVIES

Shi-Yua Ma in LEFT-HANDED GIRL. Courtesy of Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Tao Zhao in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.

This week on The Movie Gourmet, I’m just back from another indelible experience at Noir City, and I have posted a new review of the dreary and odd The Testament of Ann Lee and my ruminations on the Oscar nominations. I am waiting for the wide release of A Private Life with Jodie Foster acting in French and the epic Magellan.

We’re heading into a few months with comparatively few promising theatrical and online release. It’s still a busy time for me, as I cover film festivals: Slamdance, Cinequest, SLO Film Fest and SFFILM.  But it’s a great time for everyone to catch up at home with the:

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

John Voight (foreground) in DELIVERANCE

January 31 Deliverance And then we have another classic just as INTENSE: Deliverance from 1972. It’s one of my all-time favorites – still gripping today – with a famous scene that still shocks. Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox form an impressive ensemble cast. Beautifully and dramatically shot by the late great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.

Burt Reynolds in DELIVERANCE

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Lee Byung-hun in NO OTHER CHOICE. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m in Oakland covering Noir City, Eddie Muller’s absolutely essential festival of film noir; here’s my NOIR CITY 23: a musician walks into an alley…  I’ve also published a new review of the wonderful A Little Prayer, showcasing a superb acting ensemble.  And I’ve completed my 2025 review with the 8 Most Overlooked Films of 2025 – all of which you can stream at home.

CURRENT MOVIES:

ON TV

Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

On January 26 , Turner Classic Movies airs Days of Wine and Roses, Blake Edwards’ unflinching exploration of alcoholism, featuring great performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick (both nominated for Oscars) and Charles Bickford.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Lee Byung-hun (left) in NO OTHER CHOICE. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the deliciously perverse Korean comedy No Other Choice, by Park Chan-wook, director of The Handmaiden and Decision to Leave and the delightfil concert film You Got Gold.

The annual Noir City festival begins tonight at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater. I’ll be covering it in person next weekend. Here’s my Noir City Preview.

ICYMI here’s my year-end coverage:

NOTE: One Battle After Another is now free for HBO Max subscribers.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

On January 21, Turner Classic Movies presents 1977 neo-noir The American Friend, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel Ripley’s Game. Director Wim Wenders and cinematographer Robby Muller

Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) is a craftsman who makes frames for paintings and dabbles in the shady world of art fraud, making antique-appearing frames for art forgeries.   Here, Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper, in his Wild Man phase)) entangles him in something far more consequential – a murder-for-hire. As befits a neo-noir, Zimmermann finds himself amid a pack of underworld figures, all set to double-cross each other with lethal finality.  In very sly casting by Wenders, all the criminals are played by movie directors: Sam Fuller, Nick Ray, Peter Lilienthal, Daniel Schmid, Gérard Blain, Rudolf Schündler, Jean Eustache. As the murder scheme unfolds, there is a tense and thrilling set piece on a train, worthy of The Narrow Margin.  Other set pieces include a white-knuckle break-in and the ambush of an ambulance.

For sure, The American Friend has the only movie Tom Ridley in a cowboy hat, and I’ve heard Highsmith experts trash Hopper’s Tom Ripley. But I think the casting pays off in a brilliant scene in which Hopper lies on a pool table, snapping selfies with a Polaroid camera; it’s a brilliant imagining of a sociopath in solitary, with no one to manipulate.

Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Ed Harris, Natalie Morales and Sonequa Martin-Green in MY DEAD FRIEND ZOE. Courtesy of Briarcliff Entertainment.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of an overlooked film from 2025, My Dead Friend Zoe, the dark comedy My Neighbor Adolf. and Cover Up, the Netflix biodoc of journalist Seymour Hersh. ICYMI here’s my year-end coverage:

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Tom Wilkinson, Robert Carlyle and Paul Barber in THE FULL MONTY.

On January 13, Turner Classic Movies presents a charming little British comedy that became a huge art house hit in the US, The Full Monty. A steel mill in Sheffield has shut down, throwing its entire workforce into hopeless unemployment. One of the former steelworkers, Daz (Robert Carlyle) flits between dodgy under-the-table gigs so he can buy pints at the pub and pare down his child support arrearage. Daz enlists his mates in his latest scheme – to develop a Chippendale-style male strip act. He recruits their former foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) as their choreographer; heartbreakingly, Gerald still hasn’t been able to tell his wife that he, too, is unemployed. Daz is a shameless rapscallion; his foibles are funny, as are the regular blue collar guys trying to learn sexy dance moves. As funny as it is, The Full Monty explores masculine identity and the human impact of Thatcherism. The Full Monty was nominated for three Oscars, winning for its music.

For most of the US audience, this was a first look at Tom Wilkinson, who went on to a significant career in US and British movies: Smilla’s Sense of Snow, The Patriot, Shakespeare in Love, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, John Adams, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma. Wilkinson was Oscar-nominated for In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Sean Penn in ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER, now on HBO Max. Courtesy of Warner Bros.

This Happy New Year on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the superficially entertaining Marty Supreme and the brilliant We Shall Not Be Moved, Mexico’s submission for the Best International Film Oscar.

I have posted my Best Movies of 2025, and you can watch ALL of them them now, either in theaters (Hamnet, Sentimental Value) or on home video! (Four of the top eight are even on Netflix!) One Battle After Another is free on HBO Max. Here’s the rest of my year-end coverage:

REMEMBRANCE

Brigitte Bardot demonstrated her acting talent in …And Man Created Woman, Contempt, and many other films, but it was eclipsed by her unworldly beauty and unsurpassed sexiness.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Doris Day and Ginger Rogers in STORM WARNING.

On January 6, Turner Classic Movies presents an oddity from 1950, Storm Warning, certainly the only film noir where Doris Day gets shot by the KKK. A NYC model (Ginger Rogers) arrives in a Southern town to visit her sister (Day) and immediately witnesses the Klan murder a journalist and then, not seeing that she is a witness, take off their hoods. She gets to the sister’s house and is shocked to recognize her sister’s husband (Steve Cochran) as one of the murderous Klansmen. Will she testify to the anti-Klan DA (Ronald Reagan)? This is supposed to be a an allegory about the red baiting HUAC. Weirdly, there is no mention of the KKK’s hated of blacks, Catholics and Jews, and there are hardly any black people in the movie. The film certainly doesn’t work in 2025, but the bizarre casting of Doris Day, Ginger Rogers and Ronatd Reagan in a noir is fun, and Rogers and Day give excellent performances.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jessie Buckley in HAMNET. Courtesy of Focus Features.

This Holiday week on The Movie Gourmet – I posted my Best Movies of 2025, and you can watch ALL of them them now, either in theaters (Hamnet, Sentimental Value) or on home video! Four of the top eight are even on Netflix.

Here are capsules on two highly advertised (but nor very serious) movies:

  • Wake Up Dead Man: It’s all in good fun when Ryan Johnson sends up the conventions of murder mysteries with his Knives Out series. This one is a heavily plotted locked room mystery with a moving finger on various suspects. Unfortunately, it’s at least 30 minutes too long and just not compelling. The brightest light is an engaging lead performance by Josh O’Connor. Netflix.
  • Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale. The once-beloved series cashes in one last time on tropes from its first season: a Lady Mary scandal, a dire threat to the family’s wealth and the inevitable ill-adaptation of a lifestyle based on a medieval economic model. So predictable;le that The Wife and I turned it off midway through. Amazon, etc.

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    Myrna Loy and William Powell as Nora and Nick Charles during the Holidays

    Once again, Turner Classic Movies is giving us a wonderful New Year’s Eve present – an all-day Thin Man marathon. William Powell and Myrna Loy are cinema’s favorite movie couple for a reason – just settle in and watch Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its sequels do what they do best – banter, canoodle, solve crimes and, of course, tipple.

    Stars abound in supporting roles in the series. James Stewart had only made one feature film before 1936, the year, he appeared in After the Thin Man. Dean Stockwell played Nick and Nora’s son Nick Charles Jr in Song of the Thin Man. Film noir goddesses Gloria Grahame and Marie Windsor also both appear in Song of the Thin Man.

    The pre-notoriety Tom Neal has a key role in in Another Thin Man. Classic film aficionados will also recognize Maureen O’Sullivan, Keenan Wynn, Leon Ames, Sheldon Leonard, C. Awbrey Smith, Joseph Calleia and Sam Levene.

    These six movies from 1934-47 (The Thin Man, After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, The Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home and Song of the Thin Man) are still first-rate escapist entertainment. Love ’em.