Movies to See Right Now

Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING

I’m getting ready to cover the San Francisco International Film Festival, which opens this coming Wednesday, April 5 and running through April 19.  I expect to publish my festival preview on Sunday.  In the mean time:

    • The little British drama The Sense of an Ending, with Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter and Charlotte Rampling, is my current top choice.
    • Bev Powley is very good in the agreeable comedy Carrie Pilby.
    • If you’re looking for an unchallenging comedy, then The Last Word, with the force of nature named Shirley MacLaine, is for you.
    • Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
    • By all means, avoid the epically bad epic The Ottoman Lieutenant, so bad that it provokes unintended audience giggles and guffaws.

My DVD/Stream pick of the past two weeks has been the emotionally devastating Manchester by the Sea, which won Oscars for Casey Affleck (Best Actor) and by Kenneth Lonergan (Best Original Screenplay).  Manchester by the Sea is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On April 2 on Turner Classic Movies:  The Blue Gardenia presents a 1953 view of date rape, with lecherous Raymond Burr getting Anne Baxter likkered up into a blackout drunk with Polynesian Pearl Divers. There’s a very nice twist on the whodunit: when she wakes up, she doesn’t remember killing him, but he sure is dead. There’s even a cameo performance by Nat King Cole.   Also on April 2, TCM brings us The 400 Blows, François Truffaut’s 1959 explosion into leadership of the French New Wave.  The main character is modeled after Truffaut’s own teenage years.  It’s a great film, and the final freeze-frame is iconic.

THE BLUE GARDENIA
THE BLUE GARDENIA

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