Make plans to attend San Francisco’s great festival of film noir, Noir City, opening on January 25.
OUT NOW
- Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
- Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
- Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
- Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
- Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind and its companion documentaries, all available to stream on Netflix.
- The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
- Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
- The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
- Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.
ON VIDEO
My Stream of the Week, the Canadian psychological thriller Lost Solace, takes a highly original premise and turns it into a pedal-to-the-metal thriller. Lost Solace was my personal favorite at Cinequest 2016 and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
You really haven’t sampled film noir if you haven’t seen Out of the Past (1947), and it’s coming up on Turner Classic Movies on January 14. Perhaps the model of a film noir hero, Robert Mitchum plays a guy who is cynical, strong, smart and resourceful – but still a sap for the femme fatale…played by the irresistible Jane Greer. Director Jacques Tourneur told Greer, ” First half of the movie – Good Girl; second half – Bad Girl.”
