This week, we have familiar favorites – Daniel Craig’s final fling as James Bond and Tony Soprano’s origin story. Plus, the Mill Valley Film Festival is underway through this weekend – here’s my festival preview.
Time for a rant: yesterday I saw Lamb at a midday show in a 209-seat theater auditorium. When I bought my ticket, someone had already purchased a ticket for seat P9, almost at the top of the room. I purchased seat C8, in the middle of the third row. As the trailers ended, a third patron seated himself – in seat C10 – with only one seat buffering us. This guy chose between 207 available seats and picked one only two feet from me – in a pandemic. What a tool! He probably encroaches at the urinals, too.
IN THEATERS
No Time to Die: Daniel Craig returns one last time as his world-weary James Bond – and it’s epic. No disposable women this time.
The Many Saints of Newark: This prequel of The Sopranos shows us what formed the teenage Tony Soprano, especially his role model “uncle”, Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Also on HBO Max.
Also in theaters:
- The Eyes of Tammy Faye: some dignity for the clown.
- The Card Counter: a loner, his code and his past.
- Old Henry: too late for redemption. (If you can still find it in a theater.)
- The Nowhere Inn: Watch a St. Vincent performance instead.
- Titane: Demented, icky and excessive.
ON VIDEO
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Wildland: giving family ties a bad name. Laemmle.
- The Unknown Saint: a shrine to really bad luck. Netflix.
- CODA: a thought-provoking audience-pleaser. AppleTV.
- Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed: Improbability squared. Netflix.
- Searching for Mr. Rugoff: the best movie taste of any barbarian. Laemmle.
- Curiosa: erotic, but do we care? Laemmle.
- The Green Knight: More of a test than a quest. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Redbox.
- Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube. #1 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far
- Dirt Music: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Kansas City Bomber: self-discovery at the roller derby track. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
- No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
- The Neutral Ground: the supremacist legacy of old statues. PBS.
- Mama Weed: it’s always fun when Huppert gets outrageous. Laemmle.
ON TV
On October 16, Turner Classic Movies presents Where Eagles Dare, a crackerjack thriller from the WWII commando subgenre (think The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen). The seemingly impossible target is a cliff-side Nazi stronghold only accessible via a funicular. And not all the commandos understand the true mission. The oddly matched stars are Richard Burton (nearing the end of his second marriage to Elizabeth Taylor) and Clint Eastwood (after the Leone spaghetti westerns but before his Dirty Harry franchise). It all works.