This week at The Movie Gourmet – remembrances of Alan Ladd Jr and William Hurt. Remember that A Song for Cesar is now in Bay Area theaters.
REMEMBRANCES
I don’t often celebrate Hollywood suits, but studio exec and producer Alan Ladd, Jr., had a major artistic and social impact on American cinema. Ladd is being remembered now chiefly for being the guy who greenlit Star Wars, which seems like a no-brainer now, but it wouldn’t have happened without Ladd; then in his thirties, Ladd was younger than his Hollywood peers, but old enough to have enjoyed the Flash Gordon series as a kid. Ladd also supported Mel Brooks’ vision to shoot Young Frankenstein in black and white.
We don’t immediately think of Ladd as a feminist warrior, but it was Ladd who changed the character of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien from male to female. And Ladd was the key player behind the most groundbreaking of 1970s feminist cinema, An Unmarried Woman, Norma Rae and 9 to 5, and, 15 years later, the iconic Thelma and Louise.
Ladd’s body of work was astounding: Chariots of Fire (Best Picture Oscar), Braveheart (Best Picture Oscar), Body Heat, To Live and Die in LA, The Right Stuff, Moonstruck, A Fish Called Wanda, The Man in the Moon, Gone Baby Gone, All that Jazz, Breaking Away, a wedding, Julia, The Three Musketeers, Harry and Tonto, The Scent of a Woman, The Omen and even Kagemusha.
Actor William Hurt, broke through unforgettably in his first feature film Altered States, which began a stunning run in the 1980s, of which my favorites were Body Heat, The Big Chill and Broadcast News. Hurt’s characters were frequently cerebral, contained and deliberate. His Ned Racine in Body Heat was always thinking, too, just not thinking as quickly or diabolically as Kathleen Turner’s femme fatale Matty Walker. Even after his A-list days had passed, Hurt was uniformly excellent supporting others in films like History of Violence and Into the Wild .
CURRENT FILMS
- Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
- Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. In theaters.
- Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
- The Power of the Dog: One man’s meanness, another man’s growth. Netflix.
- Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
- The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
- Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: completely different than any movie you’ve seen. AppleTV, Drafthouse On Demand.
- Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
- Jagged: Insightful biodoc of Alanis Morissette, who is really not that angry, after all. HBO.
- The Lost Daughter : Great, Oscar-nominated performances by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in this dark, unsettling exploration of the obligation of parenting. Netflix.
- House of Gucci: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in this modern tale of Shakespearean family treachery. In theaters.
- Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
- The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
- Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
Remember to check out all of my Best Movies of 2021.
ON TV
Turner Classic Movies is in its 31 Days of Oscars series and, on March 20, will present Babette’s Feast (1987), one of my Best Foodie Movies. Two aged 19th century Danish spinster sisters have taken in a French refugee as their housekeeper. The sisters carry on their father’s severe religious sect, which rejects earthly pleasures. After fourteen years, the housekeeper wins the lottery and, in gratitude, spends all her winnings on the ingredients for a banquet that she prepares for the sisters and their friends. As the dinner builds, the colors of the film become warmer and brighter, reflecting the sheer carnality of the repast. The smugly ascetic and humorless guests become less and less able to resist pleasure of the epicurean delights.The feast’s visual highlights are Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) and Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée (rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). This was the first Danish film to win Best Foreign Language Oscar.