Movies to See Right Now

This week on The Movie Gourmet –

• my first take on the Best Movies of 2022 – So Far,
• a new review of Clifton Collins, Jr.’s great performance in Jockey, and
• my Hang ten this summer launches our summer with the great surfing movies Riding Giants and Step into Liquid.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Downton Abbey: A New Era: harmless enough. In theaters.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. In theaters.
• My Donkey, My Lover and I: it had me at the title. In theaters.
• Jazzfest: A News Orleans Story: introducing the perfect 8 days of culture. In theaters.
• Hit the Road: a funny family masks their tough choice. Streaming at Laemmle.
• Like a Rolling Stone: The Life and Times of Ben Fong-Torres: tell me more. Netflix.
• James Stewart, Robert Mitchum: The Two Faces of America: is “hero/anti-hero” too simplistic? On Turner Classic Movies tomorrow night and WATCH TCM and DIrecTV.
• Mau: fact-based optimism and thinking big. Streaming at Laemmle.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
• Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
• The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
• Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
• Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

I’m recommending tonight’s midnight (PDT) showing of Alex Cox’s 1984 cult film Repo Man on Turner Classic Movies. Emilio Estevez plays a punk (in both senses) who stumbles into a job assisting a professional auto-repossessor. That repo man is played by Harry Dean Stanton, who, at the age of 58, broke through in two wonderful lead performances. In his titular role in Repo Man, he plays the crusty, old school mentor of the heretofore aimless kid. The same year, Stanton delivered his masterpiece performance in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas.

Repo Man is a delight, with a full dose of Harry Dean, the inside peek into a shady and dangerous job, lots of humor and even an homage to the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly. (In Repo Man, look for singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett in a bit part as “Additional Blonde Agent”.)