This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’ll soon be posting on Monkey Man, which I will NOT be recommending, and Matter of Mind: My Parkinson’s, which you should DVR on PBS Monday. Love Lies Bleeding is still the best choice in theaters.
REMEMBRANCE
Louis Gossett, Jr., won an Oscar for his drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman. He also played Fiddler in Roots, amid 198 other screen appearances.
CURRENT MOVIES
- Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. In theaters.
- The Taste of Things: two passions – culinary and romantic. Amazon, AppleTV.
- Golden Years: when dreams diverge. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
WATCH AT HOME
The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:
- Lucky: Harry Dean Stanton and the meaning of life Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
- Ma Belle, My Beauty: a simmering romantic reunion. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube. redbox, KinoNow.
- Summer of Soul (…O When the Revolution Could Not Be televised): concert with context. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Charley Varrick: his wits vs. the mob. Netflix, Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- Driveways: authentic, brilliant, heartfelt. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- They Shall Not Grow Old: technology transforms film and ressurects a generation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
- He Walked by Night: nerd hunt. Amazon, Vudu.
- Locke: a thriller about responsibility. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
ON TV
On April 6, Turner Classic Movies will present an underseen Billy Wilder wartime noir, Five Graves to Cairo. It’s th movie Wilder made immediately before Double Indemnity, and it’s not a masterpiece like that or Stalag 17, Sunset Blvd., Ace in the Hole or Some Like It Hot, but it’s a pretty good suspense thriller with a great cast. The film was released just thirteen months after Rommel’s victory over the British in Tobruk, Egypt. British Corporal Bramble (Franchot Tone) has survived the battle and wandered, alone, into an isolated desert hotel run by Farid (Akim Tamiroff) and his French maid Mouche (Anne Baxter). Suddenly, the German Army move in, led by Rommel himself (the great director Erich Stroheim). To survive, Bramble impersonates the hotel’s recently deceased waiter, who unbeknownst to Farid and Mouche, was a German spy. The tension comes from Bramble, Farid and Mouche walking on egg shells as they perpetuate the deception while Bramble tries to elicit critical military intelligence from the Germans. Tone and Baxter, reliable movie leads of the 1940s, are very good. The wonder character Tamiroff is vivid as always here, fifteen years before his greatest performance as Uncle Joe Grandi in Touch of Evil. Von Stroheim, in no way impersonating the real Rommel, gives a bravura performance as the German commander.
