This Week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the kinda funny, but disposable, Honey Don’t and the raunchy Spanish absurdist comedy The Fantastic Golem Affairs, plus a preview of the upcoming NashFilm.
REMEMBRANCE
Artist Joe Caroff created the unforgettable movie posters for West Side Story, The Last Temptation of Christ and many others, including the iconic 007 for the James Bond franchise. His comprehensive NYT obit includes other examples of his work.
CURRENT MOVIES
- East of Wall: horse riding through trauma. In theaters
- Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan: a courageous surprise hiding in celebrity. Netflix.
- The Fantastic Golem Affairs: absurd, raunchy and funny. In theaters, but hard to find.
- Honey Don’t: kinda funny, disposable. In theaters.
- Sorry, Baby: smart, funny and on the path to healing. On VOD, but expensive.
- To Kill a Wolf: mysteries revealed. In theaters, but hard to find.
- Made in Ethiopia: it’s just like China used to be. PBS POV
- Sew Torn: a thriller like none you’ve seen before. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
- Bonjour Tristesse: not the life lesson she was expecting. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
ON TV
Coming up on Turner Classic Movies, the 1964 serial killer movie The Strangler; it’s the masterpiece of director Burt Topper, who specialized in low-budget exploitation movies. First, we see that lonely lab tech Otto Kroll (Victor Buono in an especially brilliant and eccentric performance) is twisted enough to murder random women and return to his lair to fondle his doll collection. Then we learn his motivation – he dutifully visits his hateful mother (Ellen Corby – later to play Grandma Walton) in her nursing room; she heaps abuse on him in every interaction. Pretty soon, even the audience wants to kill Mrs. Kroll, but Otto sneaks around taking out his hatred for his mom by strangling other women. Because Otto is outwardly genial to a fault, it takes a loooong time to fall under the suspicion of the cops. The character of Otto and Buono’s performance elevate The Strangler above its budget and launches it into the top rank of serial killer movies.
