This week on The Movie Gourmet, new reviews of Jennifer Lawrence ablaze in Die My Love, the Netflix miniseries Death By Lightning and the artsy period allegory Harvest, to go with recent reviews of Frankenstein, A House of Dynamite, Deliver Me from Nowhere, Nuremberg and Blue Moon. The Palm d’Or winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, It Was Just an Accident, opens more widely today, so expect my review in the coming week; I’ve heard and read good things.
I will not be seeing Now You See Me Now You Don’t because the film’s trailer exposes the screenplay as stupefyingly lazy. Why would you have Woody Harrelson, born in 1961, putting down a kid born in the 2000s for using the word bummer, which came into wide use in the Hippie 1960s?
I also want to warn you off of The Summer Book, which you may see algorithm-recommended on your streaming platform and which I discussed in October.
REMEMBRANCE
Actor Tatsuya Nakadai starred in Akira Kurosawa’s two great color epics Ran and Kagemusha, and played the foil to Toshiro Mifune’s hero in Yojimbo.
CURRENT MOVIES
- Frankenstein: who is the real monster? In theaters and on Netflix.
- A House of Dynamite: a master filmmaker reminds us of the terrifyingly plausible. Netflix.
- Blue Moon: wit and vulnerability. In theaters.
- Deliver Me from Nowhere: a genius works out his issues. In theaters.
- Die My Love: Jennifer Lawrence ablaze. In theaters.
- Nuremberg: matching wits with a master manipulator. In theaters.
- Eleanor the Great: grief, an appalling lie, redemption. In theaters.
- One Battle After Another: sometimes hilarious, sometimes thrilling, always outrageous. In theaters.
- Kissinger: he sought to justify the means. PBS, American Experience website and YouTube channel.
- Death By Lightning: a statesman, a hack, a lunatic and one great story. Netflix.
- To a Land Unknown: no good choices. Amazon, AppleTV, Youtube.
- To Kill a Wolf: mysteries revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango.
- Harvest: peasants get the shaft. AppleTV.
ON TV
On November 15, Turner Classic Movies airs one of the great satires, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which brilliantly skewers Biblical epics, left-wing militants and political correctness, the origin story of Christianity, religion and human nature, generally. Life of Brian also makes my lists of Worst Teeth in the Movies and Least Convincing Movie Hair.