This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Chloe Zhao’s glorious Hamnet and the insightful, thought-provoking biodoc Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words.
My list of Best Movies of 2025 – So Far has solidified to the point where I have taken off the So Far. I plan to see No Other Choice and probably Marty Supreme before New Year’s, but those are the only two films that could still make my year-end top ten. I’m still having a very hard time ranking the top four films: Frankenstein, It Was Just an Accident, Caught by the Tides and One Battle After Another. It may end in a four-way tie.
REMEMBRANCES
In the period between 1984 and 1996, few directors had as impressive and as varied a body of work as did Rob Reiner: This Is Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, Misery and Ghosts of Mississippi.
Character actor Peter Greene excelled at playing scary villains and was the cretinous Zed in Pulp Fiction.
CURRENT MOVIES
- Hamnet: a grieving couple finally aligned. In theaters.
- Paddy Chayefsky: Collector of Words: “X-raying us all the time“. HBO Max, HBO Max YouTube channel.
- It Was Just an Accident: trauma, justice and complications. In arthouse theaters, but hard to find.
- Train Dreams: quietly thinking and quietly feeling. Netflix.
- Left-Handed Girl: a family’s path to to catharsis. Netflix.
- Sentimental Value: generational healing. In theaters.
- The Mastermind: when selfishness exceeds talent. In theaters.
- Orwell: 2+2=5: we didn’t get the message. In arthouse theaters, but hard to find.
- Nouvelle Vague: a subversive trickster bets that he is an artist, too. Netflix.
- Jay Kelly: finding that the ship has sailed. Netflix.
- 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.
- Eleanor the Great: grief, an appalling lie, redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- One Battle After Another: sometimes hilarious, sometimes thrilling, always outrageous. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Death By Lightning: a statesman, a hack, a lunatic and one great story. Netflix.
- The Baltimorons: vulnerability, recovery, good-hearted laughs. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube Fandango.
ON TV
On December 23, Turner Classic Movies is airing the little-seen Mr. Soft Touch from 1949, which is undeniably Christmas film noir. The Holiday season is integral to the plot, which revolves around a Christmas tree, a Christmas party, Christmas decorations and a horde of ne’er-do-wells in Santa suits.
Nightclub owner Joe Miracle (Glenn Ford) returns from WWII to find that the mob has looted his nest egg. He’s able to rob it back, but now he’s got to hide out from the gangsters until his ship literally sails. As circumstances develop, he pretends to be a down-and-outer so he can stay in in the settlement house (isn’t that quaint?) run by social worker Jenny Jones (Evelyn Keyes).
Mr. Soft Touch has many of the elements of classic film noir:
- a cynical underworld where shady characters are robbed by even shadier types.
- the WWII vet who has gotten screwed, and his only option to make himself whole is illegal.
- a protagonist whose actions are driven to please a beautiful woman.
- a hero who takes a bullet in the street.
- a cast packed by recognizable characters of the period: John Ireland, Beulah Bondi, Percy Kilbride and Ted de Corsia.
- gritty 1949 San Francisco locations.
That being said, Mr. Soft Touch is light comic noir and often silly. We accept the plot contrivances because the film doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Here, Evelyn Keyes isn’t a femme fatale for once; she’s a naïve do-gooder, but she’s sexy all the same, and sparks fly between Ford and Keyes as she inches him toward altruism and redemption.
Mr. Soft Touch is not available to stream. so set your DVR for a rarity.