This week on The Movie Gourmet – a republished review of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, now Oscar-nominated and available to stream at home. Next week – a new review of A Private Life, with Jodie Foster acting in French, and a preview of the 2026 Cinequest, coming up in March.
REMEMBRANCE
Catherine O’Hara was a master of comic sensibility and comic timing. She was unforgettable in Best in Show as the endearingly goofy Cookie, who didn’t know that people who live in mobile homes aren’t supposed to win snooty national dog shows, and who was blissfully indifferent when her sexual past kept popping up to enrage her husband (Eugene Levy). She was also brilliant in A Mighty Wind as Mickey of the defunct folk duo Mitch and Mickey (again, with Levy), especially performing their hit A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow. As The Wife reminded me, those movies, along with Waiting for Guffman and For Your Consideration were Christopher Judge mockumentaries, where O’Hara and other cast members mostly improvised their own lines. She was singularly funny in Beetlejuice, Schitt’s Creek and The Studio.
CURRENT MOVIES
- No Other Choice: keeping up with the Parks. In theaters
- Hamnet: a grieving couple finally aligned. In theaters.
- It Was Just an Accident: trauma, justice and complications. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Mr. Nobody Against Putin: The first casualty of war is truth. Amazon, AppleTV.
- A Little Prayer: comfortable, then bewildered. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- My Dead Friend Zoe: getting to resilience. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Train Dreams: quietly thinking and quietly feeling. Netflix.
- Left-Handed Girl: a family’s path to to catharsis. Netflix.
- Marty Supreme: a portrait of chutzpah. In theaters.
- Sentimental Value: generational healing. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- Jay Kelly: finding that the ship has sailed. Netflix.
- The Testament of Ann Lee: dreary, self-important and odd, In theaters.
