This week on The Movie Gourmet – my First Look at Cinequest, previewing the Silicon Valley fim fest, which opens on Tuesday. On Sunday, I’ll publish my Best of Cinequest and followup with more Cinequest recommendations on Tuesday. I have been covering Cinequest for 15 years.
Here’s my farewell to Robert Duvall, one of the essential figures in cinema in my lifetime.
I also watched the Paul McCartney doc Man on the Run on Amazon, which was somewhat entertaining. Directed by prolific documentarian Morgan Neville (who won an Oscar in 2013 for 20 Feet from Stardom) with McCartney’s cooperation, it’s well-made and exceptionally well-sourced. It’s just hard for me to be enthusiastic about the subject, which is the eleven years right after the Beatles’ breakup, when McCartney led the band Wings; my take on Wings runs the gamut from indifferent to loathing.
CURRENT MOVIES
- The Secret Agent: we’re all back in 1977, and he’s running for his life. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- No Other Choice: keeping up with the Parks. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- A Private Life: a shrink and her own issues. In theaters.
- Hamnet: a grieving couple finally aligned. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
- 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.
- Train Dreams: quietly thinking and quietly feeling. Netflix.
- Marty Supreme: a portrait of chutzpah. In theaters.
- Sentimental Value: generational healing. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
ON TV
Robert Duvall was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but he won his Best Actor Oscar for Tender Mercies, coming up on Turner Classic Movies on March 10. Duvall plays a once-famous country-western singer who has sabotaged his career and his family life with alcoholism and bad choices. Hey, mister, were you really Mac Sledge? Yes, ma’m, I guess I was. He’s trying to reboot with a new wife, but will his estranged daughter give him a second chance? Novelist Horton Foote won the screenplay Oscar. Duvall did his own singing and even wrote two of Mac Sledge’s songs, Fool’s Waltz and I’ve Decided to Leave Here Forever.
