Mill Valley Film Festival

Movies to See Right Now

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Gene Tierney startles Dana Andrews in LAURA
Gene Tierney startles Dana Andrews in LAURA

In theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. Although it’s leaving theaters this weekend, it remains available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi fable The Zero Theorem opens today; it’s visually arresting, but the story becomes tedious.  Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the absorbing French period drama Augustine, about obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Augustine is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, and Xbox Video.

On September 24, Turner Classic Movies plays the underrated anti-war masterpiece The Americanization of Emily, the favorite film of both of its stars – James Garner and Julie Andrews. On September 27, TCM offers the classic noir thriller Laura, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.

Movies to See Right Now

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Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon in THE TRIP TO ITALY

In theaters:

  • The smart and hilarious The Trip to Italy showcases the improvisational wit of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, along with some serious tourism/foodie porn.
  • Alive Inside: The profoundly moving documentary showing Alzheimer patients being pulled out of isolation by music.
  • Feedback from my readers is almost unanimous – Richard Linklater’s family drama Boyhood is a special movie experience – and possibly the best film of the decade.
  • The mesmerizing drama Calvary, starring Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson again teams with John Michael McDonagh, the writer-director of The Guard.
  • I really liked The One I Love – a relationship romance, a dark comedy and a modern day episode of The Twilight Zone rolled into one successful movie. It’s also available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.
  • Don’t miss Philip Seymour Hoffman’s explosive final performance in the John le Carré espionage thriller A Most Wanted Man.

Boyhood tops my list of Best Movies of 2014 – So Far, and Alive Inside and Calvary also make the list.

Poor writing and directing sabotage the delightful performances of Alfred Molina and John Lithgow in the romantic drama Love Is Strange. I was also disappointed by the tiresome Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.  I nodded off during Woody Allen’s disappointing romantic comedy of manners Magic in the Moonlight.

Here’s my preview of the upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the unusually thoughtful romantic comedy Words and Pictures.

On September 16, Turner Classic Movies plays the unforgettable Bogart and Bacall thriller Key Largo.  And the next day, TCM will air the overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin, a taut 71 minutes of tension.  Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train.  Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target.

Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN

Mill Valley Film Festival: see it here first

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Timothy Spall in MR. TURNER
Timothy Spall in MR. TURNER

The Mill Valley Film Festival always showcases many of the most promising prestige films that are scheduled for release during Award Season.  It’s the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies. This year, the film fest is especially rich with Oscar bait:

  • Mr. Turner: A period biopic by Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies, Vera Drake, Another Year).  Lots of Oscar buzz for lead actor Timothy Spall.  Most of us won’t be able to see this in theaters until January.
  • Foxcatcher: Ripped from the headlines psychological drama with possible acting Oscar nods for Steve Carell AND Channing Tatum AND Mark Ruffalo.
  • The Homesman: Writer/director/star Tommy Lee Jones takes Hilary Swank on a pioneer road trip.
  • Whiplash:  J.K. Simmons (Juno) plays the tough love music instructor for drummer Miles Teller (The Spectacular Now).  Huge hit at Sundance promises to be one of the Fall’s top audience-pleasers.
  • Wild:  Reese Witherspoon backpacks solo across the Pacific coast for emotional closure.
  • Force Majeure: This Swedish satirical disaster thriller won the Un Certain Regard jury prize at Cannes.
  • The Imitation Game:  Lots of buzz for Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance as gay WWII code-breaking genius Kenneth Turing.
  • St. Vincent:  Big crowd pleaser here:  Single mom (Melissa McCarthy) leave young son with boozy, lecherous babysitter (Bill Murray).  The kid actor is getting raves, too.
  • Two Days, One Night: The latest urgent drama from the Dardennes brothers (The Kid with a Bike, The Son).  Their movies always make my annual top ten list – and this one features Marion Cotillard.
  • The Judge: Mixed reviews so far at Toronto for courtroom drama with Robert Downey, Jr. and Robert Duvall.

Those are the Big Movies, but there’s also a promising assortment of the indies, foreign flicks and documentaries that I usually cover.  Here’s the schedule.

The fest runs October 2-11 in Mill Valley, San Rafael and Corte Madera. Tickets are now available to members and will go on sale to the public on September 14.

Steve Carell (yes - that's really him) and Channing Tatum in FOXCATCHER
Steve Carell (yes – that’s really him) and Channing Tatum in FOXCATCHER

From Mill Valley Film Festival: The Year & the Vineyard

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by Zeke Ortiz

The Year & the Vineyard is an interesting, funny, original movie, shot without a budget. It was written, directed and edited by Spanish director Jonathan Cenzual Burley. The story is set in a small village in the beautiful countryside of Spain in 2012. It begins when a strong macho Italian, who is a fighter for the International  Brigade, literally falls through a hole in the sky and lands in a vineyard. He believes he is fighting the Spanish Civil war in 1937. The local priest, who is very funny, flamboyant and  a little odd, is convinced the Italian is either an angel or a saint, and, after a thorough examination, concludes that neither is correct.

The Italian stays at the home of a very shy teacher and the 2 men become friends. The teacher is in love with a local girl and the priest and the fighter encourage him to sing to her to minimize his nerves, so that he can actually declare his love to her through song. The scene reminded me of Romeo and Juliet when Romeo declares his love to Juliet when she is standing on a balcony. 

The Italian sees a picture of his lover from 1937 in a history book and notices that  she is also fighting in the war. His sole desire is to be reconnected with her back in 1937, and so the men try to figure out how he fell out of the sky in the first place.  Finally, by throwing stones up in the air close to where he fell, they finally realize that there is a hole in the sky that he is able to climb over to go back to 1937.  He does this with the help of a ladder and his friends.

What struck me about the director is his absolute passion and belief in what he is doing. His Grandfather fought in the civil war and played a small role in the movie. In addition, filming took place where Burley spent his summers as a child,  so his personal connection was apparent. You could see how hard he worked to put this piece together. It took him about a year to make the whole film from start to finish without a budget.  His actors are not well-known, but I was impressed with their ability. He finally finished the movie on Sunday, days before the world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and I was lucky enough to attend and see him introduce it to the audience.  It was exciting to see  how dedicated Jonathan Burley is to his work.

The Year & the Vineyard was funny and cute and, even though the start was slow, I really enjoyed the whole production. The audience was clearly engaged, and being present and hearing the answers to our questions, you can see that this man is committed to his art.

Our Marin correspondent Zeke Ortiz represented us at this year’s Mill Valley Film Festival.

Mill Valley Film Fest upcoming

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THE PAST

Here’s a heads up for San Francisco Bay Area (and especially Marin) movie fans.  The Mill Valley Film Festival usually offers an early peek at some prestige fall releases, and that is definitely the case this October.

I think the three most promising films are:

  • The Past: The Artist’s Berenice Bejo won Best Actress at Cannes as a Parisian woman divorcing her Iranian husband in Paris amid an increasingly messy family life.  By the director of Oscar-winning A Separation.
  • All Is Lost with Robert Redford as a man battling impossible odds when something goes horribly wrong on his trans-ocean solo voyage.
  • the historical slavery epic 12 Years a Slave (but the only screening, with director and star, is already sold out).

Other films with lots of buzz include:

  • Nebraska:  Director Alexander Payne follows his Sideways and The Descendants with a black and white indie.  Bruce Dern won Best Actor at Cannes for portraying an addled Montana grump who thinks he’s won a junk mail sweepstakes.  His son drives him to Omaha to claim the nonexistent prize, stopping to see some relatives and have some road trip adventures along the way.   There’s also some buzz about the performance of June Squibb (who acted in Payne’s About Schmidt) as the old man’s wife.
  • Philomena:  Judi Dench stars as an Irish woman seeking the son she was forced to give up for adoption.  Co-stars Steve Coogan in a non-ironic role.
  • Blue is the Warmest Color:  This film, which many critics thought was way too long, nevertheless won the top prize at Cannes. Actresses Adèle Exarchopoulos and Léa Seydoux (Farewell My Queen, Midnight in Paris) are reportedly spectacular in this three-hour love story.  One of the explicit sex scenes takes over twenty minutes (TWENTY MINUTES!).
  • The Rocket:  A boy takes his family across war-scarred Laos to enter a rocket contest.  It looks like the kind of movie that I usually don’t like, but it won major awards at the Berlin and Tribeca film fests.

Eventually, I’ll have descriptions and trailers for all these films on my Movies I’m Looking Forward To.  Scroll down to “Later Fall – Prestige Season”.   The Mill Valley Film Festival will run October 3-13  at the Rafael in San Rafael, the Sequoia in Mill Valley and three other Marin venues.