45 Years

Movies to See Right Now

by
Bryan Cranston in ALL THE WAY
Bryan Cranston in ALL THE WAY

It’s an exceptional week for movies about American politics.

  • All the Way is a thrilling political docudrama with a stellar performance.  It’s the story of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, warts and all, ending official racial segregation in America with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bryan Cranston brings LBJ alive as no actor has before.  All the Way is still playing on HBO.
  • Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner – it’s probably the best documentary of the year. Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating. It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.
  • Scroll down to read about two other great films of American politics coming up on TV: All the President’s Men and The Candidate.

If you like the espionage novelist John le Carré, you’ll enjoy Our Kind of Traitor opens today. It’s a robust thriller with a funny yet powerful performance by Stellan Skarsgård.

Also in theaters:

  • Love & Friendship – a sharply witty adaptation of a Jane Austen story with an adept turn by Kate Beckinsale.
  • The Nice Guys – Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a very funny mismatched buddy movie from the creator of the Lethal Weapon franchise.
  • Julianne Moore, along with supporting players Bill Hader and Maya Rudolph, shine in the amiably satisfying little romantic comedy Maggie’s Plan.
  • Finding Dory doesn’t have the breakthrough animation or the depth of story that we expect from Pixar, but it won’t be painful to watch a zillion times with your kids.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. 45 Years is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Set your DVRs for Turner Classic Movies next Friday, July 7, as TCM explores “America in the 70s” with four of the best films EVER – All the President’s Men, The Candidate, Network and The Conversation –  along with the time capsule thriller Klute (after which 15% of all American women changed their hairstyles to mirror Jane Fonda’s “shag”).

Jane Fonda in KLUTE
Jane Fonda in KLUTE

DVD/Stream of the Week: 45 YEARS – you can’t unring the bell

by
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Tom Courtneay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS

Here’s a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. In the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, we meet the married couple Geoff (Tom Courtenay) and Kate (Rampling), a well-suited pair who share each others’ values sensibilities and senses of humor. They are planning a party to mark their 45th anniversary when Geoff learns that the body of his previous girlfriend (killed in a mountain climbing accident 47 years ago ) has been found preserved in ice. He is knocked for a loop, and then slides into complete shock. He becomes brooding, even obsessed about his old flame and his youth.

Kate tries to settle Geoff and be supportive. But she learns one thing about his old flame, and then a second, and suddenly she’s the one who become the most troubled. She says, “I can hardly be cross about something before we existed, could I?….Still…” She asks him a question that she shouldn’t have. Her feelings may or may not be justified or rational, but they are her feelings, and they become the facts on the ground.

Geoff is usually the one who gets to burst out with his feelings, and Kate cleans up after. But Kate’s feelings are so much more complicated than Geoff’s.

45 Years meditates on the power and durability of memories and then shifts into a study of relationships. We see intimacy without the sharing of all truths, and see how the truth can be toxic and destructive. We live based on assumptions, and when those are revealed to be not fully correct, well, you can’t unring the bell.  Camera Cinema Club Director Tim Sika overheard a critic colleague describe 45 Years thus, “It’s about nothing until you realize that’s it’s about everything”.

Writer-director Andrew Haigh is a brilliant storyteller. He lets the audience connect the dots. Our involvement in 45 Years intensifies as we piece together the back story and as the characters learn about new developments. There’s a wonderful undercoating of early 60s pop, a great soundtrack that avoids seeming like a jukebox.

Charlotte Rampling is marvelous and gives one of the greatest performances of the year in cinema. Rampling is most searing in Kate’s unspoken moments, in which we see her anguish, amusement, unease, radiance and heartbreak. It’s remarkable that such emotional turbulence can be portrayed without a hint of melodrama.
toryteller. He lets the audience connect the dots. Our involvement in <em>45 Years</em> intensifies as we piece together the back story and as the characters learn about new developments. There’s a wonderful undercoating of early 60s pop, a great soundtrack that avoids seeming like a jukebox.

Charlotte Rampling is marvelous and gives one of the greatest performances of the year in cinema. Rampling is most searing in Kate’s unspoken moments, in which we see her anguish, amusement, unease, radiance and heartbreak. It’s remarkable that such emotional turbulence can be portrayed without a hint of melodrama.

Before you see 45 Years, I’d suggest a careful reading of the lyrics to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
I of course replied
Something here inside
Can not be denied

They, said some day you’ll find
All who love are blind
When you heart’s on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
To think they would doubt our love
And yet today, my love has gone away
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
So I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes

[SPOILER ALERT – I think that the tipping point in their relationship occurs when Kate says, “Open your eyes”.]

I’ve also written a companion essay on the film.  45 Years is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN
Saoirse Ronan in BROOKLYN – it ain’t going to win an Oscar, but you should see it while it’s on the big screen

Here’s your last chance to watch the Oscar nominees before the awards broadcast:

  • 45 Years with Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.
  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN. I predict that The Revenant will be the biggest winner at the Oscars.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

The Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar contains some cool Hollywood parodies.

Silicon Valley’s own film festival Cinequest is around the corner – make plans now to attend between March 1 and March 13.

My Stream/VOD of the Week is DRUNK STONED BRILLIANT DEAD: The Story of the National Lampoon, which takes us through an engaging and comprehensive history of the groundbreaking and seminal satirical magazine. You can stream it from iTunes or the Showtime VOD service (and you can catch it on the Showtime channel).

The Movie Gourmet features Overlooked Noir, but Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity is anything but overlooked – it’s justifiably recognized as one of the two or three most iconic film noir. I’ve included it as the prototypical noir in my A Classic American Movie Primer. It’s about a guy who is just selling insurance until he meets a woman he can’t resist…Double Indemnity plays on Turner Classic Movies on February 28.

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY
Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in DOUBLE INDEMNITY. Check out her ankle bracelet.

Movies to See Right Now

by
Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR
Alden Ehrenreich in HAIL, CAESAR

Get ready for the Oscars by seeing these nominated films and performances, all on my Best Movies of 2015, all with some Oscar nominations:

  • 45 Years with Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.
  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN. I predict that The Revenant will be the biggest winner at the Oscars.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

The Coen Brothers’ disappointingly empty comedy Hail, Caesar contains some cool Hollywood parodies.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the brilliant psychological drama 99 Homes, which illustrates the life-and-death stakes of our nation’s foreclosure crisis. It’s a topical film, but 99 Homes is emotionally raw and as intense as any thriller.  The DVD is available to rent from Netflix and Redbox, and 99 Homes can be streamed from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, and Playstation Video.

For just a fun time at the movies, try Richard Lester’s 1974 The Four Musketeers, coming up February 21 on Turner Classic Movies. Watch Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York and Frank Finlay swashbuckle away against Bad Guys Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston. Geraldine Chaplin and Raquel Welch adorn the action.

Christopher Lee and Faye Dunaway in THE FOUR MUSKETEERS
Christopher Lee and Faye Dunaway in THE FOUR MUSKETEERS
Oliver Reed in THE FOUR MUSKETEERS
Oliver Reed in THE FOUR MUSKETEERS

a movie for young people about old people

by
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS

I know that this is utterly futile, but I wish that young people will watch 45 Years.  It’s not gonna happen because young people have little interest in movies about old people.  But there’s much in 45 Years for folks in their 20s to consider as they build lifelong relationships.

It’s easy to say, “Be completely truthful and hide nothing from your partner”.  And we’ve certainly seen enough examples (even in movies, too) about the corrosiveness of familial secrets and lies.  But what about truths that are toxic and destructive?

45 Years also illustrates that you gotta live with your partner’s feelings whether justified, rational or not.  Kate herself knows that she shouldn’t blame Geoff for something before he had met her, saying, “I can hardly be cross about something before we existed, could I?….Still…”  Then there’s the question, not of what he did, but why he didn’t tell her.  And 45 Years probes what happens when the assumptions in a relationship are rocked.

Finally, here’s some rare relationship advice from The Movie Gourmet that would have aided the characters in 45 Years: If you can’t handle the answer, don’t ask the question.

 

Movies to See Right Now

by
Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS

This weekend  45 Years becomes the final film on my Best Movies of 2015 to have been released in the Bay Area. Don’t miss Charlotte Rampling’s enthralling Oscar-nominated performance.  And five more from my 2015 list:

  • The Revenant, an awesome and authentic survival tale that must be seen on the BIG SCREEN.
  • Creed, the newest and entirely fresh chapter in the Rocky franchise; it’s about the internal struggle of three people, not just The Big Fight.
  • The Irish romantic drama Brooklyn is an audience-pleaser with a superb performance by Saoirse Ronan.
  • Spotlight – a riveting, edge-of-your-seat drama with some especially compelling performances.
  • The Big Short – a supremely entertaining thriller – both funny and anger-provoking.

Plus two more good choices:

  • The Hateful Eight, a Quentin Tarantino showcase for Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but a movie that’s not for everyone.
  • Carol – a vividly told tale of forbidden love.

I’m not a fan of Joy or The Danish Girl.

My Stream of the Week is the riveting German psychodrama Phoenix with its WOWZER ending. Phoenix is one of my Best Movies of 2015. It is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, YouTube and Google Play.

This Sunday, January 31, Turner Classic Movies presents the ultra-suspenseful Diabolique from “the French Hitchcock” Henri-Georges Clouzot and the American film noir Phantom Lady, with Elisha Cook, Jr.’s orgasmic drumming scene – how did they get THAT by the censors?

Also this week on TCM: Lawrence of Arabia, The Sting, The Third Man, Cool Hand Luke, East of Eden, The Dirty Dozen.

Elisha Cook, Jr. and a nice of gams in PHANTOM LADY
Elisha Cook, Jr. and some nice gams in PHANTOM LADY

45 YEARS: you can’t unring the bell

by
Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS
Tom Courtneay and Charlotte Rampling in 45 YEARS

Here’s a movie on my Best Movies of 2015 list with an enthralling Oscar-nominated performance by Charlotte Rampling. In the quietly engrossing drama 45 Years, we meet the married couple Geoff (Tom Courtenay) and Kate (Rampling), a well-suited pair who share each others’ values sensibilities and senses of humor.  They are planning a party to mark their 45th anniversary when Geoff learns that the body of his previous girlfriend (killed in a mountain climbing accident 47 years ago ) has been found preserved in ice.  He is knocked for a loop, and then slides into complete shock.  He becomes brooding, even obsessed about his old flame and his youth.

Kate tries to settle Geoff and be supportive.  But she learns one thing about his old flame, and then a second, and suddenly she’s the one who become the most troubled.  She says, “I can hardly be cross about something before we existed, could I?….Still…”  She asks him a question that she shouldn’t have.   Her feelings may or may not be justified or rational, but they are her feelings, and they become the facts on the ground.

Geoff is usually the one who gets to burst out with his feelings, and Kate cleans up after.  But Kate’s feelings are so much more complicated than Geoff’s.

45 Years meditates on the power and durability of memories and then shifts into a study of relationships.  We see intimacy without the sharing of all truths, and see how the truth can be toxic and destructive.  We live based on assumptions, and when those are revealed to be not fully correct, well, you can’t unring the bell.  Camera Cinema Club Director Tim Sika overheard a critic colleague describe 45 Years thus, “It’s about nothing until you realize that’s it’s about everything”.

Writer-director Andrew Haigh is a brilliant storyteller.  He lets the audience connect the dots.  Our involvement in 45 Years intensifies as we piece together the back story and as the characters learn about new developments.  There’s a wonderful undercoating of early 60s pop, a great soundtrack that avoids seeming like a jukebox.

Charlotte Rampling is marvelous and gives one of the greatest performances of the year in cinema.   Rampling is most searing in Kate’s unspoken moments, in which we see her anguish, amusement, unease, radiance and heartbreak.  It’s remarkable that such emotional turbulence can be portrayed without a hint of melodrama.

Before you see 45 Years, I’d suggest a careful reading of the lyrics to Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.

They asked me how I knew
My true love was true
I of course replied
Something here inside
Can not be denied

They, said some day you’ll find
All who love are blind
When you heart’s on fire
You must realize
Smoke gets in your eyes

So I chaffed them, and I gaily laughed
To think they would doubt our love
And yet today, my love has gone away
I am without my love

Now laughing friends deride
Tears I cannot hide
So I smile and say
When a lovely flame dies
Smoke gets in your eyes

[SPOILER ALERT – I think that the tipping point in their relationship occurs when Kate says, “Open your eyes”.]