Movies to See Right Now

Photo caption: Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

I’ve got about eight solid movie-going options in theaters for you this week. I’ll be seeing at least three more new movies this week, so stay tuned for yet more recommendations.

IN THEATERS

The Card Counter: Oscar Isaac stars in Paul Schrader’s dark portrait of highly disciplined loner who lives by a code but can’t submerge his past.

Best Sellers: Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza star in a breezy comedy about a marketing campaign that takes off when bad behavior goes viral on social media.

Also in theaters:

REMEMBRANCE

Nino Castelnuovo in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

Actor Nino Castelnuovo matched up with the then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve for a doomed romance in the innovative French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). In the epilogue, when Castelnuovo gazes out the window of his gas station, it’s one of the great weepers in cinema history.

ON VIDEO

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford in HUMAN DESIRE

On Saturday and Sunday, Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley features Human Desire with Gloria Grahame. Grahame is one of the enduring figures of film noir because of her performances In a Lonely Place and The Big Heat. But she’s at least as good in this less well-known turn. Grahame plays Vicki, married to a brutish wife-beater (Broderick Crawford). Vicki is no saint – she accompanies hubby on a murder and helps him cover his tracks by coming on to a hunky railroad engineer (Glenn Ford). Vicki then suggests to her lover that if only her husband were dead…But Vicki, while morally flexible, isn’t bad to the core. She’s complicated. TCM will provide an Intro and Outro by Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir.

And, on September 21, TCM airs the little seen All Night Long, one of my Overlooked Neo-noir. It’s Shakespeare’s Othello, set in the jazz world of 1962 London – and with music performed by Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and other real jazz musicians.

Patrick McGoohan and Paul Harris in ALL NIGHT LONG