All the President’s Men – The Movie Gourmet

Movies to See Right Now

November 26, 2016October 21, 2016 by movie gourmet

CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing and San Francisco Film Society.

The beginning of a very promising Fall movie season kicks off today.

Mascots is the latest mockumentary from Christopher Guest (Best in Show) and it’s very funny. Mascots is playing in very few theaters, but it’s streaming on Netflix Instant, too.

The end of the thriller The Girl on the Train (starring Emily Blunt) is indeed thrilling. But the 82 minutes before the Big Plot Twist is murky, confusing and boring.

My Stream of the Week is also the Most Overlooked Movie of 2016: Chevalier is a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness. Director Athina Rachel Tsangari is obviously a keen observer of male behavior. Both men and women will enjoy laughing at male behavior taken to extreme. I sure did. Chevalier is perhaps the funniest movie of 2016, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2016 – So Far. I’m hoping that its popularity explodes now that it’s available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

We seem to have a major election coming up, so Turner Classic Movies is blessing us on October 26 with four of the absolute best political movies ever: The Last Hurrah, All the President’s Men, The Best Man and The Candidate.

And several rungs down in movie quality, on October 22 TCM will play The Killer Shrews from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters, in which the voraciously predatory mutant shrews are played by dogs in fright masks. Yes, dogs.

The Candidate - Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages — THE CANDIDATE – Robert Redford learns that running for elected office has its disadvantages

Movies to See Right Now

July 1, 2016July 1, 2016 by movie gourmet

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”).

Gordon Willis: the Prince of Darkness

May 21, 2014 by movie gourmet

The cinematographer Gordon Willis has died at age 82. Willis was a particularly singular filmmaker who often broke new ground and often made movies that looked much different from movies made before. Although three of the films he shot won the Best Picture Oscar, he was unrecognized by the Academy Awards until he received an honorary Oscar in 2009.

To understand the impact a cinematographer can have on a movie, just check out these examples from among Willis’ 34 feature films. The first is The Godfather, for which he received the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”. (Willis shot all three Godfather films). The convention of the time held that a filmmaker always had to show the eyes of the movie star. Willis argued that, by not showing Marlon Brando’s eyes, you could actually see into his character’s soul.

The second example is All the President’s Men, a paranoid thriller enhanced by the contrast between the stark brightness of the Washington Post newsroom and the menacing darkness of the parking garage where Bob Woodward met his secret source Deep Throat.

And, finally, there’s Woody Allen’s 1979 masterpiece Manhattan. Why make a black and white movie in 1979? New York City was never a more stirring backdrop.