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Movies to See Right Now

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Ryan Gosling in THE NICE GUYS
Ryan Gosling in THE NICE GUYS
  • Something for everyone in theaters this week:
    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.
  • A Bigger Splash – a sensual travelogue turned comedy turned thriller with a raucous and oft-naked performance by Ralph Fiennes.

You can find the best movie out right now on HBO.  It’s All the Way, 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.

Here’s what you want in a disaster movie: 1) a really impressive disaster and 2) lots of suspense about which of the main characters will survive. My Stream of the Week, the Norwegian The Wave, successfully delivers on both counts. It’s available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and a variety of TV PPV outlets.

June 3 is Billy Wilder Day on Turner Classic Movies, which features some wonders from my favorite writer-director: Some Like It Hot, Double Indemnity, Days of Wine and Roses and Five Graves to Cairo. Everyone recognizes Some Like It Hot and Double Indemnity as masterpieces, but I want to highlight Wilder’s very successful second film as a director – Five Graves to Cairo is a combo spy mystery and war film set in Nazi-overrun North Africa. Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter and Erich Von Stroheim star. The cast also includes two of my favorite character actors, Akim Tamiroff and Peter van Eyck.

Franchot Tone, xxx and XXX in FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO
Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter and Erich Von Stroheim in FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO

Stream of the Week: THE WAVE

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THE WAVE
THE WAVE

Here’s what you want in a disaster movie: 1) a really impressive disaster and 2) lots of suspense about which of the main characters will survive. The Norwegian The Wave successfully delivers on both counts.

As a non-Norwegian, I didn’t know that, every few decades, an unstable mountainside somewhere in Norway breaks loose, plunging hundreds of tons of rock into a fjord; this triggers a tsunami, which rages down the fjord, destroying everything and every one that doesn’t reach high ground. Norwegian geologists are even perched above these fjords to trigger early warning systems. A siren goes off, and everyone downstream has TEN MINUTES to climb to safety. As disasters go, this is pretty novel – not your ordinary earthquake, fire, flood, shipwreck and not even your ordinary tsunami (Hereafter, The Impossible). In The Wave, the tidal wave itself is pretty impressive, and the special effects are believable.

But the best part about The Wave is the tension produced by, not one, but TWO ticking clock scenarios. The filmmakers build the tension as we wonder just when the upcoming disaster is going to hit and whether the characters will have time to escape. And then, there’s an excruciating race-against-time to save family members from a hopeless situation.

The main characters are sympathetic, the acting is very good and the dialogue is very witty for the genre. Ane Dahl Torp plays the mom, and her character’s off-the-charts take-charge heroism and resilience is a big part of the fun. I’m not a real fan of disaster movies, but I still stayed with The Wave for its entire length.

I saw The Wave at Cinequest, where it gripped and exhausted the audience (in a good way).  You probably misses its very brief theatrical release in March, but, fortunately, The Wave is available to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and a variety of TV PPV outlets.

THE WAVE: tension, more tension and a really scary tsunami

by
THE WAVE
THE WAVE

Here’s what you want in a disaster movie: 1) a really impressive disaster and 2) lots of suspense about which of the main characters will survive.  The Norwegian The Wave successfully delivers on both counts.

As a non-Norwegian, I didn’t know that, every few decades, an unstable mountainside somewhere in Norway breaks loose, plunging hundreds of tons of rock into a fjord; this triggers a tsunami, which rages down the fjord, destroying everything and every one that doesn’t reach high ground.  Norwegian geologists are even perched above these fjords to trigger early warning systems.  A siren goes off, and everyone downstream has TEN MINUTES to climb to safety.  As disasters go, this is pretty novel – not your ordinary earthquake, fire, flood, shipwreck and not even your ordinary tsunami (Hereafter, The Impossible).  In The Wave, the tidal wave itself is pretty impressive, and the special effects are believable.

But the best part about The Wave is the tension produced by, not one, but TWO ticking clock scenarios. The filmmakers build the tension as we wonder just when the upcoming disaster is going to hit and whether the characters will have time to escape.  And then, there’s an excruciating race-against-time to save family members from a hopeless situation.

The main characters are sympathetic, the acting is very good and the dialogue is very witty for the genre.  Ane Dahl Torp plays the mom, and her character’s off-the-charts take charge heroism and resilience is a big part of the fun.  I’m not a real fan of disaster movies, but I still stayed with The Wave for its entire length.

I saw The Wave at Cinequest, where it gripped and exhausted the audience (in a good way).   It will be released theatrically in the Bay Area on March 11.