The Must See is Peter Jackson’s revelatory WW I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. And this weekend closes out the Noir City film festival; my festival preview highlights the closing night film Blast of Silence, one of the very first (and bleakest) neo-noirs.
OUT NOW
- In They Shall Not Grow Old, Lords of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has, for the first time, layered humanity over our understanding of World War I. By slowing down the speed of the jerky WWI film footage and adding sound and color, Jackson has allowed us to relate to the real people in the Great War. This is a generational achievement. My complete post will go up this weekend.
- Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
- Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
- Vice: in this bitingly funny biopic of Dick Cheney, filmmaker Adam McKay explores the amoral grasping for power, and Christian Bale delivers a superb performance and a jaw-droppingly accurate impersonation of Cheney. My complete post will go up this weekend.
- Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
- Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
- The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
- Do NOT, under any circumstances, see I Hate Kids, which I started to screen for a film festival earlier in the year, but could not bring myself to finish. Somehow, it got a theatrical release, but it only has a Metacritic rating of 12.
ON VIDEO
On February 2, it will be five years since we lost Philip Seymour Hoffman. My favorite Hoffman performance is in the 2007 dark thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, which I’ve called the decade’s most overlooked American film. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is available on DVD and to stream from Netflix.
On TV
There are plenty of good choices on television during Turner Classic Movies 31 Days of Oscar, featuring Oscar-nominated and winning films.
- The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (February 3): This romantic French musical is notable for three things: 1) the actors sing all of the dialogue; 2) the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and 3) an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history.
- All the King’s Men (February 3): one of the best political movies of all time, from the novel based on the saga of Huey Long. Broderick Crawford stars as Willie Stark, the fictionalized Kingfish. Watch for the brilliant, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Mercedes McCambridge. (Note: this is the 1949 version, NOT the lousy 2006 Sean Penn remake.)
- Perhaps the most deeply funny movie of all time, Mon Oncle (February 5), Jacques Tati’s masterful fish-out-of-water satire of modern consumerism and modernist culture. If you have strong feelings (either way) for Mid-Century Modern style, be patient and settle in. There’s very little dialogue and lots of sly observational physical humor. The use of ambient noise/sounds and the very spare soundtrack is pure genius.
