Inherit the Wind

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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A scene from Bo Maguire’s’s film SOCKS ON FIRE, playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 9 -18, 2021. Courtesy of SFFILM

It’s time for this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), which opens tomorrow, April 9, and runs through April 18. This year, you can ATTEND AT HOME, so make the pandemic work for you and stream these movies. Here’s my first look at the 2021 SFFILM. Today or tomorrow, I’ll be posting recommendations of three very special indies.

ON VIDEO

ON TV

On April 12, Turner Classic Movies presents one of the greatest ever courtroom dramas, Stanley Kramer’s Inherit the Wind from 1960. The story is taken from the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, so it has elements of the culture wars and politics that resonate today. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March are superb as the warring thought-leaders (based on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan).

Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Fredric March in INHERIT THE WIND

Movies to See Right Now

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Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn in WHERE’S MY ROY COHN?

The upcoming Mill Valley Film Festival is the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies. Check out my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far – The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and is there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

ON VIDEO

The Aretha Franklin concert film Amazing Grace is, at once, the recovery of a lost film, the document of an extraordinary live recording and an immersive, spiritual experience. Amazing Grace can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; the DVD can be rented from Redbox.

ON TV

On September 25, Turner Classic Movies will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera, and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended.  But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so father and son decide to conceal aspects of dad’s lifestyle. Mad cap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)

Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES

Movies to See Right Now

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Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern in DOWNTON ABBEY

Make plans for Mill Valley Film Festival, the best opportunity for Bay Area film goers to catch an early look at the Big Movies.

Now is a good time to catch up on films from my list of Best Movies of 2019 – So Far. The Last Black Man in San Francisco, They Shall Not Grow Old, Amazing Grace and Booksmart are all available to be streamed. And, of course, to see Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood if you haven’t.

OUT NOW

  • Downtown Abbey is a satisfying wrap-up for fans of the beloved PBS series.
  • David Crosby: Remember My Name is a rock star bio that reflects on relationship carnage.
  • Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood is a Must See – one of Quentin Tarantino’s very, very best.
  • The family dramedy The Farewell is an audience-pleaser.
  • Bay Area filmmaker John Maringouin’s inventive satire Ghostbox Cowboy, skewers white entitlement and sneaks a peek inside the shadiest corners of the Chinese boom economy. Ghostbox Cowboy earned a NY Times Critic’s Pick and can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime).

ON VIDEO

My stream of the Week is San Jose native Matt Sobel’s impressive directorial debut, Take Me to the River. Not one thing happens in Take Me to the River that you can predict, and it keeps the audience off-balance and completely engaged. It made my Best Movies of 2016. You can stream Take Me to the River on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play or rent the DVD from Netflix.

ON TV

On September 15, Turner Classic Movies presents one of the greatest ever courtroom dramas, Stanley Kramer’s brilliant Inherit the Wind from 1960. The story is taken from the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, so it has elements of the culture wars and politics that resonate today. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March are superb as the warring thought-leaders (based on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan).

Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Fredric March in INHERIT THE WIND

Movies to See Right Now

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Taraji P. Henson in HIDDEN FIGURES
Taraji P. Henson in HIDDEN FIGURES

This week’s best choices in theaters are:

  • La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
  • Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
  • The Founder: the enjoyably addictive story of how a the money-grubbing visionary Ray Kroc built the McDonald’s food service empire.
  • Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
  • I Am Not Your Negro, the documentary about the American public intellectual James Baldwin. It’s a searing examination of race in America as analyzed through Baldwin’s eyes and as expressed through his elegant words.
  • The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past).

For the second consecutive week, my DVD/Stream of the Week is the Argentine neo-noir The Aura. Featured last week at San Francisco’s Noir City film fest, The Aura is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream on Amazon Instant.

On February 13, Turner Classic Movies presents one of the greatest ever courtroom dramas, Stanley Kramer’s brilliant Inherit the Wind from 1960. The story is taken from the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925, so it has elements of culture wars and politics that resonate today. Spencer Tracy and Fredric March are superb as the warring thought-leaders (based on Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan).

Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Fredric March in INHERIT THE WIND
Spencer Tracy, Harry Morgan and Fredric March in INHERIT THE WIND

Movies to See Right Now

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Reese Witherspoon in WILD
Reese Witherspoon in WILD

My recommendation this week – don’t go see Fifty Shades of Grey; instead see a good movie and then have real sex.

  • Clint Eastwood’s thoughtful and compelling American Sniper, with harrowing action and a career-best performance from Bradley Cooper.
  • The inspiring Selma, well-crafted and gripping throughout (but with an unfortunate historical depiction of LBJ).
  • The Belgian drama Two Days, One Night with Marion Cotillard, which explores the limits of emotional endurance.
  • The cinematically important and very funny Birdman. You can still find Birdman, but you may have to look around a bit. It has justifiably garnered several Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture.
  • Reese Witherspoon is superb in the Fight Your Demons drama Wild, and Laura Dern may be even better.
  • The Theory of Everything is a successful, audience-friendly biopic of both Mr. AND Mrs. Genius.
  • Julianne Moore’s superb performance is the only reason to see Still Alice;
  • The Imitation Game – the riveting true story about the guy who invented the computer and defeated the Nazis and was then hounded for his homosexuality.
  • I was underwhelmed by the brooding drama A Most Violent Year – well-acted and a superb sense of time and place (NYC in 1981) but not gripping enough to thrill.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the period thriller The Two Faces of January, available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video.

We’re enjoying Turner Classic Movies’ annual 31 Days of Oscar – a glorious month of Oscar-nominated and Oscar-winning films on TCM. This week, I am highlighting:

  • I Want to Live! (February 15): Susan Hayward’s performance as a good hearted but very unlucky floozy won her an Oscar. It’s about a party girl who takes up with a couple of lowlifes. The lowlifes commit a murder and pin it on her. There is a great jazz soundtrack and a dramatic walk to The Chair.
  • Inherit the Wind (February 19): Watch Spencer Tracy and Frederic March recreate the Scopes Monkey Trial in this character-driven courtroom drama.
  • Caged (February 20): Want to see the prototype for Orange Is the New Black? Eleanor Parker (who died last year) played the naive young woman plunged into a harsh women’s prison filled with hard-bitten fellow prisoners and compassion-free guards. Parker was nominated for an acting Oscar, but her performance pales next to that of Hope Emerson, whose electric portrayal of a hulking guard also got an Oscar nod. Caged also features the fine character actresses Thelma Moorhead, Jane Darwell (Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath) and Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton here as a young woman). Sixty-four years later, Caged might still be the best women’s prison movie ever. Here’s my post on Caged for the 31 Days of Oscar blogathon.

Easter always triggers television networks to pull out their Biblical epics. If you’re going to watch just one Sword-and-Sandal classic, I recommend going full tilt with Barrabas, broadcast by Turner Classic Movies on April 16. This 1961 cornball stars Anthony Quinn as the Zelig-like title character. The story begins with the thief Barabbas avoiding crucifixion when Pontius Pilate swaps him out for Jesus (this part is actually in the Bible). Because the Crucifixion isn’t enough action for a two hour 17 minute movie, Barabbas is soon sent off as a slave to the salt mines, where he is rescued by a miraculously timely earthquake. He then joins the Roman gladiators, complete with a javelin-firing squad, gets lost in the catacombs and emerges to the Burning of Rome. He has encounters with the Emperor Nero and the Apostle Peter before he converts to Christianity – just in time for the mass crucifixion. Watch for an uncredited Sharon Tate as a patrician in the arena.

Anthony Quinn in BARABBAS
Anthony Quinn in BARABBAS

Movies to See Right Now

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THE GATEKEEPERS

Three documentaries are dominating this week’s cinematic landscape:

  • The Gatekeepers is a documentary centered around interviews with all six surviving former chiefs of Shin Bet, Israel’s super-secret internal security force.  These are hard ass guys who share a surprising perspective on the efficacy of Israel’s war on terror.
  • Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, now playing on HBO, explores the Catholic Church’s decades-long cover-up of priest abuse from a Wisconsin parish to the top of the Vatican (and I mean the top).
  • 56 Up is the surprisingly mellow next chapter in the greatest documentary series ever.  Starting with Seven Up! in 1964, director Michael Apted has followed the same fourteen British children, filming snapshots of their lives at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42 and 49 – and now at 56.

We’re now in the third day of San Jose’s Cinequest Film Festival.  I’ve updated my CINEQUEST 2013 page, which includes comments on The Sapphires, In the Shadows, Lead Us Not Into Temptation, The Almost Man, Panahida, Dose of Reality, White Lie, Aftermath and The Hunt.

Opening this week, the drama Lore is about the innocent children of monstrous people, but its intensity is so unrelenting that it wearies the audience. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

I admire Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects, starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Quartet is a pleasant lark of a geezer comedy with four fine performances. The charmingly funny Warm Bodies has made my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies.

You can still catch the Academy Award winning Argo, as well as Zero Dark Thirty and Silver Linings Playbook.  To ride the momentum of director Ang Lee’s surprise Oscar win, Life of Pi is now out again in 3D, which I recommend.  The Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture,  Amour, is brilliantly made and almost unbearable to watch.

My DVD of the week is another documentary, Undefeated, last year’s Oscar winner for Best Documentary.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. This week, the lineup includes Inherit the Wind and Elmer Gantry.