Movies to See Right Now (at home)

I’M AN ELECTRIC LAMPSHADE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.

We’re in the final four days of Cinequest, so take a gander at my Best of Cinequest. And here are my remembrances of Yaphet Kotto, George Segal and Jessica Walter.

ON VIDEO

Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman deliver heartbreaking performances in The Father, an unsettling exploration of memory loss. I saw The Father while covering the virtual Mill Valley Film Festival in October, and it’s now widely available to stream (just before the Oscars). It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020.

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

ON TV

Jean Gabin (right) in PEPE LE MOKO

On March 27 and 28, Turner Classic Movies brings us one of the greatest movie stars, Jean Gabin in a pre-noir film, Pépé le Moko. Probably the greatest male French movie star ever, Gabin had dominated prewar French cinema with La Grande Illusion, Port of Shadows and Le Bete Humaine.  After the war, he aged into noir (Touchez Pas aux Grisbi, Razzia) and, in the 1960s, into neo-noir (Any Number Can Win, The Sicilian Clan).  Gabin oozed a seasoned cool (like Bogart) and imparted a stately gravitas to his noir and neo-noir characters.

Jean Gabin is on my very short list of the most perpetually cool humans to ever walk the planet, along with Dean Martin, Ben Gazzara, Joan Jett and Barack Obama.

In Pépé le Moko, Gabin plays the titular Algiers gangster who operates, immune from police interference, in the Casbah. The cops have been trying to lure him out of the Casbah for ages – and then they learn that he is obsessed with a woman…

Pépé le Moko was filmed in 1937, four years before the emergence of the film noir movement, an American cinematic phenomenon soon appreciated, named, and joined by the French. Pépé le Moko foreshadows noir with its elements of the dark, shadowy underworld setting and, of the course, the protagonist who has a dame for a weak spot. TCM is airing Pépé le Moko on TCM’s addictive Noir Alley, with intro and outro by Eddie Muller.

Mireille Balin and Jean Gabin in PEPE LE MOKO
Jean Gabin in PEPE LE MOKO