Movies to See Right Now

This week’s best pick is the flawless thriller Captain Phillips, with Tom Hanks starring as the real-life ship captain hijacked by Somali pirates and rescued by American commandos in 2009.

I also like the intricately plotted and unrelentingly tense suspense thriller Prisoners (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman).  Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon offers both guffaws and an unexpected moment of self-discovery.

My other top recommendations are Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine (with an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett) and the very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

In addition, the rock music documentary Muscle Shoals, the based-on-fact French foodie saga Haute Cuisine and the witty French rom com Populaire each has something to offer.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including How to Make Money Selling Drugs).

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the cop buddy comedy The Heat, with Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. The Heat is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Vudu and other VOD outlets.

 

Movies to See Right Now

PRISONERS

Although I haven’t had a chance  to write about them yet, I like the suspense thriller Prisoners (with Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman) and Joseph Gordon Levitt’s offbeat comedy Don Jon.  I hope to post about them this weekend.

I haven’t yet seen the Tom Hanks thriller Captain Phillips or the rollicking Danny Trejo action comedy Machete Kills, which open today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.
My other top recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the provocative eco-terrorism drama The East.

On October 17, Turner Classic Movies will be showcasing the excellent prison drama Convicts 4. It’s not aptly titled – it’s about one convict (Ben Gazzara), whose talent as a visual artist blossoms in prison. Convicts 4 is soon to be on my list of Best Prison Movies.

Movies to See Right Now

SHORT TERM 12

This week’s MUST SEE is the affecting foster facility drama Short Term 12, with its powerful performance by performance by Brie Larson (Rampart, The Spectacular Now). Another good choice is You Will Be My Son, a good French movie with a great ending (and it will likely be in theaters for only another week or so).

Other recommendations from the most current movies:

  • I really liked the absorbing drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.
  • In A World… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one.
  • The Family, Luc Besson’s tongue-in-cheek Mafioso-moves-to-France comedy has its moments.

I haven’t yet seen the Joseph Gordon Levitt comedy Don Jon, which opens today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My other top recommendations:

My other recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD/Stream of the Week is The Sapphires, a Feel Good triumph from Australia. The Sapphires is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay and other VOD outlets.

On September 28, you can watch Trouble Along the Way,
featuring John Wayne as a crooked college football coach who says “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing” (years before Vince Lombardi).

Movies to See Right Now

 

SHORT TERM 12

This week’s MUST SEE is the affecting foster facility drama Short Term 12, with its powerful performance by performance by Brie Larson (Rampart, The Spectacular Now).  Another good choice is You Will Be My Son, a good French movie with a great ending (and it will likely be in theaters for only two weeks).

Other recommendations from the most current movies:

  • I really liked the absorbing drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.
  • In A Word… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one.
  • The Family, Luc Besson’s tongue-in-cheek Mafioso-moves-to-France comedy has its moments.

I haven’t yet seen Prisoners, which opens today.  It’s a thriller from Denis Villenueve, the director of Incendies  (my top movie of 2011).  Other promising movies opening today include the festival hit Museum Hours and the literary bio-documentary Salinger.  You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My other top recommendations:

My other recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD/Stream is the brilliant drama Mud, with Michael McConaughey. It’s a great choice to watch and then discuss with your pre-teens and young teens.  Mud, one of my Best Movies of 2013 – So Far, is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, GooglePlay, YouTube and other VOD outlets.

Turner Classic Movies will broadcast the riotously funny screwball comedy Twentieth Century on September 23.

TWENTIETH CENTURY

Movies to See Right Now

AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS

This week’s top two picks:

  • I really liked the absorbing drama Ain’t Them Bodies Saints.
  • In A Word… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one.

I haven’t yet seen Short Term 12, the drama set in a group home with a reputedly star-making performance by Bree Larson (Rampart, The Spectacular Now). Same goes for The Family, Luc Besson’s tongue-in-cheek Mafioso-moves-to-France movie.  You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

The powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station are both on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

My other top recommendations:

My other recommendations:

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand. There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My Stream of the Week is the documentary How to Make Money Selling Drugs, a dispassionate critique of the Drug War. How to Make Money Selling Drugs is available streaming from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

On September 17, Turner Classic Movies will air the very trippy Un Chien Andalou, made in 1929 by the then very young absurdist director Luis Buñuel with surrealist painter Salvador Dali. If you’ve never seen the famous eyeball-slicing scene, here’s your chance.

Movies to See Right Now

Lake Bell in her IN A WORLD...

In A Word… is the year’s best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one. 

The powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station are both on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

My other top recommendations:

  • The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
  • Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
  • The very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

My other recommendations:

Also out right now:

You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

Check out my new feature VOD Roundup, where you can find my comments on over twenty current movies available on Video on Demand.  There are some good ones, some bad ones and some really, really good ones (including Letters from the Big Man).

My DVD of the Week is the riveting IRA thriller Shadow Dancer, with Clive Owen.  Shadow Dancer is available on DVD from Netflix.  Also check out my newest movie list: Best Movies About The Troubles (Northern Ireland).

On September 10, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the great French heist movie Rififi. And on September 12, TCM will air one of the greatest examples of film noir, Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer and Kirk Douglas.

OUT OF THE PAST

Movies to See Right Now

Lake Bell in her IN A WORLD...

In A Word… is the years best comedy so far – it’s a Hollywood satire, an insider’s glimpse into the voice-over industry, a family dramedy and a romantic comedy all in one.

The powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now and the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station are both on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

My other top recommendations:

  • The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
  • Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
  • The very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

My other recommendations:

Also out right now:

  • The American porn star biopic Lovelace, more of a soap opera.
  • The British porn kingpin biopic The Look of Love.
  • The Irish horror comedy Grabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
  • The astonishingly bad shocker The Rambler, with its 58 second vomit scene.

I haven’t yet seen the indie criminal-on-the-run story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which opens today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of it and other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the New Zealand cop miniseries Top of the Lake, starring Mad Men’s Elisabeth Moss. You can catch Top of the Lake episodes on the Sundance Channel or watch all seven episodes on DVD or streaming from Netflix, and it’s perfect for a Labor Day Weekend marathon.

Movies to See Right Now

THE SPECTACULAR NOW

This week’s MUST SEE is still the powerfully authentic coming of age film The Spectacular Now – don’t miss it. Better yet, take your teens!

Along with The Spectacular Now, the emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station is also on my list of Best Movies of 2013 – So Far.

I haven’t yet seen the British farce The World’s End or the indie criminal-on-the-run story Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, which open today. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My other top recommendations:

  • The jaw-dropping documentary The Act of Killing, an exploration of Indonesian genocide from the perpetrators’ point of view, is the most uniquely original film of the year.
  • Woody Allen’s very funny Blue Jasmine centers on an Oscar-worthy performance by Cate Blanchett.
  • The very well-acted civil rights epic Lee Daniels’ The Butler.

My other recommendations:

  • The droll indie comedy Prince Avalanche.
  • The rock documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, essential for music fans.
  • Another rock doc, A Band Called Death with the story of three African-American brothers in Detroit inventing punk rock before The Ramones and The Sex Pistols – and then dropping out of sight for decades.
  • the satisfying shocker The Conjuring.
  • The HBO documentary Casting By, which reveals an essential ingredient in filmmaking.

Also out right now:

  • I Give It a Year – a British rom com with a twist.
  • The American porn star biopic Lovelace, more of a soap opera.
  • The British porn kingpin biopic The Look of Love.
  • The Irish horror comedy Grabbers, which fails to deliver on a great premise.
  • The astonishingly bad shocker The Rambler, with its 58 second vomit scene.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the funny and sentimental Canadian indie Cloudburst, with Oscar-winning actresses Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker.  Cloudburst is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and other VOD providers.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler: exploring race in America

LEE DANIELS

Lee Daniels’ The Butler is an entertaining and satisfying epic that explores the issue of race in America as reflected in the experiences of two men – a man who escaped a Southern cotton farm to become a butler at the White House (Forest Whitaker) and his son (David Oyelowo), who becomes engaged with the racial justice movement from the 60s through the 90s.

What The Butler gets right is the overall sweep of history, and it shines as an accessible history lesson.  We get a taste of American race relations from the 1920s onward, and we glimpse the key moments in Civil Rights history: Little Rock school desegregation, lunch counter sit-ins, Freedom Rides, the JFK and LBJ civil rights speeches and legislation, the King assassination, urban riots,  Black Power and anti-apartheid activism.  The perspectives of the two main characters mirror those of Booker T Washington and W.E.B. DuBois.

Most importantly, The Butler reveals the African-American community as not monolithic, but with different (and conflicting) personality types, political views and generational perspectives.  This is not accomplished very often in popular culture.  Indeed, The Butler is strongest in the family moments – breakfasts, parties, arguments, sending the kid off to college – that allow the cast to bring out the textures of their characters.  (And The Butler is dead-on perfect with all the periods, including the unfortunate fashions of the 1970s.)

That being said, the implausibility of the protagonists’ Zelig-like personal presence at every key historical moment is distracting.  Every time Whitaker’s character brings a cup of coffee into the Oval Office, the President du moment is deciding on sending federal troops into the South, sending a Civil Rights bill to the Hill or some-such.  Oyelowo’s character is a lunch counter sitter, a Freedom Rider, a Selma marcher, a MLK aide at the Lorraine Motel, a Black Panther, a Congressional candidate and an anti-apartheid leader.  The coincidences are so improbable that it’s too much of the audience to suspend disbelief.

Forest Whitaker is a great actor.   Here he perfectly plays a man who has strong feelings that he expresses among Blacks and that he conceals (sometimes stoically, sometimes charmingly) among Whites.  We’ve been watching Whitaker since 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High and his searing Charlie Parker in 1986’s Bird, right through to his Oscar win for The Last King of Scotland.  My personal favorite Forest Whitaker performances are in The Crying Game and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai.

Oyelowo is an actor who has come on strong in the past two years (The Help,The Paperboy, Lincoln),  and here delivers a perfect performance of a man with youthful strong-headedness, self-possessed whether on the right side of history or not. He’s that brave man who does dangerous things without impetuosity.

The African-American cast is a marvel.  Oprah Winfrey is outstanding as the wife/mom, and an Oscar nod is likely. Terence Howard is marvelous as the shady neighbor.  Clarence Williams III (yes, from The Mod Squad) is superb as the butler’s first mentor.  Cuba Gooding Jr and Lenny Kravitz are excellent as White House co-workers with very different personalities.  Mariah Carey, who was unbelievably good as the social worker in Daniel’s Precious, is equally good here as the butler’s tortured mother.

The cast playing the White House’s upstairs residents do not fare so well.  In the movie’s funniest turn, Liev Schreiber captures LBJ’s frenetic energy but not his imposing and sinister physicality.  John Cusack has Nixon’s creepiness but not his painful social awkwardness. Robin Williams  plays Ike without any military bearing or snap. James Marsden plays a pretty, but wimpy JFK.  And is that Alan Rickman as Ronnie?  The one impeccable performance in this category (and Daniels’ sly joke on the Reagans) is Jane Fonda as Nancy.

Overall, it’s an important, if imperfect work by director Lee Daniels (Precious, The Paperboy).  (BTW – the title is not because of his ego – but because of the silly refusal by  another movie studio to grant the title rights.)   At times profound and at times ridiculously improbable, The Butler gets the basic truths profoundly right.