The Last Detail

Movies to See Right Now

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WEINER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.
WEINER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society.

Don’t miss the political documentary Weiner.  I haven’t had the chance to post about it yet, but it’s probably the best documentary of the year.  Weiner has more than its share of forehead-slapping moments and is often funny and always captivating.  It also provokes some reflection on the media in this age.

Another movie that I enjoyed but haven’t had the opportunity to post about is the nice little comedy Maggie’s Plan.

Also in theaters:

  • 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.

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.

Stay away from the dark comedy The Lobster. A grim and tedious misfire, it’s the biggest movie disappointment of the year.

My Stream of the Week is Meet the Patels, both a documentary and a comedy – and ultimately, a satisfying crowd-pleaser. Meet the Patels is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. It’s hilarious and heart-warming, so don’t miss it.

Wow – Turner Classic Movies should keep your DVR humming on Tuesday, June 14. TCM will be broadcasting one of the great movies that you have likely NOT seen, having just been released on DVD in 2009: The Earrings of Madame de… (1953). Max Ophuls directed what is perhaps the most visually evocative romance ever in black and white. It’s worth seeing for the ballroom scene alone. The shallow and privileged wife of a stick-in-the-mud general takes a lover, but the earrings she pawned reveal the affair and consequences ensue. The great Italian director Vittorio De Sica plays the impossibly handsome lover.

And ALSO on June 14, TCM will present The Graduate, The French Connection, The Last Detail and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Just for fun, on June 16, TCM will screen a series of Lupe Velez’ Mexican Spitfire movies from the early 1940s. I find startling similarities between Velez’ Mexican Spitfire and Sofia Vergara’s character of Gloria on Modern Family.

The Earrings of Madame de...
The Earrings of Madame de…

12 movie classics coming up on TV

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SEVEN DAYS IN MAY

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films.   On this Thursday through Sunday, the TCM lineup is especially rich, including these gems:

Seven Days in May:  “I’m suggesting Mr President, there’s a military plot to take over the Government of these United States, next Sunday…”   John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate) is a master of the thriller, and his 1964 Seven Days in May is a masterpiece of the paranoid political thriller subgenre.  Edmond O’Brien’s performance is best among outstanding turns by Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Frederic March and Whit Bissell.

A Place in the Sun: One of the great films of the 1950s.  Montgomery Clift is a poor kid who is satisfied to have a job and a trashy girlfriend (Shelly Winters in a brilliant portrayal).  Then, he learns that he could have it all – the CEO’s daughter Elizabeth Taylor, lifelong comfort, status and career.  Did I mention Elizabeth Taylor?  The now pregnant girlfriend is the only obstacle to more than he could have ever dreamed for – can he get rid of her without getting caught?

Anatomy of a Murder (1959): Otto Preminger delivers a classic courtroom drama that frankly addresses sexual mores.  James Stewart is a folksy but very canny lawyer defending a cynical soldier (Ben Gazzara) on a murder charge; did he discover his wife straying or is he avenging her rape?  Lee Remick portrays the wife with a penchant for partying and uncertain fidelity. The Duke Ellington score could be the very best jazz score in the movies. Joseph Welch, the real-life lawyer who stood up to Sen. Joe McCarthy in a televised red scare hearing, plays the judge.

All this and more!  There’s Double Indemnity one of the masterpieces of film noir, Marlon Brando’s tour de force in On the Waterfront, the great trial movie The Caine Mutiny, the historically important Easy Rider (and one of my Best Drug Movies) and the political classic All the King’s Men.  If you’re looking for an epic, you can try out The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia on your big screen TV.  For a comedy, there’s Tootsie.

And don’t miss an overlooked great Jack Nicholson performance in The Last Detail.

Tune up that TiVo!

Movies to See Right Now

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Jude Law in SIDE EFFECTS

The best new movie is Steven Soderbergh’s psychological thriller Side Effects with Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones.  In Stand Up Guys, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin play old mobsters gearing up for one last surge of adrenaline. 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. The pretty good horror movie Mama (with Jessica Chastain) can send chills down your spine without any slashing or splattering.

Zero Dark Thirty, Argo, Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook are on my list of Best Movies of 2012 and all are nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. The French language drama Amour, also nominated for Best Picture, is a brilliantly made film about the end of life – it’s also an almost unbearable viewing experience.

If, like me, you worship the spaghetti Western, the Quentin Tarantino blockbuster Django Unchained is gloriously pedal-to-the-metal, splattering exploitation. The intelligent drama Rust and Bone is the singular tale of a complicated woman and an uncomplicated man. Ang Lee’s visually stunning fable Life of Pi is an enthralling commentary on story-telling.

Skip the unoriginal mob movie Gangster Squad, which wastes its fine cast. Also pass on the lavish but stupefying all-star Les Miserables, with its multiple endings, each more miserable than the last. The FDR movie Hyde Park on Hudson is a bore. The disaster movie The Impossible is only for audiences that enjoy watching suffering adults and children in peril. I have not seen Movie 43 – it is the most critically reviled movie in a looooong time.

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

My DVD of the week is the underrated 2012 thriller Deadfall.

Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the Oscars with its annual 31 Days of Oscars, filling its broadcast schedule with Academy Award-winning films. In the next week, the especially rich lineup will include Double Indemnity, A Place in the Sun, Seven Days in May, All the King’s Men, Anatomy of a Murder with its great jazz score, On the Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, Easy Rider, The Last Detail, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and Tootsie.

This Week's Movies To See Right Now

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Ruth Sheen and Jim Broadbent in Mike Leigh's Another Year

There are more excellent movies in the theaters RIGHT NOW than any other time of the year.  Right now, you can see Another Year, True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan, The Way Back, Somewhere, Biutiful, The Fighter, Rabbit Hole and Fair Game.  It just doesn’t get any better than this for movie fans.

True Grit is the Coen Brothers’ splendid Old West story of Mattie Ross, a girl of unrelenting resolve and moxie played by 14-year-old Hailee Steinfeld in a breakthrough performance, and Jeff Bridges is perfect as the hilarious, oft-besotted and frequently lethal Rooster Cogburn. The King’s Speech is the crowd pleasing story of a good man (Colin Firth) overcoming his stammer to inspire his nation in wartime with the help of a brassy commoner (Geoffrey Rush). Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan is a rip roaring thriller and a showcase for Natalie Portman and Barbara Hershey.   Another Year is Mike Leigh’s brilliant observation of the human condition, and asks why some people find contentment and others just cannot; Lesley Manville has the flashiest role – and gives the most remarkable performance – as a woman whose long trail of bad choices hasn’t left her with many options for a happy life.

Biutiful is a grim, grim movie with a great performance by Javier Bardem in a compelling portrait of a desperate man in desperate circumstance, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Amores perros, 21 Grams, Babel).

Somewhere is Sofia Coppola’s (Lost in Translation) artsy portrait of a man so purposeless that he can find no pleasure in pleasure.  An A-list movie star (Steven Dorff) is living at the Chateau Marmont with his expensive toys, booze and drugs and an inexhaustible supply of beautiful, sexually available women, but without Without any purpose or connection to others, his debauchery is completely joyless.  To his surprise and discomfort,  his eleven-year-old daughter (Elle Fanning) moves in for a few weeks.

The Way Back is inspired by the story of a 1940 escape from a Siberian gulag by men who walk over 4,000 miles to freedom in India – a trek of 4000 miles.  It’s beautifully shot by director Peter Weir (Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Master and Commander) but, eleven months of trudging through dangerous, unfamiliar territory while suffering from starvation and exposure is really impressive, but not that engaging.

I strongly recommend Rabbit Hole, an exquisite exploration of the grieving process with great performances by Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhardt, Diane Wiest, Sandra Oh and Miles Tenner. The Fighter is an excellent drama, starring Mark Wahlberg as a boxer trying to succeed despite his crack addict brother (Christian Bale) and trashy mom (Melissa Leo). Fair Game, the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson story with Naomi Watts and Sean Penn, is also excellent. All are on my list of Best Movies of 2010.

I Love You, Phillip Morris is an entertaining offbeat combo of the con man, prison and romantic comedy genres. Red Hill is a stylish contemporary Aussie Western. Season of the Witch is a bad Nicholas Cage/Ron Perlman buddy movie set among the plague, crusades and witch hunts of the 13th century.

For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

You can see trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick is The Trip. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include Little Big Man, Bad Day at Black Rock, The Dirty Dozen, Marty The Wild Bunch, Five Easy Pieces and The Last Detail on TCM.