The Stunt Man

Movies to See Right Now

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SHORT TERM 12
SHORT TERM 12

This week, I’m featuring three movies that are flying under the radar. The Chilean drama Gloria is about an especially resilient 58-year-old woman.  Harder to find, Stranger by the Lake is an effective French thriller with LOTS of explicit gay sex.

And my DVD/Stream of the Week is the compelling and affecting foster care drama Short Term 12. This movie made both my Best Movies of 2013 and my Most Overlooked Movies of 2013, with its star making performance by Brie Larson.   Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.

In theaters, you can still find Oscar nominees Nebraska, American Hustle and Her, which all made my Best Movies of 2013.  I also strongly recommend Best Picture nominees The Wolf of Wall Street and Philomena.  Dallas Buyers Club, with its splendid performances by Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto, is formulaic but still a pretty good watch.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is another fine thriller from that franchise, with another amazing performance by Jennifer Lawrence. I also like the Mumblecore romance Drinking Buddies, now available on VOD.

I saw this year’s Oscar Nominated Live Action Shorts and was disappointed.  There was nothing to match recent gems like The God of Love or Curfew.  I liked the British short about a particularly bored and malevolent God masquerading as a convict, but that 13 minutes didn’t justify the two hours that I had invested.  A 30-minute Spanish film about child soldiers in Africa was to excruciatingly brutal to justify the trite attempt at a redemptive payoff.  (I haven’t seen the Oscar Nominated Animated Shorts, but I have heard good things about that program.)

Turner Classic Movies has launched its wonderful annual 31 Days of Oscar – filling the entire month with Oscar-nominated movies. This week I recommend the romantic French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) which 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.  I also recommend two great performances by Peter O’Toole screening on February 20, as a lethally driven movie director in The Stunt Man (1980) and as a gloriously dipsomaniacal screen icon in the comedy My Favorite Year (1982).

Coming up on TV: The Stunt Man

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On March 11, Turner Classic Movies is showing The Stunt Man (1980).  It’s on a list of Overlooked Masterworks that I’m working on.

Steve Railsback plays a fugitive chased on to a movie location shoot.  The director (Peter O’Toole) hides him out on the set as long as he works as a stunt double in increasingly hazardous stunts.  The man on the run is attracted to the leading lady (Barbara Hershey).  It doesn’t take long for him to doubt the director’s good will and to learn that not everything is as it seems.  Shot on location at San Diego’s famed Hotel Del Coronado. Listen to Director Robert Rush describe his movie in this clip.

New Movie Recommendations

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Colin Firth in the King's Speech, about to pick up the Oscar he earned last year in A Single Man

True Grit, The King’s Speech, Black Swan and The Fighter are all crowd pleasers.  A bit more challenging, Another Year and Rabbit Hole are also on my list of Best Movies of 2010. 127 Hours, The Way Back, Somewhere and Biutiful are also good movies out now. The Illusionist is the wistful and charming animated story of a small time magician who drifts through an ever bleaker array of gigs while helping a waif blossom.

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.

I haven’t seen Cedar Rapids (opening tomorrow), but you can its trailer and those of other upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

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

It’s a good week for movies on TV, including Quo Vadis, The Graduate, Gone With the Wind, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Victor/Victoria, Mon Oncle, The Stunt Man, Do the Right Thing and Blow-Up on TCM.

Movies to See Right Now (very late August Edition)

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The Kids Are All Right

Now we’re really down to the August dregs in theaters. Here’s your chance to see some better movies from earlier in the year.

Inception, Toy Story 3, The Girl Who Played With Fire, Get Low and The Kids Are All Right are all good and still playing in theaters.   For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

You can also catch up a good movie with my DVD of the week, Sweetgrass, or last week’s Fish Tank.  For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.

Movies on TV include A Face in the Crowd, Anatomy of a Murder, The Stunt Man and The Outlaw Josey Wales, all coming up on TCM.

Movies to See Right Now (late August edition)

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The Girl Who Played with Fire

As my friend Keith always advises me, movie distributors send out their weakest material in August.  Make lemonade out of the lemons by catching up on the better movies from earlier in the year.

Inception and Toy Story 3 are two of the year’s best. If you want a thriller, go with The Girl Who Played With Fire.  Robert Duvall gives another masterful performance in Get Low.  For an indie dramedy, try The Kids Are All Right.   For trailers and other choices, see Movies to See Right Now.

My DVD of the week is a British coming of age drama from earlier this year, Fish Tank.  For the trailers and other DVD choices, see DVDs of the Week.

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun

Movies on TV include Cool Hand Luke, A Place in the Sun, A Face in the Crowd, Anatomy of a Murder, and The Stunt Man, all coming up on TCM.

It's a great August for movies – ON TV

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This is the time of year where you can still see the best movies – by avoiding the theaters. Fortunately, there are some great movies on TV during late August – and here are six of them.  Thank God (and Ted Turner) for Turner Classic Movies.

Cool Hand Luke (1967): Paul Newman plays a free-spirited character that refuses to bend to The System – even in a Southern chain gang.   Many memorable scenes include the fight with George Kennedy’s Dragline, the wager on eating a massive amount of hardboiled eggs, getting sent to the hole, the scariest aviator sunglasses ever and the unforgettable: “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate”. One of my 10 Best Prison Movies and 10 Most Memorable Food Scenes.  TCM 8/21

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?  TCM 8/23

Andy Griffith as the charming, phony and venal Lonesome Rhodes

A Face in the Crowd (1957):  This is a brilliant political classic by Elia Kazan. Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) is a failed country guitar picker who is hauled out of an Arkansas drunk tank by talent scout Marcia Jeffries (Patricia Neal).  It turns out that he has a folksy charm that is dynamite in the new medium of television.  He quickly rises in the infotainment universe until he is an A List celeb and a political power broker. To Jeffries’ horror, Rhodes reveals himself to be an evil, power hungry megalomaniac. Jeffries made him – can she break him?  The seduction of a gullible public by a good timin’ charmer predicts the careers of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, although Lonesome Rhodes is meaner than Reagan and less ideological than Bush.  One of my 10 Best Political Movies. TCM 8/26

James Stewart and George C. Scott tangle in Anatomy of a Murder

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. TCM 8/26 score

The Stunt Man (1980):  Steve Railback plays a young fugitive chased on to a movie location shoot.  The director (Peter O’Toole) hides him out on the set as long as he works as a stunt double in increasingly hazardous stunts. He is attracted to the leading lady (Barbara Hershey).  It doesn’t take long for him to doubt the director’s good will and to learn that not everything is as it seems.  Shot on location at San Diego’s famed Hotel Del Coronado.  One of my Overlooked Masterworks.  Listen to Director Robert Rush describe his movie in this clip. TCM 8/28


The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976):  This is one of my very favorite Westerns.  Clint Eastwood directs the movie and plays a Civil War vet on the run, who unwillingly picks up a set of misfits and strays on his journey.  TCM 8/31