Truman – The Movie Gourmet

Stream of the Week: TRUMAN – how to say goodbye

May 28, 2019 by movie gourmet

Javier and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN — Javier Cámara and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN

Here’s my choice as the best movie of 2017. In the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman, Tomás (Javier Cámara) leaves Montreal to pay a surprise four-day visit to his longtime friend Julián (Ricardo Darin) in Madrid. Julián has been battling cancer and has just received a very grim prognosis. Julián has chosen to forgo further treatment, and his cousin and caregiver Paula (Dolores Fonzi) is hoping that Tomás can talk Julián out of his decision.

Julián is a roguish bon vivant, although now hobbled by illness. Tomás is a responsible family man. As the four day visit unfolds, Tomás tags along as Julián cavalierly settles his affairs. Because of the circumstances, even the most routine activity is heavily charged with emotion. Julián, who has always been a wild card, is now a tinderbox always on the verge of erupting into some socially inappropriate gesture. Julián is particularly focused on arranging for adoption of his beloved and ponderous dog Truman.

Julián is a wiseacre, but his reaction to a moment of kindness from an very unexpected source is heartbreaking. Julián goes to say goodbye to his son, and then the learn a fact afterward that make this encounter exponentially more poignant. Truman has an especially sly ending – the granting of one last favor, however inconvenient.

The Argentine actor Darin is one of my favorite screen actors: Nine Queens, The Secret in their Eyes, Carancho, The Aura. As a man living under a death sentence, Julián has adopted a bemused fatalism, but is ready to burst into rage or despair at any moment, and Darin captures that perfectly.

I was blown away by Javier Cámara’s unforgettable performance, at once creepy and heartbreaking, in the Pedro Almodovar drama Talk to Her. Cámara is a master of the reaction, and his Tomás stoically serves as the loyal wing man to a friend with hair trigger unpredictability, often in a state of cringe.

The Argentine actress Dolores Fonzi (The Aura) is excellent as Paula, whose caregiver fatigue finally explodes.

Packed with bittersweet emotions, Truman is never maudlin. The Spanish director Cesc Gay, who co-wrote Truman, has created a gentle and insightful exploration into how people can say goodbye. There’s not a single misstep or hint of inauthenticity. Again, Truman is one of the best films of the year.

Truman had only a brief US theatrical run. It’s now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

(Note: The crappy trailer below fails to capture all the humor and deep emotion in this film.)

Movies to See Right Now

January 5, 2018 by movie gourmet

Many of the best movies of the year are in theaters right now, and here are the very best. The links for Phantom Thread, Call Me By Your Name, The Florida Project and I, Tonya will go live throughout this weekend:

- - - Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
    - The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
    - Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
    - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
    - I, Tonya is a marvelously entertaining movie, filled with wicked wit and sympathetic social comment.
    - Phantom Thread, starring Daniel Day-Lewis, is Paul Thomas Anderson’s rapturously beautiful story of a strong-willed man and two equally strong-willed women; unexpectedly witty.
    - The Florida Project is Sean Baker’s remarkably authentic and evocative glimpse into the lives of children in poverty, full of the exuberance of childhood.
    - Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman brings alive Winston Churchill in an overlooked historical moment – when it looked like Hitler was going to win WW II.
    Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Most of the ones from earlier this year are available on video.
    
    Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps in PHANTOM THREAD
    
    Other current choices:
    - The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s hilarious docucomedy about the making of one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time.
    - The ambitious satire The Square.
    - Call Me By Your Name is an extraordinarily beautiful story of sexual awakening set in a luscious Italian summer, but I didn’t buy the impossibly cool parents or the two pop ballad musical interludes.
    - Murder on the Orient Express is a moderately entertaining lark.
    - Novitiate, the tediously grim story of a seeker looking for spiritual love and sacrifice, with a sadistic abbess delivering too much of the latter.
    Here’s something for those who have seen Darkest Hour. On January 10, Turner Classic Movies presents Richard Attenborough’s Young Winston (1972), with Simon Ward as the young Winston Churchill. As a young man, Churchill was already risking life and limb to gain celebrity and build a public reputation. Young Churchill depicts his brief career in the military as an insubordinate daredevil in India, Sudan and the Boer War. It’s a good story, and, as a bonus, Simon Ward bears a remarkable physical resemblance to the young Churchill.
    
    Simon Ward in YOUNG WINSTON

The best movies of 2017

December 31, 2017December 31, 2017 by movie gourmet

Every year, I keep a running list of the best movies I’ve seen this year. I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list.

To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.

I’m still looking forward to seeing films that are candidates for my final list, including Call Me By Your Name, Thelma, Phantom Thread, The Post and Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. You can see the current list complete with video availability at my Best Movies of 2017. Here’s the year-end list:

Truman
The Big Sick
The Shape of Water
Wind River
Dunkirk
Coco
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Lady Bird
The Founder
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer

And the rest: Lucky and The Sense of an Ending

I try not to tease you with movies that you can’t find, but I need to acknowledge two sure-fire crowd-pleasers from this year’s Cinequest: Quality Problems and For Grace. Both films are emotionally authentic, intelligent and funny, but neither has distribution so far. I will feature them if and when they become available on video.

And here’s a special mention. It’s not on my list, but The Lost City of Z deserves credit for reviving the genre of the historical adventure epic, with all the spectacle of a swashbuckler, while braiding in modern sensitivities and a psychological portrait.

Movies to See Right Now

November 3, 2018December 29, 2017 by movie gourmet

COCO
Courtesy of ©2017 Disney•Pixar. All Rights Reserved.

Many of the best movies of the year are in theaters right now, and here are the very best:

Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman brings alive Winston Churchill in an overlooked historical moment – when it looked like Hitler was going to win WW II.

Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Most of the ones from earlier this year are available on video.

Other current choices:

The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s hilarious docucomedy about the making of one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time.
The ambitious satire The Square.
LBJ, an effective and engrossing Cliff Notes history lesson, with another fine performance by Woody Harrelson.
Murder on the Orient Express is a moderately entertaining lark.
Novitiate, the tediously grim story of a seeker looking for spiritual love and sacrifice, with a sadistic abbess delivering too much of the latter.

My Streams of the Week are the seven best movies of the year that are already available on video: Truman, The Big Sick, Wind River, Dunkirk, Norman: The Moderate Rise and the Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, The Founder and The Sense of an Ending.

Turner Classic Movies is giving us a wonderful New Year’s Eve present – an all day Thin Man marathon. William Powell and Myrna Loy are cinema’s favorite movie couple for a reason – just settle in and watch Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man and its sequels do what they do best – banter, canoodle, solve crimes and, of course, tipple.

Myrna Loy and William Powell as Nora and Nick Charles during the Holidays

DVD/Streams of the Week: the best movies of the year

December 26, 2017 by movie gourmet

Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner in WIND RIVER

About half of the year’s best movies are already out on video. I’ve been shilling The Big Sick and Truman over the past month. Here are the rest:

Wind River: another masterpiece from Taylor Sheridan. Smart, layered and intelligent, Wind River is another success from one of America’s fastest-rising filmmakers. Wind River can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Dunkirk: personal, spectacular and thrilling: White knuckle intensity in this filmmaking marvel. It can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

The Founder: money grubbing visionary. Michael Keaton stars in this biopic of fast food magnate Ray Kroc. You can watch it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer: big deals are not for little men. This superb character study is probably Richard Gere’s best career performance. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

The Sense of an Ending: you can’t revisit the past and guarantee closure. This British indie drama is a showcase for its star, Jim Broadbent. It’s available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

December 22, 2017 by movie gourmet

Many of the best movies of the year are in theaters right now, and here are the very best:

Pixar’s Coco is a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture, and it’s visually spectacular.
The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro’s imaginative, operatic inter-species romance may become the most-remembered film of 2017.
Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman brings alive Winston Churchill in an overlooked historical moment – when it looked like Hitler was going to win WW II.

Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Most of the ones from earlier this year are available on video.

Other current choices:

The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s hilarious docucomedy about the making of one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time.
The ambitious satire The Square.
LBJ, an effective and engrossing Cliff Notes history lesson, with another fine performance by Woody Harrelson.
Murder on the Orient Express is a moderately entertaining lark.
Novitiate, the tediously grim story of a seeker looking for spiritual love and sacrifice, with a sadistic abbess delivering too much of the latter.

My Stream of the Week is your chance to see what may be the year’s best movie – and see it at home. It’s the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman. which had a very brief US theatrical run early this year. Truman is now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On December 27, Turner Classic Movies presents my choice for the funniest movie all time – Mel Brooks’ 1967 masterpiece The Producers. Zero Mostel plays a human tornado of a crooked Broadway producer, who drags along his bewildered and terrified accountant (Gene Wilder). The brilliant Wilder has never been funnier, and The Producers also features career-best performances by funnymen Dick Shawn and Kenneth Mars. And, of course, there’s the unforgettable musical show stopper Springtime for Hitler. (See this INSTEAD of the 2005 remake.)

Stream of the Week: TRUMAN – how people say goodbye

December 19, 2017 by movie gourmet

For the second week in a row, I’m suggesting that you take this opportunity to watch what may be the best movie of this year – in your own home. In the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman, Tomás (Javier Cámara) leaves Montreal to pay a surprise four-day visit to his longtime friend Julián (Ricardo Darin) in Madrid. Julián has been battling cancer and has just received a very grim prognosis. Julián has chosen to forgo further treatment, and his cousin and caregiver Paula (Dolores Fonzi) is hoping that Tomás can talk Julián out of his decision.

The Argentine actress Dolores Fonzi (The Aura) is excellent as Paula, whose caregiver fatigue finally explodes.

Truman had a brief US theatrical run. It’s now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

(Note: The crappy trailer below fails to capture all the humor and deep emotion in this film.)

Movies to See Right Now

December 17, 2017December 16, 2017 by movie gourmet

We’ve had a surge of universally acclaimed movies open in Silicon Valley, and here are the very best (some of the links will go live later in the weekend):

Pixar’s Coco, a moving and authentic dive into Mexican culture. It’s visually spectacular, too.
Lady Bird , an entirely fresh coming of age comedy that explores the mother-daughter relationship – an impressive debut for Greta Gerwig as a writer and director.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri a powerful combination of raw emotion and dark hilarity with an acting tour de force from Frances McDormand and a slew of great actors.
Darkest Hour, Gary Oldman brings alive Winston Churchill in an overlooked historical moment – when it looked like Hitler was going to win WW II.

Here’s the rest of my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Several are in theaters right now, and most of the rest are available on video.

Other current choices:

- - The Disaster Artist, James Franco’s hilarious docucomedy about the making of one of the most unintentionally funny movies of all time.
  - The ambitious satire The Square.
  - LBJ, an effective and engrossing Cliff Notes history lesson, with another fine performance by Woody Harrelson.
  - Murder on the Orient Express is a moderately entertaining lark.
  - Novitiate, the tediously grim story of a seeker looking for spiritual love and sacrifice, with a sadistic abbess delivering too much of the latter.
  - Skip the well-cast, well-acted meandering to nowhere that is Noah Baumbach’s The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected).
  TRUMAN
  
  Here’s my Best Movies of 2017 – So Far. Several are in theaters right now, and most of the rest are available on video.
  
  My Stream of the Week is your chance to see what may be the year’s best movie – and see it at home. It’s the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman. which had a very brief US theatrical run early this year. Truman is now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  
  The Movie Gourmet has no television recommendations this week. Go to a theater – this is the prime season for movie-going. The best movies of the year are in theaters right now.
  
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Stream of the Week: TRUMAN – the year’s best movie?

December 12, 2017 by movie gourmet

This may be the best movie I’ve seen this year. In the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman, Tomás (Javier Cámara) leaves Montreal to pay a surprise four-day visit to his longtime friend Julián (Ricardo Darin) in Madrid. Julián has been battling cancer and has just received a very grim prognosis. Julián has chosen to forgo further treatment, and his cousin and caregiver Paula (Dolores Fonzi) is hoping that Tomás can talk Julián out of his decision.

The Argentine actress Dolores Fonzi (The Aura) is excellent as Paula, whose caregiver fatigue finally explodes.

Truman had a brief US theatrical run. It’s now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

(Note: The crappy trailer below fails to capture all the humor and deep emotion in this film.)

Movies to See Right Now

May 19, 2017 by movie gourmet

Recommended movies to see in theaters this week:

The gentle and insightful end-of-life drama Truman. Often funny, it’s a weeper that is never maudlin. One of the best movies of the year. Hard to find, but worth it.
The droll dark comedy Radio Dreams explores the ambivalence of the immigrant experience through the portrait of a flamboyant misfit, a man who rides the roller coaster of megalomania and despair. Radio Dreams opens today for a one-week-only run at the Roxie Theater in San Francisco.
The Lost City of Z, a thoughtful and beautifully cinematic revival of the adventure epic genre.
In Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, writer-director Joseph Cedar and his star Richard Gere combine to create the unforgettable character of Norman Oppenheimer, a Jewish Willy Loman who finally gets his chance to sits with the Movers and Shakers. This may be Gere’s best movie performance ever.
The Dinner is an emotional potboiler that showcases Richard Gere, Laura Linney Steve Coogan and Rebecca Hall.
Free Fire is a witty and fun shoot ’em up.
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.

And movies to avoid:

A Quiet Passion, a miserably evocative portrait of a miserable Emily Dickinson.
I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.

My DVD/Stream of the week is the historical Feel Good Hidden Figures, which tells the hitherto generally unknown story of some African-American women whose math wizardry was key to the success of the US space program in the early 1960s. The audience at my screening burst into applause, which doesn’t happen that often. Hidden Figures is available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On May 23, Turner Classic Movies will air two great, great, great Westerns: John Ford’s classic The Searchers with John Wayne and a much less famous film, Sydney Pollack’s under recognized 1972 masterpiece Jeremiah Johnson, which features a brilliantly understated but compelling performance by Robert Redford. If you want to understand why Redford is a movie star, watch this movie. Give lots of credit to Pollack – it’s only 108 minutes long, and today’s filmmakers would bloat this epic tale by 40 minutes longer.

Then on May 25, there is a real curiosity on TCM, the 1933 anti-war movie Men Must Fight, which predicts many aspects World War II with unsettling accuracy. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a trip.

Also on May 25, TCM brings us another two movies from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters – The Killer Shrews and The Wasp Woman.