movie gourmet

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN’S LETTER TO YOU: wiser and still vital

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The documentary Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You, sometimes sage and sometimes exhilarating, is a companion movie to the latest studio album from Springsteen and the E Street Band.

This is an obvious MUST SEE for devoted Springsteen fans like The Wife. For everyone else, Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You is worthwhile for Bruce’s comments (in narration and in song), the creative collaboration in the recording studio and the songs themselves.

Springsteen is now 71 and this film was shot a year-and-a-half-ago. He is frankly conscious of mortality, the explicit subject of two of the songs. I’ll See You in My Dreams is a heartbreaking call to friends who have passed. Last Man Standing came to Bruce when he found himself the sole survivor of his high school band, The Castiles. (BTW that’s a way cool band name for back when Ricardo Montalban was hawking “rich Corinthian leather”.)

Springsteen’s reflections bring poignancy without melancholy.

On the upbeat side, The Power of Prayer is about devotion and charismatic experience – but the kind we get from pop music. We recognize that this is from the songwriter of Girls in their Summer Clothes.

The best song IMO – and the hardest rocking – is Burnin’ Train. Turn up the volume and settle into Max Weinberg’s drumming and Garry Talent’s bass line. Sounds like an extremely tight band of 20-somethings.

In the studio, we get a glimpse into the collaborative aspect of songwriting and recording, where the musicians and producers get the charts and then start making suggestions about how to hone each song.

Writing rock music is usually a young person’s jam, with the best and the most productivity front-loaded in the earliest segments of songwriting careers. It’s remarkable that Springsteen still is imagining and forging such vital songs. And it’s remarkable that the E Street Band, almost all of them about 70, still can crush and shred.

Director Thom Zimny is Bruce’s personal filmmaker, and also made the fine HBO doc Elvis Presley: The Searcher. The quick cutting of the scenes in the recording studios allow us to miss the drudgery of repeated takes and highlight the sparks of creativity. The exterior shots of the winter-bare woods of rural New Jersey remind me of Alexander Payne’s Nebraska. This is a very handsome black-and-white film.

Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You is streaming on AppleTV.

SOUND OF METAL: seeking anything but stillness

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Riz Ahmed in SOUND OF METAL

In Sound of Metal, Ruben (Riz Ahmed) is a heavy metal drummer who suffers immediate and severe hearing loss, complicated because he’s also an addict who has been clean for an uneasy four years. He and his guitarist girlfriend Lou (Olivia Cooke) have been barnstorming through a series of one-nght engagements in their Airstream RV. Ruben is emotionally devastated, and Lou, fearing his relapse, drops him off with drug counselor Joe (Paul Raci) at a twelve-step residence within an all-deaf community.

Ruben may not be using, but he may not be “in recovery”, either. His sobriety hangs on a scaffold of performance, Lou, healthy exercise and constant travel. When his musicianship is snatched away by hearing loss, he panics. The very idea of deafness paralyzes Ruben with terror.

Ruben cycles through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, escape and resistance. Will he get to acceptance and redemption? Joe tells Ruben that he needs to attain the ability to sit with himself in stillness, but Ruben wants anything but that.

Sound of Metal is a super intense ride, but there’s a payoff. The powerful ending is perfect. Director and co-writer Darius Marder follows Billy Wilder’s advice – don’t stick around.

Riz Ahmed’s totally committed and gripping performance as Ruben will likely garner him an Oscar nod. In thinking about his performance days later, I realized that Ahmed was convincing as Ruben played heavy metal, as he veered in desperation and as he mentored deaf children with gentleness and humor.

At one point, I said, “he’s acting just like an addict” seconds before Joe says something like “From where I sit, you’re acting like an addict“.

Ahmed is one of those actors who is good in everything he’s in, whether it’s a broad comedy (Four Lions), a political drama The Reluctant Fundamentalist or a psychological thriller (Nightcrawler and Una}.

Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke in SOUND OF METAL

Olivia Cooke, so good in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and Thoroughbreds, is okay here as Lou. In the first part of the movie, she’s unrecognizable with unflattering bleached eyebrows.

Paul Raci, an actor who became fluent in ASL to communicate with his deaf parents, is just a perfect delight as Joe. I’m suspecting that this character actor/musician (he has a Black Sabbath tribute band) will get more movie work after this turn.

The French actor/director Mathieu Amalric is absolutely superb as Lou’s father. Amalric is a big deal actor who is cast in a lot of prestige films (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), and I am usually indifferent to him. But here, he absolutely nails a character who is comfortable in his own skin, wise enough to discern what is going on with others less experienced than he and willing, with patience and gentleness, to let life play out. His character is a guy who probably hasn’t gotten to where he is by being kind, so his kindness is a choice.

The brilliant, Oscar-deserving sound design brings us to experience what Ruben can hear and not hear. Make sure that you watch this film on a system or device with excellent sound. Walter Murch will appreciate this movie (which is very high praise from me.).

Sound of Metal is one of my Best Movies of 2020. It is streaming on Amazon (included with Prime).

Giuseppe Rotunno telling the story

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THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN

Cinema is a visual art form, and images, along with the music, sound and the dialogue, tell the story. I’m thinking about this obvious point because the great cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno died last week at age 97. Rotunno could frame showy eye candy, of course, like his shot from Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen above. But, check out how Rotunno could tell the audience about the characters and their relation to each other in the stills below from Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge, Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard and Rocco and His Brothers, Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and Federico Fellini’s Amarcord.

Of course, film imagery is even more impactful when the images move. To appreciate how intoxicating Rotunno’s cinematography could be, I recommend this brilliant video essay from Scout Tafoya on RogerEbert.com.

CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
THE LEOPARD
ROCCO AND HIS BROTHERS
ALL THAT JAZZ
AMARCORD

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Riz Ahmed in SOUND OF METAL

This week, I recommend Sound of Metal (Amazon, included with Prime) and Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You (Netflix). I’ll be writing about both of them soon. Sound of Metal will be going on my list of Best Movies of 2020.

REMEMBRANCE

Christopher Plummer in KNIVES OUT

Christopher Plummer has died at age 91. I loved him in his Oscar-winning performance in Beginners and in 2019’s Knives Out. One of the great Shakespearean stage actors of his generation, Plummer’s TV and movie career, with its 372 screen credits, eclipses the adjective “prolific”. Plummer, of course is best known for that beloved movie that I despise (as did he for decades), The Sound of Music. Plummer elevated some fine movies in his supporting roles: The Man Who Would Be King, Jesus of Nazareth. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Here’s his NYT obit.

ON VIDEO

ON TV

Catherine Deneuve in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

On February 15, Turner Classic Movies airs the romantic French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Innovative writer-director Jacques Demy had the actors sing all of the dialogue. Umbrellas is also notable for the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history. 

Nino Castelnuovo in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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MAYOR

Don’t overlook the year’s best documentary, Mayor. Mayor is both a dark comedy about local politics and a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, all nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Mayor is one of the Best Movies of 2020, and it’s still streaming on Virtual Cinema, including at Laemmle.

And here’s my tribute to Cloris Leachman and my recommendation to watch her indelible performance in The Last Picture Show on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play.

REMEMBRANCE

Actor Hal Holbrook, known for his one-man stage personification of Mark Twain between 1947 and 2005, has died at age 95. Holbrook was responsible for the most gripping moments in a great movie, All the President’s Men, even though he was always in the dark or on the phone, and his face was never seen.

In 1970, Holbrook played a liberal US Senator in The Bold Ones: The Senator, a fictional character that I reacted to in the way so many responded to the Martin Sheen president in West Wing (or Atticus Finch) – why can’t he be real? Holbrook was also excellent as Capt. Lloyd Bucher in the ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie Pueblo, which, alas, I can’t find streaming anywhere. I recommend this excellent NYT obit.

ON VIDEO

Some more current films:

MLK/FBI

ON TV

Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in THE PRODUCERS

On February 6, 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.)

On February 11, TCM once again airs the little known and underappreciated A Man Called Adam with Sammy Davis Jr. and the late Cicely Tyson.

Cloris Leachman and THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

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cloris leachman the last picture show
Cloris Leachman in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

I first became aware of Cloris Leachman, who died last week at age 94, in 1971 – in her Oscar-winning performance in The Last Picture Show. Then I enjoyed her as Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein and as Phyllis Lindstrom in The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  Much later, as I delved into film noir, I learned that her movie debut was in the startling opening scene of the 1955 atomic noir Kiss Me Deadly.

What I didn’t know was that Leachman had, beginning in 1947, already amassed over 100 of her 285 screen credits before The Last Picture Show.  Before her great run in the 70s, she had a prolific career in television, including guest appearances on Perry Mason, Mannix, The Big Valley, Dr. Kildare, Gunsmoke and 77 Sunset Strip.  She even appeared 28 times in a recurring role on Lassie.

But Leachman will be forever remembered for her performance at age 45 as Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show.  Ruth Popper is the neglected wife of the football coach in a windswept Texas hamlet, a woman trapped in the most profound loneliness.  She seeks comfort in an affair with Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), the local good kid, who is 18 and is entranced by the teen vixen Jacy (Cybill Shepherd).

Leachman’s performance is heartbreaking – the temporary sexual pleasure never entirely mitigates Ruth’s sadness, which is always peeking through.  This relationship cannot last, and Ruth’s final monologue with Sonny is devastating.

Cloris Leachman in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

When I saw The Last Picture Show at San Jose’s domed Century Theaters in 1971, I was the same age as the main characters – like Sonny – and I was especially interested in their sexual escapades.  It’s a remarkable thing to watch a coming of age story about 18-year-olds when you are 18 and then again forty years later when you know stuff.

In 2019, the Roxie Theater screened The Last Picture Show – with the film’s legendary director Peter Bogdanovich in attendance, and I wrote about it: The Last Picture Show. The film is certainly a coming-of-age story, and the plot is about the kids.  But the depth of the film – and what makes it a masterpiece – is in the middle-aged characters and how they face the real-life ennui and angst that is still ahead for the teenagers.  They are played by Leachman, Ben Johnson, Ellen Burstyn and Clu Gulager.  Johnson’s Sam the Lion is the anchor of the film (and Johnson won his own Oscar for his performance). 

So, pour yourself a Dr. Pepper or a Jack Daniels, head to Anarene, Texas, and watch Cloris Leachman in The Last Picture Show.  You can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and other services.

Timothy Bottoms and Cloris Leachman in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Cicely Tyson in A MAN CALLED ADAM

Cicely Tyson, who has just died at age 96, received her first big screen credit in the film I wrote about yesterday. More on that below, along with an engrossing documentary that is one the year’s best films.

ON VIDEO

MAYOR

Mayor: The camera shadows the intrepid mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah as he goes about his daily adventures.  Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. One of the Best Movies of 2020.  Streaming on Virtual Cinema, including at Laemmle.

And some more current films:

Gil Carrillo in NIGHT STALKER: THE HUNT FOR A SERIAL KILLER

ON TV

On January 31, Turner Classic Movies presents the hard-to-find film A Man Called Adam, which I wrote about in depth yesterday.

Sammy Davis Jr. plays Adam, a self-destructive jazz star. Cicely Tyson, in her first credited movie role, is radiant. A Man Called Adam features an unflinching look at race in America, some excellent jazz and early-career glimpses of Ossie Davis, Lola Falana and Morgan Freeman.

Cicely Tyson and Sammy Davis Jr., in A MAN CALLED ADAM

A MAN CALLED ADAM: all that jazz

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Sammy Davis, Jr. in A MAN CALLED ADAM

In the underappreciated 1966 drama, A Man Called Adam, Sammy Davis Jr. plays Adam, a self-destructive jazz star. Adam draws people in with his talent and charisma, and, racked by guilt, pushes away those closest to him with selfish and cruel behavior. You can catch A Man Called Adam on Turner Classic Movies on January 31.

Claudia (Cicely Tyson) is drawn to Adam and tries to save him, anchoring herself in the roller coaster of his life. Remember that, after all the ups and downs, a roller coaster always ends up at the bottom.

Cicely Tyson in A MAN CALLED ADAM

Cicely Tyson, in her first credited movie role, is radiant. Two great speeches, in which she absolutely commands the screen, showcase her talent; you can tell that this is going to be a movie star.

While no Cicely Tyson, Sammy Davis, Jr., is excellent as the protagonist. This shouldn’t be so surprising, given that Sammy was an artistic savant, a dancing genius also known for his crooning. (And Sammy’s Rat Pack pals Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin were good movie actors, too, when they wanted to be.)

I also strongly recommend the insightful documentary Sammy Davis, Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me, which reveals Sammy’s struggle to fit into each of the six decades of his entertainment career; it can streamed on Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

American race relations figure large in A Man Called Adam. Adam faces hostile racist thugs in the South and experiences “vacationing while black” in the North. This is one of the few films that depicts tension between Northern and Southern Black Americans. We also get to here Adam use the racial slur ofay, a word I had seen in print but never heard anyone use in a spoken sentence.

Mel Torme in A MAN CALLED ADAM

The jazz in the movie s good and Sammy looks credible as a musical prodigy. In real life, Sammy was a multi-instrumentalist who did perform with the trumpet. The best musical performance in A Man Called Adam is by Mel Torme, playing himself at an after-hours musicians party.

Rat Packer Peter Lawson plays a powerful gatekeeper of a booking agent; this role, a bitter, simmering guy who is ever ready to explode into a rage, seems written for Rod Steiger, and Lawson is no Steiger. Come to think of it, this is a rare role where Lawford is not asked to be debonair. (And where are those “debonair” roles today for actors like Lawford, David Niven, Charles Boyer or Roger Moore?)

Louis Armstrong plays an old time musician, and he’s really, really good as an actor. Frank Sinatra, Jr., is OK as Adam’s goofy protege. The great Ossie Davis plays the guy who tries to warn Claudia off Adam. Lola Falana appears in her screen debut. An uncredited Morgan Freeman is a party guest – right after the Mel Torme song and before Mel tries to get Adam to play, look for a guy with a cigarette, in conversation along the back wall.

A Man Called Adam was directed by prolific television director Leon Penn in his only big screen credit. Penn (father of actors Sean Penn and Chris Penn) deploys especially inventive camera placements and makes excellent us of use of closeups. From its setting in the jazz world to the portrait of Adam’s relationship carnage, A Man Called Adam is always realistic.

Penn’s direction really elevates this movie, as does Tyson’s performance. I saw A Man Called Adam, a bit of a lost film, on Turner Classic Movies. It’s not streamable, but you can find the DVD on Amazon and eBay.

Cicely Tyson in A MAN CALLED ADAM

MAYOR: potholes and tear gas, all in a day’s work

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Musa Hadid in MAYOR

In the engrossing documentary Mayor, the camera shadows a mayor as he goes about his daily duties – and he’s the mayor of the Palestinian city Ramallah.  Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Boy, I enjoyed this movie.  For the last forty years, my day jobs have been in politics and government, especially local government.  Just like every local American elected official, Ramallah Mayor Musa Hadid goes gladhanding among his constituents and hears face-to-face gripes about the equivalent of potholes.

So much of Mayor Hadid’s daily adventures are universal, especially dealing with his own bureaucrats.  He endures a tableful of public servants dithering about whether to name the new fountain at city hall.  He cajoles a hapless staffer to just get him a radio so he can listen to the news. He reams out a manager who ignores a sewage overflow. And, of course, between ribbon cuttings, he is beset by shady contractors.

Ramallah, however, brings its own unique challenges.  Not many mayors have to utter a sentence like “the soldiers are up there shooting at the kids.” At one point, the mayor is tear gassed in his own city hall, as the Israeli army rolls right up to the front windows.

The city has no sewage treatment plant (but there’s a Popeyes).   Palestinian rage simmers just under the surface, as some well-meaning German diplomats find out.  Mayor Hadid respectfully counters a politically correct politico who wants to spurn a visit by Prince William because Britain issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917.

Musa Hadid is a level-headed pragmatist whose calm demeanor can work to belie his strong fundamental principles.  He stiffens to state that you don’t negotiate unless there’s dignity.  Most of the time, however, he is refusing to overreact. 

“The situation? It’s happening whether we freak out or not.”

Mayor is being described as a dark comedy, which day-to-day local politics anywhere may well be. At one point, Mayor Hadid faces a LITERAL dumpster fire, which is, of course, also metaphorical.

Hadid and his high school- and college-age kids share am appreciation of irony and a robust sense of humor.   After each day filled with indignity, frustration and provocation, they relax with mutual teasing,  Even at city hall, there’s some amusing banter about Ivanka Trump.

Mayor is one of the Best Movies of 2020.  I watched Mayor on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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This week: a handful of excellent new documentaries explore American history, true crime and pop music.

I also recommend this wonderful NYT interview with Mads Mikkelsen, who really used to be professional dancer (who knew?) and touches on his exhilarating dance scene in Another Round.

ON VIDEO

MLK/FBI: Sam Pollard, the master of the civil rights documentary (Eyes on the Prize), takes on the FBI’s quest to discredit and even destroy Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK/FBI is gripping history, with much to say about American then and America now. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer: This limited series about a roller coaster of a whodunit and a man hunt is elevated by the intoxicating storytelling of a genuinely good guy. Netflix.

The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: This very well-sourced showbiz doc tells the story of a band and that of a family, especially from the perspective of the affable Barry Gibb. We see some very young kids with what seems like ridiculously audacious ambition becoming an Aussie version of a British Invasion success. As pop music evolves, they keep reinventing themselves until the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack takes them to unsurpassed heights. Then, when the Disco Sucks movement caught fire, the brothers again reinvented themselves as songwriters for other pop, rock, soul and country stars. It’s a bit reverential, but not fatally so. HBO.

Mads Mikkelsen in ANOTHER ROUND

And some more current films:

ON TV

On January 24, Turner Classic Movies will offer the delightful Peter Bogdanovich screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? The nerdy academic Howard (Ryan O’Neal) and his continually aggrieved fiance Eunice (Madeline Kahn) travel to San Francisco to compete for a career-launching grant. The luggage with Howard’s great discovery (musical rocks) is mixed up with two identical suitcases, one containing valuable jewelry, the other with spy secrets, and soon we have juggling MacGuffins.

That’s all funny enough, but Howard bumps into Judy (Barbra Streisand), the kookiest serial college dropout in America, who determines that she must have him and utterly disrupts his life. Our hero’s ruthless rival for the grant is hilariously played by Kenneth Mars (the Nazi playwright in The Producers). Austin Pendleton is wonderful as the would-be benefactor.

The EXTENDED closing chase scene is among the very funniest in movie history – right up there with the best of Buster Keaton; Streisand and O’Neal lead an ever-growing cavalcade of pursuers through the hills of San Francisco, at one point crashing the Chinese New Year’s Day parade. I love What’s Up, Doc? and own the DVD, and I watch every time I stumble across it on TV. Bogdanovich’s hero Howard Hawks, the master of the screwball comedy, would have been proud.

WHAT’S UP, DOC?