The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into awickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. It’s streaming on Netflix.
Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
Plus I just wrote about Ash Is Purest White: a survivor’s journey. Actress Tao Zhao’s tour de force performance powers this portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in writer-director Zhangke Jia’s gangster neo-noir. It’s also on my Top Ten and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers in THE BIG SLEEP
On January 5, Turner Classic Movies presents Humphrey Bogart as Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled LA detective Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Bogart’s performance is iconic, and The Big Sleep is famous for its impenetrably tangled plot. It’s also one of the most overtly sexual noirs, and Lauren Bacall at her sultriest is only the beginning. The achingly beautiful Martha Vickers plays a druggie who throws herself at anything in pants. And Dorothy Malone invites Bogie to share a back-of-the-bookstore quickie.
Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP
Peter Bogdanovich with Jesse Hawthorne Ficks at the Roxie screenings of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and SAINT JACK
I’ve probably never had as many unforgettable cinematic experiences in one year before. The highlights of 2019:
In September, I was privileged to attend one of the year’s most stirring experiences of Bay Area cinema culture. The Roxie Theater screened the The Last Picture Show– with the legendary Peter Bogdanovich himself in attendance for two Q&A sessions, plus a screening of his hard-to-find Saint Jack (1979).
The thrill of discovering the neo-noir Pale Flower, thanks to Turner Classic Movies.
Noir City – special thanks to the team at the Film Noir Foundation, who went out of their way to help me with lodging. My favorite was the bracingly topical The Well, an unusual combination of a rescue procedural and a race riot noir. I was joined for my weekend at Noir City by The Wife despite her battling excruciating back pain.
Mill Valley Film Festival (MVFF) with three films on my top ten list –Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit, 63 Up – plus Frankie. Michael Apted himself appeared at the 63 Up screening.
As usual, I screened over thirty films atCinequest. This year, my friend Keith visited from LA and joined me for five features in three days; our binge included including the Buster Keaton short The “High Sign” and Cinequest’s best film Buy Me a Gun.
San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), the highlight being the documentary Midnight Family.
Getting to see the virtually lost film Mr. Klein, thanks to the Rialto Pictures re-issue and the Roxie.
Linda Cardinelli as Dolores Vallelonga in GREEN BOOK – the year’s second best wife
Happy Anniversary to The Wife, also known as Lisa, The Love of My Life!
Once again, she tolerated my spending huge chunks of time at Cinequest, the San Francisco International Film Festival, Noir City, the SF Jewish Film Festival and the Mill Valley Film Festival.
As usual, she joined me for many of my favorite cinema experiences, including driving to Marin and the Mill Valley Film Festival to a screening of 63 Up with Michael Apted in person. We relished seeing Green Book, Her Smell, Booksmart, Knives Out and Silicon Valley’s first screening of The Irishman. And we finished the year with the Christmas Eve screening of It’s a Wonderful Life at the Stanford Theatre.
But most impressively, battling back pain, she got off a hellish transcontinental airline flight to join me for a weekend of Noir City. That’s taking one for Team Movie Gourmet.
I got to introduce her to All That Jazz, Double Indemnity and 99 River Street. (We have the steamy 99 River Street poster in our living room, complete with Evelyn Keyes’ fingernails scratching tracks across John Payne’s beefy back.)
This year we binged more episodic television together than ever: True Detective, Victoria, Tales of the City, Fosse/Verdon, One Mississippi, Modern Love, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan and The Crown.
She’s the biggest fan and supporter of this blog, and I appreciate her and love her. Happy Anniversary, Honey!
Luke Lorentzen’s MIDNIGHT FAMILY. Courtesy of SFFILM
I posted my traditional Top Ten list – Best Movies of 2019. Now here are some gems that you probably haven’t heard of.
Midnight Family. This gripping documentary takes us on ridealongs with an all-night ambulance crew in Mexico City. It’s even wilder than you may expect. Midnight Family is just finishing a brief theatrical release, and I expect it will be available to stream soon.
Light from Light. Three portraits of personal awakening are ingeniously embedded into what looks like a familiar haunted house movie. I’ll let you know when it’s streamable.
Sword of Trust. This is a wickedly funny comedy with an emotionally powerful personal story underneath it all. Great performances by Marc Maron and the film’s director Lynn Shelton. You can buy, but not yet rent, Sword of Trust. I’ll let you know when it’s available.
Auggie. In this superb indie, augmented reality glasses fulfill every need and insidiously trigger even more inner desires. Stream from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
The Sound of Silence. Peter Sarsgaard stars in this novel and engrossing character study about obsession. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Rojo. Set just before Argentina’s bloody coup in the 1970s, this moody, atmospheric film works as a slow-burn thriller. Stream from Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
Mine 9. This race-against-the-clock rescue thriller is both a mine safety exposé and a mining procedural. I’ll let you know when it’s available to stream.
Jirga. A man goes on a quest in this parable of atonement. The film was shot guerilla-style, under cover in wartorn, terrorist infested Afghanistan. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Redbox.
Making Montgomery Clift. This biodoc is an unexpectedly insightful and nuanced probe into the life of Montgomery Clift, and it explodes some of the lore that has shaped popular understanding of the movie star. Stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Redbox.
Long Day’s Journey into Night. This brilliantly original film explores memory – a man obsessed with a doomed romance from twenty years ago plunges into a neo-noir underworld. After a slow burn beginning, his search reaches its climax in a spectacular ONE-HOUR single shot. It can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.
Mr. Klein. This is actually a reissue of a 1976 film that almost nobody has seen in 43 years. Joseph Losey’s slowburn thriller is a searing critique of French collaboration with the Nazis. Mr. Klein stars Alain Delon as a predator trapped by his own obsession. It is not currently available on the major streaming platforms, nor can it be found on DVD, except for some bootlegs from Asia.
Yes, two of my Overlooked movies are also on my Best of 2019 list. I’ll let you know when you can stream the ones that aren’t yet available.
Albert Finney in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD
Albert Finney burst into movie stardom as the face of young Brit alienation in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and the strapping sex symbol in the bawdy Tom Jones (1963). I think that one of his later performances was his best, in Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (2007).
Verna Bloom in THE HIRED HAND
Actress Verna Bloom didn’t make a lot of movies, but she starred in some of the most memorable movies of the 1970s. Her run began with Haskell Wexler’s groundbreaking Medium Cool , traveled through Clint Eastwood’s mysterious High Plains Drifter and was capped as Mrs. Dean Wormer in Animal House. My favorite Verna Bloom movie was also her favorite – Peter Fonda’s grievously underrated The Hired Hand.
Richard Erdman (right) in CRY DANGER
Prolific character actor Richard Erdman (175 screen credits) is best known for playing Sgt. Hoffy Hoffman in Billy Wilder’s great Stalag 17. But Erdman’s best role (and my favorite Erdman performance) was as Dick Powell’s dipsomaniac wingman Delong in Cry Danger: “Sometimes I always drink too much“.
Julie Adams in THE LAST MOVIE
Julie Adams‘ 60-year career included many, many Westerns and lots and lots of TV. She co-starred with James Stewart in Anthony Mann’s Bend of the River, with Elvis Presley and with Rock Hudson, five times. Her fate was to be most remembered for Creature from the Black Lagoon. My favorite Julie Adams performance was as the sexually rapacious trophy wife of an entitle American tourist in Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie.
Bruno Ganz in THE AMERICAN FRIEND
Swiss actor Bruno Ganz is most remembered for playing Adolf Hitler in Downfall, the first post-war German film to portray the Führer (it only took 59 years); Ganz was the best movie Hitler, even better than Anthony Hopkins in The Bunker with its Hitler learns … YouTube memes. Ganz became well-known when Wings of Desire became a US art house hit in 1987. My favorite Bruno Ganz movie, however was the earlier Wim Wenders The American Friend, where he was matched with Dennis Hopper.
Seymour Cassel in MINNIE AND MOSCOWITZ
Seymour Cassel’s singular performances were often eccentric and exuberant – and always no bullshit. The most recent of Cassel’s 213 screen credits was in 2015, but he is best remembered for his association with writer-director John Cassavetes. Two of my favorite Cassel performances are in Cassavetes’ Minnie and Moscowitz (1971) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976).
Bibi Andersson‘s performances were at the core of the Ingmar Bergman canon. My favorite Andersson film is one of her very first, that most accessible Bergman movie, Wild Strawberries, in which she plays both the young woman an old man encounters and, in flashback, the young love she reminds him of.
Anna Karina, the Danish-born model who became a primary leading lady of the French New Wave, made films for iconic European directors like Godard, Rivette, Visconti and Fassbinder. She was married to Godard when he was still making good movies in the early 1960s.
Rip Torn will be remembered for playing Garry Shandling’s colorful producer Artie in 89 episodes of The Larry Sanders Show; as Artie, and in so many of his roles, Torn was able to illustrate the joy that can come from misbehavior. Torn was an accomplished character actor whose career encompassed scads of television, and movie roles ranging from his Oscar-nominated turn in Cross Creek to Judas Iscariot in the Biblical epic King of Kings. My favorite Rip Torn screen performance was in The Seduction of Joe Tynan; Torn played the good-timin’ junior Senator from Louisiana covering for the impending senility of the revered senior Senator (Melvyn Douglas). Torn also guided his much younger cousin Sissy Spacek as she broke into acting. His birth name (Elmore Rual) doesn’t matter because he followed his father in taking the family nickname of Rip.
Robert Forsterwas a stalwart of 70s and 80s TV, starring in his owned short-lived period detective series Banyon and then Twin Peaks. But thank God for Quentin Tarantino, who revived Forster’s career with the character of Max Cherry in Jackie Brown; Max’s streetwise strength and basic Midwestern decency was a perfect fit for Forster.
Peter Fonda, well-known as a son and brother of film mega-stars, had a prolific career (116 screen credits) dotted with some spectacular successes. Fonda’s most eternal legacy will be Easy Rider, a film he wrote and starred in, which was the seminal film of the Counter-culture. Most importantly, Easy Rider propelled the staggering movie studios into empowering a new generation of auteur filmmakers.
Danny Aiello started acting when he was forty, with the fine TV movie Bang the Drum Slowly and as one of the Rosato brothers in The Godfather II. Aiello worked for directors as varied as Woody Allen, Sergio Leone, Norman Jewison and James Toback. He was Oscar-nominated for his performance as Sal the pizzeria owner in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.
7’3″ tall actor Peter Mayhew’s screen career centered around one unforgettable role, under a mask and bushel of fur as Chewbacca in the Stars Wars franchise.
Actor Jan Michael-Vincent could have had more of a career. In 1970, at age 25, he starred in the fine TV movie drama Tribes, and his performance as a hippie going into the Vietnam Era US Army was memorable. His looks, of the hunky/dreamy variety, got him less challenging and more forgettable work in the 1970s. His alcoholism and drug abuse killed his career, and he suffered permanent injuries from three vehicular accidents in the 1990s. He appeared in only five more movies after his third accident and none after 2002.
At age 22, actress Edith Scob was haunting in 1960’s Eyes Without a Face, and, 52 years later, helped Leos Carax pay homage to that performance in his unhinged Holy Motors.
Michael J. Pollard appeared 116 times on screen, but will always be remembered for his scene-stealing as C.W. Moss in Bonnie and Clyde.
Rene Auberjonois started his career in the iconoclastic Robert Altman films MASH (where he originated the role of Father Mulcahy), Brewster McCloud and McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Then he went on to rack up 227 screen credits, mostly on TV.
Sid Haig in HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES
Sid Haig began his horror picture career in 1968 with Spider Baby. He finished with over 130 screen credits, including character roles in Emperor of the North and Jackie Brown and lots of TV work. But Haig is most well-known for his horror, and it’s hard to top his portrayal of Captain Spaulding in Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses.
Refusing to play it safe, director Francisco Meirelles elevates The Two Popes from would have been a satisfying acting showcase into a thought-provoker. The Two Popes is based on the transition of the papacy from the reactionary German Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) to the tolerant, social justice advocate Argentine Bergoglio (Pope Francis).
Of course, we expect great performances from two of our greatest screen actors, Anthony Hopkins (as Ratzinger) and Jonathan Pryce (Bergoglio). These guys are great, especially Hopkins, who has the task of making us see the humanity in a cold, humorless, doctrinaire character.
The story is a natural odd couple match-up set in a moment of historical drama, and, with Pryce and Hopkins, that would be enough for most filmmakers. But Meirelles takes it up a notch with an unexpected second flashback to Bergoglio’s career as a Jesuit leader during the brutal Argentine coup in the 1970’s. I didn’t se this coming, and it illuminates Bergoglio’s experience, more complicated than initially apparent. Credit the construction and the added complexity to Meirelles (City of God) screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hour The Theory of Everything).
BTW The Two Popes is shot in the Vatican, including the Sistine Chapel, and the papal summer getaway, Castel Gandolfo. Way cool.
D.A. Pennebaker invents the music video in BOB DYAN: DON’T LOOK BACK
The filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker made the best ever and most influential concert film (Monterey Pop) and the best political campaign documentary (The War Room). And he invented the music video at the opening of his Don’t Look Back, as Bob as Dylan holds up cards with the lyrics for Subterranean Homesick Blues. The pump don’t work ‘Cause the vandals took the handles
Has there been a greater director of movie musicals than Stanley Donen, the director of Singin’ in the Rain? I’m generally not a fan of musicals, but I love his first film; in the 1949 On the Town (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin are sailors dancing away their shore leave through NYC) and his 1958 Damn Yankees (the Gwen Verdon version). Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954 wasn’t bad, either.
Writer-director John Singleton was the youngest person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar (for Boyz in the Hood) and the first African-American.
Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian writer-director was most renowned for The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and the 9-Oscar winner The Last Emperor (1987). I actually prefer Bertolucci’s more recent work, beginning with the underrated The Sheltering Sky (1990) with John Malkovich and Debra Winger. I thought that his The Dreamers was the best film of 2003.
Director Franco Zeffirelli is best known for his Shakespearean adaptions, especially the lushly romantic 1968 hit Romeo and Juliet, in which he cast actual teenagers in this story of impulsive teen love. I think his most everlasting achievement should be the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, which remains the screen narrative that is closest to Biblical accounts of the life of Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth may be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
The composer Michael Legrand, who won three Oscars, should be best remembered for his work in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a film where every line was sung. Legrand wrote the music for Umbrella’s iconic song I Will Wait for You.
Robert Evans began his Hollywood career as an actor in pretty boy roles, but was astute enough to see his future as a Suit. He was the studio exec who greenlighted The Godfather and produced Chinatown. He even narrated an irresistible documentary about his career, The Kid Stays in the Picture, which can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Mark Urman, a publicist and the executive producer of Monster’s Ball, founded the indie distributors ThinkFilm and Paladin. Urman gave mainstream audiences the chance to see the Oscar-winning documentaries Born into Brothels and Taxi to the Dark Side.
Musician Dick Dale, known as the King of the Surf Guitar and the Father of Heavy Metal, contributed his Misirlou to one of the most iconic opening sequences in cinema: Pulp Fiction. His music also underscored the crazy surf scene with Kurt Russell, Peter Fonda and Steve Buscemi in Escape from L.A.
Luke Lorentzen’s MIDNIGHT FAMILY. Cuurtesy of SFFILM
In his gripping documentary Midnight Family, filmmaker Luke Lorentzen takes us on ridealongs with an all-night ambulance crew in Mexico City. It’s even wilder than you may expect.
Midnight Family is set in an absurd situation with life-and-death stakes. We learn right away that there are only 45 government-operated ambulances in Mexico City, a metropolis of 9 million. The rest of the ambulances are private and mostly independents.
Competition is cut throat. The private ambulances listen to police scanners and then TRY TO OUTRACE each other to the scene. One of these independent ambulances is the Ochoa family’s business.
Fernando Ochoa is the head of the family, and he collects the ambulance fee from hospitals and patients. His 17-year-old son Juan is the voluble front man and driver, who careens them through the Mexico City streets at alarming speed. The Ochoa’s colleague, the even-tempered medic Manuel, rides in the back. The youngest Ochoa son, pudgy, Ruffles-devouring 10-year-old Josue, rides along as a gopher. BTW there are no seat belts in the back.
The private ambulances operate in a shady world of semi-formal licensing, so they can always be shut down arbitrarily by the cops. Indeed, we even see the Ochoas arrested while trying to take a patient to the hospital. It’s common for the police to extract bribes from the vulnerable ambulance crews.
There is an incentive to steer patients to the private hospitals that will pay the ambulance crews, so their business is, by its nature, often a hustle; there are some instances of ethical ambiguity. Aiming to depict a “wide spectrum”, Lorentzen balances life-saving heroics with the more sketchy moments. Getting payment out of a grieving family when the loved one dies on the way to the hospital is, well, awkward.
Here is the Ochoa’s business model. Ideally, they get paid about $250 to deliver a patient to a private hospital. They deduct the cost of gasoline, medical supplies and police bribes, and then split what’s left four ways. If a patient can’t or won’t pay, if the vehicle breaks down, or if the cops shut them down – the Ochoas are out of luck.
Luke Lorentzen’s MIDNIGHT FAMILY. Cuurtesy of SFFILM
Fernando is silent but expressive. Carrying an alarming belly, he stoically juggles an assortment pills to treat his chronic illness. The loquacious Juan is a born front man, and basically provides play-by-play commentary throughout the film in real time. We see him downloading the previous night’s drama over the phone to his girlfrend Jessica and, by loud speaker, directing other Mexico City drivers out of his way.
Fernando and Juan sleep on the floor of a downscale apartment, and they never know if they’ll make enough money for tomorrow’s gasoline. It’s an incredibly stressful existence. How resilient can they be? Is there any limit to the stress they can absorb? As Lorentzen himself says, this is “a world where no one is getting what they need”.
I saw Midnight Family at the 2019 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), which included an in-person Q&A with Lorenzen. Lorentzen spent 80-90 nights with the crew. About 70% of the film comes from the last three nights that he rode with the Ochoas.
Midnight Family joins a mini-genre of rogue ambulance cinema. The very dark Argentine narrative Carancho stars the great Ricardo Darin as a LITERALLY ambulance-chasing lawyer. In the Hungarian dark comedy Heavenly Shift (I saw it at the 2014 Cinequest), an outlaw ambulance crew gets kickbacks from a shady funeral director if the patient dies en route to the hospital.
Midnight Family is just concluding a run at the Roxie in San Francisco. I’ll let you know when it’s streamable. Midnight Family is one of the nest documentaries of the year, and on my Best Movies of 2019.
The masterpiece Parasite explores social inequity, first with hilarious comedy, then evolving into suspense and finally a shocking statement of the real societal stakes. This is one of the decade’s best films.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johannson are brilliant in Noah Baumbach’s career-topping Marriage Story. A superb screenplay, superbly acted, Marriage Story balances tragedy and comedy with uncommon success. Marriage Story is playing in just a couple Bay Area theaters and is now streaming on Netflix.
Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic The Irishman is tremendous, and features performances by Al Pacino and Joe Pesci that are epic, too. It’s both in theaters and streaming on Netflix.
Rian Johnson’s Knives Out turns a drawing room murder mystery into awickedly funny send-up of totally unjustified entitlement.
Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter.
In his Pain and Glory, master filmmaker Pedro Almodovar invites us into the most personal aspects of his own life, illuminated by Antonio Banderas’ career-topping performance.
ON VIDEO
Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE
My Streams of the Week are the six Best Movies of 2019 – So Far that are already available to stream. This week, I’m featuring Amazing Grace : pure, sanctified Aretha. Amazing Grace can be streamed on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play; the DVD can be rented from Redbox.
Plus I just wrote about Ash Is Purest White: a survivor’s journey. Actress Tao Zhao’s tour de force performance powers this portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in writer-director Zhangke Jia’s gangster neo-noir. It’s also on my Top Ten and can be streamed from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
Once again, 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
Ash Is Purest White is writer-director Zhangke Jia’s portrait of an unforgettable woman surviving betrayal, the crime world and the tidal waves of change in modern China, all embedded in a gangster neo-noir.
Qiao (Tao Zhao), is the tough and spirited girlfriend of the provincial jianghu gang leader Bin (Fan Liao). They are the big fish in their little pond, and they are relishing life. Then circumstances change – great and unperceived economic forces are enervating their hometown and a younger rival gang emerges. Qiao takes a heroic action with severe consequnces. When she re-emerges, she finds herself personally betrayed and unsupported. The seventeen-year span of Ash Is Purest White follows Qiao as she roams across China to rebuild her life. She is at times devastated but refuses to accept permanent defeat.
Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE
Tao Zhao is Jia’s wife and muse. Ash Is Purest White is a sweeping epic, and it is her movie. Her performance is a tour de force. Watch her portray Qiao’s confidence in the opening scenes, her resourcefulness and ingenious cons when she is dumped out on her own and the resolve that powers her quest. Fan Liao is also excellent as Bin.
As Qiao’s journey spans almost two decades and thousands of miles, we get insights into contemporary China. Jia’s China is a place where, when the coal industry plays out in one city, the government builds a new city for hundreds of thousands of people to movie into the oil industry. Economic forces sweep across China like flash floods that inundate and sudenly recede. Qiao rides these changes like a fishing bobber on the surface of a tsunami.
Tao Zhao in ASH IS PUREST WHITE
We are familiar with movies about the Mafia and yakuza, but Ash Is Purest White is a glimpse into jianghu – their Chinese equivalent.
Ash is Purest White is on my list of Best Movies of 2019, and it’s streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
