movie gourmet

ZOMBIELAND DOUBLE TAP: another raucous romp

by
Zoey Deutch and Jesse Eisenberg in ZOMBIELAND DOUBLE TAP

The raucous romp Zombieland Double Tap is a fun change of pace to the serious fare in theaters. To set the tone, it begins with the woman in the Columbia Pictures logo dispatching a couple of zombies. This is a worthy sequel to the riotously funny Zombieland, number one on my list of Zombie Movies for People Who Don’t Like Zombie Movies.

In the original Zombieland, our young heroes (Jesse Eisenberg as Columbus, Emma Stone as Wichita and Abigail Breslin as Little Rock – very early in their careers) band together to survive the Zombie Apocalypse with the master zombie killer Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson).  Tallahassee’s astonishing skills and unwholesome enthusiasm are very funny. 

In Zombieland Double Tap, the characters, like the actors, are all ten years older. The young folks have learned from their mentor and are now equally adept at slaughtering zombies. This time, there is less zombie splatter, replaced by plenty of funny new threads. The four are camped out in the deserted White House and then travel to Graceland.

A new character Madison (Zoey Deutch) shows up, and Deutch practically reinvents the Dumb Blonde. A bit where she thinks up the business plan of Uber may be her funniest bit, but Deutch’s performance by itself makes watching this movie worthwhile.

Little Rock is no longer a kid, and she yearns for the companionship of a guy her age. Of course, she finds exactly the wrong first boyfriend (Avan Jogla) in a survivor who is hippie poser (named Berkeley!); not satisfied to impress Little Rock by plagiarizing Bob Dylan’s Like a Rolling Stone, he even claims that he wrote Lynard Skynard’s Free Bird.

Luke Wilson and Thomas MIddleditch show up as clones of Tallahassee and Columbus. Eisenberg and Middleditch have a lot of fun with their similarly neurotic personae. Rosario Dawson is in this movie, too, and she’s a lot of fun.

In the comedic highlight of Zombieland, the group finds shelter in Bill Murray’s LA mansion where Bill Murray (playing himself) is surviving by impersonating a zombie.  If you stay through the closing credits of Zombieland Double Tap, you’ll be rewarded with a taste of Murray.

This a very funny movie. The Wife hates horror, and she enjoyed Zombieland Double Tap, too.

Movies to See Right Now

by
PARASITE

The best movies out now are Parasite and Pain and Glory. The most enjoyable, audience-friendly movies are Jojo Rabbit and Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice

OUT NOW

  • 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.
  • I liked the Isabelle Huppert drama Frankie, but the Mill Valley Film Festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Two rock music documentaries, The Quiet One and Echo in the Canyon. will be of moderate interest to rock fans of a certain age.
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

Elisabeth Moss soars in my Stream of the Week, Her Smell, a portrait of epic self-destruction. It’s the powerhouse performance of 2019. Her Smell is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Tomorrow, November 2, TCM brings us the 1979 Oscar-winner Harlan County U.S.A. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple embedded herself among the striking coal miners and got amazing footage – including of herself threatened and shot at. Also one of my 5 Great Hillbilly Movies.

HARLAN COUNTY, USA

FRANKIE: trying to wrap up loose ends

by
Marisa Tomei and Isabelle Huppert in FRANKIE

In Ira Sachs’ Frankie, Isabelle Huppert plays the title character, a movie star who, having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, summons her family to a Portuguese vacation villa. She’s used to getting what she wants, and what she wants now is to wrap up some family loose ends.

The loose ends in question are, well, loose. There’s her son, still deciding on his path a little too close to middle age. There’s her husband’s daughter, struggling with her husband and their teen daughter. Her current husband is there, along with her first husband. And she’s invited a friend who happens to be her son’s age, and who lives in the city to which her son is moving… Her husbands are focused with what’s happening with Frankie, but the younger folks are all absorbed in their own crucial life decisions.

Isabelle Huppert and Jérémie Renier in FRANKIE

As one would expect, Isabelle Huppert is superb as Frankie, a woman who toggles between manipulating her clan and silently contemplating her own fate. The rest of the cast is excellent, too, especially Brendan Gleeson as Frankie’s loyal and observant husband and Marisa Tomei as Frankie’s younger friend who brings along a surprise guest. That guest is played by Greg Kinnear, with just the right mix of decency, earnestness and pathetic cluelessness.

Frankie is set (and was shot) in Sintra, Portugal, and what a beautiful place that must be, with its whitewashed villas, charming cobblestone streets and ocean vistas.

I watched Frankie at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and I really enjoyed it. But the festival audience was very indifferent at the screening; I’m guessing that folks failed to warm to an ambiguous ending that leaves some plot threads unresolved.

Stream of the Week: HER SMELL – powerhouse Elisabeth Moss

by
Elisabeth Moss in HER SMELL

Elisabeth Moss soars in Her Smell, a portrait of epic self-destruction. Moss plays a talented and charismatic rock star, her narcissism exponentially magnified by drugs. She is so deranged that we can’t tell if she is possessed by demons or is a demon herself. While the drugs make her a monster, we learn that they are not the only influence on her damaged psyche.

Moss’ performance as the volatile and feral Becky Something is terrifyingly unhinged and explosive. Becky immediately pivots (even mid-sentence) between charmer and predator. Moss is utterly committed to this role and left nothing on the sound stage. It’s the powerhouse performance of 2019.

We first grew to appreciate Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson, perhaps the Mad Men character with the greatest arc. Since then, she’s anchored The Handmaid’s Tale, and I recommend her less well-known turn as an Aussie cop in the Top of the Lake miniseries. But after people see Her Smell, they’ll start thinking that she can play ANYTHING – and anything compellingly .

Moss also sings well enough to make a credible rock star. As I wrote about Elle Fanning in Teen Spirit, given that Rami Malek just won an Oscar for lip-syncing, we should bestow a Nobel upon Moss. 

Elisabeth Moss in HER SMELL

The Wife noticed that writer-director Alex Ross Perry’s choices of chaotic camera and discordant musical tones mirror the character’s inner chaos; later, he uses serenity and stillness to help us distill Becky’s persona. I also agree with The Wife that Her Smell is unnecessarily long at two hours and fourteen minutes; this would be a much more powerful film at 100 minutes. (Ross also wrote Listen Up Philip, a very funny dark comedy about another dysfunctional protagonist and one of the very few successful mumblecore films; Moss co-starred with Jason Schwartzman in that one.)

Her Smell’s supporting players are superb, especially Agnyess Deyn and Gayle Rankin as Becky’s bandmates, Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey) as her ex and art house vet Eric Stolz as her manager; in turn enabling Becky and being victimized by her, they are always walking on eggshells. Becky’s mom is played by the sublime Virginia Madsen. Former model Cara Delevingne was excellent in the teen film Paper Towns, and does well here as one of Becky’s bewildered acolytes.

Her Smell is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.



THE QUIET ONE: resisting flamboyance

by
Bill Wyman in THE QUIET ONE

The title character in the documentary The Quiet One is the Rolling Stones bass player Bill Wyman. Wyman is an anti-flamboyant person at the very core of a circus of hedonistic excess and self-promotion.

Wyman is also an obsessive collector of memorabilia, and, at age 83, he now burrows into his irreplaceable archive of home movies and concert posters. What’s especially interesting in The Quiet One is the history of the Rolling Stones from his sober and humble perspective.

One famous associate says, “Bill never started acting like he’s famous”. Wyman himself says, “I suppose if you looked at my bookshelves you would understand me better.” What we do see is an astonishingly down-to-earth person, seemingly barely changed by stardom. He is honest about two marriage mistakes, one of them fairly appalling.

In the sweetest scene, we get to see today’s Wyman as a devoted fan, choking up while recalling an encounter with Ray Charles.

The Quiet One is a low key movie about a low key guy, and I recommend it to those interested in rock and roll history. The Quiet One is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Bill Wyman and associates in THE QUIET ONE

ECHO IN THE CANYON: a moment in music history

by
Jakob Dylan and Tom Petty in ECHO IN THE CANYON

The documentary Echo in the Canyon explores a moment in music history – the beginnings of folk rock in LA’s Laurel Canyon in the mid-1960s. Think the Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Mamas and the Papas, all influenced by the Beach Boys and the Beatles.

There are some, but not a zillion, nuggets in the interviews with Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, Michelle Phillips, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash and Brian Wilson.

Jakob Dylan leads a band with Regina Spektor, Beck, Fiona Apple and Cat Power that plays some of the hits from the era. This is an excuse for a soundtrack album, but hardly a significant value add. The exception is singer Jade Castrinos, who seems born to sing the Mamas and Papas songbook, both the Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty parts.

Echo in the Canyon is moderately interesting to fans of 1960s rock and roll and is available to stream on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

by
JOJO RABBIT

Now is the time we’ve all been waiting for – the year’s very best movies are coming out in waves. Parasite, Jojo Rabbit and Pain and Glory will make their share of Top Ten lists; (I saw Parasite at its first Silicon Valley screening Thursday night and will write about it soon). The Irishman and Marriage Story are coming next weekend – so see at least two movies in theaters this weekend to stay current.

OUT NOW

  • 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.
  • Where’s My Roy Cohn? is Matt Tyrnauer’s superb biodoc of Roy Cohn – and was there a more despicable public figure in America’s 20th Century than Cohn?
  • It’s tough to imagine anyone who wouldn’t enjoy the biodoc Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice, about the first female mega rock star. 
  • Skip Netflix’s The Laundromat and watch The Big Short again instead.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is last year’s best movie – the unforgettable coming of age film Leave No Trace. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting.  Leave No Trace is available for streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Here are two very different 1950s films coming up this week on Turner Classic Movies. On October 30, there’s the campy Bucket of Blood – it’s most interesting as a time capsule of the Beatnik Era.

And on October 28, TCM brings us 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?

Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift in A PLACE IN THE SUN

JOJO RABBIT: a joyous and hilarious movie about the inculcation of hatred

by
JOJO RABBIT

Filmmaker Taika Waititi takes on hatred in his often outrageous satire Jojo Rabbit. His protagonist is the ten-year-old German boy Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis), growing up during the final years of World War II. Jojo lives with his mom (Scarlett Johansson) because his dad is away (and we learn that the father is likely dead), It’s a tough childhood in these conditions, and Jojo copes with the help of an imaginary friend, who happens to be Adolph Hitler, played uproariously by Waititi himself.

Waititi doesn’t play the historical Hitler; he plays a benign and reassuring figure that is imagined by a child brought up on Nazi propaganda. He fills that role that uncles and grandads get to be with kids – the cherished figure who is always on your side and never make you do your chores. Of course, a playful and nurturing Hitler is absurd, and Waititi is brilliantly funny.

Jojo tries to fit in with the Hitler Youth, and his hobby is innocently filling a notebook with illustrations of the most hideous Jewish stereotypes that he has been taught. What we understand but Jojo doesn’t, is that his mom is risking her life in the anti-Nazi Resistance. She’s also been hiding the Jewish girl Elsa (Thomasin Mackenzie) in the attic a la Anne Frank.

Thomasin MacKenzie in JOJO RABBIT

Jojo discovers Elsa, and , as is usually the case with a ten-year-old boy and a fifteen-year-old girl, she becomes the boss of him. He gets an up close lesson in Jewishness, and it’s a revelation to him. It’s also clear that Germany is losing the war, although Jojo, as a child, is slower to connect the dots about that than are the adults. As the propaganda is unpeeled, the absurdities of the hatred and scapegoating are revealed to Jojo.

Roman Griffin Davis is a perfect choice to play the relatable innocent Jojo. Thomasin MacKenzie, so genuine and ethereal in Leave No Trace, is wonderful here, too. The entire cast is good, especially Johansson, Sam Rockwell as a cynical army officer, Rebel Wilson as a Nazi true believer and Stephen Merchant as a grinning Gestapo goon.

Even more than most movies, this is a film of its time. Five years ago, we might not have seen the value of a movie discrediting the Joseph Goebbels approach – pounding outrageous lies into a mass audience made gullible by its own dissatisfaction, targeting the “other” as blameworthy for all ills. But here we are, 74 years after the destruction of the Nazis, once again watching blowhard demagogues drumming up hatred for minority groups and scapegoating immigrants – in the US and Europe and around the globe. With its skewering of manufactured hatred and the Big Lie, this witty and ultimately sweet film resonates.

I saw Jojo Rabbit at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where the audience ROARED with laughter. This is going to be an audience favorite.

THE LAUNDROMAT: watch THE BIG SHORT again instead

by
Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas in THE LAUNDROMAT

Steven Soderbergh’s disappointing The Laundromat takes on the Panama Papers scandal of 2015, in which the shady law firm of Mossack Fonseca enabled hundreds of global fraudsters and tax cheats. Intended as an expose of financial malfeasance, it only succeeds as a demonstration of cinematic waste. There’s way too much talent harnessed to result in such a shallow imitation of The Big Short.

Meryl Streep plays an Everywoman who gets swindled by a corrupt system and by individual crooks played by Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas and Jeffrey Wright. If there’s anything worthy about this film, it’s Oldman and Banderas, who get to break the fourth wall and blithely explain their cons to the camera – the same function that Margot Robbie, in a bubble bath, filled in The Big Short.

There just isn’t anything to engage the audience here. Worse, The Laundromat muddles it message by toggling between what’s legal and what’s not. The film explicitly claims that the crookedness depicted is legal, but it actually shows lots and lots of fraud – and fraud is already illegal. The real scandal, of course, is that the system is rigged so the big financial interests can LEGALLY screw the rest of us

It all culminates in a corny final shot that not even Streep can make convincing or palatable. If you MUST watch this crap, it’s streaming on Netflix.

Stream of the Week: LEAVE NO TRACE – his demons, not hers

by
Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Here is the best movie of 2018 – the unforgettable coming of age film Leave No Trace. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting.  Leave No Trace is writer-director Debra Granik’s first narrative feature since her Winter’s Bone (which I had rated as the best film of 2010).

When we meet Will (Foster) and his daughter Tom (McKenzie), they are engaging in extremely low impact camping in a fern-rich Oregon forest, to the point of solar cooking foraged mushrooms on a mylar sheet.  Dad and daughter are both survivalist experts and work together as a highly trained team.  They have the fond, respectful, communicative relationship that most families with teen children aspire to but can only fantasize about.

But Will and Tom are not on vacation. They do not consider themselves homeless, because the forest is their home.   However, their lifestyle just isn’t consistent with contemporary thinking about child welfare.  Furthermore, living in a public park is illegal,and when they are discovered, social service authorities are understandably and justifiably concerned.  Investigators find Tom to be medically and emotionally healthy, Will to be free of drug or alcohol abuse, and there has been no child abuse or neglect – other than having ones child living outdoors and not going to school.

Will is a veteran who has been scarred by his military service, and he is clearly anti-social.  But Will is not your stereotypical PTSD-addled movie vet.  He is a clear thinker.  His behavior, which can range to the bizarre, is not impulsive but deliberate.

Fortunately, the Oregon, social services authorities are remarkably open-minded, and they place Will and Tom in a remote rural setting in their own house at a rural Christmas Tree farm.  Will can work on the farm, Tom can go the school, and there’s a liberal non-denominational church filled with kind folks.  It’s a massive accommodation to Will and Tom’s lifestyle, only with the additions of living under a roof and public education.

Tom blossoms with social contact, and particularly enjoys the local 4-H and one kid’s pet rabbit named Chainsaw.  Tom begins to understand how much she needs human connection – and not just with her dad,

But Will can’t help but feel defeated.  When Tom suggests that they try to adapt to their new setting, he scowls, “We’re wearing their clothes, we’re living in their house, we’re eating their food, we’re doing their work. We’ve adapted”.  She argues, “Did you try?”, “Why are we doing this?”, and “Dad, this isn’t how it used to be”.

Ben is so damaged that his parenting can nurture Tom for only so long.  Leave No Trace is about how he has raised her to this point.  Has he imparted his demons to her?  Has he helped her become strong and grounded enough to grow without him?

Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie and Ben Foster in a scene from Debra Granik’s LEAVE NO TRACE. Courtesy of SFFILM.

Winter’s Bone launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and Leave No Trace might do the same for newcomer Thomasin McKenzie.  McKenzie is riveting as she authentically takes Tom from a parented child to an independent young woman.  At the San Francisco International Film Festival screening, producer and co-writer Anne Rosellini said “there’s an ‘otherness’ to McKenzie,” who had “tremendous insight into the character”.  Rosellini added that McKenzie and Ben Foster bonded before the shoot, as they rehearsed with a survivalist coach.

Foster is no stranger to troubled characters (The Messenger, Rampart, Hell or High Water).  Here, he delivers a remarkably intense and contained performance as a man who will not allow himself an outburst no matter what turbulence roils inside him.  Rosellini noted that “Will is elusive, a mysterious character to everybody”.  It’s a performance that will be in the conversation about Oscar nominations.  Actors Jeff Kober, Dale Dickey, Dana Millican and Isaiah Stone (the little brother in Winter’s Bone) are also excellent in smaller roles.

Leave No Trace is thoughtful and emotionally powerful.  Superbly well-crafted and impeccably acted, it’s a Must See. Leave No Trace is available for streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.