movie gourmet

THEY SHALL NOT GROW OLD: technology transforms film and resurrects a generation

February 3, 2019 by movie gourmet

In They Shall Not Grow Old, Lord of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has, for the first time, layered humanity over our understanding of World War I. By slowing down the speed of the jerky WWI film footage and adding sound and color, Jackson has allowed us to relate to the real people in the Great War. All of the narration is from the recorded oral histories of actual WW I soldiers.

Jackson started with 100 hours of archived film and 600 hours of oral histories. Removing the jerkiness by changing the film speed makes the biggest difference, but adding the sound of what we’re seeing through the work of Foley artists and even forensic lipreaders (who knew?) is also magically impactful. Jackson was meticulous in newly recording the sounds of actual WWI equipment and artillery.

Stuff that we thought we knew is made real for the first time. For example, we hear story after story of underage boys being accepted by military recruiters. The non-battle relations between the Brit and German grunts seems new. And there are new tidbits, like the “sit on the rail” sanitary technique. The soldiers’ reactions to the Armistice is unexpected – “too exhausted to enjoy it” and “the flattest feeling”. I counted 94 individual oral histories in the end credits.

They Shall Not Grow Old is about 90-minutes long and is accompanied by a fascinating 30-minute “making of” documentary. Jackson points out that soldiers had seen movies, but movie cameras were a novelty, so many soldiers are filmed staring at the camera agape and trying to hold still (as for a still camera). Jackson also takes us to see a sunken road in the film today – and explains that most of the soldiers in the archived footage were in the final 30 minutes of their lives.

As he explains in the “making of ” documentary, Jackson chose to focus on the experience of the ordinary soldier, so he does not depict the naval or air wars, the roles of women and colonial troops or the home front. It’s all-infantry all of the time. That distillation is a sound choice and allows the audience to immerse ourselves into that particular experience.

This is a generational achievement that should not be missed.

VICE: like Macbeth, only funny

February 3, 2019 by movie gourmet

Vice is the comic biopic of Dick Cheney by writer-director Adam McKay (The Big Short). Cheney is played by a physically transformed and unrecognizable Christian Bale.

McKay’s take is that Cheney’s driving motivation and genius is the accumulation and exercise of power – to whatever end and by whatever means. McKay also sees Cheney as a mediocre slacker molded and fueled by Lynne Cheney (Amy Adams), whose own ambitions were limited in the 1960s by her gender. So, this is a tale of ruthless grasping along the lines of Macbeth or House of Cards, only mostly non-fiction.

McKay drops in the horrifying real impacts of Cheney’s exercise of power, but this is mostly a very funny movie. Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney’s mentor in power-grabbing, and George W. Bush, Cheney’s stooge, are played for laughs in very broad performances by Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell. McKay also tosses in a funny faux ending and has Dick and Lynne, in bed for the night, erupt in Shakespearean dialogue. Jesse Plemons plays a fictional Everyman narrator.

Bale’s performance is extraordinary, and goes well beyond the impeccable impersonation, down to every Cheney mannerism – stoneface, sneer and grunt. Adams is excellent as his Lady Macbeth. So is the rest of the fine cast, especially Alsion Pil as lesbian daughter Mary, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell and Shea Whigham as Lynne Cheney’s probably murderous father.

Vice is pretty good history, biography from a sharp point of view and a damn entertaining movie.

Movies to See Right Now

February 1, 2019 by movie gourmet

The Must See is Peter Jackson’s revelatory WW I documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. And this weekend closes out the Noir City film festival; my festival preview highlights the closing night film Blast of Silence, one of the very first (and bleakest) neo-noirs.

OUT NOW

In They Shall Not Grow Old, Lords of the Rings filmmaker Peter Jackson has, for the first time, layered humanity over our understanding of World War I. By slowing down the speed of the jerky WWI film footage and adding sound and color, Jackson has allowed us to relate to the real people in the Great War. This is a generational achievement. My complete post will go up this weekend.
Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
Vice: in this bitingly funny biopic of Dick Cheney, filmmaker Adam McKay explores the amoral grasping for power, and Christian Bale delivers a superb performance and a jaw-droppingly accurate impersonation of Cheney. My complete post will go up this weekend.
Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
Do NOT, under any circumstances, see I Hate Kids, which I started to screen for a film festival earlier in the year, but could not bring myself to finish. Somehow, it got a theatrical release, but it only has a Metacritic rating of 12.

ON VIDEO

On February 2, it will be five years since we lost Philip Seymour Hoffman. My favorite Hoffman performance is in the 2007 dark thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, which I’ve called the decade’s most overlooked American film. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is available on DVD and to stream from Netflix.

On TV

There are plenty of good choices on television during Turner Classic Movies 31 Days of Oscar, featuring Oscar-nominated and winning films.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (February 3): This romantic French musical is notable for three things: 1) the actors sing all of the dialogue; 2) the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and 3) an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history.
All the King’s Men (February 3): one of the best political movies of all time, from the novel based on the saga of Huey Long. Broderick Crawford stars as Willie Stark, the fictionalized Kingfish. Watch for the brilliant, Oscar-winning supporting performance by Mercedes McCambridge. (Note: this is the 1949 version, NOT the lousy 2006 Sean Penn remake.)
Perhaps the most deeply funny movie of all time, Mon Oncle (February 5), Jacques Tati’s masterful fish-out-of-water satire of modern consumerism and modernist culture. If you have strong feelings (either way) for Mid-Century Modern style, be patient and settle in. There’s very little dialogue and lots of sly observational physical humor. The use of ambient noise/sounds and the very spare soundtrack is pure genius.

DVD/Stream of the Week: BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD – for Philip Seymour Hoffman

January 29, 2019January 29, 2019 by movie gourmet

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD — Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD

On February 2, it will be five years since we lost Philip Seymour Hoffman. My favorite Hoffman performance is in the 2007 dark thriller Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, which I’ve called the decade’s most overlooked American film. It’s the gripping story of two very different brothers in a study of greed and desperation. Hoffman’s brilliant but amoral character needs money and suggests to his sad sack brother (Ethan Hawke) that they rob their parent’s jewelry store. Unlike many of his schlubby roles, Hoffman’s character here is talented, successful and supremely confident that he deserves even more than he has earned. Hoffman gives one his best performances as he tries to stay in control of his increasingly hopeless circumstances – melting down internally but harnessing all of his energy in a futile attempt to regain control.

Hoffman’s fellow actors are superb. A.O. Scott wrote of Hawke’s character: “If you gave him a quarter to feed the meter, you’d end up with a parking ticket and a stream of pathetic apologies.” Marisa Tomei has a showcase scene when her character lays one more devastating development on her hubbie (Hoffman). And Albert Finney takes over the movie in the very last scene. The film was directed by the 84-year-old Sidney Lumet (who was first nominated for an Oscar for 12 Angry Men in 1957).

Another thing – Hoffman’s movie characters rarely got the girl (and some – as in Happiness – were outright perverted), but here he gets to make love to Marisa Tomei with vigor and relish.

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is available on DVD and to stream from Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

January 25, 2019 by movie gourmet

Anne Bancroft and Aldo Ray in NIGHTFALL playing this week at NOIR CITY

This weekend, I’m in San Francisco for the Noir City film festival; check out my festival preview.

OUT NOW

Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
Do NOT, under any circumstances, see I Hate Kids, which I started to screen for a film festival earlier in the year, but could not bring myself to finish. Somehow, it got a theatrical release, but it only has a Metacritic rating of 12.

ON VIDEO

The Aura is a brilliant 2005 neo-noir from Argentina that I wasn’t familiar with until the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, programmed it into the 2017 Noir City film festival. The Aura is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon and Hulu.

On TV

On January 27, Turner Classic Movies will present an overlooked masterwork. Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily (1964) is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing English women for the brass. Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War. She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy. Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it. Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network.

Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe.

Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

And on January 30, TCM presents the often transgressive cult classic Spider Baby, the last horror film for Lon Chaney, Jr. and the first for Sid Haig.

NOIR CITY 2019 is here

January 23, 2019January 23, 2019 by movie gourmet

Jayne Mansfield and Dan Duryea in THE BURGLAR

The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, opens this weekend in San Francisco. Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and movies not available on DVD or streaming. And we get to watch them in a vintage movie palace (San Francisco’s Castro Theatre) with a thousand other film fans.

Eddie Muller, whom you should recognize as the host of Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley series, has programmed this year’s version as NOIR CITY Reveals the Dark Side of Mid-Century America. The tagline is “Think the 1950s were buttoned-down and conservative? Think again.” Trench coats and fedoras are not required (and no smoking, please), but, other than that, you’ll get the full retro experience in the period-appropriate Castro.

You can’t stream three of the very best films in the fest: Nightfall, Pushover and Blast of Silence. And Trapped, The Well, The Turning Point, The Scarlet Hour and Murder by Contract are pretty much impossible to find in any format. So, see it here or don’t see it at all. Trapped has just been restored by the Film Noir Foundation. This year’s program features eight movies on The Movie Gourmet’s list of Overlooked Noir.

My personal favorites on the program:

Two underrated noir masterpieces on the same double bill: Nightfall and The Burglar. Nightfall features smoldering chemistry between Aldo Ray and Anne Bancroft as they hunt for hidden loot while on the run themselves. The core of The Burglar is the stellar lead performance of Dan Duryea as a tortured and worn-out guy – with one deep loyalty. There are plenty of noir moments – lots of shadows, uplit faces in the darkness, amoral, grasping characters and not one, but two noir vixens – Jayne Mansfield and Martha Vickers.
The cop-yields-to-temptation double feature with Pushover and Private Hell 36. Tracking a notorious criminal, the cop (Fred MacMurray) in Pushover, follows – and then dates – the gangster’s girlfriend (“Introducing Kim Novak”) as part of the job, but then falls for her himself. He decides that, if he can double cross BOTH the cops and the criminal, he can wind up with the loot AND Kim Novak. (This is a film noir, so we know he’s not destined for a tropical beach with an umbrella drink.)
Another double feature, pairing the down-and-dirty Kiss Me Deadly and Stanley Kubrick’s groundbreaking Killer’s Kiss.
Sam Fuller and James Shigeta breaking ground by normalizing a Japanese-American protagonist in The Crimson Kimono.
The closing double feature with Sam Fuller’s brutal Underworld USA and that most emotionally bleak transition into neo-noir, the proto-indie Blast of Silence, which I’ve described as “a cauldron of seething hatred“.

Noir City runs from Friday, January 25 through Sunday, February 3. To see the this year’s Noir City program and buy tickets, go here. I’ll be there myself on this Friday and Saturday.

DVD/Stream of the Week: THE AURA – smart enough to plan the perfect crime, but is that enough?

January 22, 2019 by movie gourmet

The Aura is a brilliant 2005 neo-noir from Argentina that I wasn’t familiar with until the Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, programmed it into the 2017 Noir City film festival. The 2019 Noir City opens this weekend.

The Aura is about a taxidermist who leads a boring life, but fantasizes about the Perfect Crime. He is perpetually cranky because he is so dissatisfied, but he resists getting out of his life rut. It’s not easy to be his friend (nor, apparently, his wife). Unexpectedly, he finally finds himself in position to participate in a major heist.

He is epileptic (the movie’s title is from the sensation just before a seizure); he and we never know if and when he will pass out from an episode, a particularly dangerous wild card in a thriller. He also has a photographic memory, and that can help him if he has the nerve to go through with the crime.

The taxidermist is played by one of my favorite actors, Ricardo Darin (Nine Queens, The Secret in their Eyes, Carancho, Wild Tales) . I like to think of Darin as the Argentine Joe Mantegna. Darin can expertly play a slightly twisted Every Man, and he excels at neo-noir.

The rest of the cast is excellent, especially Walter Reyno as The Real Thing criminal, Alejandro Awada as the taxidermist’s long suffering only friend and Dolores Fonzi as the intriguing woman in the woods.

Sadly, writer-director Fabián Bielinsky died at 47 after making only two features – the wonderful con artist film Nine Queens (also starring Darin) and The Aura. Those two films indicate that he was a special talent.

Darin’s taxidermist is smart enough to plan a Perfect Crime, but professional criminals have that sociopathic lack of empathy needed to carry out crimes. Does he? Does he get the money? Does he get the girl? Does he even escape with his life? It’s a neo-noir, so you’ll have to watch it to find out.

By the way, the dog in this movie is important. Watch for the dog at the very end.

The Aura is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon and Hulu.

Movies to See Right Now

January 18, 2019 by movie gourmet

Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in GREEN BOOK

Roma on Netflix and Green Book in theaters are still my top picks. And here’s my remembrance of actress Verna Bloom, with a recommendation for her The Hired Hand.

OUT NOW

Roma is an exquisite portrait of two enduring women and the masterpiece of Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men and Y Tu Mama Tambien). Will win multiple Oscars. It is streaming now Netflix.
Green Book: Tony Lip is a marvelous character, and Viggo Mortensen’s performance is one of the great pleasures of this year in the movies.
Shoplifters won the Palm d’Or at Cannes. This is a witty, and finally heartbreaking, look at a family that lives on the margins – and then is revealed to be not what it seems.
Stan & Ollie: Steve Coogan as Stan Laurel and John C. Reilly as Oliver Hardy deliver remarkable portraits of a partnership facing the inevitability of showbiz decline.
Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind and its companion documentaries, all available to stream on Netflix.
The masterful documentary Monrovia, Indiana is a fascinating movie about a boring subject.
Pawel Pawlikowski’s sweeping romantic tragedy Cold War is not as compelling as his masterpiece Ida.
The Favourite: Great performances by three great actresses, sex and political intrigue are not enough; this critically praised film didn’t work for me.
Skip First Man – a boring movie about a fascinating subject.

ON VIDEO

Here’s a really fun movie. Land Ho! features a vibrant and irascible geezer who conscripts an old friend into a rowdy road trip to – of all random places – Iceland. Land Ho! is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, and Google Play.

ON TV

On January 19, Turner Classic Movies will show The Last Hurrah (1958): The master director John Ford is famous for westerns, but this portrait of an embattled incumbent is a classic of political cinema. Spencer Tracy plays the leader of an urban political machine. He’s got years of accomplishments and a machine in his favor, but his newspaper-owning antagonist is running an empty suit against him in a campaign that is increasingly fought on the newfangled medium of television. He’s been so successful for so long that his ward heelers have become complacent, and he’s smelling the campaign getting away from him…

And on January 23, TCM will air the 1967 biker exploitation movie Born Losers, in which Tom Laughlin originated the character of Billy Jack – all discussed in my post about TCM’s recent Billy Jack Extravaganza.

Also on January 23, TCM will cablecast a film from my Bad Movie Festival – Psych-Out, a hippie exploitation movie from 1968. Features Bruce Dern as a schizophrenic Jesus and Jack Nicholson with a ponytail glued onto his head. Hilarious.

Spencer Tracy (center) in THE LAST HURRAH

DVD/Stream of the Week: LAND HO! – rowdy geezer roadtrip to Iceland

January 15, 2019 by movie gourmet

Paul Eenhoorn and Earl Lynn Nelson in LAND HO!

Here’s a really fun movie. Land Ho! features a vibrant and irascible geezer who conscripts an old friend into a rowdy road trip to – of all random places – Iceland. It’s a showcase for Earl Lynn Nelson, who essentially plays himself in the movie. Nelson is a 72-year-old Kentucky doctor who is a force of nature and has possibly an even dirtier mind than The Movie Gourmet’s. He is a friend of the 29-year-old writer director Martha Stephens who was INSPIRED to see the possibilities in sending him off on an adventure and filming the results. His friend (and ex-brother-in-law) is played by an actor, Paul Eenhoorn.

It all works. Nelson – an unapologetic hedonist – is funnier than hell, and Eenhoorn stays right with him as the more reserved and sometimes aggrieved buddy. Land Ho! is a string of LOL moments, whether Nelson is providing politically incorrect fashion advice to young women or unsolicited marital advice to a honeymooning couple or pulling out a joint and proclaiming “It’s time for some doobiefication”.

This is a geezer comedy that doesn’t make the geezers cute. Nelson may be a piece of work, but there’s nothing in Land Ho! that isn’t genuine.

I just have two knocks on the movie. It’s only 95 minutes long, but it would be crisper at about 87. And, as The Wife pointed out, there’s really no need for the huge jarring subtitles to let us know precisely where these guys are in Iceland.

Nevertheless, it’s worth a watch. The audience at Sundance loved this movie, and I think Land Ho! is a hoot-and-a-half. Land Ho! is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, and Google Play.

{Note: I got the meet and spend some time with Paul Eenhorn at Cinequest 2015, when he was premiering his film In the Company of Women. Great guy.]

Verna Bloom

August 17, 2019January 13, 2019 by movie gourmet

Actress Verna Bloom, who died last week, 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 and traveled through Clint Eastwood’s mysterious High Plains Drifter. She will be best remembered as Mrs. Dean Wormer in Animal House.

My favorite Verna Bloom movie was also her favorite – Peter Fonda’s grievously underrated Western The Hired Hand. Bloom plays a woman abandoned on her hardscrabble ranch by her roaming husband (Fonda). When he returns with his trail buddy (Warren Oates), she will only allow him back as a hired hand. It’s a moody and captivating film, beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond. The Hired Hand is available on DVD from Netflix; the DVD is also available for purchase.