movie gourmet

A STAR IS BORN: Bradley Cooper’s triumph

October 6, 2018 by movie gourmet

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A STAR IS BORN

Don’t bring a hankie when you see A Star Is Born – bring a whole friggin’ box of Kleenex.

Actor Bradley Cooper directs this fourth movie version of A Star Is Born, and the story is essentially the same. A celebrity artist struggles with addiction, enough to have his career teetering on the downward arc. He befriends and mentors a young artist. They become a couple. Then her career skyrockets. Will their relationship last? Will he drag her down? Can she save him? In this version, Cooper himself plays the alcoholic rock star Jackson and Lady Gaga plays the unknown singer-songwriter Ally.

It’s a remarkably effective drama, with plenty of laughs and affecting romance. I’m not quite sure whether A Star Is Born is technically a melodrama or a tragedy, but I know that it’s a wonderful movie.

The key to this triumph is that it’s the creation of director Bradley Cooper, who could be well on his way to a Clint Eastwood career as both a movie star and an important filmmaker. Cooper masterfully modulates the pathos, injecting just enough humor to leaven the tragedy. But here’s the marker of artistic genius: there 7.6 billion people alive on this planet and EXACTLY ONE of them thought of remaking A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga.

Lady Gaga turns out to be a fine movie actress and perfect for the role of Ally. In this film, she’s funny, spunky, sassy, passionate, vulnerable, grieving and an overall force of nature; and when she sings – look out.

As an actor, Cooper is always appealing. Here, he’s especially good – acting only with his eyes – when he receives a harsh appraisal of his effect on Ally’s career. The wonderful Sam Elliott plays Jackson’s brother, and Cooper intentionally lowered his voice to the Sam Elliott (and Bruce Bochy) level. Rafi Gavron is especially effective as an icy, slick and ruthless Svengali. Andrew Dice Clay, Anthony Ramos and Dave Chappelle are all very good in supporting roles.

A Star Is Born is a Must See and one of 2018’s best movies.

Movies to See Right Now

October 5, 2018 by movie gourmet

Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A STAR IS BORN[/caption]

I just saw A Star Is Born last night – and you should, too. I’ll be writing about it this weekend. I’ll also be heading to the Mill Valley Film Festival to see three of the most exciting Prestige Season releases: Cold War, Roma and Shoplifters.

OUT NOW

Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
The first-rate thriller Searching is more than just a gimmick (it entirely takes place on computer screens) and is filled with authentic Silicon Valley touches.
Jane Fonda herself spills her most intimate secrets in the irresistible HBO biodoc Jane Fonda in Five Acts.
Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the appealing transgender dramedy Venus, which won the Cinequest award for best narrative feature. Venus is available for streaming from Amazon and iTunes.

ON TV

Tune into Turner Classic Movies on October 6 for director Robert Altman’s underappreciated California Split. Elliott Gould plays a guy deep in the throes of gambling addiction, and George Segal plays another guy well on his way. The two join up and play the LA-area card clubs before heading to Reno for a poker game that may be too big for them. Gould is at his manic, wise cracking best, and plays off the more reserved Segal in a very funny adventure. Of course, their decision-making is influenced by their addiction.

Actor Joseph Walsh wrote the screenplay about his own gambling addiction and plays the bookie you don’t want to owe money to. Real card club and casino patrons play the poker players, so the verisimilitude of the poker games is unmatched. The real Amarillo Slim elevates the big game.

California Split was the first non-Cinerama movie to use eight tracks for sound, which was perfect for Altman’s style of overlapping dialogue and tidbits of side and background conversations.

The poker is both authentic and entertaining. The two guys “read a table”, analyzing the other players in one particularly funny moment.

Reliable character actor Bert Remsen has a memorable bit in drag. Mickey Fox is memorable as a suspicious poker loser. Look for a young Jeff Goldblum, too.

Elliott Gould (center left) and George Segal (center right) in CALIFORNIA SPLIT

JANE FONDA IN FIVE ACTS: self-assessment and self-revelation

October 4, 2018 by movie gourmet

Jane Fonda appears in *JANE FONDA IN FIVE ACTS* by Susan Lacy, an official selection of the Documentary Premieres program at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo courtesy of Everett Collection.

HBO is airing a remarkable biodoc of Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda in Five Acts. It turns the talking head documentary on its, well, talking head, because the main narrator/commentator on Jane Fonda’s life is Jane Fonda herself. She reveals the most personal, even intimate, experiences and feelings; you could tag this as “extremely personally revealing” or even as “oversharing”. either way, I found it irresistible.

The theme is that Fonda’s life was shaped, in phases, by (or to reflect), the four most important men in her life: her father Henry Fonda and her husbands Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner. Hayden, Turner, her son Troy Garity and her BFF Paula Weinstein get the most screen time among various confidantes. But mostly, this film is Jane herself, neat with a chaser.

From being the daughter of a movie super star dad and a suicidal mom, through a starlet period, to the shrill activist with the Klute hairdo, to the video exercise queen and then billionaire’s bride, it a helluva story. If you dislike Jane Fonda, you’ll find this biodoc annoying. If you’re like me, you’ll find it fascinating.

SEARCHING: more than a gimmick

May 19, 2020October 4, 2018 by movie gourmet

I regret that I’m a latecomer to the thriller Searching, which has been in theaters for a while – this is a damn good movie. A Silicon Valley engineer David (Jon Cho) has been single-parenting his daughter since the death of his wife when the daughter, now sixteen, doesn’t come home. Has she run away? He she been abducted? Is she even still alive? Searching is a ticking clock thriller as David and the investigating police detective Vick (Debra Messing) race against time to solve the case. There are several red herrings, a couple major plot twists and one mega-surprise.

Here’s what is really different about Searching – the movie is entirely on the character’s screens -those of his computers, but also on smartphones, television, a security video and a live funeral cam. The sixteen year-old flashbacks are shown on a sixteen-year-old version of Windows desktop.

This is NOT a “gimmick movie”. It is a complete movie that writer-director Aneesh Chaganty has chosen to tell through this device. For example, Chaganty barely gives a glimpse of the comments on on-line news reports – and no character comments on them – but the audience finds them maddening and suffers the indignities along with David. In the same vein, I also enjoyed the recent teen horror Unfriended, also told on a computer screen, and the drama Locke, claustrophobicly set in the driver’s seat of an auto.

Detective Vick asks David, “Who is your daughter and who does she talk with?”, which puts the spotlight on the movie’s theme. He’s her dad, and he was certain that he knows his daughter – but he finds out that, as a teenager, she has developed into an entirely new and unrecognizable person. Obviously, that revelation brings him enormous guilt to go along with the shock, but he throws himself into the search by grabbing her laptop and hacking her social media. As any good Silicon Valley parent, he opens a spreadsheet and starts filling it with what he finds out from the trail she has left online.

John Cho’s performance is pretty much perfect. Of course, he’s already achieved popular success in two movie franchises – as Harold in the Harold and Kumar stoner series and Sulu in Star Wars. Here, he gets a full-out, adult dramatic role and knocks it out of the park. Cho modulates David’s increasing tension and desperation through the story, and he is perfect in the flashback scenes, too.

Aneesh Chaganty is a San Jose native. Although he says that only two percent of the movie was actually filmed in San Jose,Searching really nails the vibe of Silicon Valley in 2018. Locals will unmask the very slight name changes to recognize the Sharks, the SJPD, Oakridge Mall, Evergreen/Silver Creek Highs and more. (The only egregious misstep is one character referencing Highway “101” in LA-speak as “the 101” .)

Stream of the Week: VENUS – meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning

October 2, 2018 by movie gourmet

In the appealing Canadian transgender dramedy Venus, Sid (Debargo Sanyal) is at a personal crossroads. Single after things didn’t work out with his closeted boyfriend Daniel (Pierre-Yves Cardinal), Sid has just begun to dress like a woman in public and to take hormones for his transition. Then, he is shocked to learn that he has a 14-year-old son Ralph (Jamie Myers). The boy thinks that having a transgender dad with Indian heritage is very cool and, unbeknownst to his mom, starts spending more and more time with Sid. Sid has to deal with this, along with the reactions of his more traditional Indian parents and a chance meeting with Daniel.

In her first narrative feature, writer-director Eisha Marjara has crafted a funny, touching and genuine story. Venus is successful largely because of Debargo Sanyal’s performance. Eschewing flamboyance, Sanyal’s Sid is a man driven to keep his dignity in the most inescapably awkward situations. It helps that Sanyal is a master of the comic take; Sid’s reactions to his mother’s and Ralph’s intrusiveness are very funny.

I predicted that Venus, at its US premiere at Cinequest, would become one of the most popular indies at the festival; indeed, it won the Cinequest award for best narrative feature. Venus is available for streaming from Amazon and iTunes.

Lon Chaney: worth another look

September 30, 2018 by movie gourmet

OK – work with me here. On Wednesday, Turner Classic Movies is presenting a bunch of Lon Chaney films, and I think that Chaney’s charisma is worth sampling. And as a fun experience, not a “this is good for you” experience.

I will fess up that I am not a huge silent movie fan. I usually watch only one silent movie each year (out of the 250-300 movies that I see annually). I like the Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton comedies, but I find sitting through most of the silent dramas to be “eat your broccoli” experiences. But Lon Chaney really enlivens his films. It’s like he is acting in a more modern movie than are the other actors.

Chaney was an expert with makeup and is well-known for grotesque roles like Quasimodo, and the Phantom of the Opera. Accordingly, I had always thought of Chaney as his nickname, “Man of a Thousand Faces”.

But, for all his reliance on changing appearances, Chaney was NOT a gimmick actor. He was very naturalistic, a relaxed actor whose screen-acting was very modern. His course features and his charm combine for a unique magnetism. I think that he would have been very successful in today’s cinema.

Unfortunately, Chaney died suddenly at age 47, so he was able to make only one talkie – the 1930 remake of his 1925 silent The Unholy Three. You can find snippets of the remake on YouTube and hear his voice.

On October 3, Turner Classic Movies will present The Unknown and five other Lon Chaney films. I also recommend the 1925 silent The Unholy Three, like The Unknown directed by Tod Browning. (After Chaney’s death, horror master Browning went on to make Dracula and Freaks.) TCM will also air Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera, which I’ve seen, and three flicks I haven’t seen: The Monster, The Penalty and He Who Gets Slapped.

The Unknown has a completely outlandish plot. Chaney plays Alonzo, a circus freak with no arms, who throws knives and shoots rifles with his feet. But actually, Alonzo is a criminal on the lam who is merely PRETENDING to be armless. He’s love with his much younger assistant, played by 21-year-old Joan Crawford (already in her 18th film), who spends much of the movie in a bikini top. The thing is, she has a phobia and only feels comfortable with Alonzo because she think he has no arms. Alonzo starts contemplating amputation to get her to marry him. Yep, this is about a farfetched as a plot can get, but Chaney’s expressive face transcends the weirdness.

(Don’t confuse him with his son Lon Chaney, Jr., who also counted many horror pictures among his 197 screen roles. I remember Lon Jr. most for playing Lennie in Of Mice and Men and the old retired sheriff in High Noon.)

Movies to See Right Now

September 27, 2018 by movie gourmet

Adam Driver and John David Washington in BLACKKKLANSMAN

This is the time make sure you’ve seen, the highlights of the summer, BlacKkKlansman and Crazy Rich Asians, before the onslaught of the Fall movies. To preview the year’s biggest movies, make your plans to attend the Mill Valley Film Festival.

OUT NOW

Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the indie relationship drama Starlet from writer-director Sean Baker (Tangerine and The Florida Project). Starlet is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On September 29, Turner Classic Movies will air one of my Overlooked Noir. It’s The Gangster, where a minor crime lord (Barry Sullivan) rules Brooklyn’s Neptune Beach, a sketchy beachfront boardwalk area near subway tracks. It may be a Coney Island for bottom feeders, but he’s its master. Then another gangster (Sheldon Leonard) tries to move in on his territory…The Gangster is a fine character-driven noir, a portrait of a tragic flaw. The Czar of Noir, Eddie Muller, will provide the intro and the outro.

Stream of the Week: STARLET – an odd couple with a surprising bond

September 25, 2018 by movie gourmet

Besedka Johnson and Dree Hemingway in STARLET

Writer-director Sean Baker has created two indie hits in the past three years – the hilarious shot-on-an-iPhone trans comedy Tangerine and the crushingly authentic wild child drama The Florida Project. Here is Baker’s lesser known gem.

In the indie relationship drama Starlet, a 21-year-old woman is living in a seedy part of the San Fernando Valley and working in an even sketchier industry, when she buys an old thermos from a woman sixty years older than she. She finds a considerable sum of cash hidden within the thermos, keeps it, and, out of guilt, insinuates herself into the old woman’s life. The octogenarian is initially resistant, but a bond grows between them; each has a need that is revealed during the movie. It’s worth sitting back and going with the leisurely story, because the payoff at the end is surprisingly moving.

In her first movie credit, Besedka Johnson is astonishingly good as the older woman, both formidable and vulnerable. Sean Baker has, of course, gotten amazing performance out of non-actors in Tangerine and The Florida Project – it’s his gift, and it’s become his signature.

Model Dree Hemingway (daughter of Mariel and great-granddaughter of Ernest) demonstrates an engaging screen presence as the young woman. Stella Maeve is very convincing as the young woman’s nogoodnik roommate.

Starlet is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE CATCHER WAS A SPY: why couldn’t this have been a good movie?

September 24, 2018 by movie gourmet

The fact that Moe Berg’s is the only baseball card displayed at CIA headquarters tells us that he was a candidate for The Most Interesting Man in the World. Berg was a graduate of Princeton and Columbia Law who played 15 years in the Major Leagues, one of the few Jews in pre-war baseball. While a pro player in the early 1930s, he visited Japan twice, learned Japanese and surreptitiously photographed Tokyo for US intelligence. During World War II, he performed secret missions in Europe for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA.

That’s quite a life. Unfortunately, The Catcher Was a Spy drains the interest out of it by trying to portray that most cerebral of real-life characters, Moe Berg, in kind of an actiony movie. The climax is a will-he-or-won’t-he decision that Berg has to make on a secret mission. If you are still awake by then…

Most of The Catcher Was a Spy is Paul Rudd as Moe Berg being watchful. Berg was an enigma and notoriously closed-mouthed – so we see him being enigmatic and silent. Not very cinematic.

The cast is remarkably talented: Mark Strong, Sienna Miller, Jeff Daniels, Tom Wilkinson, Guy Pearce and Paul Giamatti, Connie Nielson, and Shea Whigham. Strong has a pivotal role, but we only glimpse the others, and I still can’t place who Connie Nielsen played; it must have been that other female character…

If you’re a history geek like me, you might stream this. But don’t expect an espionage thriller.

Movies to See Right Now

September 21, 2018 by movie gourmet

Henry Golding and Constance Wu in CRAZY RICH ASIANS

This week have two reliable audience pleasers that have been in theaters for a while. To preview the year’s biggest movies, make your plans to attend the Mill Valley Film Festival.

OUT NOW

Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansman is very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
Crazy Rich Asians is wildly popular for a reason – it’s damn entertaining and probably the year’s most appealing date movie. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry and you’ll wait for the chance to see Awkwafina in her next movie.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is the psychological thriller Beast, with its blazing, breakout performance by Jessie Buckley. It’s a heckuva ride. You can stream Beast on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

On September 24, Turner Classic Movies airs my choice as the best ever concert movie, The Last Waltz. (OK, Monterey Pop, Woodstock and Stop Making Sense are all in the conversation, too.) The Last Waltz is the documentary of The Band’s 1976 farewell concert at San Francisco’s legendary Winterland venue.

This was a big deal because The Band was one of the most respected and influential rock bands of the late 1960s and 1970s. They are primarily remembered for being Bob Dylan’s electric band and for their own hits Up on Cripple Creek, The Weight and The Night They Drove Dixie Down, Stage Fright and The Shape I’m In.

The occasion brought a Mt Olympus of rock musicians: Dylan himself, of course, and also Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Joni Mitchell, Ringo Starr, Dr. John, Muddy Waters, Paul Butterfield, Ronnie Wood and The Staple Singers – and even Neil Diamond. Van Morrison is unforgettable in his unflatteringly tight scoop-neck t-shirt under an oddly sparkly burgundy cowboy leisure suit.

My favorite song is The Band backing Neil Young on his Helpless. A silhouetted Joni Mitchell provides ethereal backing vocals from offstage. It’s spine tingling.

The Last Waltz was directed by no less than Martin Scorsese (between Taxi Driver and Raging Bull!). The great cinematographers László Kovács and Vilmos Zsigmond operated cameras.

Of The Band’s original members – Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel – Robertson and Hudson still survive.

The interviews with the charming and authentic Levon Helm are delightful highlights in The Last Waltz. I’ve written about Levon’s later acting career, with his performances in Coal Miner’s Daughter, In The Right Stuff, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada.