movie gourmet

Two Nuggets at this year’s SFJFF

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Photo caption: Logan Lerman as Isaac and Molly Gordon as Iris in OH, HI!. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), always a major event for Bay Area cinephiles, opens tomorrow. The program offers 70 films from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the US and the UK and Uzbekistan. Here’s my festival preview.

This year, I’m recommending two nuggets:

Oh, Hi!: This dark romantic comedy begins with a couple heading off to a countryside vacation rental for their first romantic getaway. All is lustful fun until they discover that each has a different perception of what their relationship is and where it is headed. What could have been a merely awkward or hurtful moment precipitates an extreme reaction, and escalates into an absurdly funny situation. Oh, Hi! is the sophomore feature for writer-director Sophie Brooks, who has created a broadly funny, over-the-top situation that is sharply observant about relationships tending to evolve at different speeds for the participants. It’s a very smart screenplay. Oh, Hi!, which premiered at Sundance, is releasing into theaters soon; see it early at the SFJFF. (Full review to be published on July 23.)

THE STAMP THIEF. Courtesy of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

The Stamp Thief: We don’t expect a Holocaust-related documentary to get wacky, but The Stamp Thief combines a historical whodunit and a real-life comic heist. It begins with tracking down a fourth-hand oral account of Nazi-stolen valuable stamps hidden in Poland: Is it true, who was the Nazi, where did he stash the loot and is it still there? And here’s where The Stamp Thief gets zany. Because the Polish authorities have not been supportive of the restitution of Nazi loot, our heroes decide to find and recover the stamps with a ruse. The team masquerades as a film crew shooting a romantic drama; they plan to dig around Polish basements until they find the stamps, under the noses of the Poles. What could possibly go wrong? How does the team navigate the moral ambiguity of lying for a good cause? Do they find the stamps? Do they get caught? What follows is Sherlock Holmes meets The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, an unusually colorful documentary. Full review.

The SFJFF runs through August 3 in select San Francisco and Oakland venues. Check out the program and buy tickets at SFJFF.

Here’s the trailer for Oh, My!.

THE STAMP THIEF: amateur detectives running amuck

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Photo caption: THE STAMP THIEF. Courtesy of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

We don’t expect a Holocaust-related documentary to get wacky, but The Stamp Thief combines a historical whodunit and a real-life comic heist.

The Stamp Thief’s shaky premise is based on what is at least a fourth-hand oral account: As Nazis looted the possessions of Jews heading to the death camps, one German officer pocketed highly valuable, easy-to-hide stamp collections. As he fled after the war with his family, he buried the stamps in the basement of the apartment building, intending to return and retrieve his booty. But, because the location was now behind the Iron Curtain in Poland, he was never able to go back.

Naturally, this story raises some fundamental questions, starting with whether it is true. If so, who was the Nazi and where did he stash the stamps? Has someone else found the stamps, or is the treasure still buried?

Gary Gilbert, after a distinguished career as a movie producer (Garden State, The Kids Are Alright, Margaret, La La Land) aspires to track down the truth, hoping to recover the stamps and to restore them, if possible, to the heirs of the original owners. The story comes from a series of potentially unreliable narrators, so Gilbert and colleagues must first undertake an impressive detective investigation, armed at first with not much more than a possibly tall tale and an old photo of two girls in front of a house.

And here’s where The Stamp Thief gets zany. Gilbert is both a man with a sacred mission and a bit of an adventurer. Because the Polish authorities have not been supportive of the restitution of Nazi loot, Gilbert decides to find and recover the stamps in secret. His plan is to take a faux film crew to Poland on the false pretense of shooting a romantic drama, and digging around until he finds the stamps, under the noses of the Poles. His team includes documentarian Dan Sturman, the The Stamp Thief’s director, who films their escapades. What could possibly go wrong? Gilbert’s cause is righteous, but he may not even be able to operate a metal detector competently.

How does the team navigate the moral ambiguity of lying for a good cause? Do they find the stamps? Do they get caught? What follows is Sherlock Holmes meets The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

And was the distrust of Polish attitudes justified? There is one local fixer whose behavior is heroic, but the Polish government and the apartment dwellers do not cover themselves with glory here. Gilbert also happens upon a breathtakingly offensive tchotchke common in Polish households.

With its historical whodunit, an operation of deception, generational antisemitism and buried treasure, The Stamp Thief is an unusually colorful documentary.

NO SLEEP TILL: turbulent weather, turbulent lives

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Photo caption: Jordan Coley and Xavier Brown-Sanders in NO SLEEP TILL. Courtesy of Factory 25.

In Alexandra Simpson’s engrossing art film No Sleep Till, a hurricane is about to hit downscale Florida beach towns; the tourists are already gone, and workaday Floridians prepare to evacuate or hunker down. The storm is merely the setting for a compendium of short stories, as Simpson reveals essential truths about her characters, one or two at a time – a lost crush, a solitary obsession, a resuscitated friendship. Each chapter is so authentic, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn’t watching a cinema verité documentary.

No Sleep Till is the directorial debut of Alexandra Simpson, who also wrote, edited, produced and collaborated on the sound design. Simpson and cinematographer Sylvain Froidevaux capture the ominous weather, which mirrors the turbulence in the lives of the characters.

Simpson is a writer of uncommon economy. One character is a middle-aged woman, whom we meet when she and her workmates are regretfully let go by their boss. We see her again when she returns to the motel room where is living with an unrelated roommate of convenience. And, finally, when she goes to the motel pool and contemplates her lot in life. She’s probably on screen for less than three minutes, and she doesn’t utter a line, but Simpson still is able to tell us so much about her and make us care about her personal heartbreak.

Another highlight is when one young guy (Jordan Coley) persuades his reluctant buddy (Xavier Brown-Sanders) to join him on an evacuation road trip, in which their friendship evolves. Both Coley and Brown-Sanders are excellent in their first feature film performances.

The characters in No Sleep Till deliver meals, service swimming pools and staff souvenir shops; nobody has a sexy movie job like architect, writer or detective. One guy doesn’t have any job; he devotes his life to storm chasing, living in his truck with meteorologic gear and little food or clothes.

No Sleep Till premiered at the Venice Film Festival Critics Week, where it won two awards including best film. No Sleep Till is starting to roll out into arthouses, beginning July 18 at NYC’s Metrograph. I’ll let you know when it hits California theaters and the internet.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Michael Madsen in RESERVOIR DOGS.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of Kill the Jockey, Argentina’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar and a preview of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Plus, a review of an almost-lost film about a lost jazz legend Bix Biederbecke: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet.

And check out my in-depth comments on the New York Times’ The Best 100 Movies of the 21st Century. My critique of the NYT list in in Part 1; Part 2 is my own stab at the 50 best movies of the century.

REMEMBRANCE

Every time I hear Stuck in the Middle with You by the one-hit wonder Stealer’s Wheel, I think of Michael Madsen. Madsen was a fine character actor who was good in all of his work, and he amassed 344 screen credits, often as a physically imposing bad guy. But, for anyone who has seen Reservoir Dogs, Madsen’s performance – especially his torture dance to Stuck in the Middle with You – is indelible.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Belita and Barry Sullivan in THE GANGSTER

On July 12 and 13, Turner Classic Movies airs the hard-to-find The Gangster on Noir Alley, one of my Overlooked Noir. The minor crime lord Shubunka (Barry Sullivan) rules Brooklyn’s Neptune Beach, a noir setting if ever there was one – a sketchy beachfront boardwalk area near subway tracks.   It may be a only Coney Island for bottom feeders, but Shubunka enjoys being its master.  Then another gangster (Sheldon Leonard) tries to move in on his territory, and Shubunka makes the mistake of underestimating him. Plus Shubunka is distracted – hung up on his night club singer girlfriend (Belita). Much like Marshall Will Kane in High Noon, Shubunka finds out how few acquaintances will help him in a crunch.  Barry Sullivan is excellent as a guy who is at first blind to his vulnerabilities, and then increasingly desperate. There’s a phenomenal supporting cast of noir all-stars: Harry Morgan, Akim Tamiroff, John Ireland, Charles McGraw, Leif Erickson, Elisha Cook, Jr. and an uncredited Shelly Winters. The Noir Alley screening will be bookended by an intro and an outro from Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir (who likes the skater-turned-actress Belita far more than I do).

KILL THE JOCKEY: surrealism in the stables

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Photo caption: Nahuel Perez Biscayart and Ursula Corbero in KILL THE JOCKEY. Courtesy of Music Box Pictures.

In the surreal Argentine comedy Kill the Jockey, Remo (Nahuel Perez Biscayart) is a once-champion jockey, who is zealously self-sabotaging his career; self-medicating with alcohol and even swiping the racehorses’ drugs and the booze left on a good luck altar, he has become utterly unreliable. Remo can only emerge from his narcosis to demonstrate his passion for his wife Abril (Ursula Corbero). Abril is also a jockey, and her racing career is on the upswing, although she will soon have to pause it to have their baby.

Both Remo and Abril ride for a mobster (Daniel Jimenez Cacho), who, against all available evidence, has concluded that Remo can still win a big race. As a result, Remo suffers a brain injury, which spurs catatonia and, eventually, a major change in his identity. Remo leaves the hospital without being discharged, and wanders the city in a walking stupor, unaware that both a frantic Abril and the mobster’s murderous goons are searching for him. At this point, Remo is not an ideal gunowner, but he gets a pistol, and the lives of Remo, Abril and the mobster take significant twists. Kill the Jockey morphs into a fable of identity.

Nahuel Perez Biscayart in KILL THE JOCKEY. Courtesy of Music Box Pictures.

Director and co-writer Luis Ortega tells this story with plenty of droll absurdism. Inexplicably, the mobster usually carries an infant, a mounted brass band suddenly appears, the possessions of a coat pocket include a live fish, and there’s ceiling-walking. Kill the Jockey has its share of LOL moments in the first half of the film.

Early in the film, Abril launches a celebratory dance, is soon joined by Remo, and the two move together as unhinged marionettes. It’s as if figures in a Dali painting broke into a sensuous dance. This is a spellbinding scene, the best one in Kill the Jockey and, possibly, in any movie this year so far.

Unfortunately, the second half of Kill the Jockey, with more Remo and less Abril, is not as compelling. Ortega keeps throwing in the entertainingly bizarre, but the film loses momentum as Remo transforms.

I first saw Nahuel Perez Biscayart as the star of the psychological Holocaust thriller Persian Lessons. He’s a good choice to play the tragicomic Remo, a broadly funny character that morphs into a heartfelt one. But the most interesting performance in Kill the Jockey is Ursula Corbero’s as Abril – brimming with charisma and vitality; Abril must navigate her life and Remo’s as Remo’s condition keeps changing dramatically.

Kill the Jockey is Argentina’s submission for the Best International Feature Film Oscar and has been nominated for significant awards, including the Goya (best Iberoamericano film) and the best film at Venice Film Festival. It releases into theaters this weekend, including the Laemmle NoHo in LA, the Roxie in San Francisco and the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael.

The SFJFF is back in 2025

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Photo caption: Logan Lerman as Isaac and Molly Gordon as Iris in OH, HI!. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events is back – the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), running from July 17 to August 3. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest and largest Jewish film festival – this year’s festival is the 45th! The program offers 70 films from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Switzerland, the US and the UK and Uzbekistan.

After opening night at the Herbst Theatre, films will screen at the AMC Kabuki 8, the Vogue, the Roxie, and Oakland’s Landmark Piedmont Theater, as well as additional programming at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco.

Highlights include:

  • Opening Night: Amber Fares’s Coexistence, My Ass! won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression at this year’s Sundance. the film follows Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi (who will perform live in a separate event on the SFJFFF’s first weekend) as she develops an act tackling inequality and taboo amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
  • Centerpiece Narrative: In Fantasy Life, writer-director Matthew Shear stars as a laid-off, thirty-something paralegal who begins nannying for his psychiatrist’s grandkids and falls for their mother.  Co-stars Amanda Peet and Judd Hirsch.
  • Next Wave Spotlight: The dark rom com Oh, Hi! stars Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman as a couple heading off to a countryside vacation rental for their first romantic getaway, which gets completely unhinged. It’s the sophomore feature for writer-director Sophie Brooks (The Boy Downstairs, SFJFF 2017).
  • Closing Night: The Floaters, an indie comedy about misfits at a Jewish summer camp.

Just before the fest, I’ll be publishing some recommendations. I’ve already screened an absurdly dark rom com and an unexpectedly wacky documentary. Check out the program and buy tickets at SFJFF. Here’s the trailer for Oh, My!.

BIX BIEDERBECKE: AIN’T NONE OF THEM PLAY LIKE HIM YET: rediscovering a lost jazz legend

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Bix Biederbecke in BIX BIEDERBECKE: AIN’T NONE OF THEM PLAY LIKE HIM YET

The thorough documentary Bix Biederbecke: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet rediscovers a lost jazz legend. Bix Biederbecke was a cornet prodigy and an age peer of Louis Armstrong. His love for and obsession with music was undermined by alcoholism, and he drank himself to death at age 28 in 1931.

Biederbecke was an innovator and soulful performer. One of his bandmates compares the thrill of listening to Bix to hearing a woman say, Yes.

This superbly-sourced documentary was released in 1981 release, and includes interviews filmed in 1978-1980 with fellow musicians and band-mates, including his friend, Hoagy Carmichael. Bix’s sister also appears. There are also recordings of Bix’s performances.

Bix Biederbecke: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet has made my list of Longest Movie Titles.

This is a bit of a Lost Film, having been very, very hard to find on streaming platforms over the last few years. Bix Biederbecke: Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet can now be streamed on Amazon.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Eve Connolly in SEW TORN. Courtesy of Vertigo Releasing.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the totally original indie thriller Sew Torn, plus a republished review of the fine biodoc Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, now playing on PBS American Masters.

I have also commented in depth on the New York Times’ The Best 100 Movies of the 21st Century. My critique of the NYT list in in Part 1; Part 2 is my own stab at the 50 best movies of the century.

I’ve also published full reviews of some as yet unreleased films that I saw at the SLO Film Fest and Frameline.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Ray Harryhausen with one of his sword-fighting skeletons from JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS

On July 9, Turner Classic Movies airs Jason and the Argonauts, the 1963 masterpiece of Ray Harryhausen, a unique genius of movie special effects.  His stop-motion animation created the vivid creatures that made possible movies about ancient mythology (from the 1958 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad through the 1981 Clash of the Titans) and fantasy literature (The Three Worlds of Gulliver).  His pioneering work in stop-motion animation has influenced the field since, all the way to today’s Aardman Animation and Wallace and Gromit.

Jason and the Argonauts packs one action adventure sequence after another in its one hour, 44 minutes, Typical of sword and sandal movies shot in Italy in this era, the dialogue and acting are lame. The voice of the forgettable American star, Todd Armstrong, is dubbed by a British actor. But that’s why you’re watching Jason and the Argonauts – the hooks are the ancient adventure story and the special effects that bring the mythology to life.

In Jason and the Argonauts, Harryhausen created the Harpies, Talos, the Clashing Rocks, Triton, the Hydra and the sword-fighting skeletons that emerge from the Hydra’s teeth.  I still watch Jason and the Argonauts whenever it’s on TV, and I often gave the DVD to kids (back in the DVD era).   

Todd Armstrong and Harryhausen’s skeletons in JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS

NYT’s The Best 100 Movies of the 21st Century (part 2)

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Photo caption: Eller Coltrane, Ethan Hawke and Lorelei Linklater in BOYHOOD.

Earlier this week, I reveled in ruminating on the New York Times’ recently published The Best 100 Movies of the 21st Century. Of course, I can’t resist weighing in myself on the best movies of the century so far. I just couldn’t take the time to get to 100, but here are The Movie Gourmet’s 50 best movies of the 21st Century.

  1. Boyhood (2014, Richard Linklater, US)
  2. Parasite (2019, Bong Joon Ho, South Korea)
  3. 25th Hour (2002, Spike Lee, US)
  4. Mulholland Drive (2001, David Lynch, US)
  5. Oppenheimer (2023, Christopher Nolan, US)
  6. Anatomy of a Fall (2023, Justine Triet, France)
  7. Spirited Away (2001, Hayao Miyasaki, Japan)
  8. In the Mood for Love (2000, Wong Kar-Wai, Hong Kong)
  9. Best in Show (2000, Christopher Guest, US)
  10. Nomadland (2020, Chloe Zhao, US)
  11. Nope (2023, Jordan Peele, US)
  12. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (2019, Quentin Tarantino, US)
  13. Before Sunset and Before Midnight (2004 and 2013, Richard Linklater, US)
  14. Lost in Translation (2003, Sophia Coppola, US)
  15. Sideways (2004, Alexander Payne, US)
  16. Winter’s Bone (2010, Debra Granik, US)
  17. Stories We Tell (2012, Sarah Polley, Canada)
  18. Zodiac (2007, David Fincher, US)
  19. A Serious Man (2009, Joel and Ethan Coen, US)
  20. Barbie (2023, Greta Gerwig, US)
  21. Hell or High Water (2016, David Mackenzie, US)
  22. The Hurt Locker (2008, Kathryn Bigelow, US)
  23. Minority Report (2002, Steven Spielberg, US)
  24. Ex Machina (2014, Alex Garland, UK/US)
  25. The Power of the Dog (2021, Jane Campion, New Zealand)
  26. Children of Men (2006, Alfonso Cuarón, US)
  27. Ida (2013, Pawel Pawlikowski, Poland)
  28. Shoplifters (2018, Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan)
  29. Million Dollar Baby (2004, Clint Eastwood, US)
  30. Riders of Justice (2020, Anders Thomas Jensen, Denmark)
  31. Talk to Her (2002, Pedro Almodovar, Spain)
  32. Broken Embraces (2009, Pedro Almodovar, Spain)
  33. Elle (2016, Paul Verhoeven, France)
  34. The Shape of Water (2017, Guillermo del Toro, US)
  35. Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001, Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico)
  36. Past Lives (2023, Celine Song, US)
  37. Wendy and Lucy (2008, Kelly Reichardt, US)
  38. Zero Dark Thirty (2012, Kathryn Bigelow, US)
  39. Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan, US)
  40. The Act of Killing (2012, Joshua Oppenheim, UK)
  41. 49 Up, 56 Up and 63 Up (2005, 20012 and 2019, Michael Apted, UK)
  42. Ash Is Purest White (2018, Jia Zhang-ke, China)
  43. Roma (2018, Alfonso Cuarón, Mexico/US)
  44. Gone Girl (2014, David Fincher, US)
  45. Take Shelter (2011, Jeff Nichols, US)
  46. Incendies (2010, Denis Villenueve, Canada/France)
  47. The Big Short (2015, Adam McKay, US)
  48. The Secrets in Their Eyes (2009, Juan José Campanella, Argentina)
  49. Margaret (2011, Kenneth Lonergan, US)
  50. The Aura (2005, Fabian Bielinsky, Argentina)

About half of these are American movies, with contributions from South Korea, France, Japan, Hong Kong, Canada, New Zealand, Poland, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, China, Argentina and the UK). Ten of the fifty have female directors, all since 2008.

I am aware that I admire Stories We Tell, Elle and Hell or High Water more than most folks, but I really see them as great movies. The one movie that you won’t find on any else’s list is Riders of Justice – but just give it a chance.

By the way, I took a swing at this list in 2017, rand I see that my list this year is pretty consistent.

OK, that’s me – what do you think?

Isabelle Huppert in ELLE

DRONE: stalked by a mystery

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Photo caption: Marion Barbeau in DRONE. Courtesy of Frameline.

Émilie (Marion Barbeau) is stalked through Paris by a mysterious drone, in Drone, a thriller that explores issues of privacy and the male gaze. A magnificent 4-minute opening sequence, introduces us to the vulnerability caused by the voyeur drone. Émilie is funding her architecture studies by working as a cam girl, a situation where she is physically detached and in control of her male customers. But there is no detachment or control whenever the paranoia-inducing drone suddenly appears.

There are exhilarating set pieces in a parking garage, a motorcycle chase and an abandoned factory, as writer-director Simon Bouisson and cinematographer Ludovic Zulli keep their drone camera in pursuit of the story’s stalker drone. In his first theatrical feature, Bouisson keeps the tension pounding, all the way to the ingenious ending.

Marion Barbeau in DRONE. Courtesy of Frameline.

Émilie is a recent architecture graduate from Lilles who has earned a high-powered fellowship in Paris. As her fellowship project, she chooses an adaptive reuse of an abandoned factory. Of course, even without the drone, we would fear for Émilie’s safety as she wanders around the dark, creepy, abandoned factory and takes long solo jogs through the city at night.

Who is flying the drone? Is it a camgirl customer who has hacked the firewall? Is it her toxic male classmate? Or her swaggering, entitled boss? Or, perhaps most terrifying, nobody at all?

Émilie is relationship-shy, but reluctantly intrigued by a DJ. Will the budding romance put both women in drone-jeopardy?

Marion Barbeau, a former ballet dancer, is superb as Émilie. Émilie, so vulnerable throughout the movie, is remarkably strong and determined, which lifts Drone above the ordinary woman-in-peril genre. Barbeau is able to project Émilie’s fundamental badassness.

I’ve listed Drone in the special Festival Films category of my Best Movies of 2025 – So Far. I screened Drone for Frameline (where it was my favorite film), and I’ll let you know when it has a theatrical or VOD release in the US.