Movie Recommendations, Rants and Ruminations
movie gourmet Let’s face it: there are some movie posters just as iconic as the movies themselves. Artist Bill Gold, who died this week at age 87, was the master of the iconic movie poster. His first poster was for Casablanca, of all films! Gold followed that with decades of work, including thirty posters of Clint Eastwood movies alone.
I recommend Gold’s New York Times obit and a scan of the Bill Gold images featured by Ben Travis on Empireonline.
Here’s a small sample of Bill Gold’s remarkable work.
Two reminders: First, check out my running list of Best Moves of 2018 – So Far. You can already stream some of them.
Second, remember that tonight PBS airs Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story. Set your DVR.
OUT NOW
ON VIDEO
Because Mackenzie Davis brings such a magical quality to her title role in Tully, my video pick is an earlier starring role in a little-known indie. That film is a fine first feature with a GREAT title for a contemporary noir thriller: Bad Turn Worse. Bad Turn Worse is available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Friday, May 18, you can see Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story on PBS’ American Masters. This is the riveting biopic of a glamorous movie star who invented and patented the precursor to wireless technology; that’s amazing enough, but Bombshell delves deeply into how Lamarr’s stunning face, her Jewish heritage, and mid-century gender roles shaped her career, marriages and parenting. Top notch.
In the last few years, one totally unexpected aspect of Lamarr’s life has become more well-known. She was a tinkerer/inventor who co-invented a radio guidance system for submarine torpedos, which she donated to the US military. The US Navy used this technology in WW II. Modern blue tooth technology stems directly from her innovation. Today her patent would be worth billions.
Bombshell adds layer upon layer to this tale of beauty and brains, as it traces Lamarr’s remarkable life. Hedy Lamarr had no control over being born a woman, being born to Jewish parents and being born to be a beauty. These three accidents of birth set the parameters of her journey – granting her access to some professional opportunities and stunting others, even threatening her life.
She burst into celebrity – and notoriety – at age 19, as the star of the film Ecstasy. Not only was Hedy the first actress filmed in full frontal nudity, she was the first screen actress to portray female orgasms. She was soon the young trophy wife of an Austrian industrialist, a formidable and fearsome supplier of munitions to Hitler. Hedy’s life seemed headed along the Bimbo Track, but she realized that her husband was powerful enough to keep her trapped in the marriage, but not powerful enough to protect her from the Nazis. At this point, she orchestrated an international escape that is the stuff of thrillers.
At age 24, often nominated as the most beautiful woman in the world, she launched a Hollywood career. Professional ups and downs, marriages and affairs and children followed, along with her work in technology.
Her beauty was often a blessing and sometimes a curse, but always affected her trajectory. Someone that beautiful is just different – the rest of us can’t help our reactions to her. But how many times can you be a trophy wife?
She was a person who survived troubling times, which left scars on her. How Hedy handled her Jewishness, how she raised her kids and how she was treated by the military are unsettling. Documentarian Alexandra Dean, Bombshell’s writer-director brings us witnesses, including Hedy’s children, to deliver an inside peek at a real life that would not be believable as a work of fiction.
I saw Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story last summer at the 2017 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SJFF). It’s playing tomorrow night on PBS’ American Masters series.
I’ve posted my Best Movies of 2018 – So Far. Every year, I keep a running list of the best movies I’ve seen this year, adding to it as the year goes on. By the end of the year, I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list.
To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.
This year, as usual, I took advantage of Cinequest in March and the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) in April to preview some films that will be released later in the year.
My top pick so far this year is Leave No Trace. Leave No Trace is Debra Granik’s first narrative feature since her 2010 Winter’s Bone (which I had rated as the best film of that year). Leave No Trace is a brilliant coming of age film that stars Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie as a dad-daughter team who challenge conventional thinking about homelessness and healthy parenting. Winter’s Bone launched the career of Jennifer Lawrence, and Leave No Trace might do the same for newcomer McKenzie. I saw Leave No Trace at the San Francisco International Film Festival. My full review will appear after the film’s release in the Bay Area at the end of June.
You can see other top picks The Rider and The Death of Stalin in theaters right now and Quality Problems and Outside In are now streaming.
There’s more at Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.
Because Mackenzie Davis brings such a magical quality to her title role in Tully, my video pick is an earlier starring role in a little-known indie. That film is a fine first feature with a GREAT title for a contemporary noir thriller: Bad Turn Worse. It’s set in a nowheresville Texas cotton gin town. Three childhood friends have just graduated from high school, and two are looking to escape to college – Bobby (Jeremy Allen White) and Sue (MacKenzie Davis). Not sharing a speck of Bobby’s and Sue’s intellectual curiosity, Sue’s longtime boyfriend B.J. (Logan Huffman) doesn’t want them to go; B.J. is dreamy and testosterone-filled, but bone-headed and weak-willed, with a gift for making impulsive, destructive choices. Bobby is sweet on Sue, and she is starting to be repelled by B.J.’s immaturity and selfishness. Sure enough, B.J. does something which entangles them all in a lethal jam.
Pretty soon there’s a double cross within a double cross, with a love triangle overlay. Nobody can trust anybody else, and somebody is gonna have to die…
The young leads are good, but two veteran TV actors sparkle in supporting turns. Mark Pellegrino plays a ruthless and crazy-scary villain that no one should cross. Jon Gries (Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite) is hilariously deadpan as the corrupt Sheriff who tries to connect the dots for Bobby with metaphors – and Bobby’s dots just aren’t connecting.
Bad Turn Worse’s noir sensibility comes from 1) the amoral attitude that sometimes you gotta break the law and 2) the expectation that there can’t be a happy ending with all this treachery in play.
Bad Turn Worse is written by Dutch Southern and is the directorial debut of Simon and Zeke Hawkins. These guys have definitely proven that they can pull off a solid thriller. Bad Turn Worse is available streaming from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
[Note: You can see Davis in a completely contrasting role, as a misfit wannabe singer-songwriter, in A Country Called Home.]
The MUST SEE is The Rider, which I’ll be writing about this weekend. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.
OUT NOW
This week’s other top picks:
Not to see:
ON VIDEO
My Stream of the Week is my favorite film from last year’s Cinequest – Quality Problems, just released on video. This delightful indie is a screwball comedy for the sandwich generation. You can stream it on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On May 15, Turner Classic Movies presents The Third Man (1949). Shot amid the ruins of post-war Vienna, this film noir classic sets an American pulp novelist (Joseph Cotten) to find out what happened to his pre-war buddy, who turns out to have become a notorious black marketeer (Orson Welles) with a set of associates each shadier than the last. This has it all, a fated relationship with a European beauty (Alida Valli), stunningly effective black-and-white photography, an enchanting musical theme and one of cinema’s most sharply surprising reveals of a new character. There are two unforgettable set pieces – a nervous interview in a Ferris Wheel and a climactic chase through the sewers.
The compelling dark comedy Tully stars Charlize Theron, is written by Diablo Cody and directed by Jason Reitman. Those three combined on the underrated game-changing comedy Young Adult, and Tully is another very singular film.
Theron plays Marlo, a mom who has just given birth to her third child. Her oldest kid has intense special needs and a newborn brings another level of obligation. Marlo develops a serious case of depression. To ease the burden, she gets a night nurse named Tully; Tully has an otherworldly quality which brings relief and respite to Marlo. And then there’s a major plot twist…
Theron is a fearless actress – not afraid to glam down, She gained fifty pounds for this role (not as big a glam down as for Monster). In Young Adult, she was game to play a thoroughly dislikable character. Here she plays a real Mom, not a Perfect Mom. In real life, caregiving can take its toll, and that’s what we see here.
Mackenzie Davis brings a magical quality to the character of Tully. Ron Livingston is very good as a loving but clueless husband; ill-equipped to recognize, let alone deal with Marlo’s depression.
Tully was featured at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) (although I missed it because I was at the Leave No Trace screening); Theron and Reitman attended the SFFILM screening, and, from all reports, Theron wowed the crowd.
Tully is an excellent and insightful film. It’s a dark comedy and NOT A LIGHT MOVIE – after all, with all its laughs, it’s about postpartum depression.
The remarkably successful dramedy Quality Problems plunges us into a contemporary world that most of us in the sandwich generation recognize – a life so busy that the relative importance of our stress-inducers can blur. Something like the cake for your kid’s birthday party can seem as important as paying the bills or dealing with an aging parent. Until cancer reshuffles the deck. Quality Problems‘ insights in navigating modern life are accessible because it’s so damn funny.
Bailey (Brooke Purdy) and Drew (Doug Purdy) are a couple in their early forties with two school-age kids. Each is comfortable taking on one child-rearing or domestic task while handing off a competing responsibility to their partner. Each knows – and accepts – what the partner is – or is NOT – good at. Both have wicked senses of humor, and they are affectionate and even playful. Their relationship has weathered the usual financial and parental challenges, along with an episode where Bailey beat back breast cancer.
Brooke Purdy wrote the screenplay and also co-directed with Doug Purdy. The breezy banter between characters is often flat-out hilarious. This is not sitcom-grade humor, it’s much closer to a Hawksian screwball comedy. The characters deal with cancer and parental dementia with a dark humor that is realistic and funny.
Bailey’s single neighbor and bestie Paula (Jenica Bergere) is an essential member of the family’s support structure, but Paula and Drew loathe each other. Chained together because of their attachment to Bailey and the kids, every interaction sparks a new round of insults. This isn’t good-natured teasing – the jibes, in particular about his job and her reproductive health, are aimed to hurt. The Paula-Drew relationship adds some edginess to the mix and contributes to the film’s authenticity.
Watch for an uncredited cameo by the prolific and versatile character actor Alfred Molina (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love Is Strange). Veteran Chris Mulkey is excellent as Bailey’s dad, who is sinking into dementia.
Quality Problems is the directing debut for Brooke and Doug Purdy, and I attended its world premiere at Cinequest. Quality Problems can now be streamed from Amazon Prime, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
In her contemporary Western The Rider, director Chloé Zhao has made a beautiful and emotionally powerful film and announced herself as an American filmmaker of significance. In The Rider, 20-year-old Brady is a rodeo rider and horse trainer who lives on the least romantic ranch on the windblown South Dakota prairie. Brady lives with his 15-year-old sister, who has a cognitive disability somewhere on the autism spectrum, and his non-touchy feely dad. The mom has died a few years before. The family lives in a trailer on a hardscrabble working ranch.
Brady’s soaring career as a rodeo star has been ended by a bronco’s hoof; Brady now has a metal plate in his skull and seizures in his hand. His rodeo career – and his only shot at fame and fortune – is over. But Brady is also a gifted horse trainer – and he may not even be able to ride horses without risk to his health and life. What makes that risk not at all theoretical is that Brady’s rodeo friend Dane is in even worse shape and lives in a rehab facility. So Brady’s story is one of confronting loss and figuring out how to negotiate the rest of his life without access to his passions.
Brady’s story is emotionally powerful and devoid of cheap sentiment. The Rider is not even the least bit corny.
I went to see The Rider knowing almost nothing about it. When the end credits rolled, I was stunned to see that the actors playing Brady, his sister and his dad are a real family. Indeed, ALL of the cast are non-professional actors.
Director Chloé Zhao met The Rider’s star, Brady Jandreau, when he wrangled horses on her first film Songs My Father Taught Me, also shot on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation. After the making of that film, she reached out to Brady after he suffered a serious real life rodeo injury. When he told her that he would risk his life to continue training horses, she determined to make Brady’s story into this movie.
Zhao’s partner, the Brit cinematographer Joshua James Richards, shot both of her films. The cinematography, in The Rider is exceptional, especially the weather in the Big Sky above the prairie. There’s a cowboy campfire scene which may be the most beautifully shot scene in movies this year. The Jandreaus live on a scruffy working ranch, neither romantic or picturesque.
I’m not fascinated by horses, but I found the horse training scenes in The Rider to be riveting.
It’s clear that Zhao and Richards are major artists. The Rider is a significant movie and one of the year’s best.
The MUST SEE is The Rider, which I’ll be writing about this weekend. A young man’s rodeo injury threatens to keep him from his passions. Filmed in South Dakota with non-professional actors, The Rider is emotionally powerful and genuine – and not a bit corny. It’s on my list of Best Movies of 2018 – So Far.
OUT NOW
This week’s other top picks:
Not to see:
ON VIDEO
Actress Charlize Theron, director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody are coming out with Tully this weekend. So this week’s video pick is their game-changing comedy Young Adult. Its cynicism reminds me of a Ben Hecht or Billy Wilder screenplay (high praise). Note: This is NOT a film for someone expecting a light comedy. Young Adult is available on DVD from Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On May 5 and 6, Turner Classic Movies presents one of my personal favorites, and it will be introduced by the Czar of Noir Eddie Muller on Noir Alley. Director Richard Fleischer’s overlooked film noir masterpiece The Narrow Margin (1952) is a taut 71 minutes of tension. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target. It’s highly recommended on my list of Overlooked Noir.
