Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES
On June 13, Turner Classic Movies will present the groundbreaking French comedy La Cage Aux Folles – a daring film in 1978, when few were thinking publicly about same-sex marriage. A gay guy runs a nightclub on the Riviera, and his partner is the star drag queen. The nightclub owner’s beloved son wants him to meet the parents of his intended. But the bride-to-be’s father is a conservative politician who practices the most severe and judgmental version of Roman Catholicism, so father and son decide to conceal aspects of dad’s lifestyle. Madcap comedy ensues, and La Cage proves that broad farce can be heartfelt. Michel Serrault is unforgettable as Albin/Zaza – one of the all-time great comic performances. (La Cage was tepidly remade in 1996 as The Birdcage with Robin Williams, but you want to see the French original.)
I’m currently watching my way through the program of this year’s Frameline LGBTQ film fest, which I just previewed. I don’t think you can overestimate the cultural impact of La Cage Aux Folles, which charmed straight audiences into relating to sympathetic portrayals of LGBTQ people.
Photo caption: Olivia Coleman and John Lithgow in Sophie Hyde’s JIMPA, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Photo by Mark De Blok. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Frameline, the oldest and longest-running LGBTQ+ film festival in the world, opens June 18 and runs through June 28. The 49th(!) Frameline brings us festival award-winners from Sundance to the Berlinale, with 150 films from 40 countries, including 42 world, North American and US premieres.
Films will screen at the Herbst Theatre and the ACT’s Toni Rembe Theater, as well as familiar arthouses like the Roxie, the Vogue, the New Parkway and, this year for the first time, the Rafael. Select films will be streamable after the in-person fest; (I’ll have more about that when I learn which films will be available online).
Here are some Frameline49 highlights:
The fest opens with John Lithgow and Olivia Colman starring in the Sundance indie Jimpa, about the Amsterdam reunion of a multigenerational queer Australian family. The HIV-positive patriarch (Lithgow) is visited by his daughter (Colman) and her non-binary child (Aud Mason-Hyde). Described as “funny and heartfelt”.
The closing night film is the dramedy Twinless. Two guys meet at a support group for people who have lost their twin – straight Roman (Dylan O-Brien) and gay Dennis (James Sweeney) – and form an unlikely connection. O’Brien won the best acting award at Sundance and the film, written and directed by Sweeney, won the best drama award. See it now, before its September release.
The program includes a whopping 25 documentary features. Given the strength of the docs in past Framelines (Loving Highsmith, Making Montgomery Clift), this looks like a rich slate of docs.
Some of the screenings are already selling fast and, although Frameline may add some screenings, it would be wise to get your tickets now. You can peruse the program and get passes and tickets at Frameline.
As in my Frameline coverage last year, I’ll be focusing on international cinema, especially directorial debuts. The Frameline programmers have a gift for finding the promising first films of new directors. In recent years, Frameline has presented Marion Desseigne-Ravel’s French coming-of-age story Besties, Marius Olteanu‘s innovative Romanian drama Monsters.(sic), Leon Le’s groundbreaking Vietnamese romance Song Lang, and Arantxa Echevarria’s Spanish sexual awakening tale Carmen y Lola. Last year, Frameline hosted the North American premiere of the third feature by Brazilian auteur Juliana Rojas, Cidade; Campo.
In this year’s program, I’ve already found some gems from Croatia and Taiwan – and a wowzer from France. Just before the fest opens, I’ll be coming back with specific recommendations.
Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney in James Sweeney’s TWINLESS. Photo by Greg Cotten. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.
Photo caption: Tao Zhao in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.
This Week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the superb documentary Pee-Wee Herman as Himself, the disappointing comedy Friendship and a rant about West Anderson, the director of The Phoenician Scheme.
The best movie of 2025 so far is Jia Zhangke’s sweeping Chinese drama Caught by the Tides, with its stunning performance by Tao Zhao. Seek it out while it’s still in theaters.
Roger Livesey in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP
On June 11, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1943 masterpiece The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a remarkably textured portrait of a man over four decades and his struggles to evolve into new eras. Written and directed by the great British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this is a movie with a sharp message to 1940s audiences about modernity, as well as a subtle exploration of privilege that will resonate today.
Photo caption: Benedict Cumberbatch in THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME. Courtesy of Focus Features.
You’re gonna have to look elsewhere for a review of Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, because I’ m gonna skip it. As I wrote about Anderson’s Asteroid City, he keeps making remarkably clever movies without an emotional core.
Anderson is undeniably an auteur, whose films are highly imaginative. The finest film actors love working with him, and studios will finance his films. Yet, I have very strongly ambivalent feelings about his work. I’ve loved his Rushmore and Moonrise Kingdom and pretty much scorned his other movies. After The Grand Budapest Hotel, I refused to even see The French Dispatch, and I only saw Asteroid City because it was extremely convenient for me.
I have friends who enjoy Wes Anderson movies, and I can understand why. His films are breezy and a relief from all that is stupid in the culture. His backgrounds are filled with Easter Egg witticisms which are fun to scan for, and it’s fun to count off the movie stars (hey, that’s Matt Dillon!). He takes the viewer into worlds that only he can imagine.
The Phoenician Scheme is especially tempting because it’s filled with many of my favorite actors: Scarlett Johansson, Willem Dafoe, F. Murray Abraham, Bill Murray, Tom Hanks, Riz Ahmed, Jeffrey Wright, Alex Jennings and Michael Cera, whom the trailer indicates is stealing the movie. Another of my favorite actors, Benedict Cumberbatch, gets to wear a gloriously silly beard that makes Emperor Maximilian’s look like five o’clock shadow. Benicio del Toro, Bryan Cranston, Steve Park, Rupert Friend and Mathieu Amalric round out the crazy impressive cast.
But I’ve come to realize that Anderson often makes very clever movies whose characters don’t engage me. I really, really cared about Max Fischer in Rushmore and and Sam in Moonrise Kingdom. I never cared what happened to Steve Zissou or any of the fucking Tenenbaums. All wit and no heart doesn’t do it for me.
Photo caption: Paul Reubens in PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF. Courtesy of HBP Max.
The delightfully wacky character Pee-Wee Herman sprang on the scene, seemingly from nowhere, sweetly celebrating his own weirdness. Pee-Wee was the creation of actor Paul Reubens. Reubens, of course, had a life before Pee-Wee, and he had a very private personal life distinct from his invented persona. Sadly, Reubens lost his privacy in, not one, but two career-killing tabloid scandals.
HBO Max is airing the bio-doc Pee-Wee as Himself, from the acclaimed Silicon Valley native, New York-based documentarian Matt Wolf. Wolf has an uncanny gift for finding compelling stories that everyone else has overlooked: Teenage, Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, Spaceship Earth and Rustin. Here, Wolf reveals three stories, each in itself worthy of a documentary.
The first is Paul Reubens’ origin story – his childhood, his self-confidence as an avant garde art student and his comfort in an out gay lifestyle. Reubens was failing as an actor, and his overweening drive to be successful as an actor led him to leave his partner and go back in the closet.
The second is Pee-Wee’s creation story – how Reubens joined the famed The Groundlings improv group, working with the likes of Laraine Newman, Phil Hartman and Elvira, and originated several characters, one of which was Pee-Wee. Amazingly, Reubens, as Pee-Wee, was a winning contestant on The Gong Show and even The Dating Game. When Reubens failed to be selected for Saturday Night Live, he determined to produce his own TV show – and the sui generis Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was born. Another helluva story.
Finally, we come to the tabloid scandal, an unexpected comeback and then a second scandal. As Reubens himself ruefully notes, by the time he realized the privacy tradeoffs that come with fame, “the ink had dried on my pact with the devil”.
Wolf had elicited permission from Reubens to make a film about Reubens’ life, and secured 40 hours of on-camera interview footage. But the mercurial Reubens, highly ambivalent to sharing his personal story, kept pulling the plug on the project. In the interviews, Reubens often brings up that ambivalence and repeatedly jerks Wolf’s chain. When Reubens fell ill, Wolf was in a race against mortality to get Reubens back on board. Fortunately, Wolf succeeded.
We also hear from Reubens’ sister and his longtime personal assistant, along with old pals like Laraine Newman, Elvira and Natasha Lyonne. We see an archival interview of Phil Hartman, reflecting on what he saw as a betrayal by Reubens.
I’m not sure that I’ve seen another biodoc where the subject himself, so wounded and humbled, stiffens his dignity to reflect on his own brilliance and his suffering from both injustices and his own mistakes. Pee-Wee as Himself runs three hours and twenty-five minutes and is airing on two parts on HBO Max.
Photo caption Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd in FRIENDSHIP. Courtesy of A24.
The disappointing comedy Friendship has a promising premise: what happens when a very uncool guy is invited into friendship by a very cool guy.
Craig (Tim Robinson) is socially tone deaf and has a gift for turning every situation into a gaffe. He meets his new neighbor Austin (Paul Rudd), who brims with savoir faire and has the cheeky grin of, say, Paul Rudd. Paul invites Craig along on a mischievous adventure and over for beers with Austin’s bro friends. In fact, Austin seems to live inside a guy-fantasy beer commercial. Craig has been a stick in the mud but is now intoxicated by the possibilities of being a popular kid.
Of course, Craig, devoid of charm and emotional intelligence, just can’t keep up, and his clumsiness – and his insistence on doubling down on his gaffes – sabotage his social aspirations. When he tries to hang with Austin’s friends, a social disaster results. When he tris to impress his wife Tami (an excellent Kate Mara) by duplicating his adventure with Austin, it’s a real disaster, not just a social one.
The situation is grist for a very smart story. Every one of us has felt socially inadequate or left out at some point. Every one of us has done something dorky in public. So the audience is ready to identify with a movie character who is suffering from embarrassment and lack of social confidence.
The problem here is that Craig isn’t a well-meaning, lovable loser that we can root for. As created by writer-director Andrew DeYoung and played by Tim Robinson, he’s a jerk. And the screenplay misses the easy opportunities to explore the male fantasy of the perfect buddy.
There some LOL moments in Friendship, the best being when Tami reports on what occurred when she was stuck in a municipal sewer. And it develops that even Austin is hiding an uncool secret.
After a while, we stop cringing for Craig, because we no longer care about him. Friendship is a swing-and-a-miss.
Tao Zhao in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.
This Week on The Movie Gourmet – a review of Jia Zhangke’s sweeping Chinese drama Caught by the Tides, with its stunning performance by Tao Zhao; it’s the best movie of 2025 so far. I also have a new review of The Friend. Coming soon – an updated review of the superb biodoc Pee-Wee Herman as Himself and a new review of the new comedy in theaters, Friendship. But, first, three remembrances.
REMEMBRANCES
Joe Don Baker in CHARLEY VARRICK.
Joe Don Baker, with his imposing physicality and country demeanor was the perfect Sheriff Buford Pusser in Walking Tall, a little indie that became a mega hit. No one would be surprised that Baker hailed from a small town near Waco, but I didn’t know that he studied at the Actor’s Studio. His best work was in Charley Varrick, The Outfit, George Wallace and Mud.
Belgian actress Emelie Dequenne was a force of nature in her debut, as an alienated young woman in Rosetta, the 1999 film that mad the Dardennes brothers famous auteurs. For that performance, Dequenne won the Best Actress at Cannes, and she won a Cesar in 2020.
George Wendt played the beloved Norm! in 269 episodes of Cheers and appeared in well over 150 titles, mostly on television. But his carrer began with small roles in good movies: A Wedding, Bronco Billy and The Bodyguard.
On May 31, Turner Classic Movies brings us a testosterone injection. Here’s one of my favorite manly adventure sagas, The Vikings from 1958; a one-eyed Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis bare their chests over Janet Leigh and swill mead with full-bearded Ernest Borgnine – it’s rip-roaring and silly and just a whole lot of fun.
And, on June 4, TCM airs one of the most fun of films noir, The Big Steal, which rematched Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer after their iconic noir Out of the Past. This time, Mitchum and Greer careen around Mexico, being chased by William Bendix. The Big Steal was only the third of the 36 feature films directed by the grievously underrated Don Siegel. Siegel became a master of crime movies (and was the primary filmmaking mentor to Clint Eastwood). I particularly love Siegel’s 1973neo-noir Charley Varrick, the guilty pleasure Two Mules for Sister Sara and John Wayne’s goodbye: The Shootist. Anyway, The Big Steal is delightful.
Photo caption: Tao Zhao in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.
Sweeping over decades of modern Chinese history, the auteur Jia Zhangke’s Caught by the Tides reveals profound changes in Chinese society by implanting a personal story within an epic sweep. Writer-director Jia has built Caught by the Tides from footage shot over the 21 years as he made other movies. In a tour de force, actress Tao Zhao delivers an exquisite portrait of resilience.
The plot is deceptively straight-forward, tracing the 21-year arc of the relationship between Qiaoqiao (Tao Zhao) and her shady boyfriend Bin (Zhubin Li). He moves away to find a better financial opportunity, promising to send for her when he’s settled. But he ghosts her, and she heads off to track him down. This simple story is embedded in a portrait of a changing China over the 21-years, with Jia’s clear-eyed observation of the changes and their impacts on regular people.
Neither Qiaoqiao or Bin can affect the course of China’s evolution (they are caught by the tides), but both seek to find their place it in.
Tao Zhao and Zhubin Li in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.
This is a China that we rarely see, real Chinese (and I mean hundreds of non-professional actors) doing their jobs and entertaining themselves, in cities most of us Westerners haven’t heard of. In what amounts to one dreamy 111-minute montage, Jia presents scores of vignettes . We see retired miners tipping female singers, river travel on boats large and small, a small Christian worship service, mass jogging, an adage-spouting supermarket robot, and a most unlikely TikTok star. The stream of scenes never feels disjointed or boring because the continuity of human experience is so authentic and so novel.
The story begins in 2001 in Datong, a dreary coal mining city in Northern China, a gritty place where no building seems to have been repainted for decades. By 2006, when the story moves to Fenjie City, China is ALL IN on economic development, and corruption is rampart, as everybody seeks a slice of the action; the Chinese government relocated 1.1 million people, sacrificing their homes for the economic payoff of the Three Gorges dam. and Jia shows us the human impact. In 2022, the story moves to Zuhai City near Guadong and back to Datong; despite the COVID pandemic, the new widespread prosperity is jarring, and even Datong has become vibrant.
Tao Zhao in CAUGHT BY THE TIDES: Photo courtesy of Janus Films.
Jia is one of the world’s best filmmakers; I rated his Ash Is the Purest White as one of the best films of 2019. In Caught by the Tides, as in most of his films, he benefits from the collaboration with one of the world’s most compelling screen actresses, his wife Tao Zhao. Remarkably, Tao dominates Caught by the Tides without speaking any dialogue. Her character Qiaoqiao isn’t mute or even passive; she has plenty to say but she’s able to communicate, even forcefully, with her face. Qiaoqiao isn’t able to get everything to go her way, but the sound she makes in the final second of Caught by the Tides makes it clear that she’s living life on her terms. It’s an indelible performance.
Caught by the Tides is the best movie of 2025 so far and the best Chinese art film I’ve ever seen.
Photo caption: Naomi Watts and Bing (as Apollo) in THE FRIEND. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.
We don’t see much of the womanizing writer Walter (Bill Murray) in the The Friend, but it doesn’t take long to see how selfish he was before his death by suicide. He leaves behind unfinished projects, a wife and two ex-wives, a neglected adult daughter and the deep, longtime friendship with his editor Iris (Naomi Watts). He was seemingly indifferent to suicide’s impact on the people in his life, but he has saddled Iris with the care of his surviving pet dog, Apollo. Apollo, while sweet-tempered, is an enormous Great Dane, and Iris’ apartment building does not allow dogs.
For all their qualities, Great Danes are not easy to care for, especially in Manhattan, and Iris must hustle to find a placement for Apollo while she is scrambling to save her final project with Walter and profoundly grieving. Iris is really angry at Walter, but the Apollo situation is so consuming that expressing that anger doesn’t occur to her. Will Iris be able to navigate her grief? Will she be able to keep her apartment? And what will happen to Apollo?
Directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel make very few films, but they’re superb (The Deep End, Montana Story); The Friend is one of their lesser works, but it’s well-crafted and satisfying. They are able to keep the material sentimental, but not overly sentimental. This is a weeper, and The Wife and her friend liked it more than I did.
The soundtrack elevates the other elements of the film, especially a cover of Fred Neil’s Everybody’s Talkin’ by Iggy Pop.
Apollo is a dog of uncommonly sensitive eyes, who can express a wide range of emotions with a still gaze. He is played by Bing, also a Great Dane.
The Friend was the opening night film at this year’s Cinequest, but I missed it there. It’s now streaming on Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.
Photo caption: Paul Reubens in PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF. Courtesy of HBP Max.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – some great Memorial Day Weekend recommendations on TCM, and be sure to watch Pee-Wee Herman as Himself on HBO Max, beginning today.
A few years ago, this platform used to be HBO and then rebranded itself as HBO Max, on its way to just Max; having undoubtedly spent millions on the branding from HBO Max to Max, they are now rebranding back to HBO Max. Go figure.
I caught the coming-of-age film The Summer of 69 on Hulu, but it’s not worth a full review. It’s a raunchy “lose your virginity before high school graduation” comedy , but from the female point of view, which is refreshing. It also gets the teenage awkwardness and embarrassment just right. “Have you kissed him yet?” “No but I’ve practiced on the back of my hand.” Unfortunately, the plot thread about saving an insolvent strip club is hackneyed. The key character of a stripper/escort/sex coach is not written well, and the performance is worse. Too bad.
CURRENT MOVIES
The Count of Monte-Cristo: you think you’ve seen a revenge movie? kanopy (free), Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
On this Memorial Day Weekend, Turner Classic Movies brings us another of marathons of war movies. I’m recommending three less well-known war films that deserve your attention. TCM is screening all three on May 24.
Men in War: An infantry lieutenant (Robert Ryan) must lead his platoon out of a desperate situation. He encounters a cynical and insubordinate sergeant (Aldo Ray) who is loyally driving a jeep with his PTSD-addled colonel (Robert Keith). In conflict with each other, they must navigate through enemy units to safety. Director Anthony Mann is known for exploring the psychology of edgy characters, and that’s the case with Men in War.
The Steel Helmet (Friday, May 24): This is a gritty classic by the great writer-director Samuel Fuller, a WWII combat vet who brooked no sentimentality about war. Gene Evans, a favorite of the two Sams (Fuller and Peckinpah), is especially good as the sergeant. American war movies of the period tended toward to idealize the war effort, but Fuller relished making war movies with no “recruitment flavor”. Although the Korean War had only been going on for a few months when Fuller wrote the screenplay, he was able to capture the feelings of futility that later pervaded American attitudes about the Korean War.
Men Must Fight is a cultural curiosity, a stridently anti-war film from 1933, reflecting the widespread revulsion against the avoidable horrors of World War I. Men Must Fight predicts many aspects of World War II with unsettling accuracy. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a trip.
