Far from the Madding Crowd, is a satisfying choice for those looking for a bodice ripper. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows. Don’t bother with Slow West, a failed Western that never gets into rhythm.
I really enjoyed the Argentine comedy The Film Critic, which is now available for streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
I really enjoyed the dark comedy Gemma Bovery, in which Fabrice Luchini – a treasure of comic cinema – sees a famous novel being acted out in real lie and jumps right in himself.
My Stream of the Week is the So Bad It’s Funny An American Hippie in Israel, available streaming from Amazon and Xbox Video.
Don’t forget that Turner Classic Movies is filling each Friday in June and July with film noir in its Summer of Darkness series, hosted by Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir. The series schedule includes several favorites of my Overlooked Noir.
Turner Classic Movies is playing the unforgettable The Man Who Would Be King (1975) on June 6. Sean Connery and Michael Caine star as two vagabond British soldiers adventuring in colonial India when one of them is mistaken for a god by the indigenous people. They play the misunderstanding into a kingdom – until hubris, greed and lust causes them to reach a little too high. It’s a great story, well told by director John Huston. Connery and Caine are wonderful.
On June 9, TCM is playing some of the greats of early 1970s American cinema: Annie Hall, Shaft, Dog Day Afternoon and Mean Streets. Put on your flairs and tune in.
Michael Caine and Sean Connery in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
Turner Classic Movies has announced a CAN’T MISS summer film noir series. The “Summer of Darkness” will be hosted by Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir. Here’s the complete schedule.
TCM will be presenting 24 hours of film noir on each Friday in June and July. Every week, Eddie Muller himself will present four movies in prime time in TCM’s “Friday Night Spotlight.” Muller has penned this introductory article.
The Film Noir Foundation performs an invaluable mission: preserving and restoring classic film noir that would otherwise be lost to us and to posterity. And Muller and the Foundation host one of my absolute film festivals every winter in San Francisco – Noir City. Noir City has been expanding into other cities. Muller is a respected film historian, and his DVD commentaries are excellent. Here’s your chance to experience the Czar of Noir on television.
I’ll be calling out specific recommendations from the Summertime of Darkness in my regular Movies to See Right Now posts on Fridays, as well as writing some special posts on my favorite Overlooked Noir, including Woman on the Run and Elevator to the Gallows. Stay tuned.
Deenis O’Keefe and Ann Sheridan in WOMAN ON THE RUN
On Friday night, June 5, Turner Classic Movies is presenting one of my Overlooked Noir, in its wonderful film noir series Summer of Darkness. The character-driven thriller Woman on the Run (1950) is notable for its San Francisco locations, making it a veritable time capsule of the post-war City By The Bay.
The movie opens with a murder, and the one terrified witness goes underground. When the police coming looking for him, they are surprised to find his wife (Ann Sheridan) both ignorant of his whereabouts and unconcerned. While still living in the same apartment, the couple is estranged. And the wife has a Mouth On Her, much to the dismay of the detective (Robert Keith), who keeps walking into a torrent of sass.
But soon the wife starts hunting hubbie, along with the cops, a reporter (Dennis O’Keefe) and the killer. It’s a race to see who can find him first. One character is revealed to be more dangerous than was apparent, and the audience learns this before our heroine does.
One quirky nugget – when she visits his workplace, we learn that his job is making mannikins in the basement of a large department store.
Sheridan is great in this uncharacteristically insolent role. So are O’Keefe and Keith. But the real star of Woman on the Run is San Francisco itself, from the hilly neighborhoods to the bustling streets to the dank and foreboding waterfront. Oddly, the finale is at an amusement park which seems to be Playland At the Beach (but was actually filmed at the Santa Monica Pier). (Further trivia – that Laffing Sal is the one at Santa Monica, not the one at Playland which now resides at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.) The only movie that rivals Woman on Run for its depiction of San Francisco in the 1950s is The Lineup.
The story is a taut 77 minutes of mouthy Ann Sheridan, the life-or-death manhunt and stellar period San Francisco. Woman on the Run is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video (free with Amazon Prime).
Ann Sheridan (far left) sasses Robert Keith (far right) in WOMAN ON THE RUN
Occasionally I see a movie SO BAD that it’s entertaining and I add it to my Bad Movie Festival. The latest is An American Hippie in Israel from 1972, which is jaw-droppingly bad and unintentionally hilarious. An American Hippie in Israel has it all – a dreadful screenplay, poor acting and shoddy production values. Fortunately, Grindhouse Releasing rescued An American Hippie in Israel in 2013 so we can add it to the canon of cult classics.
After “bumming around Europe” an American hippie named Mike (Asher Tzarfati) decides to visit Israel. He walks out of the airport and hitches a ride with a young Israeli woman Elizabeth (Lilli Avidan) who has a large convertible. She also has a pad with shag carpet, on which they have sex. The sex happens when he utters the diatribe, “You fools, stop pushing buttons! You fools…fools…fools..” and she jumps him mid-harangue. I predict that, as more people see An American Hippie in Israel, the “fools” monologue will become as popular as the “She’s tearing me apart!” from The Room and “O my God!” from Troll 2. (Part of the “fools speech” can be found at 2:47 of the trailer below.)
Mike and Elizabeth head out across Israel in the convertible and find local Israeli hippies with whom to smoke pot and dance awkwardly. Two more hippies join them on a road trip, the impressively homely Komo (Schmuel Wolf) and comely Françoise (Tsilla Karny). The last half of the movie is set on a rocky “island”, where the two couples, clad in swimsuits or less, camp out, have more sex and go survivalist. Alas, then they get all “Lord of Flies” and it doesn’t end well.
There’s a fair amount of nudity in An American Hippie in Israel, and its cast is noteworthy for the most severe tan lines in cinema history.
AN AMERICAN HIPPIE IN ISRAEL
The oddities include:
an opening credits sequence with a road roller that is mashing down the soil, for some never explained reason;
two murderous guys in black suits and top hats who have been following Mike around the world and pop up randomly; and
some floating objects that are supposed to pass for giant sharks.
But the perhaps An American Hippie in Israel’s moviemaking low-light is a dream sequence that is ACTED (not FILMED) in slo mo. In the dream, Mike is wielding an over-sized hammer to smash two giant computers (the early kind of mainframes with reels of tape) worn by human figures; the audience can tell that Tzarfati is running and swinging the hammer VERY slowly to ape the effects of slow motion photography.
Unsurprisingly, it was the only film credit for director and co-writer Amos Sefer. I saw American Hippie in Israel on Turner Classic Movies, but it is also available streaming from Amazon and Xbox Video. You can purchase the DVD and Blu-ray from Grindhouse Releasing.
Wow, we’ve had a great start to 2015 in the movies. I’ve already placed eight films on my running list of Best Movies of 2015 – So Far. Usually, I only have three or four at this time of year. Here’s my Best of 2015 to date:
Wild Tales (saw at Cinequest; DVD release in June)
Leviathan (available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and DirecTV)
Ex Machina (in theaters now)
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; releases June 12)
The End of the Tour (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; releases July 30)
’71 (saw at Cinequest; DVD release in July)
The Look of Silence (saw at San Francisco International Film Festival; limited release July 16)
The Grief of Others (saw at Camera Cinema Club; release undetermined)
I’m also mulling over adding to the list I’ll See You in My Dreams (in theaters now). And I know I’ll include Corn Island, an exquisite Georgian film that I saw at Cinequest, if it gets a US release. This is a GREAT and uncharacteristic start to the year in movies!
I’m already looking forward to some especially promising films that debuted at the Cannes International Film Festival. The universally acclaimed, heartbreaking biodoc of Amy Winehouse, Amy, releases July 3. Other Cannes films that will contend for my top ten list include The Lobster, Louder Than Bombs, Mia Madre, The Measure of a Man, Sicario (releases September 18), Youth, Green Room, The Assassin and Dheepan.
Plus there will be some superb documentaries that I don’t know about yet AND the usual stream of Oscar Bait movies released in the fall by the prestige arms of the Hollywood studios. We should have a pretty good handle on 2015’s pool of excellent cinema at the time of the Toronto and Telluride film festivals in September.
2015 has been an excellent year so far and has the potential to be a great year of cinema.
Far from the Madding Crowd, is a satisfying choice for those looking for a bodice ripper. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows. Don’t bother with Slow West, a failed Western that never gets into rhythm.
I really enjoyed the Argentine comedy The Film Critic, which is now available for streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the the Civil Rights docudrama Selma – an incredibly stirring movie with one significant historical flaw. Selma is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox; you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
On June 2, Turner Classic Movies airs Key Largo (1948), one of the classic film noirs and still satisfying to this day. Both trapped in a claustrophobic Florida island resort by a hurricane, Humphrey Bogart has to face down sadistic mobster Edward G. Robinson. 23-year-old Lauren Bacall was at her most appealing. Claire Trevor’s heartbreaking performance as a gangster’s moll aging out of her looks is one of her best.
TCM brings another noir on June 3 – The Killers (1946). Burt Lancaster stars in a story adapted (and greatly expanded) from the Hemingway short story. It’s only the only the third leading role for the 24-year-old Ava Gardner. Wonderfully deep noir cast: Edmond O’Brien, Charles McGraw, Albert Dekker, Sam Levene, Jeff Corey, William Conrad. Selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.
Finally, on June 5, TCM is showing the superb proto-noirM (1931), Peter Lorre stars as a serial killer who preys on children. It’s a masterpiece by master director Fritz Lang (Metropolis), who later fled the Nazis to Hollywood and made several fine film noirs in the 50s. Lorre is compelling as a man plagued with a twisted compulsion. There’s no explicit violence, but you’ve never seen a more chilling solitary balloon. The city’s criminal underclass races with the police to hunt down the monster. The climax is a most unusual courtroom scene. If you’re going to see one pre-war European film – see this one.
Rafael Spregelburd (center, with glasses) in THE FILM CRITIC
In the enjoyable Argentine comedy The Film Critic (El Critico), we meet a glum and judgmental movie critic (Rafael Spregelburd). He’s proud of having not written a rave review in the past two decades and he’s so pretentious that he thinks is French (very nice touch). He lives to pile snark on romantic comedies, a genre that he despises. His editor says, “You are a terrorist of taste!”. He is so negative through-and-through, that he is a pretty miserable person to be around.
Then, he meets (cute) a vital and captivating woman (Dolores Fonzi). To his discomfort, he is pulled into every cliché of a movie romantic comedy (when they kiss for the first time, fireworks even go off in the sky above), and he starts becoming uncharacteristically happy, even giddy.
Writer-director Hernán Gerschuny has created a winning, character-driven comedy. His protagonist’s entire identity is to be unsatisfied by anything and everything. Yet it turns out that he can be hooked by the same joys that he thinks he is above.
The Film Critic is full of references that will delight movie fans – and especially cinephiles, movie critics and movie bloggers! The critic holds forth with a hilarious recounting of rom com conventions (“why are they always running?”). And, of course, the woman that HE meets looks uber cute in a beret, and he races to the airport at the end.
Gerschuny delivers great comic timing. One of the protagonist’s colleagues watches an “experimental short film” (ba dum) “by a Taiwanese director” (ba dum) and then NAMES the director. And THEN he says, “I think he’s got something to say” as it becomes apparent that the “short” is a security video.
All in all, The Film Critic is a satisfying hoot, now available for streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King Jr. (center back) in SELMA
It’s been a while since I’ve seen as stirring a movie as Selma, Director Ava DuVernay’s retelling of the Selma, Alabama, Civil Rights marches in 1965 – one of the most heroic episodes in a saga known for heroism.
It’s an important story. Although the marches came on the heels of a racist atrocity, instead of just vomiting rage, Martin Luther King (David Oyelowo) and his fellow civil rights leaders had a specific strategic goal in mind. Their planned civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery was designed to trigger the passage of yet-to-be-drafted legislation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. They knew that there would be risks to all and sacrifices by many – both martyrs to the cause and victims of terrorism. Those sacrifices were real and are depicted in the movie. As the civil rights leaders navigate the reefs of local Jim Crow rule and murderous racist terrorism, Selma’s story is compelling minute-to-minute.
King himself must bear the burden of responsibility of a leader sending his charges out to possibly sacrifice their lives. All the time, he is receiving threats to his safety and that of his family, dealing with blackmail and character assassination and going through a rough patch in his marriage to Coretta Scott King (Carmen Ejogo).
But Selma, like history, is not a One Man Show. King doesn’t just dictate the path for his Southern Christian Leadership Council (SCLC). He has to work with his colleagues in the SCLC and reach out to build a coalition with the local African-American community and other national organizations, chiefly the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). King is not just another noble face. He’s got to show a canny craftiness as a study in negotiating, a guy who knows when to hold ’em and knows when to fold ’em.
Here’s something else that Selma does extraordinarily well. I’m a history buff who understands that – to relate a historical narrative in 90-120 minutes – filmmakers must compress historical events and compound characters. However, Selma allows us to glimpse the broad canvas by seeing other important figures of the Civil Rights movement – Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, John Lewis, James Forman, Diane Nash, James Bevel, James Orange and even Malcom X and Bayard Rustin. There are also the white martyrs James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo. And New York Times reporter Roy Reed is there, representing the handful of national newsmen who brought the civil rights struggle into the homes of non-Southern America. As villains, we have not just George Wallace (Tim Roth) but Al Mingo and Sheriff Jim Clark.
And what about the controversial depiction of President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson)? The short answer is that Selma’s treatment of LBJ is sometimes factually inaccurate and definitely wrong in tone. As much as Selma gets the Alabama scenes right, it gets all the Washington, DC, scenes wrong. When the movies opens, LBJ has just delivered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – the most important advancement in Civil Rights since the 13th and 14th amendments a century before; he thus ended legal segregation in America. Selma is about the effort to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and LBJ and MLK were BOTH essential to achieving this milestone as well. Any reader of LBJ bios can tell you that the man had demonstrated his passion for Civil Rights since his year as a 20-year-old teacher of Mexican-Americans in Cotulla, Texas. When Selma depicts LBJ as having to be brow beaten by MLK to push the Voting Rights Act, it’s inaccurate and unnecessary; the effect is to create a serious flaw in the film.
But the bottom line is this – see the movie anyway. At its core, the movie is about what happened in Selma and within the leadership of the Civil Rights movement – it generally gets that right.
After seeing Selma, I reflected on the media landscape in 1965 – where every home in America watched the TV news from either CBS, NBC or ABC. The repugnant spectacle of the white mob beating the peaceful demonstrators came into every American living room, including mine. We Americans all saw the same thing. But in today’s media environment, a huge fraction of the country gets its news from Fox News, which would likely twist and minimize the very facts that mobilized a nation in 1965 – and another huge fraction would be watching non-news content and miss the controversy all together.
But my most sobering reflection upon leaving the theater was this – right now the Republican Congress and the majority of the US Supreme Court are trying their hardest to emasculate the very Voting Rights Act that was the culmination of the campaign in the movie Selma.
In a uniformly well-acted movie, David Oyelowo deserves special praise for his portrayal of MLK. Oprah Winfrey and veteran character actor Henry G. Sanders are the best of the rest. On a personal note, I relished seeing one of my faves Wendell Pierce (Treme and The Wire) and also up-and-comer Tessa Thompson of Dear White People.
Selma is inspirational, kids should see it and families should discuss it. It’s just outside the Top Ten of my Best Movies of 2014. Selma is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox; you can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.
The one MUST SEE in theaters is the intensely thoughtful Ex Machina. I really like the thoughtful and authentic dramedy I’ll See You in My Dreams, and it opens more widely next week. Far from the Madding Crowd, is a satisfying choice for those looking for a bodice ripper. If you’re looking for a scare, try the inventive and non-gory horror gem It Follows. Don’t bother with Slow West, a failed Western that never gets into rhythm.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the role of character actor Richard Jenkins’ career – The Visitor. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play ad Xbox Video.
Turner Classic Movies always programs a war movie marathon on Memorial Day weekend. I recommend two of the very best Korean War movies – both airing on May 24:
The Steel Helmet(1951) is a gritty classic by the great writer-director Sam 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 in War (1957): An infantry lieutenant (Robert Ryan) must lead his platoon out of a desperate situation and encounters a cynical and insubordinate sergeant (Aldo Ray) 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.
Slow West, which I saw at Cinequest, opens theatrically tomorrow. I suggest that you skip it.
I love Westerns, but Slow West just didn’t work for me. It’s a film of some ambition, and it won an award at Sundance, but the movie kept sliding in and out of self-consciousness, and I could never settle in to the story.
Kodi Smitt-McGee plays a sixteen-year-old Scot completely unsuited for survival in the Old West. Nonetheless, he is devoted to a young woman and he launches a determined quest to track her down. He soon picks up a veteran Westerner (Michael Fassbender) who can guide and guard him. The two, of course, have a series of adventures along the way.
There’s some appealingly dark and droll humor in Slow West (quite a few good laughs, actually). The problem is that Slow West can’t figure out whether it should have the tone of a straight Western (Unforgiven, The Homesman) or wink at the audience (Little Big Man). Accordingly, some of the period details are so wrong that they distracted me from the story. For example, in an otherwise very funny scene with arrows and a clothesline, the Indians look like tiny, skinny Asians. Smitt-McGee employs a Scots accent in every fifth line. And Fassbender sounds like he just stepped out of a time machine from 2015.
Slow West was filmed in New Zealand, so there are grand vistas that kind of look like the American West, but then kinda don’t. This DID work for me, because it contributed an almost subconscious edge to heighten some scenes.
