movie gourmet

Short Term 12 Now on Netflix Instant

June 3, 2014 by movie gourmet

The powerful drama Short Term 12 is now available streaming on Netflix Instant. It ranked as number 7 on my Best Movies of 2013. The compelling and affecting Short Term 12 is set in a foster care facility unit named Short Term 12; since the kids can live there for years, it seems pretty long-term to me. These are kids who have suffered abuse and neglect and who act out with disruptive and dangerous behaviors. Runaways, assaults and suicide attempts are commonplace, and some of the kids thrive on creating drama.

The gifted lead counselor on the unit is Grace (Brie Larson), who isn’t much older than the kids. She’s kind of a Troubled Kid Whisperer who, in each impossible situation, knows exactly what to do to defuse or comfort or protect. But while she is in total command of her volatile and fragile charges, she is profoundly troubled herself. She and her boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), who also works on the unit, are themselves survivors and former foster youth. Mason seems to have resolved his issues, but Grace’s demons lurk just under her skin.

In Short Term 12’s taut 96 minutes, we watch Grace navigate through crisis after crisis until she must face her own. We share many of the most powerful moments in 2013 cinema, particularly one kid’s unexpectedly painful insightful and sensitive rap, another kid’s authoring a wrenching children’s story and Grace’s own outburst of ferocity to protect a kid from a parent.

Brie Larson’s performance as Grace is being widely and justifiably described as star-making, and I think she deserves an Oscar nomination. I noticed her performances in much smaller roles in Rampart and The Spectacular Now , and I’m really looking forward to the launch of a major career. Think Jennifer Lawrence.

John Gallagher Jr. must be a superb actor, because nobody in real life can be as appealing and sympathetic as his characters in Margaret, Newsroom and Short Term 12. I’ll watch any movie with Gallagher in it, and he’s almost good enough to help me stomach Newsroom.

In his debut feature, writer-director Destin Cretton has hit a home run with one of the year’s best dramas. Some might find the hopeful ending too pat, but I say So What – I have met many former foster youth who have transcended horrific childhoods to become exemplary adults.

Short Term 12 is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, GooglePlay and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

May 30, 2014 by movie gourmet

Let me make another pitch for my pick for the year’s best movie so far – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust – watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. I took The Wife last week, and she admired Ida, too.

Get ready for funniest film of the year – the Canadian knee-slapper The Grand Seduction opens next week, and it’s a guaranteed audience pleaser.

Here are other good movie choices:

Words and Pictures is an unusually thoughtful romantic comedy.
Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro is a crowd-pleaser.
Locke is a drama with a gimmick that works.
In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret.
The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion.
Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.

My DVD/Stream of the Weeks is the highly original teen misfit movie Terri. Terri is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Coming up on Turner Classic Movies on June 5 is one of the very best Westerns, Winchester ’73 (1950). This was the first pairing of James Stewart with director Anthony Mann; the duo went on to create several more edgy “psychological Westerns” with atypically ambiguous heroes. Stewart’s emotionally scarred character is driven to hunt down a bad, bad guy (film noir stalwart Dan Duryea); his motivation is later revealed to be deeper than it first appears. Millard Mitchell plays Stewart’s buddy, and the two have great chemistry. Sexy Shelly Winters and sleazy John Ireland also sparkle in supporting roles. A very young Rock Hudson plays an American Indian warrior (shirtless, of course).

James Stewart and Millard Mitchell in WINCHESTER '73 — James Stewart and Millard Mitchell in WINCHESTER ’73

Best Movies of 2014 – So Far

May 28, 2014May 28, 2014 by movie gourmet

I’ve started my running list of the Best Movies of 2014 – So Far and three of them – Ida, The Grand Seduction (I’ll write about it next Thursday) and Locke – you can see in theaters in the next two weekends.

By the end of the calendar year, I will have a Top Ten plus another 8-18 or so. I’m pretty sure that Ida will end up in my Top Ten.

I’ve also included Dear White People, which you’ll be able to see when it gets into theaters in October. And I’m also considering including the mesmerizing Brendan Gleeson drama Calvary (saw it at San Francisco International Film Festival and it releases widely August 1). I’m also mulling over adding two films that I saw at Cinequest – the outrageously dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift and the provocative Slovenian classroom drama Class Enemy; neither is currently available to US audiences.

Neighbors: an actress gets to have fun in a low brow comedy

May 28, 2014 by movie gourmet

In Neighbors, Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen play a couple of new parents whose world is rocked when a fraternity (led by Zach Ephron) moves in next door. Neighbors begins with a more-or-less realistic tone for a comedy that escalates into a demented farce as Byrne and Rogen get more and more desperate to force the frat out of the neighborhood.

We know that Seth Rogen and Zach Ephron (Liberal Arts) can be funny, but Rose Byrne is the pleasant surprise. Unlike in most of the current crop of bromance and gross-out comedies, the female character relishes, is not a nag and can be outrageous and unrestrained herself. Byrne is also a good sport in a scene with a gross-out sight gag for the ages (that seeks to match the “hair mousse” in There’s Something About Mary, etc.).

This isn’t a Must See – and it doesn’t aspire to cinematic greatness. But Neighbors is not a bad choice if you’re in the mood for a low brow comedy: solid cast, a darkening sensibility and a good role for the gal.

DVD/Stream of the Week: Terri

May 27, 2014 by movie gourmet

We’ve all seen the teen misfit movie. But Terri has some originality and lots of heart. Jacob Wysocki plays an overweight teen caring for his mentally ill uncle. He doesn’t have much going for him until John C. Reilly’s school counselor intervenes, sometimes clumsily (who knows what will make a teen respond?). Soon there’s a ripple effect among other troubled teens. Screenwriter Patrick Dewitt deserves some plaudits for the authenticity of the teen characters.

Terri is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.

Words and Pictures: unusually thoughtful romantic comedy

May 24, 2014 by movie gourmet

In the unusually thoughtful romantic comedy Words and Pictures, Clive Owen and the ever-radiant Juliette Binoche star as sparring teachers. The two play world-class artists – Owen a writer and Binoche a painter – who find themselves in teaching jobs at an elite prep school. As they spiritedly disagree over whether words or pictures are the most powerful medium of expression, they each admire and are drawn to the other’s talent and passion.

Words and Pictures contains the wittiest movie dialogue in many moons and reminds us that real wit is more than some clever put downs. Owen’s English teacher worships the use of language to evoke original imagery and also revels in pedantic wordplay – the more syllables the better. When his boss asks him, “Why are you always late?”, he retorts “Why are you always dressed monochromatically?”.

The reason that he IS always late is that he’s an alcoholic hellbent on squandering his talent and alienating his friends and family. This is a realistic depiction of alcoholism and of its byproducts – unreliability, broken relationships and fundamental dishonesty. In an especially raw scene, he expresses his self-loathing by using a tennis racquet and balls to demolish his own living space. Top notch stuff.

Binoche plays a woman of great inner strength and confidence who has been shaken by the advances of a chronic illness. According to the credits, Binoche herself created her character’s paintings.

Words and Pictures sparkles until near the end. When the students make the debate over words vs pictures explicit in the school assembly, the intellectual argument loses its force and the tension peters out. So it may not be a great movie, but Words and Pictures is still plenty entertaining and a damn sight smarter than the average romantic comedy.

I saw Words and Pictures earlier this year at Cinequest.

Locke: a thriller about responsibility

May 23, 2014 by movie gourmet

The thriller Locke is about an extremely responsible guy (Tom Hardy) who has made one mistake – and he’s trying to make it right. But trying to do the responsible thing in one part of your life can have uncomfortable consequences in the others. The title character drives all night trying to keep aspects of his life from crashing and burning.

In fact, he never leaves the car and, for the entire duration of the movie, we only see his upper body, his eyes in the rearview mirror, the dashboard and the roadway lit by his headlights. All the other characters are voiced – he talks to them on the Bluetooth device in his BMW. Sure, that’s a gimmick – but it works because it complements the core story about the consequences of responsibility.

Locke is written and directed by Steven Knight (Dirty Pretty Things, Eastern Promises). The story is actually a domestic drama – there are no explosions to dodge, no one in peril to rescue and no bad guys to dispatch. But it’s definitely a thriller because we care about whether Locke meets the two deadlines he will face early the next morning.

It’s a masterful job of film editing by Justine Wright (Touching the Void, The Last King of Scotland). After all, her cuts help keep us on the edge of our seats, despite her working with a very finite variety of shots (Locke’s eyes, the dashboard, etc.).

Hardy, who’s known as an action star, is excellent at portraying this guy who must try to keep his family, biggest career project and self-respect from unraveling at the same time, only armed with his ability to persuade others. It’s a fine film.

Movies to See Right Now

May 23, 2014May 23, 2014 by movie gourmet

My pick for the best movie of the year so far is openly more widely this week – the Polish drama Ida, about a novice nun who is stunned to learn that her biological parents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Superbly photographed in black and white, each shot is exquisitely composed. Watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other.

Fading Gigolo, a wonderfully sweet romantic comedy written, directed and starring John Tuturro is a crowd-pleaser. The raucous comedy Neighbors is a pleasant enough diversion. Locke is a drama with a gimmick that works. In the documentary Finding Vivian Maier, we go on journey to discover why one of the great 20th Century photographers kept her own work a secret. Like all Wes Anderson movies, The Grand Budapest Hotel is wry and imaginative, but it’s not one of his most engaging.

My DVD Stream of the Week is the highly original Her, one of my Best Movies of 2013.

It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means it’s time for Turner Classic Movies to unleash a war movie marathon. On May 24, you can see two classic Korean War films: The Steel Helmet (1951) and The Men of the Fighting Lady (1954).

thesteelhelmet — Gene Evans in The Steel Helmet

Ida: best movie of the year so far

May 22, 2014 by movie gourmet

Opening more widely tomorrow, the Polish drama Ida, which I saw at this year’s Cinequest, is the best movie I’ve seen this year.

The title character is a novice nun who has been raised in a convent orphanage. Just before she is to take her vows in the early 1960s, she is told for the first time that she has an aunt. She meets the aunt, and Ida learns that she is the survivor of a Jewish family killed in the Holocaust. The aunt takes the novice on an odd couple road trip to trace the fate of their family.

The chain-smoking aunt (Agata Kulesza) is a judge who consumes vast quantities of vodka to self-medicate her own searing memories. But the most profound difference isn’t that the aunt is a hard ass and that the nun is prim and devout. The most important contrast is between their comparative worldliness – the aunt has been around the block and the novice is utterly naive and inexperienced (both literally and figuratively virginal). The young woman must make the choice between a future that follows her upbringing or one which her biological heritage opens to her. As Ida unfolds, her family legacy makes her choice an informed one.

The novice Ida, played by newcomer Agata Trzebuchowska, is very quiet – but hardly fragile. Saying little, she takes in the world with a penetrating gaze and a just-under-the-surface magnetic strength.

Superbly photographed in black and white, each shot is exquisitely composed. Watching shot after shot in Ida is like walking through a museum gazing at masterpiece paintings one after the other. Ida was directed and co-written by Pawel Pawlikowski, who also recently directed the British coming of age story My Summer of Love (with Emily Blunt) and the French thriller The Woman in the Fifth (with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ethan Hawke). He is an effective and economic story-teller, packing textured characters and a compelling story into an 80 minute film.

Ida is also successful in avoiding grimness. Pawlikowski has crafted a story which addresses the pain of the characters without being painful to watch. There’s some pretty fun music from a touring pop/jazz combo and plenty of wicked sarcasm from the aunt.

Ida won the International Critics’ Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Ida was my pick as the best film at Cinequest, where it won the Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature.

Gordon Willis: the Prince of Darkness

May 21, 2014 by movie gourmet

The cinematographer Gordon Willis has died at age 82. Willis was a particularly singular filmmaker who often broke new ground and often made movies that looked much different from movies made before. Although three of the films he shot won the Best Picture Oscar, he was unrecognized by the Academy Awards until he received an honorary Oscar in 2009.

To understand the impact a cinematographer can have on a movie, just check out these examples from among Willis’ 34 feature films. The first is The Godfather, for which he received the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”. (Willis shot all three Godfather films). The convention of the time held that a filmmaker always had to show the eyes of the movie star. Willis argued that, by not showing Marlon Brando’s eyes, you could actually see into his character’s soul.

The second example is All the President’s Men, a paranoid thriller enhanced by the contrast between the stark brightness of the Washington Post newsroom and the menacing darkness of the parking garage where Bob Woodward met his secret source Deep Throat.

And, finally, there’s Woody Allen’s 1979 masterpiece Manhattan. Why make a black and white movie in 1979? New York City was never a more stirring backdrop.