movie gourmet

Movies to See This Week

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Karin Viard and Marine Fois in POLISSE

I’m still plugging Polisse, the riveting story of the police child protection unit in Paris.  Bernie, a very funny dark comedy by Richard Linklater, shows off Jack Black’s talents in a whole new light. The story of aged Brits seeking a low-budget retirement in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is much more than a fish-out-of-water comedy. Another entertaining movie is the Norwegian dark comedy Headhunters, with Aksel Hennie as a smug corporate headhunter/art thief who panics when a high tech commando hunts him down.

Men In Black 3 is delightfully entertaining, as Will Smith time travels back to 1969 and meets the young Tommy Lee Jones (nailed by Josh Brolin).  Hysteria is a breezy, feminist lark.  HBO is still broadcasting its new epic Hemingway & Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman.  Where Do We Go Now? is a Lebanese comedy about village women who go to extreme lengths to extinguish the sparks of sectarian violence.

You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is Brendan Gleeson and Don Cheadle in the Irish dark comedy The Guard, one of my very favorite films from last year.

Hemingway & Gellhorn: helluva story in a flawed epic

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That Martha Gellhorn was Ernest Hemingway’s third wife only begins to tell the story.   Gellhorn’s work as a war correspondent eclipsed Hemingway’s.  She was also the only one of Hemingway’s wives to kick his butt to the curb.  (A year ago, I had a drink at the Key West bar where Gellhorn, according to local lore,  had paid the bartender $20 to introduce her to Hemingway.)  In HBO’s  Hemingway & Gellhorn, Gellhorn is played by Nicole Kidman and Hemingway by Clive Owen.

Gellhorn once said, “We were good in war. When there was no war, we made our own.”  She’s a prototype of a liberated woman and he’s an unreconstructed alpha male preoccupied with machismo, so things are not destined to end well.  (Thought:  maybe if Hemingway hadn’t thought so much about masculinity, his own masculinity would have been less selfish.)

Theirs is a helluva story, and the movie is an epic.  As the story sweeps across the Spanish Civil War, the Soviet invasion of Finland,  the liberation of China and D-Day, the  2 1/2 hours goes pretty quickly.

Hemingway & Gellhorn is directed by the great Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff,  Invasion of the Body Snatchers,  The Unbearable Lightness of Being). He keeps Hemingway & Gellhorn shifting from color to sepia to black and white, seamlessly mixing in actual historical footage and inserting the characters Zelig-like into the documentary stock.

Kaufman lives in the Bay Area and shot Hemingway & Gellhorn’s Key West, Havana, Carnegie Hall, Finland, Germany and Spain scenes in San Francisco, San Rafael, Livermore and Oakland.

I enjoyed seeing it once, but it’s definitely not a “can’t miss”, and I’m having difficulty putting my finger on why that is.  My guess is that the screenplay lingers on the Spanish Civil War a little too long and then brings on Hemingway’s dissolute period too abruptly.  The acting and the direction are just fine.

DVD of the Week: The Guard

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This Irish dark comedy is a showpiece for Brendan Gleeson as a lowbrow cop happening upon an international drug conspiracy.  Gleeson is always very good and was especially memorable in director Martin McDonagh’s  2008 In Bruges, which was either the funniest hit man movie ever or the darkest and most violent buddy comedy ever.  This time, McDonagh’s brother John Michael McDonagh directs Gleeson as a very canny man who convincingly strives to appear much dumber than he is.   The perfect foil for Gleeson’s sloppy local cop is the refined FBI agent played by Don Cheadle.  Those familiar with Ireland will recognize the Connemara Coast.  Don’t miss The Guard.

Men in Black 3: just as delightful in 1969

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Our favorite alien-zapping secret agents return in the delightful Men in Black 3.   We still have the yapping Will Smith paired with the Titan of Terseness, Tommy Lee Jones.  In this edition of the  sci fi comedy franchise, Smith must travel back to 1969 to save his partner and the world from a new odious and scary alien villain, Boris The Animal.  We get a Mad Men size dose of 1969, including Andy Warhol’s Factory, the Miracle Mets, the Moon Launch, some hippies and lots of skinny neckties.

The cast is all good, but the most inspired casting has to be Josh Brolin as the young Tommy Lee Jones.  Michael Stuhlbarg, last seen as the uptight depressive in A Serious Man, here almost steals the movie as a blissed out but hyper-perceptive alien.  Michael Chernus, so good in a serious role in Vera Farmiga’s Higher Ground, is excellent as a shady geek. Bill Hader is very funny as Warhol.

I’m usually not one for franchise movies, but MIB3 is gloriously entertaining.  I saw it in 2D – you should, too.  As with most movies, the 3D premium isn’t worth it.

In the trailer (but not the movie) we briefly glimpse the torch-wielding Columbia Picture lady wearing MIB shades – very cool.

Hysteria: a feminist lark

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Hysteria is a breezy, feminist lark.  Victorian doctors are befuddled by all manner of female complaints, which they lump together into the diagnosis of hysteria.  One physician becomes popular when he pioneers pelvic massage as treatment.  Who knew that rubbing their clitorises (clitorii?) made them happy?

Thankfully, director Tanya Wexler keeps the whole thing light.  Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as a proto-feminist and High Dancy plays the doc who invented a proto-vibrator.  Rising star Felicity Jone (Like Crazy) pulls off a secondary role.

Where Do We Go Now?: comedy as a matter of life and death

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Christians and Muslims live together in a very isolated Lebanese village.  The men, none too bright, flare any perceived grievance into testosterone-fueled tribal fury.  Knowing that any trivial incident can spark an escalation to sectarian slaughter, the women, aided by the imam and the priest, work tirelessly to extinguish every possible provocation.  The women will stop at nothing, including sabotaging the village’s only TV, faking a miracle, medicating the pastries and even hiring a van full of Ukrainian strippers.

This story could have been played broadly like Lysistrata.  There are many funny moments, but Where Do We Go Now? is more than farce.   To these women, war is not theoretical.  We can tell from their language, which references men crouching in the attics and looking under beds, that they have survived past sectarian violence.  And we see the village cemetery, filled with the headstones of young men.  The women and the clerics have seen war, and they are desperate to avoid it.  That desperation adds a sting to the comedy, and makes Where Do We Go Now? a pretty good movie.

Movies to See this Week

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Polisse

This weekend, I recommend one of the year’s best – Polisse, the story of the police child protection unit in Paris.

Bernie, a very funny dark comedy by Richard Linklater, shows off Jack Black’s talents in a whole new light.  The story of aged Brits seeking a low-budget retirement in India, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is much more than a fish-out-of-water comedy. Another entertaining movie is the Norwegian dark comedy Headhunters, with Aksel Hennie as a smug corporate headhunter/art thief who panics when a high tech commando hunts him down.  The Five-Year Engagement is an appealing romantic comedy.

You can still find one of the year’s best movies, Monsieur Lazhar, the story of French-Canadian fifth graders recovering from a traumatic experience with their replacement teacher, an Algerian immigrant.

On Monday night, HBO will begin broadcasting Hemingway and Gellhorn, starring Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman.

I haven’t yet seen Hysteria, which opens this week. You can read descriptions and view trailers of upcoming films at Movies I’m Looking Forward To.

My DVD pick this week is the Chinese action comedy Let the Bullets Fly, the all-time #2 most popular movie in China (behind Avatar).

Polisse: how protecting children takes a toll

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Polisse is a riveting French police procedural about the child protective services unit in Paris.  Most cop movies are about how the cops solve the crime.  Instead,  Polisse is about the job’s emotional impact on the cops themselves  – when their assignment is rescuing kids from various degrees of abuse.  It’s an uncommonly good film.

Writer-director Maiwenn embedded herself with this police unit for several months.  At the San Francisco International Film Festival screening, she said that, although the film is fictional, everything in the movie happened in real life (except for the love story between Maiwenn’s photographer and Joey Starr’s cop).  Maiwenn also said that, although the real-life cops were rooting for her to do a movie about their most spectacular exploits, she chose to focus on a realistic cross-section of cases to depict the unit’s actual daily experience.

There are about ten cops in the unit, and it’s an excellent ensemble cast.  Joey Starr is the cop who cares too much.  Karin Viard (Paris, Potiche, Time Out) is the seemingly together cop whose family life has been sacrificed.  Marine Fois (seen earlier this year in Four Lovers) is wound way too tight.  Frederic Pierrot (I’ve Loved You So Long, Let It Rain, Sarah’s Key) is the conflict-averse commander trying to keep the lid on his rambunctious unit.

Polisse won the jury prize at Cannes and is on my list of Best Movies of 2012- So Far.

DVD of the Week: Let the Bullets Fly

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Ever seen a movie where the outlaw rides into town and sticks up for the little guys against the local bully of a crime boss?  Well, maybe so, but you probably haven’t seen a movie like Let the Bullets Fly (Rang Zidan Fei), which is set in southeastern China in the Chinese warlord period around 1919.

For one thing, it’s an unusually exuberant film that’s extremely funny for an action western.

For another, it’s a deeply cynical assessment of government corruption.  It quickly becomes apparent that the professional bandit is more honest and reliable than any of the local institutions.  (That subtext is not lost on the Chinese public.)

And the Chinese movie fans have embraced Let the Bullets Fly.  It’s the highest-grossing Chinese language movie ever, and is the all-time #2 most popular movie in China (behind Avatar).

Writer-director Wen Jiang plays the stalwart bandit hero who substitutes himself for the newly arriving appointed Governor (played by You Ge as a hilariously unabashed sleazeball).  Jiang’s bandit comes up against the local baddie (Chow Yun Fat), who doesn’t want to relinquish any of his power or ill-gotten gains.  As the two match wits, a fast, funny and utterly rambunctious ride ensues.

In this case, 1.3 billion Chinese are correct – this is one fun movie.

movies for late May

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It looks like a really strong late May at the movies, with several promising releases for Memorial Day weekend.  I’ve already seen Polisse, a riveting French police procedural about the child protective services unit – it’s one of the best films of the year.

Intouchables is story of a paraplegic rich French guy who hires a black street guy as his caretaker; though not critically praised, it’s the second most popular movie of all time in France.

Moonrise Kingdom is another entry from Director Wes Anderson, who has had some quirky hits (Bottle Rocket, Rushmore) and some quirky misses (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou), but he’s always original.

With Hysteria, director Tanya Wexler brings us a female look at how Victorian medicine addressed female sexuality.  Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as a proto-feminist and High Dancy plays the doc who invented a proto-vibrator.

You can read descriptions and watch the trailers on my Movies I’m Looking Forward To page. Here’s the trailer for Polisse.