movie gourmet

THE LITTLE THINGS: worth it for Denzel

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Photo caption: Denzel Washington in THE LITTLE THINGS. Courtesy of Warner Bro. Pictures.

I finally caught up with caught up with the neo-noir crime procedural The Little Things on Netflix, and it’s much better than I expected. I had skipped it until now because, upon its 2021 release, it disappointed critics who were eagerly awaiting this neo-noir with Oscar-winners Denzel Washington, Rami Malek and Jared Leto. Its Metacritic rating is a middling 54. True, it’s no David Fincher or Martin Scorsese movie (or even a John Dahl movie) but, compared to the other noirish crime procedurals that you could be streaming (and I watch scores of them), it’s pretty good.

Denzel plays Joe Deacon, who is a deputy sheriff in Kern County, not an exalted position in law enforcement. We learn that Deacon used to be a crack detective in Los Angeles County, but something happened that caused him to leave that department. A Kern County departmental errand takes him back to his old stomping grounds in LA, where some old-timers greet him warmly and some warily. There’s a murder that bears resemblance to an unsolved serial killer case that still obsesses Deacon and the young up-and-coming detective Jimmy (Rami Malek) invites him to help.

The two hash through clues, augmented by Deacon’s institutional memory and his hunches. After some wrong turns, the evidence hints at a primary suspect, Albert Sparma (Jared Leto). Yes, it’s a whodunit, but the real story is about how the earlier unsolved case broke Deacon emotionally, and whether this unsolved case will do the same to Jimmy. Late in the film, there is a reveal of the moment that devastated Deacon. I loved the ending, which is about whether Deacon can find a way to save Jimmy.

Denzel Washington elevates any material and that’s the case here. Nobody does a profoundly sad and very masculine man as well as Denzel. There’s a scene where he drops by and greets his ex-wife which is wrenching, all because of the heartbreak in his eyes. Plenty of actors can portray an emotionally tortured character in a showy performance (think Nic Cage), but Denzel, in an utterly contained performance, can make us understand how a man who is doing everything to conceal his pain, is really shattered to the core.

Malek, whom I have never warmed to, is as reptilian as usual, contrasting oddly with his character’s suburban poolside family.

Jared Leto in THE LITTLE THINGS. Courtesy of Warner Bro. Pictures.

Leto does creepy magnificently, and his Albert Sparma has an especially twisted menace about him.

The Little Things was written and directed by John Lee Hancock, who directs better movies that others write (The Rookie, Saving Mr. Banks, The Founder) than the ones he writes (The Alamo, The Blind Side, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). The Little Things is a bit too long at 2:08.

Still, Denzel’s performance and the ending make The Little Things a worthwhile watch for fans of neo-noir and of crime procedurals. The Little Things is included with Netflix and Max subscriptions and rentable from Amazon, AppleTV, VUDU and YouTube.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Justice Smith and Bridgette Lundy-Payne in I SAW THE TV GLOW. Courtesy of A24.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the Norman Mailer biodoc How to Come Alive.

Note: The wonderful family drama Ghostlight can now be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango (included). The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichol’s engrossing exploration of the culture of a 1960s Midwestern motorcycle gang and its (unfortunate) evolution, can also be streamed. In fact, all SEVEN of my Best Movies of 2024 – So Far can now be watched at home.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Thelma: too proud to be taken. In theaters.
  • Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
  • How to Come Alive: addicted to his own turmoil. In theaters.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango (included).
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Relative: a loving, but insistent investigation. Amazon (included with prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube. 
  • Wicked Little Letters: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Netflix.
  • How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
  • Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.

WATCH AT HOME

BLIND SPOT: HITLER’S SECRETARY

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

HOW TO COME ALIVE WITH NORMAN MAILER: addicted to his own turmoil

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Photo caption: Norman Mailer in HOW TO COME ALIVE. Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.

The superbly crafted biodoc How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer reveals a generational literary talent who managed to be immensely successful, all while addicted to turmoil of his own making.

Of course, How to Come Alive reminds us Mailer’s prodigious talent. This was a writer who published his first best seller, the definitive WW II novel, at age 25. He won a Pulitizer Prize for a novel he published at age 45 and another Pulitzer for an even more groundbreaking work at age 56. Yet that rare gift of being recognized in his own time as America’s greatest novelist wasn’t enough for Mailer.

Mailer both wondered at and crassly exploited his own celebrity. He picked public fights of all kinds whenever he could – the feuds of a public intellectual and the fisticuffs of a barroom bully. He drank immense quantites of alcohol and used uppers and downers simultaneously. His interior demons were so intense that, drunk and raging at a humiliation, he stabbed his wife. No wonder the film is taglined a cautionary tale.

Mailer went through six wives and produced nine children. This brilliantly sourced doc draws from interviews with Mailer’s sister and from at least six of his kids, who tell us about Mailer and about their mothers. And we hear lots about Mailer from Mailer himself, who seemingly never passed a microphone or a camera without discussing himself, his ideas and his behavior. “I am a narcissist…I love shocking people.”

While chronicling Mailer’s life more or less in chronological sequence, director Jeff Zimbalist and co-writer Victoria Marquette ingeniously structured How to Come Alive around Mailer’s own guiding principles. These topical chapters effectively introduce us to the paradoxical aspects of Mailer’s persona. Zimbalist and his editor Alannah Byrnes deliver one of the best edited films of any genre this year; they present their talking heads without lingering on any of them and keep us mesmerized with a firehose barrage of images and clips.

Mailer’s boorish and conceited behavior would be tiresome if not rooted in so many diverse aspects of his character. Sometimes he was genuine, throwing down on one of his intellectual principles. Sometimes he was posing to get attention. And sometimes, he was just out of control (as in wife-stabbing).

Certainly, his running for Mayor of New York, his organizing an anti-war march on the Pentagon, his running for Mayor again and his producing, directing and starring in a film about his own fantsy alter ego, were all vanity projects. If he were serious about his purported outcomes, he wouldn’t have put himself at the forefront.

Why is someone a serial provocateur and constantly oppositional? Is there pleasure in goading a reaction from others? Is it about defying conventions, discomfiting the comfortable? Is it about positioning himself as superior to others?

Mailer was one helluva piece of work, which How to Come Alive makes clear:

  • Mailer’s ambition in declaring, “I want to write the great novel of WW II” BEFORE he saw any combat, let alone wrote about it. Who does that?
  • The notorious “feminist debate” in which Mailer squared off against the leading feminist thinkers and leaders of his time. I didn’t expect the mutual respect between Mailer and the feminists. It’s pretty funny, and there’s one howling moment at Mailer’s expense.
  • And then there’s the most stunning sequence in How to Come Alive – while filming Mailer’s self-indulgent art film Maidstone, a demented Rip Torn, in the ultimate method acting, decides that the story demands that he assassinate Mailer’s character; Torn then tries to kill Mailer (really kill him) with a hammer as the camera rolls, all in front of Mailer’s real life family. Torn’s visage is maniacal, and some serious drugs had to be involved here. The video is disturbing, as are the recollections of Mailer’s traumatized children.

Mailer was a person who, above all, rejected safety; that turned his life into a high wire act without a net, and, in How to Come Alive, Jeff Zimbalist unspools it into a thoughtful, entertaining and engrossing 100 minutes.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Norman Mailer in HOW TO COME ALIVE. Courtesy of Zeitgeist Films.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I haven’t yet written on the new Norman Mailer biodoc How to Come Alive, but I want you to know that it’s very good. I did post on Wim Wender’s 1977 neo-noir The American Friend, an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel Ripley’s Game; if you missed it on TCM, you can still stream it from Criterion, Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango.

BTW Wicked Little Letters is now on Netflix.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Thelma: too proud to be taken. In theaters.
  • Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
  • How to Come Alive: addicted to his own turmoil. In theaters.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Relative: a loving, but insistent investigation. Amazon (included with prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube. 
  • Wicked Little Letters: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Netflix.
  • How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
  • Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.

WATCH AT HOME

Paul Dano and Chloe Kazan in RUBY SPARKS

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

coming up on TV – Dennis Hopper and Robby Müller make things weird in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

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Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

Dennis Hopper, in his Wild Man phase, brings electricity to the 1977 neo-noir The American Friend,  an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel Ripley’s Game.   Highsmith, of course, wrote the source material for Strangers on a Train along with a series of novels centered on the charming but amoral sociopath Tom Ripley; her gimlet-eyed view of human nature, was perfectly suited for noir. You can catch The American Friend on Turner Classic Movies on July 29.

German director Wim Wenders had yet to direct his art house Wings of Desire his American debut Hammett or his masterpiece Paris, Texas.  He had directed seven European features when he traveled to ask Highsmith in person for the filming rights to a Ripley story.

In The American Friend, Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) is a craftsman who makes frames for paintings and dabbles in the shady world of art fraud, making antique-appearing frames for art forgeries.   Here, Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) entangles him in something far more consequential – a murder-for-hire.

As befits a neo-noir, Zimmermann finds himself amid a pack of underworld figures, all set to double-cross each other with lethal finality.  In very sly casting by Wenders, all the criminals are played by movie directors: Sam Fuller, Nick Ray, Peter Lilienthal, Daniel Schmid, Gérard Blain, Rudolf Schündler, Jean Eustache.  Nick Ray is especially dissolute-looking with his rakish eye-patch. Sam Fuller, in his mid-60s, insisted on performing his own stunt, with a camera attached to his body on a dramatic fall.

Bruno Ganz in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

As the murder scheme unfolds, there is a tense and thrilling set piece on a train, worthy of The Narrow Margin.  Other set pieces include a white-knuckle break-in and the ambush of an ambulance.

Here’s one singular sequence.  After a meeting with Ray, Hopper walks away from the camera along an elevated highway.  Then Hopper is shown, still on the highway, in long shot from what turns out to be Fuller’s apartment, where Fuller interrupts the filming of a skin flick to deny having a guy shot on the Paris Metro.  Then we see Hopper on an airplane, and then Ganz on a train.  Finally, Ganz returns to a seedy neighborhood by the docks.  It’s excellent story-telling –  at once economical and showy and ultra-noirish .

Dennis Hopper and Nick Ray in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

Cinematographer Robby Müller pioneered use of fluorescent lighting in The American Friend. The nighttime interiors have a queasy eeriness that match the story perfectly. Müller, who died in 2018, was endlessly groundbreaking. He made the vast spaces of the Texas Big Bend country iconic in Paris, Texas. He was also responsible for the one-way mirror effect in Paris, Texas’ pivotal peepshow scene. For better or worse, he jerked the handheld camera in Breaking the Waves, spawning a legion of lesser copycats. Müller gave a unique look to indie movies from Repo Man to Ghost Dog; The Way of the Samurai.

Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

The American Friend was shot in 1977, in the midst of Dennis Hopper’s tumultuous drug abuse phase. He had just directed his notorious Lost Film The Last Movie and arrived in Europe from the Philippines set of Apocalypse Now!, where he was famously drug-addled and out of control. After getting Hopper’s substance abuse distilled down to only one or two drugs of choice, Wenders gave Hopper carte blanche to take chances in his performance, and The American Friend has the only movie Tom Ridley in a cowboy hat. It paid off in a brilliant scene in which Hopper lies on a pool table, snapping selfies with a Polaroid camera; it’s a brilliant imagining of a sociopath in solitary, with no one to manipulate. John Malkovich, Matt Damon and even Alain Delon have played some version of Tom Ripley. Hopper’s is as menacing as any Ripley, and – by a long shot – the most tormented. Wenders is interviewed on Hopper at the Criterion Collection.

The American Friend is not a great movie. Zimmermann is motivated by a grave health issue, but too much screen time is wasted on that element, causing the movie to drag in spots. Movie auctions come with built-in excitement, but The American Friend’s art auction is pretty ordinary. And, other than Fuller, Ray and Blain, the directors are not that good as actors.

Still, the unpredictability in the high-wire Dennis Hopper performance, the look of the film and the action set pieces warrant a look.

The American Friend will be aired by TCM on July 29th and can be streamed from Criterion, Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango.

Dennis Hopper in THE AMERICAN FRIEND

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: June Squibb and Fred Hechinger in THELMA. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures | photo by David Bolen.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – reviews of two overlooked films now available to watch at home: the breathtakingly original psychological drama Discreet and the lyrical biodoc Without Getting Killed or Caught.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Thelma: too proud to be taken. In theaters.
  • Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Relative: a loving, but insistent investigation. Amazon (included with prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube. 
  • Wicked Little Letters: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Netflix.
  • How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
  • Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.

WATCH AT HOME

Aubrey Plaza in BLACK BEAR

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

Noir City 18: South Korea: The Housemaid & Black HairNOIR CITY: INTERNATIONAL II #NoirCity18 www.NoirCity.com Sunday, January 26, 2020 SOUTH KOREA 2:00, 7:00 PM THE HOUSEMAID (HANYO) A middle-class Korean family spirals into a delirious nightmare...
THE HOUSEMAID

On July 27, Turner Classic Movies airs a WOWZER – the 1960 Korean horror/noir The Housemaid. A couple hires a maid, who turns out to be the domestic from hell. Seduction, deception, threats follow…and who will poison whom? I screened this film for a recent Noir City, and although I can’t say that it’s one of my favorites, it does keeping stunning the audience with ever darker twists. Often considered one of the top Korean films of all time. TCM will present The Housemaid on Noir Alley with intro and outro by Eddie Muller.

WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT: her soul and her heart

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Photo caption: Guy Clark holds his favorite photo of Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT. Courtesy of Indie Rights.

The lyrical documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught is centered on the life of seminal singer-songwriter Guy Clark, a poetic giant of Americana and folk music. That would be enough grist for a fine doc, but Without Getting Killed or Caught also focuses on Clark’s wife, Susanna Clark, a talented painter (album covers for Willie Nelson and Emmylou Harris) and songwriter herself (#1 hit I’ll Be Your San Antone Rose). What’s more, Guy’s best friend, the troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, and Susanna revered each other. Van Zandt periodically lived with the Clarks – that’s a lot of creativity in that house – and a lots of strong feelings.

Susanna Clark said it thus, “one is my soul and the other is my heart.”

The three held a salon in their Nashville home, and mentored the likes of Rodney Crowell and Steve Earle. You can the flavor of the salon in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highways (AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube). It features Townes Van Zandt’s rendition of his Waitin’ Round to Die. (Susanna was also a muse for Rodney Crowell, who, after her death, wrote the angry song Life Without Susanna.)

Documentarians Tamara Saviano and Paul Whitfield, have unearthed a great story, primarily sourced by Susanna’s diaries; Sissy Spacek voices Susanna’s words. These were artsy folks so there are plenty of exquisite photos of the subjects, too. It all adds up to a beautiful film, spinning the story of these storytellers.

Guy and Susanna Clark in WITHOUT GETTING KILLED OR CAUGHT. Courtesy of Indie Rights.

I loved this movie, but I’m having trouble projecting its appeal to a general audience, because I am so emotionally engaged with the subject material. I’m guessing that the unusual web of relationships and the exploration of the creative process is universal enough for any audience, even if you’re not a fanboy like me.

The title comes from Guy’s song LA Freeway, a hit for Jerry Jeff Walker:

I can just get off of this L.A. freeway

Without gettin’ killed or caught

There is plenty for us Guy Clarkophiles:

  • the back story for Desperados Waiting for a Train;
  • the identity of LA Freeway’s Skinny Dennis;
  • Guy’s final return from touring, with the declaration “let’s recap”.

There’s also the story of Guy’s ashes; the final resolution is not explicit in the movie but you can figure it out; here’s the story.

Without Getting Killed or Caught had a very limited theatrical run in 2021, but it’s now available to stream from Amazon and YouTube.

DISCREET: untethered to home or sanity

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Jonny Mars in DISCREET photo courtesy of SFFILM
Photo caption: Jonny Mars in DISCREET. Courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment.

The psychological drama Discreet is breathtakingly original. Within a revenge tale, writer-director Travis Mathews has braided threads of social criticism and political comment.  Most of all, Discreet is a compelling portrait of one damaged, very unwell guy and a thoughtful exploration of the alienating aspects of the current American zeitgeist.

Discreet is centered on Alex (Jonny Mars), who has drifted back through his Texas hometown to find that his childhood sexual abuser has re-surfaced.   Alex is untethered either to home or sanity.   Away from home for a long time, Alex has been roaming the country, oddly stopping to shoot videos of freeway traffic.   The most hateful alt-right talk radio plays incessantly from the radio of his van.  And, in a creepy juxtaposition, he’s obsessed with a New Agey YouTube publisher (the comic Atsuko Okatsuka).

Alex sets out to find and confront his abuser (Bob Swaffer), and Discreet takes us on a moody and intense journey, filled with unexpected – and even flabbergasting – moments.  Only the ultimate vengeance seems inevitable – and even that act is handled with surprising subtlety.  The catharsis is intentionally understated, and there is none of the customary splatter.

Swaffer’s physicality, along with his character’s condition, makes him a monster unlike anything I’ve seen in a movie before – a unique blend of the bone-chilling and the vulnerable.

Discreet is only 80 minutes long; keeping it short was a great choice by Mathews, allowing the film to succeed with a deliberate, but never plodding, pace.  We’re continually wondering what Alex is going to do next, and the editing by Mathews and Don Swaynos keeps the audience on alert.  Cinematographer Drew Xanthopoulos makes effective use of the static long shot and gives Discreet a singular look.  The idiosyncratic sound design, with its droning and its use of ambient noises, sets the mood.  It’s an effective package – and an impressive calling card for Travis Mathews.

Bob Swaffar (left) and Jonny Mars in DISCREET photo courtesy of m-appeal World Sales
Bob Swaffar (left) and Jonny Mars in DISCREET. Courtesy of Uncork’d Entertainment.

While he’s in town, Alex is on the lookout for secret – and sometimes very kinky – sex with other men.  It’s a comment on the repression in Flyover American culture that drives gay sexual expression underground. And furtiveness can make anything seem seamy.  Indeed, the movie’s title comes from the Craiglist euphemism for anonymous sexual hookups.

One critic referred to Discreet as “Travis Mathews’ latest queer experiment”.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s far too narrow a label.   True, Discreet definitely comes from the point of view of a gay filmmaker, and it addresses the repression of gay sexual expression. But this is a film, with its broader focus on alienation, that is important for and accessible to every adult audience.

Mathews previously collaborated with James Franco on Interior. Leather Bar., which is nothing at all like Discreet.   Interior. Leather Bar. is talky and centered on artistic process with a hint of sensationalism.  Discreet more resembles an experimental film such as Upstream Color.  Come to think of it, Discreet has more of the feel of a budget indie (and less languorous) version of Antonioni‘s The Passenger.

Jonny Mars is very effective as Alex, a character who is usually stone-faced, but whose intensity sometimes takes him completely off the rails.  In her one speaking scene as Alex’s mom, Joy Cunningham’s stuttering affect gives us a glimpse into both her past parental unreliability and her current clinging to sobriety by her fingernails.

But the heart of Discreet is Alex and his unpredictable path.  To what degree has Alex’s madness been formed by the childhood abuse?  To what extent has he been deranged by absorbing random and unhealthy bits of American popular culture?  Stylistically, Discreet is a near-masterpiece, and audiences that embrace the discomfort of the story will be rewarded with a satisfying, ever-surprising experience.

I screened Discreet and interviewed director Travis Mathews for the 2017 SFFILM. Discreet can be streamed on Amazon (included with Prime,) AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Dakota Johnson in DADDIO. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m covering the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, which opened Thursday. Here’s my SJFJFF preview and my festival recommendations. Also, a new review of the evocative and highly evocative psychodrama I Saw the TV Glow.

REMEMBRANCE

Shelley Duvall in THE SHINING

Shelley Duvall will be best remembered for playing the wife of Jack Nicholson’s decompensating writer in The Shining. It’s hard to discuss American cinema of the 1970s without mentioning Duvall because six of her first seven movies were Robert Altman films (Brewster McCloud, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Thieves Like Us, Nashville, Buffalo Bill etc., and 3 Women; the seventh was Annie Hall, in a hilarious turn as an Alvy Singer sex partner. She also played the waitress who prods Steve Martin’s Cyrano character into wooing Daryl Hannah’s Roxanne in Roxanne.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Ghostlight: a family saves itself, in iambic pentameter. In theaters.
  • The Bikeriders: they ride, drink and fight, and yet we care. In theaters.
  • Daddio: intimacy between strangers. In theaters.
  • Perfect Days: intentional contentment. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, Hulu (included).
  • Sorry/Not Sorry: revelatory, and posing the smartest questions. In theaters.
  • Confessions of a Good Samaritan: of course, wouldn’t you?…WHAT? In theaters, primarily arthouses.
  • Hit Man: who knew self-invention could be so fun? Netflix.
  • Thelma: too proud to be taken. In theaters.
  • I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Back in some theaters and Amazon, AppleTV; Fandango.
  • Mother Couch: obstreperous mom, surreal situation. In theaters, primarily arthouses.
  • Challengers: three people and their desire. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • La Chimera: six genres for the price of one. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
  • The Grab: important, engrossing and sobering. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Run Lola Run: still sprinting after 25 years. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.
  • Relative: a loving, but insistent investigation. Amazon (included with prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube. 
  • Wicked Little Letters: a sparkling Jessie Buckley and an interesting take on repression. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • How to Have Sex: searing and authentic. MUBI.
  • Civil War: a most cautionary tale. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango, but still expensive.
  • The Dead Don’t Hurt: such a bad movie. In theaters.
  • Kinds of Kindness: disgustingly indulgent. In theaters, primarily arthouses.

WATCH AT HOME

Paul Giamatti in JOHN ADAMS

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

SAY AMEN, SOMEBODY

Need 100 minutes of emotional uplift? On July 20, Turner Classic Movies brings us the gospel music documentary Say Amen, Somebody. This 1982 art house hit is almost never on television, and has been hard to find, although you can now stream in on Criterion, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango. The film traces the genre from gospel pioneers Willie Mae Ford Smith and Thomas A. Dorsey to contemporary artists. The music is stirring and infectious.

MEDITERRANEAN FEVER: the depressed writer and the crook

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Amer Hlehel and Ashraf Farah in Maha Haj’s MEDITERRANEAN FEVER. Courtesy of SFJFF.

In Mediterranean Fever, a depressive writer becomes friends with his shady neighbor and the two embark on a dark journey.

Waleed (Amer Hlehel) is an Arab Israeli living in Haifa, and he’s left his job as a bank clerk to write a novel. His wife’s job as a nurse supports them, and Waleed handles the laundry and schleps the kids to school. The novel is not going well because Waleed suffers from depression; he is so paralyzed with hopelessness that he wants to give up on the therapist that his wife sends him to.

Waleed initially disdains his new, less-educated neighbor Jalal (Ashraf Farah), who day drinks, smokes and, when Waleed is staring at his blank screen, listens to obnoxiously loud music. Jalal is a whiz at anything construction-related and is generous with Waleed’s family. But Waleed is finally drawn to Jalal’s sketchiness: Jalal owes well more than he can pay to some menacing gangsters, is comfortable with his own brutal means of informal debt collection, has a girlfriend on the side and knows his way around the underworld.

Waleed’s wallowing in despair is only brightened when he recognizes that Jalal is a crook (but for an especially morbid reason we learn later). And he sparkles when he finally figures out the cause of his young son’s gastrointestinal distress (the movie’s title is a play on this).

In her second feature, Israeli Arab writer-director Maha Haj has created two memorable guys, and the story of Mediterranean Fever is entirely character-driven. Much of the humor stems from the odd couple of Waleed and Jalal.

I don’t want to describe the tone of Mediterranean Fever, as I do many films, as “darkly funny” because its tone is singular. Haj has written a story about that unfunniest of topics, depression, and keeps us watching with subtle, observational humor.

After a slow burn, Mediterranean Fever pays off with a shocking twist, followed by an epilogue with a character’s hilarious reaction to learning a new neighbor’s occupation. And, yes, that scene is darkly hilarious.

Most of the Arab films we see from this part of the world are about people living in Palestine and occupied territories. In Mediterranean Fever, we glimpse into the day-to-day life of Israeli Arabs – and middle-class Israeli Arabs at that. We also see a Haifa where middle- and working-class families occupy apartments right across the road from a glorious beach; (In the US, these would all be converted into short-term vacation rentals.)

Mediterranean Fever won the Un Certain Regard screenplay prize at Cannes. I screened Mediterranean Fever for the SLO Film Fest; it’s playing at the 2024 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival – July 19 at the Vogue and July 31 at the Piedmont.