movie gourmet

Wrapping up NOIR CITY 2024

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Jean Rochefort in SYMPHONY FOR A MASSACRE

I’ve always enjoyed Noir City, the Film Noir Foundation’s flagship film festival, but I found the 2024 version to be especially rewarding. My attendance is usually driven by the opportunity to see films that are new to me, and those which aren’t available on VOD or even DVD. I particularly value being introduced to international noir, as I pointed out in my Noir City preview

It’s also great to hear the films introduced by film scholars Eddie Muller, Imogen Sarah Smith and Alan K. Rode. The 600-seat Grand Lake Theater, a period movie palace, was packed for each of the double features that I attended.

I experienced six films at this fest – two from France, two from the UK, one from Japan and one from the US – and four were new to me. They were:

  • The Asphalt Jungle (US, 1950): Muller and Smith pointed out that the Production Code had banned filmmakers from depicting the means of committing crimes. So John Huston and the team behind The Asphalt Jungle blasted right through that stop sign in showing the intricate planning and execution of the heist. Those aspects and the assembly of the heist team are familiar elements of every heist film since, but they were completely original in The Asphalt Jungle. This film is especially well-cast (Sam Jaffe, Sterling Hayden, Louis Calhern, Jean Hagen, James Whitmore, John McIntyre and a 23-year-old Marilyn Monroe), but this time, I especially noticed the sparkling performances of supporting players Brad Dexter and Marc Lawrence.
  • Symphony for a Massacre (France 1963): Five crooks plan a big drug score that requires a large amount of capitalization, which will tap most of them out. They collect the fortune, send off the bag man and, then, one of the five steals it all. Each of the crooks becomes a detective trying to recover his money; of course, one of them is only pretending to look for the loot. It looks like the perfect crime, but there’s a slip, a surprise, another slip and…. Symphony for a Massacre is an early career showcase for Jean Rochefort, who plays a particularly amoral character with a reptilian smugness. Co-writer Jose Giovanni, who plays one of the crooks, knew crooked ways from his own eleven years in prison (and was concealing an even darker past). This is a top notch noir, and, because it is available for streaming, I’l be featuring it soon on this blog.
  • Elevator to the Gallows (France, 1958): I’ve written about Elevator to the Gallows and its groundbreaking aspects, but it was such a pleasure to watch it on the big screen with a sellout crowd.
  • Across the Bridge (UK, 1957): The ever-intense Rod Steiger is All In as a German-born British merger-and-acquisition buccaneer who is in NYC to gobble up a couple more companies when he learns that Scotland Yard is examining his books. He knows that, within a week, his three billion pound fraud will be discovered (and that’s in 1957 money!). He goes on the lam, figuring that he can travel incognito on the two-day train trip to Mexico and slip across the border before anyone is looking for him. He has money stashed in Mexico City that will buy him time to find a more permanent, extradition-free new home. But the news breaks while he is on the train, so he switches identities with a fellow passenger. His new phony identity brings a very unwelcome surprise. Steiger’s character is a brusque bully, used to getting his way. Usually in film noir, we’re rooting for the anti-hero to get away with it, and that’s not exactly the case here, but Steiger makes his financier’s predicaments and his attempts to evade them absolutely VIVID. The film’s director, Ken Annakin, observed that Steger was “trying to out-Brando Brando”. The story becomes a faceoff between Steiger’s fugitive and the corrupt Mexican police chief (an excellent Noel Willman). Oh – and there’s Dolores, one of the greatest three dogs (with Monty and Asta) in film noir. This is a first class movie, but a bit of a Lost Film, not available on VOD.
  • Zero Focus (Japan, 1961): This is a dark mystery story with a woman’s focus; in fact, the three most pivotal characters turn out to be women. A man disappears, and his new bride, with some unreliable assistance from his employer and the cops, tries to find out what happened to him. Secrets are revealed, Rashomon-like, at the end , when the mystery is “solved” in differing ways by the police and, then, by two of the women characters; (the screenwriter also wrote Rashomon). The setting is a bleak, wintry coast. I found Zero Focus a little too long and talky at the end, but otherwise an excellent noir,
  • The Strongroom (UK, 1962): The premise in this 74-minute British programmer is that the crooks easily rob a bank, but then realize that they’ll swing for capital murder if the bank employees now locked in the airtight vault succumb. In a race against time, the robbers try to break back into the bank – and it’s much harder the second time. There’s a shockingly abrupt, but satisfying, ending. Most of the audience recognized an actor playing one of the hoods, Darren Nesbitt, who went on to be a character actor in such memorable 1960s fare such as The Blue Max, The Prisoner and Where Eagles Dare.

Bottom line: Noir City revealed two hitherto unknown classics: Symphony for a Massacre and Across the Bridge. I’ll be writing more about each of them.

Rod Steiger in ACROSS THE BRIDGE

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jeffrey Wright in AMERICAN FICTION. Courtesy of MGM.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of The Zone of Interest. The best movies in theaters right now are American Fiction and Poor Things. The best current movies that you can watch at home are Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon and The Holdovers.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

THE HANDMAIDEN

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

  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon, Vudu.
  • The Gift: three people revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Inez & Doug & Kira: the tangle of love, friendship and bipolar disorder. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Run & Jump: a romance, a family drama and a promising first feature. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Victoria: a thrill ride filmed in one shot. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KinoNow.
  • Youth: a glorious cinematic meditation on life. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: a Must See, perched on the knife edge between comedy and tragedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Harold Lloyd in SAFETY LAST!

On February 6, Turner Classic Movies will air Harold Lloyd’s silent comedy classic Safety Last!, and this 101-year-old movie is still a zinger. Lloyd, with Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, was one of the three great filmmakers of silent comedies. Safety Last! begins with a joke on the audience, when we discover we’re not watching the scene we thought we were. Off we go, bouncing through Lloyd’s rube-in-the-big-city misadventures, all the way to the iconic finale, where Lloyd himself (he did most of his own stunts) climbs the exterior of a 10-story building and hangs from the face of a clock (which was actually staged on a shorter warehouse, but still dangerous).

THE ZONE OF INTEREST: next door to the unthinkable

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Photo caption: Sandra Huller in THE ZONE OF INTEREST. Courtesy of A24.

Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest is an exceptionally original and well made, intentionally unsettling and, ultimately, unnecessary film.

We first meet Hedwig (the great Sandra Huller), Rudolph (Christian Friedel) and their five children in 1943 on an idyllic riverside picnic in the woods.  They return to their spacious villa and put the kids to bed (Hedwig firmly and Rudolph gently).  When Hedwig and Rudolph are in bed themselves, they ignore what sounds like shouting and the barking of guard dogs nearby.  

The next morning we see that Rudolph is the commandant of Auschwitz and the family home is LITERALLY next door to the walls.  Hedwig, like any hausfrau, hangs laundered sheets to dry, while her groceries are delivered by death camp slave labor. 

As the family’s domestic life goes on, the soundtrack slowly becomes louder and includes more shots, screams and the drone of industrial extermination.  We see more of the skyline, with smokestacks spewing fire and ash.

Glazer slips in little matter-of-fact horrors like perverse Easter Eggs. Hedwig brags to her gal pals about furs and other luxuries she has stolen from dead Jews. Hedwig seems meaner than Rudolph and coldly utters what must be the most terrifying threat ever made to a maid.

Having married a guy who has risen to be a big boss, Hedwig is living her best life, with servants and plenty of perks, like Italian spa vacations.  She has the very disturbing capacity to shut out the hellish enterprise over her back fence, replete with the sounds, smells and images of workaday genocide. Glazer has made a Holocaust film without any images from inside the death camp; the Holocaust is just kind of leaking over the fence.

The Martin Amis novel that Glazer adapted into the screenplay did not name the commandant and his wife, but Glazer uses the names of the actual historical figures: the real Rudolph and Hedwig Hoss.  When one reads about the real Hoss, you can see the care with which Glazer depicts him, down to his distinctive haircut, the kids’ names and Hedwig’s dream of spacious gardens (She’s the true believer in lebensraum.)

Rudolph is not a hate-spewing frothing maniac, more of a Company Man go-getter.  One can imagine a 1960s version of Rudolph driving to surpass this quarter’s IBM sales goal. Yet, this is the man who admitted to murdering 2.5 million people; the other million, he said, died of disease and starvation.

The Zone of Interest is an extraordinary illustration of the banality of evil. But why do we need it?  Hannah Arendt’s recognition that Hitler’s mad horrors were not carried out by monsters, but by the ordinary and mediocre, has been generally accepted for decades. If Hitler were obsessed with dairy production or ceramic art, thousands of workaday Nazis would have been content to do just that, instead.  The logical conclusion is that the Holocaust doesn’t need a maniac to happen again, just millions of people who obey the maniac. After all, it was ordinary-looking American companies that vied for Trump Administration contracts to put migrant babies in cages, not some survivalist militia.

It’s a familiar truism, and, to my sensibilities, not worth the unpleasantness of sitting watching these unpleasant people and their unthinkable deeds. That being said, this is anything but a slog. The Zone of Interest is captivating throughout (not unlike a vehicular crash).

This is only Glazer’s fourth feature in 24 years: Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013).

The Zone of Interest has been nominated for multiple Oscars, including Best Picture.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jeffrey Wright in AMERICAN FICTION. Courtesy of MGM.

This week on The Movie Gourmet:

I’m actually at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, covering the last weekend of the Noir City festival of film noir in person. Here’s my Noir City preview with recommended movies.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

awny Cypress and Thalia Thiesfield in INEZ & DOUG & KIRA. Photo courtesy of Cinequest.

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

  • Inez & Doug & Kira: the tangle of love, friendship and bipolar disorder. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Gift: three people revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon, Vudu.
  • Run & Jump: a romance, a family drama and a promising first feature. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Victoria: a thrill ride filmed in one shot. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KinoNow.
  • Youth: a glorious cinematic meditation on life. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: a Must See, perched on the knife edge between comedy and tragedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Robert Mitchum and Ken Takakura in THE YAZUKA

On January 31, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1974 neo-noir The Yakuza, starring Robert Mitchum. The world-weary Mitchum was the greatest male star of classic film noir, and 25 years later was still jaded and just as cool. Here, Mitchum plays a former GI who returns to Japan to help rescue the kidnapped daughter of an army buddy (Brian Keith) who still lives in Japan. Mitchum’s character has a unique relationship with a former Yazuka (Ken Takakura), who can help him navigate the Japanese underworld. Of course, the Japanese had been making Yakuza movies for over a decade, but The Yakuza introduced American audiences to the code of behavior of the Yakuza (severed fingers and all) and other aspects of Japanese culture. There’s a big reveal about two of the characters, and the finale is heavy duty. The Yazuka was directed by Sydney Pollack (Out of Africa, Tootsie, Jeremiah Johnson) from a screenplay adapted by Paul Shrader (Taxi Driver) and Robert Towne (Chinatown). James Shigeta, who I discuss in my post about The Crimson Kimono, also appears.

Keiko Kishi and Robert Mitchum in THE YAZUKA

AMERICAN FICTION: this can’t be happening

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Photo caption: Jeffrey Wright in AMERICAN FICTION. Courtesy of MGM.

In the sharply funny American Fiction, Monk (Jeffrey Wright) is an academic and a novelist, the kind who wins literary awards, not the kind who people read on the airplane or on the beach. He is also African-American, named Thelonious Monk Ellison at birth, and his father and both siblings are physicians. His literary agent (John Ortiz) has not found a publisher ready to buy Monk’s latest high-falutin manuscript, an updating of Aeschylus.

Monk’s sensibilities are offended whenever he is pigeon-holed as a Black Writer. But he is enraged by books and movies that portray everyday African-American life as driven by deadbeat dads, crack addicts, and getting shot by the police. Monk, himself financially stressed by circumstance, goes ballistic when a Black writer (Issa Rae) gets a best seller by penning a story crammed with negative tropes.

Monk, in his cups, goes all in, adopting the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh, and cramming every offensive stereotype into a volume initially titled My Pafology (until it gets an even worse new title). Monk demands that his agent submit it to publishers, and they are shocked when publishing houses and movie studios vie over the rights.

The joke here is that, far from ignoring black voices, the New York and Hollywood cultural gate-keepers, not a Trump voter among them, are eager to embrace black artists and black content – as long as the work conforms to the stereotypes with which they are comfortable. American Fiction sends up the white intelligentsia for incentivizing black creatives to perform in a new, but equally disgusting, form of black face. It’s wickedly funny.

While American Fiction is a successful social parody, it includes heartfelt threads of family dynamics and personal self-discovery. (There’s even a wedding.)

Jeffrey Wright is wonderful as a Monk who is pompous and curmudgeonly when we first meet him, but who becomes more complicated as we learn more about his upbringing. Tracee Ellis Ross (Blackish), Sterling K. Brown and Erika Alexander are each remarkably winning as Monk’s siblings and love interest, respectively. Leslie Uggams is downright brilliant as Monk’s mother. The entire cast is excellent, including the actors playing powerful white nitwits, especially Miriam Shor and Adam Brody

American Fiction is the directorial debut of its screenwriter, Cord Jefferson, who won a Primetime Emmy for Watchmen. It is a brilliant screenplay; Jefferson adapted it from the book Erasure by Percival Everett.

American Fiction is nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. Jefferson’s screenplay, Laura Karpman’s score, Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown are also Oscar-nominated. This is one of my Best Movies of 2023.

THE COMPLEX FORMS: what did he bargain for?

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David Allen White in Fabio D’Orta’s THE COMPLEX FORMS. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The visually striking atmospheric The Complex Forms is set in a centuries-old Italian villa, where Christian (David Allen White) and other down-on-their-luck middle-aged men sell their bodies for a period of days to be “possessed”. Possessed how? By who or by what? As the dread builds, Christian resolves to pry the answers from the secretive masters of the villa.

Director Fabio D’Orta unspools the story with remarkably crisp black-and-white cinematography, a brooding soundtrack and impeccable editing. In his astonishingly impressive filmmaking debut, D’Orta wrote, directed, shot and edited The Complex Form.

David Allen White is excellent as Christian, who begins resigned to endure whatever process that he has committed to, but becomes increasingly uneasy as his probing questions are deflected. So are Michael Venni as Christian’s talkative roommate Luh and Cesare Bonomelli as the impassive roommate simply called The Giant.

Like his countrymen Fellini and Leona, D’Orta has a gift for using faces to heighten interest and tell the story. He makes especially effective use of Bonomelli’s Mt. Rushmore-like countenance.

Slamdance is hosting the United States premiere of The Complex Forms. The Complex Forms is the my favorite among the dozen or so films I screened in covering this year’s Slamdance. The Complex Forms won Slamdance’s Honorable Mention for Narrative Feature.

THE ACCIDENT: she’s too nice, until…

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Giulia Mazzarino in THE ACCIDENT. Courtesy of Slamdnce.

In The Accident (L’Incidente), Marcella (Giulia Mazzarino) is a meek, good-hearted young woman who in quick succession, loses her partner, custody of their daughter, her car and her job. Desperate for financial survival , she buys a tow truck, but she is utterly unsuited for the cutthroat Italian towing industry, where no good deed goes unpunished. Marcella is trapped into a downward spiral of an increasingly disadvantageous situations, until she happens on a logical, but outrageously amoral, solution.

Marcella is empathetic and kind, which are qualities we all should aspire to have. But she’s the type of person destined to always be pushed around, exploited and bullied by those more venal and ruthless. The Accident is acid social commentary on how society rewards selfishness, an allegory which could have been titled The Parable of Marcella.

The Accident is the first full-length narrative feature for documentarian Giuseppe Garau, who describes it as an “experimental film” because virtually the entire movie is shot from a camera in the front passenger seat of Marcella’s vehicle. That may be an experiment, but it’s not a gimmick because it drives our attention to Marcella’s incentives and disincentives.

Giulia Mazzarino is very good as Marcella. Anna Coppola is hilarious as Anna, the deliciously shameless owner of the towing company.

Slamdance hosted the North American premiere of The Accident where it won the Narrative Feature Grand Jury Prize.

DEMON MINERAL: environmental justice, indigenous voices

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DEMON MINERAL. Courtesy of Slamdance.

The environmental justice documentary Demon Mineral explores the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo people. In her first feature, director and co-writer Hadley Austin uses indigenous voices to tell the story, including her co-writer, environmental scientist Dr. Tommy Rock. It’s the testimony of Navajo people themselves that traces the history of uranium mining, subsequent health problems and the science connecting the dots. Some of the first-person narratives are heart-breaking.

This real life story takes place in one of the most iconic locations in American cinema – Arizona’s Monument Valley. (The Navajo themselves have complicated feelings about the legacy of John Ford Westerns made in their homeland.) Cinematographer Yoni Goldstein’s black-and-white photography soars, bringing out the majesty of the harsh landscape and imparting a gravitas to the story.

There’s even a cameo by hard right Congressman Paul Gosar, who is so stupid that he doesn’t comprehend just how stupid he is.

Demon Mineral has enjoyed a robust film festival run and won the Audience Award for Documentary Feature at the 2024 Slamdance.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Lily Gladstone, and Leonardo DiCaprio in KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. Courtesy of AppleTV.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – two of my favorite film festivals are opening today:

  • Slamdance: You read that name correctly -vit’s an alternative to Sundance. Whenever I cover a film festival, I’m on the lookout for first films and world premieres – and here’s a festival essentially entirely made up of first films and world premieres. Alumni incude Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) and many other bigtime filmmakers. It’s in Utah AND online. Here’s my Slamdance preview with recommended movies.
  • Noir City: Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller.  This year’s program for each night (or matinee) will present a double bill – one classic film noir from the US or UK, matched with one from Argentina, Mexico, France, Italy, Egypt, Japan or South Korea. It’s in Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater, and I’ll be attending two of the days. Here’s my Noir City preview with recommended movies.

And, coming up on TV, besides Babette’s Feast (described below in today’s post), I’m highlighting Jane Fonda’s first Oscar-winning performance in the now 53-year-old thriller Klute.

One of the year’s best films, Killers of the Flower Moon, is now available for free with an AppleTV subscription (or for $19.99 everywhere else).

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT
Rebecca Hall, Jason Bateman and Joel Edgerton in THE GIFT. Courtesy of STX Entertainment.

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

  • The Gift: three people revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Inez & Doug & Kira: the tangle of love, friendship and bipolar disorder. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon, Vudu.
  • Run & Jump: a romance, a family drama and a promising first feature. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Victoria: a thrill ride filmed in one shot. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KinoNow.
  • Youth: a glorious cinematic meditation on life. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Me and Earl and the Dying Girl: a Must See, perched on the knife edge between comedy and tragedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

BABETTE’S FEAST

On January 21, Turner Classic Movies will present Babette’s Feast (1987), one of my Best Foodie Movies. Two aged 19th century Danish spinster sisters have taken in a French refugee as their housekeeper. The sisters carry on their father’s severe religious sect, which rejects earthly pleasures. After fourteen years, the housekeeper wins the lottery and, in gratitude, spends all her winnings on the ingredients for a banquet that she prepares for the sisters and their friends. As the dinner builds, the colors of the film become warmer and brighter, reflecting the sheer carnality of the repast. The smugly ascetic and humorless guests become less and less able to resist pleasure of the epicurean delights. The feast’s visual highlights are Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) and Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée (rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). This was the first Danish film to win Best Foreign Language Oscar.

KLUTE: immune to her charms – until he isn’t

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Jane Fonda in KLUTE.

On January 22, Turner Classic Movies is airing Klute (1971), highlighted by Jane Fonda’s first Oscar-winning performance. An out-of-town detective comes to Manhattan on a missing person’s case and becomes embroiled in tracking down a sexually sadistic murderer before he can kill a call girl. What elevates this ostensible mystery to a gripping psychodrama are the main characters and their chemistry.

Bree Daniels (Fonda) is both a masterful call girl and a failed actress/model. Fonda’s Bree is confident, sexy, vulnerable, manipulative and the terrified target of a maniac. She’s also a fashion plate – stylishly braless in long knit dresses and sporting the shag haircut that sparked its own fad. This is Fonda at her iconic peak – she earned six Best Actress nominations in a twelve year period.

Bree Daniels’ foil is the stolid John Klute (Donald Sutherland), who is so clear-eyed and disciplined that he is immune to Bree’s charms – until he isn’t. Sutherland’s career is still peaking today, but he sandwiched Klute between Kelly’s Heroes, M*A*S*H*, National Lampoon’s Animal House and Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Director Alan J. Pakula takes us to the grimy, seedy NYC of the period, and keeps the tension building. The scenes with Bree’s junkie acquaintances are heartbreaking. Pakula received Oscar nominations for producing To Kill a Mockingbird, directing All the President’s Men and writing Sophie’s Choice. For more on Alan Pakula, you can stream the fine documentary Alan Pakula: Going for Truth, which features Jane Fonda’s memories of Pakula.

Veteran television writer Andy Lewis, with the far less prolific Dave Lewis (presumably his older brother), were nominated for the original screenplay Oscar. 

The supporting cast is good, too, Ray Scheider is superb as a smug pimp. In his first movie, Charles Cioffi’s very contained performance makes for a chilling villain; he followed Klute with a key role in Shaft and then essentially left movies for a long career in television (including playing another villain on a TV soap).

Klute has more than its share of bit players who were about to become famous:

  • Veronica Hamel (a decade before Hill Street Blues) as a model at a cattle call audition;
  • Richard Jordan (four years before Logan’s Run) as a guy kissing Bree at a disco;
  • Harry Reems (a year before Deep Throat) as another disco patron;
  • Jean Stapleton (just months before All in the Family) as the secretary at a garment factory.

I recently rewatched Klute, and it still works today. If you haven’t seen it, or seen it recently, set your DVR.