movie gourmet

Movies to See Right Now

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This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’ve been covering the San Francico International Film Festival, now underway: First look at the 2023 SFFILM and Under the radar at the 2023 SFFILM. But I still have new reviews of the enjoyable Sally Hawkins vehicle The Lost King and the Kazakh neo-noir (yes, a neo-noir from Kazakhstan) A Dark, Dark Man. The best movie in theaters remains Return to Seoul.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Brit Marling in THE EAST. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

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

  • The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
  • Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
  • Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Humphrey Bogart and Martha Vickers in THE BIG SLEEP

On April 17, Turner Classic Movies presents Humphrey Bogart as Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled LA detective Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Bogart’s performance is iconic, and The Big Sleep is famous for its impenetrably tangled plot. It’s also one of the most overtly sexual noirs, and Lauren Bacall at her sultriest is only the beginning. The achingly beautiful Martha Vickers plays a druggie who throws herself at anything in pants. And Dorothy Malone invites Bogie to share a back-of-the-bookstore quickie.

Speaking of the plot, I recently heard Eddie Muller say that, after filming, the studio bosses had more scenes written for Bogart and Bacall (and we thank them for that); to make room for those new scenes, some exposition was cut, leaving at least one loose end. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed watching The Big Sleep many times over the decades before I learned about the supposed hanging plot thread. You probably won’t notice it, either.

Dorothy Malone and Humphrey Bogart in THE BIG SLEEP

A DARK, DARK MAN: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan

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Photo caption: Daniyar Alshivnov in A DARK, DARK MAN. Courtesy of MHz.

In the Kazakh neo-noir A Dark, Dark Man, a provincial detective is stationed in a place that is remote, even by the standards of Kazakhstan. The authorities are unaccountable and utterly corrupt, and human life isn’t so much cheap as it is valueless. A boy has been murdered and wheels having no relation to justice begin to grind.

The cop is Bekzat (Daniyar Alshivnov), a smart guy whose moral compass drives him to solve the crime, not to cover it up. But he’s also practical, and he understands that he doesn’t have the power to undermine his bosses, who have decided that Pukuar, a mentally disabled local, is the suspect.

The sordid order of things is rocked by the arrival of a nosy journalist Ariana (Dinara Baktybaeva), who uncomfortably points out that 11 suspects have died in police custody in the past year, and that this murder shares convincing similarities with a series of local murders over the past decade. It appears that someone has been getting away with serial murder while the cops “round up the usual suspects”.

In a compelling performance, Alshivnov has us hanging on Bekhat’s moral decision. Which choice will he make, and at what risk? How can he survive?

Yes, this is my first Kazakh film. Director and co-writer Adilkhan Yerzhanov uses absurdism to depict the incompetence of the rural police. The violence in A Dark, Dark Man is anything but stylized – Yerzhanov makes it up-close-and-personal and messy.

Teoman Khos is superb as the innocent Pukuar, both half-witted and pranksterish, and understanding more of what is going on than it seems.

Make sure you watch the interview with star Daniyar Alshivnov (embedded below the trailer). You will be surprised.

A Dark, Dark Man is streaming on MHz. MHz has split it into 3 episodes, but it’s a coherent 2 hour, ten minute movie that is easy to binge.

Under the radar at SFFILM

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Photo caption: Francisco Reyes in Lorena Padilla’s MARTINEZ. Courtesy of SFFILM.

This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) opens tomorrow. SFFILM presents a wide-ranging slate of films from 37 countries. Here are four under the radar recommendations. Each has a female director. Each of the three narratives is the first feature film by its director, two from Mexico and one from Turkey.

  • Martinez: In this sly portrait of a man isolated by his own routine, the titular character (Francisco Reyes of A Fantastic Woman) cannot suffer fools. That is a curse because no one can meet his standards, and he loathes every human interaction. His employer decides that forty years of Martinez is enough and decides to push him out the door. Then, a neighbor he has met only once dies, and Martinez unleashes some unexpected curiosity. The two co-workers who are his biggest irritants become more sympathetic as we – and Martinez – can see their vulnerabilities. Eventually, a life is changed. First-time director Lorena Padilla also co-wrote the docu-fable 499, a highly original contemplation of Mexico’s Original Sin of colonialism.
Merve Dizdar in Selcen Ergun’s SNOW AND THE BEAR. Courtesy of SFFILM.
  • Snow and the Bear: Asli (Merve Dizdar) is a young nurse assigned to a tiny village in the most remote mountains of northeast Turkey. She’s both compassionate and fearless, and a thoroughly modern woman plopped into a decidedly backward community. It’s brutally cold, isolated after every snowfall, and the menfolk spend the nights at noisy bonfires to ward off a human-hunting bear that they imagine lurks in the forest. The village’s blustery and selfish butcher reacts with hostility when Asli reinforces his pregnant wife’s need for bedrest. Asli finds the kindnesses proffered by the village’s animal-loving simpleton too creepy. The butcher disappears, setting up a slow-burn mystery. In her first feature, director Selcen Ergun brings us exteriors that will chill a California audience and moody, barely lit interiors – all visually captivating.
Daniela Marín Navarro in Valentina Maurel’s I HAVE ELECTRIC DREAMS. Courtesy of SFFILM.
  • I Have Electric Dreams: In this coming-of-age narrative brimming with authenticity, the spirited 16-year-old Eva (Daniela Marín Navarro) and her longsuffering mom are on each other’s very last nerve. Eva decides to go live with her father, who is decidedly not Parent of the Year material. For the first time, she gets an up-close-and-personal look at his inner demons, and an increasingly harsh immersion in human behavior. Daniela Marín Navarro’s performance in her first screen credit is incendiary, and she’s been piling up festival awards for best actress.
Penny Lane in her CONFESSIONS OF A GOOD SAMARITAN. Courtesy of SFFILM.
  • Confessions of a Good Samaritan: Documentarian Penny Lane is known for her choice of offbeat subjects (Nuts!, Hail Satan?) and her unexpected takes on the familiar (Our Nixon, Listening to Kenny G). Here, she turns her camera upon herself as she decides to donate one of her kidneys to a person that she doesn’t know and will never meet. An in-depth exploration of both kidney transplants and altruism ensues – all from the very personal perspective of a person about to go under the knife herself. Lane is a delightful subject, and she courageously shares her most intimate feelings, making Confessions of a Good Samaritan ever more engrossing.

All my SFFILM coverage, including eventual full reviews, will be linked on my SFFILM 2023 page.

THE LOST KING: not all cranks are cranky

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Photo caption: Sally Hawkins in THE LOST KING. Courtesy of IFC Films.

In the The Lost King, an otherwise unfulfilled woman becomes a history hobbyist and literally digs up a British monarch. That monarch is the Shakespearean villain Richard III. The woman in question is Philippa (Sally Hawkins), who joins a cadre of misfits obsessed with rehabilitating Richard III’s image, which has suffered from the view that he murdered his own 12- and 10-year old nephews to cement his claim on the throne.

The story is based on fact. The real Phillipa didn’t succeed in turning Richard into a popular Good Guy, but she led a successful campaign that located Richard’s long-lost remains, buried under a parking lot in Leicester, and reinterred them in a historically more appropriate setting. Along the way, she had to battle lots of snooty academics and officials who “knew better”.

It’s a standard underdog story with two enhancements:

  • Sally Hawkins is a singular, irrepressible actress who gets to shine in a lead role, as she did in her art house hit Happy-Go-Lucky and the Oscar-winning The Shape of Water.
  • The character of Philippa is interestingly and unexpectedly textured, with her chronic fatigue syndrome and her unusual relationship with her ex-husband (Steve Coogan, who also co-wrote).

The little cadre of Richard III cranks is especially funny.

Steven Frears is famous for directing movies like The Grifters and The Queen, for which he received Oscar nominations, and Dangerous Liaisons and High Fidelity. But it’s worth remembering that he has also made made many much smaller, but satisfying, movies: My Beautiful Launderette, Dirty Pretty Things, The Hit, Tamara Drewe, Philomena. The Lost King is one of these.

This is an enjoyable, non-challenging movie. It may not be a Must See, but it’s not a waste if time.

First look at the 2023 SFFILM

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Photo caption: Steph Curry in Peter Nick’s STEPHEN CURRY, UNDERRATED. Courtesy of SFFILM.

This year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) opens this coming Tuesday, April 13, and runs through April 23. The fest is in-person, centered at the CGV San Francisco (the former AMC multiplex on Van Ness). Other venues include the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, the Dolby Cinema @ 1275 Market, the Castro Theatre, the Premier Theater, The Walt Disney Family Museum, and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).

The menu at SFFILM includes films from 37 countries from over 5,000 submissions and invitations. Peruse the program and buy tickets at SFFILM.

Here are more special elements of this year’s SFFILM:

  • The festival opens with the hometown premiere of the documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated.
  • Closing night features a major sneak of the anticipated Prime Video series I’m A Virgo from Boots Riley (Sorry to Bother You).
  • Again, SFFILM has highlighted a cross section of movies and events as Family-friendly, something that more film festivals should do. Introduce the kids to good cinema! The highlight is a free community screening of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. starring Academy Award winner Kathy Bates, and Academy Award nominee Rachel McAdams

As usual, I’ll be looking for under-the-radar gems and posting my recommendations just before the fest’s opening. My coverage will be linked on my SFFILM 2023 page.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Bríd Ní Neachtain in ROISE & FRANK. Courtesy of Juno Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the delightful Gaelic dramedy Roise & Frank, the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it I’m an Electric Lampshade and the surprising Reggie Jackson doc Reggie. And a totally refreshed CURENT MOVIES section.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

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

RADIO DREAMS
  • Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
  • Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Mary Astor in DODSWORTH, the subject of SCANDAL: THE TRIAL OF MARY ASTOR

On April 11, Turner Classic Movies airs the recent documentary Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor. It’s worth a watch for its tale of America’s Victorian social mores running headlong into the emerging celebrity culture. In 1936, movie star Mary Astor suffered through a humiliating child custody trial; her vindictive ex-husband stole her diary, in which she had documented her sex life with the playwright George S. Kaufman and others, and leaked it to the press. The trial was held at night so Astor could shoot Dodsworth during the daytime. And, in another bizarre twist, Astor won over the court on the stand by channeling her extremely sympathetic character in Dodsworth!

REGGIE: it’s not just about Reggie

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Photo caption: Reggie Jackson in REGGIE. Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video.

After watching the documentary Reggie, I was surprised that I found spending 104 minutes with Reggie Jackson so rewarding. In the 1970s, Jackson seemed to me such an egotist, so consumed by his own stardom. Of course, the media were always asking him about himself. Here, where Jackson has the platform, he talks about himself in the context of larger issues of racial justice, economic justice, righting past wrongs and creating a more equitable future – for everybody, not just for Reggie.

The film could have been titled The Life and Times of Reggie Jackson. America’s struggle with race is in the forefront of Reggie, understandably because of the times. In addition, Reggie sees many of the pivotal events in his life as impacted by race – and he makes a convincing case.

Reggie contains lots of tidbits, many not well known:

  • Reggie’s own experiences with racial prejudice as a child and young man
  • Reggie’s shielding from the dangers of Alabama Jim Crow by minor league teammates Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers and Dave Duncan
  • His early mentorship by Joe DiMaggio
  • His chafing at Charley Findley – and Findley giving him a $2500 pay cut for “too many strikeouts” in a season when Reggie led the league in homers
  • Reggie’s prickly relationship with Thurman Munson, his incendiary mismatch with Billy Martin, and an evolved friendship with George Steinbrenner
  • The origin of the “Mr. October” sobriquet.

Reggie can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).

I’M AN ELECTRIC LAMPSHADE: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0.

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Photo caption: I’M AN ELECTRIC LAMPSHADE. Courtesy of Cinequest.

In the winning and surprising documentary I’m an Electric Lampshade, we meet the most improbable rock star – a mild-mannered accountant who retires to pursue his dream of performing.

60-year-old Doug McCorkle is fit for his age and has an unusually mellifluous voice, like a late night FM DJ or the announcer in a boxing ring. Other than that he looks like a total square.

There may be no flamboyance about Doug McCorkle, but it thrives inside him. His own artistic taste is trippy, gender-bending and daring. Think Price Waterhouse Cooper on the outside and Janelle Monáe on the inside.

We follow Doug as he goes to a performance school in the Philippines (where most of his classmates are drag queens) and the montage of his training resembles those in Fame and Flashdance. Doug is a good enough sport to wear MC Hammer pants in a bizarre Filipino yogurt commercial. It all culminates in a concert in Mexico.

Doug’s quest would be a vanity project except he has no apparent vanity. He must have some ego to want to get up on stage, but compared to subjects of other showbiz documentaries, he is most humble, emphatically not self-absorbed and low maintenance. We can tell from how his co-workers, friends and wife react to him, that he is just a profoundly decent guy.

Eminently watchable, this is a successful first feature for writer-director John Clayton Doyle. The stage-setting profile of one of the Filipino artists could have been trimmed, but Lampshade is otherwise well-paced.

The final score: Doug 1, Expectations 0. I screened I’m an Electric Lmpshade for its world premiere at Cinequest, and it made my Best of Cinequest 2021. It’s now available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

ROISE & FRANK: therapy dog and hurling coach

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Photo caption: Bríd Ní Neachtain in ROISE & FRANK. Courtesy of Juno Pictures.

In the delightful and sweet Gaelic comedy Roise & Frank, it’s two years after the death of Roise’s (Bríd Ní Neachtain) husband Frank, and her grief has turned her into a reclusive depressive. An apparently stray dog insists upon intruding into her life. She becomes convinced the dog is the reincarnation of her deceased hubbie – and the screenplay cleverly gives her credible reasons to believe this. She names the dog Frank, and off we go, as Frank the dog guides Roise out of her melancholy, despite the resistance of her adult, also still grieving, son and her lovestruck neighbor. Soon, there are even implications for the local school’s hapless hurling team.

Roise & Frank was deftly directed by Rachael Moriarty and Peter Murphy, who overcame W.C Fields’ admonition about working with animals and children. They succeeded in keeping Roise & Frank light and funny without turning it into sitcom silliness.

Bríd Ní Neachtain, who played the nosy postmistress in The Banshees of Inisherin, is convincing and relatable as both the gloomy and the rejuvenated Roise. In his first screen credit, Ruadhán de Faoite is especially winning as Mikey, the confidence challenged middle schooler next door.

The dog Frank is a mutt described as possibly part lurcher, a breed unfamiliar to many of us in North America. Lurchers, a mix of greyhound and terrier or herder, historically used in hunting, are more common in the British Isles.

Roise & Frank opens on April 7th at the Opera Plaza in San Francisco, the Smith Rafael in San Rafael, and the Laemmle Town Center and Royal in Los Angeles. This is a charmer and well worth seeking out.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Park Ji-min in RETURN TO SEOUL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Turn Every Page and the first Must See of 2023 – Return to Seoul.

CURRENT MOVIES

  • Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
  • Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Whale: regret to redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

THE SAPPHIRES

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

  • The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu
  • Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV..
  • Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Ricardo Cortez and Bebe Daniels in 1931’s THE MALTESE FALCON

If you want to understand what Pre-Code is all about, take a look at the 1931 The Maltese Falcon, which has an entirely different tone than the 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor The Maltese Falcon that you’ve surely seen. The 1931 Falcon, which is coming up on Turner Classic Movies on April 4.

Ricardo Cortez’s Sam Spade is lecherous, cocksure, leering and pawing. Indeed, if this Pre-Code The Maltese Falcon is about anything, it’s about sex. It opens with a woman adjusting her hose before leaving Sam Spade’s office, evidence of a just-completed sexual encounter.

Bebe Daniels plays Miss Wonderly/Brigid O’Shaughnessy as sexually aggressive. She’s shown taking an obviously post-coital bath, and deals out lines like “who’s that dame wearing MY kimono?“. At one point, a large banknote is missing and Spade takes Brigid into an adjoining room and strip searches her. This 1931 movie is the only Maltese Falcon that contains this sequence. What we see on camera is an apparently nude Brigid clutching her clothes behind the door.

The Hays Code prevented the re-release of The Maltese Falcon in 1936, which led to the 1936 remake, Satan Met a Lady. Because it’s so risque, the complete version of this 1931 film was not screened again in the United States until 1966.Here’s my essay on the three faces of The Maltese Falcon.

unclad Bebe Daniels in 1931’s THE MALTESE FALCON