movie gourmet

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Olivia Colman in EMPIRE OF LIGHT. Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – two film festivals at once, I’m heading to Oakland for Noir City, while covering Park City, Utah’s Slamdance virtually. Also, I have new reviews of Empire of Light and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, a rant and a remembrance.

I just saw Broker, which I’ll be writing about soon. It’s an exceptional film, which will take the #2 slot on my top ten movie list. See it when you can.

Important note: many of the year’s most prestigious films have become available to stream (see below in CURRENT MOVIES): Aftersun, The Eternal Daughter, The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Decision to Leave, Armageddon Time and Triangle of Sadness.

A RANT ABOUT THE ELVIS MOVIE

I generally detest the filmmaking of Baz Luhrman, so I had skipped his 2022 Elvis until this week; The lead actor, Austin Butler, won the dramatic acting Golden Globe, so, even though the Golden Globes have little credibility with me, I gave it a whirl. Actually, I gave the first hour-and-ten-minutes a whirl. It’s rare that I can’t finish a big, popular movie, but I had to bail on Elvis.

Elvis turns out like much of Luhrman’s other work, with perhaps even more unrestrained garishness, which, in writing about his The Great Gatsby, I labeled “flashy, hollow and lame”. There is an unremitting assault of frenetic eye candy, none of which serves to reveal anything about Elvis.

And, having done a lot of reading about Elvis, I was distracted by Luhrman’s misleading narrative, most outrageously inventing a fantasy about Elvis’ relations with African-Americans, and even outsizing the career role of Elvis’ mother. For historical accuracy, Luhrman makes Oliver Stone look like David McCullough or Stephen Ambrose.

Austin Butler isn’t bad as Elvis, but I just never accepted him as Elvis, just as an actor playing Elvis. Luhrman and Butler captured Elvis’ simplicity, devotion to mother and ambition, but missed big on his playfulness and capriciousness. Now, I wouldn’t damn Butler with such faint praise for having to match the magnetism of one of the very most charismatic figures in world history if Kurt Russell hadn’t been so much better.

REMEMBRANCE

Gina Lollibrigida has died at 95. Her very solid mainly, European body of film work was overshadowed by her image in the US as a sex symbol (Solomon and Sheba). Check her out in John Huston’s sly Beat the Devil. Lollibrigida was the first five-syllable Italian word that I learned to pronounce.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

At year-end, I suspend my usual The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE so I can highlight the very best movies from 2022. These are on my list of Best Movies of 2022 and they shouldn’t be overlooked. Now you can watch them all at home.

  • Nope: an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Montana Story: a family secret simmers, then explodes. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Compartment No. 6: a surprising journey to connection. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Poser: personal plagiarism. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Tale of King Crab: storytelling at its best. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • 12 Months: an authentic relationship evolves. Amazon.

ON TV

Henry Fonda and Lee J. Cobb (foreground) in 12 ANGRY MEN.

On January 22, Turner Classic Movies airs an iconic movie that I can’t believe I haven’t written about it before – 12 Angry Men. You’ve probably seen it before, but you may wish to appreciate it again.

Twelve men (and, befitting the 1957 time frame, they are all white men) have found themselves where no one wants to be – on a jury. It’s a hot and humid summer, and the jury room is stifling. It’s a murder case, and the prosecution has put on a credible case. The impetus is to convict the defendant and go home, but one juror (Henry Fonda) holds out. As the jurors probe the evidence more carefully, the debate becomes heated, especially between the hold-out and two of the others (Lee J. Cobb and Ed Begley). The room becomes more and more uncomfortable as opinions swing back and forth, with a man’s life in the balance.

Lee J. Cobb in 12 ANGRY MEN.

Fonda, Cobb and Begley are just the most brilliant in a remarkable cast: Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, E.G. Marshall, John Fiedler, Edwards Binns, Jack Klugman, Joseph Sweeney,, John Voscovec and Robert Webber. In their careers, Fonda, Warden, Balsam and Begley each won an Oscar, and the cast as a whole collected 11 Oscar nominations between them. I recently watched a Dick Cavett interview in which he asked Henry Fonda to name five of his films that would endure; Fonda blurted out “12 Angry Men‘ and then paused to consider the other choices.

The cast spends essentially all of 12 Angry Men’s 96 minutes in one room, yet director Sidney Lumet makes the excitement match any action movie or thriller. Lumet started out filming the characters from above, then moved to eye-level as the tension increased, and finally filmed from below to rachet up the claustrophobia in the room. The camera closes in tightly on the men’s faces as they sweat and yell. This is text-book filmmaking.

12 Angry Men probes themes of class bias, fairmindedness and citizen responsibility. It’s also about divisions of opinion, which is even more topical in today’s American society.

Henry Fonda in 12 ANGRY MEN.

SLAMDANCE: discovering new filmmakers

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Jerry Hsu in STARRING JERRY AS HIMSELF. Courtesy of Slamdance.

It’s time for the 29th Slamdance Film Festival, which is all about discovering new filmmakers and unveiling their work. It’s a hybrid festival with events in Park City and Salt Lake City, Utah from January 20th to 26th and online on the Slamdance Channel from January 23rd to 29th. All Slamdance feature films selected in the competition categories are directorial debuts without U.S. distribution, with budgets of less than $1 million. The 35 features in this year’s program were selected from 1,522 submissions.

Slamdance was founded in 1995 by filmmakers reacting to the gatekeeper role and growing marketplace focus of a nearby film festival with a similar name. 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.

My favorite film from last year’s Nashville Film Festival, Hannah Ha Ha, was a Slamdance film. Slamdance alumni include: Christopher Nolan (Memento, Dunkirk), Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room), Lynn Shelton (Outside In, Sword of Truth), Sean Baker (The Florida Project, Tangerine), Rian Johnson (Knives Out, Brick), Benny & Josh Safdie (Uncut Gems) and the Russo Brothers (Avengers: Infinity War).

MOTEL DRIVE. Courtesy of Slamdance.

MUST SEE

Here are four films from the 2023 Slamdance program that you shouldn’t miss. Each features at least one original and fresh element:

  • Starring Jerry as Himself: A Florida senior sees himself recruited as an operative by Chinese police. The story is told in a re-enactment with the subject playing himself. We later learn why the filmmakers chose re-enactment, and what could have been a conventional true crime exposé or a weeper is illuminated by the subject family’s humanity. First Feature for director Law Chen. World premiere on January 21. Slamdance documentary competition.
  • Motel Drive: This searing cinéma vérité documentary chronicles years in a clump of downtrodden motels inhabited by prostitutes, sex offenders and the otherwise homeless, including over 150 children, with their mostly meth-addicted parents. One family’s compelling journey is a roller coaster ride of poverty, recovery, unexpected good fortune, relapse and redemption. First Feature for director Brendan Geraghty. World premiere on January 22. Slamdance documentary competition. Documentary subject Justin Shaw is slated to appear on the Slamdance red carpet for Motel Drive’s world premiere, and I couldn’t be happier that this young man will get the red carpet experience.
  • Where the Road Leads: This drama opens with a very long single shot of the protagonist running, in and out and all around a remote Serbian village.  Is she running away from something or toward something? The film’s construction makes it more powerful, with the pivotal beginning of the story revealed at the end of the film. First Feature for director Nina Ognjanović. World premiere on January 22. Slamdance narrative feature competition.
  • Sexual Healing: This Dutch documentary is in Slamdance’s Unstoppable category, a “showcase of films made by filmmakers with visible and non-visible disabilities”. A 53-year-old woman, afflicted from birth with spasticity needs assistance to live independently and has ever enjoyed sexual fulfillment. Now’s she’s curious, and Sexual Healing follows her quest with sensitivity, gentle naughty humor and taste. Second feature for director Elsbeth Fraanje. US premiere on January 23.
Jana Bjelica in WHERE THE ROAD LEADS. Courtesy of Slamdance.

I’ve already screened a bunch of 2023 Slamdance films, and I’ll be publishing reviews as the films enjoy their in-person premieres in Utah and as I catch up with more of the program.

Remember, even if you don’t travel to Utah, you can sample these films on the Slamdance Channel from January 23rd to 29th. All Slamdance titles will available on the Slamdance Channel, which can be accessed on Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, and Apple TV for $7.99 per month.

SEXUAL HEALING. Courtesy of Slamdance.

NOIR CITY returns – and returns us to 1948

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Claire Trevor in RAW DEAL
Claire Trevor in RAW DEAL

The Noir City film fest, always one of the best Bay Area cinema experiences, returns IN-PERSON January 20-29, 2023 at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland – and for the first time since the 2020 pandemic – for its traditional full ten days.

Noir City is the annual festival of the Film Noir Foundation, spearheaded by its founder and president Eddie Muller. The Foundation preserves movies from the traditional noir period that would otherwise be lost. Noir City often plays newly restored films and hard-to-find movies.

Past Noir City fests have been built around themes, like international noir and heist cinema. In this year’s fest, all of the films were released in 1948. As an audience, we get to sample films from peak year in the Noir Era and appreciate film noir as a distinct movement within American filmmaking.

These titles from this year’s Noir City program are NOT available to stream, so Noir City is your best chance to see them: 

  • Larceny,
  • The Spiritualist,
  • Road House, 
  • So Evil My Love,
  • Sleep, My Love,
  • The Hunted,
  • I Love Trouble,
  • Night Has a Thousand Eyes,
  • All My Sons,
  • The Velvet Touch,
  • Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, (my favorite title this year).
Richard Basehart in HE WALKED BY NIGHT

If you can make it for just one night, I’d recommend one of these four:

  • Friday, January 20 (Opening Night): Two classics that are famous for a reason – Key Largo (Bogart and Bacall, Edward G. Robinson, Claire Trevor’s heartbreaking performance as a gangster’s moll aging out of her looks and an underappreciated supporting turn by Thomas Gomez) and The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles’ noir adventure with his glamorous ex, Rita Hayworth, and the stunning hall-of-mirrors climax). You’ve almost certainly seen both of these, but probably not in a vintage movie palace with hundreds of other noiristas.
  • Saturday, January 21: Three movies that I have not yet seen and are not streamable – Larceny (John Payne, Dan Duryea), The Spiritualist and Road House (Richard Widmark, Ida Lupino, Cornell Wilde) – are sandwiching a more well-known film, The Big Clock, with Ray Milland being hunted down by the minions of the nefarious Charles Laughton.
  • Monday, January 23: Two more non-streamable films which I haven’t seen: So Evil My Love (Ray Milland) and Sleep, My Love (Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche in a noir?).
  • Saturday, January 27: Two of my favorite Overlooked Noir: Raw Deal (some of the best dialogue in all of film noir, a love triangle and the superb cinematography of John Alton) and He Walked By Night (more John Alton, with the LAPD hunting down a nerdy wacko).

Make your plans now. Review the program and buy tickets at Noir City. I’ll be there.

Claire Trevor in KEY LARGO

ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED: justice by erasure

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Photo caption: Nan Goldin in ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED. Courtesy of NEON.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a profile of photographer Nan Goldin and her leadership of Prescription Addiction Intervention Now (PAIN), the advocacy group seeking to punish the Sackler family for profiting on the addiction and overdose carnage from oxycontin. Purdue Pharma, a privately held company owned by the Sacklers, intentionally oversold oxycontin to doctors and misled the public on its addictive qualities. The saga ended up in bankruptcy court because the Sacklers drained the profits from Purdue Pharma before it could be forced to reimburse its victims.

It’s unusual to have a public controversy so without nuance – the Sacklers are clearly bad people who acted badly and irreparably injured thousands of others. As a result, we aren’t bothered when Nan Goldin, an addict in recovery herself, evenly says, “It’s personal. I hate these people.”

Up against a malevolent, heavily-resourced corporation, PAIN inflicted pain on the Sackler family by turning their own philanthropy against them, shaming major art museums into refusing gifts from the Sacklers and even removing the Sackler name from the buildings and galleries they had sponsored. The museums were the institutions with the very highest profiles: the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Museum of Art, [British] National Portrait Gallery and even the Louvre. To make things even more uncomfortable for the museums, Goldin’s own work is in the permanent collections of some of these museums.

A PAIN action in ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED. Courtesy of NEON.

PAIN’s actions were themselves works of performance art, often involving PAIN members feigning death en masse, surrounded by prescription bottle. To reflect Richard Sackler’s self-damning email that greedily rejoiced at the “blizzard of prescriptions”, PAIN members created a confetti blizzard of prescription slips in a major museum atrium.

The beginning and end of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, about a third of the film, follows Goldin and PAIN’s campaign against the Sacklers. The rest of the film is the self-narrated life story of Nan Goldin, much of it illustrated by slide shows of her photos. Goldin became a key figure of the New York avant garde of the 70s, 80s and 90s, and she has led a colorful and oft turbulent life. There’s a major focus on the story of her older sister Barbara, and how the two reacted to their family by rebelling against conformity.

The bottom line is that I found the shaming of the Sacklers much more engaging that the Nan and Barbara Goldin story.

In the highlight of All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, the Sacklers on Purdue Pharma’s corporate board must themselves sit for two hours and listen via Zoom to the testimony of their victims, including one harrowing 911 call.

All the Beauty and the Bloodshed was directed by noted documentarian Laura Poitras, Oscar winner for Citizenfour. The film has been included in various critics’ top ten lists and is a contender for the Best Documentary Oscar. It’s good, but I’ve seen better docs this year.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Brendan Fraser in THE WHALE. Courtesy of A24.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of The Whale, Madoff: Monster of Wall Street and The Pale Blue Eye. I’m busy preparing to cover two film festivals that are both running over the same ten days, January 20-29 – Noir City in person and Slamdance virtually. Wish me luck.

Don’t overlook my year-end features:

  • Best Movies of 2022.
  • 2022 Farewells: on the screen (Sidney Poitier, William Hurt, Jean-Louis Trintignant,, Angela Lansbury, James Caan, Louise Fletcher, Ray Liotta, Bo Hopkins, Clu Gulager, Henry Silva,  L.Q. Jones, Roger E. Mosley, Anne Heche, Meat Loaf, Tony Sirico and Ronnie Hawkins).
  • 2022 Farewells: behind the camera (Peter Bogdanovich, Alan Ladd Jr., Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Rafaelson, Wolfgang Peterson and Monty Norman).

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

At year-end, I suspend my usual The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE so I can highlight the very best movies from 2022. These are on my list of Best Movies of 2022 and they shouldn’t be overlooked. Now you can watch them all at home.

  • Nope: an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Montana Story: a family secret simmers, then explodes. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Compartment No. 6: a surprising journey to connection. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Poser: personal plagiarism. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Tale of King Crab: storytelling at its best. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • 12 Months: an authentic relationship evolves. Amazon.

ON TV

Jule Andrews and James Garner in THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY

On January 17, Turner Classic Movies will present an overlooked masterwork. Set in England just before the D-Day invasion, The Americanization of Emily (1964) is a biting satire and one of the great anti-war movies. James Garner plays an admiral’s staff officer charged with locating luxury goods and willing Englishwomen for the brass. Julie Andrews plays an English driver who has lost her husband and other male family members in the War. She resists emotional entanglements with other servicemen whose lives may be put at risk, but falls for Garner’s “practicing coward”, a man who is under no illusions about the glory of war and is determined to stay as far from combat as possible.

Unfortunately, Garner’s boss (Melvyn Douglas) has fits of derangement and becomes obsessed with the hope that the first American killed on the beach at D-Day be from the Navy. Accordingly, he orders Garner to lead a suicide mission to land ahead of the D-Day landing, ostensibly to film it. Fellow officer James Coburn must guarantee Garner’s martyrdom.

It’s a brilliant screenplay from Paddy Chayefsky, who won screenwriting Oscars for Marty, The Hospital and Network. Today, Americanization holds up as least as well as its contemporary Dr. Strangelove and much better than Failsafe. Reportedly, both Andrews and Garner have tagged this as their favorite film.

One of the “Three Nameless Broads” bedded by the Coburn character is played by Judy Carne, later of Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In.

MADOFF: THE MONSTER OF WALL STREET: adding some jawdroppers to a familiar story

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Photo caption: Bernie Madoff in MADOFF: THE MONSTER OF WALL STREET. Courtesy of Netflix.

Netflix’s documentary Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street is a pretty good watch. Most folks, like me, thought they understood the now 15-year-old story of Madoff’s house of cards collapsing at the same time as the 2008 mortgage meltdown, ruining hundred of investors, including pensioners and non-profits. But Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street contributes a comprehensive perspective and some jaw-dropping nuggets, to wit:

  • How the SEC whiffed MULTIPLE TIMES, even when the case was giftwrapped for them by a credible Wall Street expert;
  • The moment when the SEC and FBI learned that the fraud was not in the millions, but in the TENS OF BILLIONS;
  • How Bernie Madoff banned his own sons from the separate office in which the fraud was committed;
  • How Madoff concealed the fraud in plain sight with brazenness alone;
  • The one zillionaire investor who must have known about the Ponzi scheme and kept bailing Madoff out; and
  • What happened to the main characters in the saga, including Madoff’s family and confidantes – it is operatic.

We benefit from Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street‘s comprehensive look at the scandal because our knowledge of it come from the news coverage at time of his arrest, which focused on the plight of Madoff’s victims. That’s a key part of the story, but it helps to (in my case) learn that Madoff’s stature was earned by his building two entirely legitimate Wall Street businesses, co-founding the NASDAQ and becoming a sage adviser to the SEC. It also helps to revisit the scale of his fraud (the largest Ponzi scheme in world history) and how it differed from other Ponzi schemes – NONE of his victims’ money was ever invested.

One of the key themes is the contrast between the two suites of Madoff offices – with only Madoff himself having access to both. His sleek 19th floor suite housed the two legitimate businesses, was immaculately decorated in black and silver, and primarily staffed with well-educated Jews. The 17th floor, which housed the fraud, was staffed by high-school-educated Italian-Americans, and was a messy warren of cardboard boxes and a DOT MATRIX PRINTER.

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street is well-sourced with the federal agents who arrested Madoff, his personal secretary and employees of both his legitimate and his fraudulent businesses, and clips of Bernie himself in prison garb, ‘fessing up, We also meet the guy who proved as early as 2000 that Madoff had to running a Ponzi scheme, only to be rebuffed by the SEC five times between 20000 and 2008.

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street was directed by Joe Berlinger, who has directed some of the 21st century’s very best documentaries – the Paradise Lost series and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. This time, I did not care for his odd technique of using look-alike “actors” in “re-creations”, obviously to fill in for a scarcity of file footage, but it ultimately did not detract from telling a great story. Anyway, hopefully, Netflix will keep hiring Berlinger to make films, which is a great thing.

Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street is streaming on Netflix.

THE WHALE: regret to redemption

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Photo caption: Brendan Fraser in THE WHALE. Courtesy of A24.

The emotionally powerful The Whale depicts a week in the life of Charlie (Brendan Fraser). The first thing we notice about Charlie is his obesity – his 600 pounds makes getting out of a chair a major challenge, and there’s just no way he can bend over to pick anything off the floor.  Refusing to seek medical attention despite labored breathing and catastrophic blood pressure, Charlie has exasperated his friend/caregiver Liz (Hong Chau), a nurse. He has congestive heart failure, and both Liz and Charlie know that he may be in his last week of life.

He is a grotesque, but unlike Quasimodo or The Elephant Man, he’s a grotesque of his own making. Charlie is grieving from a loss nine years before and is regretting a failed relationship with his child; he has reacted by emotionally eating himself to near-death. He no longer ever leaves his apartment, where he works remotely by teaching a college writing course on-line.

Charlie is a man of immense sensitivity, unusually moved by the sporadic snippets of crude honesty in his students’ writing. He is so sensitive that he is swallowed by grief, and cannot handle the anger of others. Charlie is constantly saying “I’m sorry”, but there are two things that he is decidedly not sorry for – fathering a daughter and falling in love with a man.

Charlie’s sad routine is interrupted by a visit from the young door-to-door missionary Thomas (Ty Simpkins), and then by an appearance from his estranged daughter Ellie (Sadie Sink), now a seething teen. It’s only a mater of time before Liz brings by his ex-wife Mary (Samantha Morton), too. Will Charlie mend his relationships? Will he find inner peace? Will he even survive?

What makes The Whale an exceptional movie is Brendan Fraser’s unforgettable performance as Charlie. He’s not just impersonating an extremely obese person; he’s portraying a complex character- a man who is weakened by self loathing and physical disability, but whose passions and humanity gleam through. Encased in a latex and CGI fat suit, Fraser makes us understand Charlie with his own beautiful and expressive blue eyes and with Charlie’s lurching and plodding.

Fraser has always been an appealing actor, and one of great humor. 25 years ago, the strikingly handsome Fraser used his physicality in The Mummy franchise and, literally in a loincloth, in George of the Jungle. It’s useful to remember that he did a serious art movie, Gods and Monsters, in that period, too.  His build, rangy then, has since morphed into burly, and in last years thriller No Sudden Move, to hulking. 

Of course, Fraser will be nominated for an Oscar, because the actors who vote for awards love performances with major physical transformations. But it’s important not to downgrade Fraser’s performance because of that phenomenon – this is a remarkable exploration into a character’s inner life.

Hong Chau has been doing strong and versatile work lately (Driveways, The Menu); her Liz is an uncommonly good and award-worthy performance. 

Samantha Morton is piercingly credible as the ex-wife.  (Where has SHE been since Minority Report and In America?)

The story is a play by Samuel D. Hunter. Darren Aronofsky, a director known for making splashy, pedal-to-the-metal movies (Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler, Black Swan) has the artistic judgment to keep the camera in Charlie’s dank, claustrophobic apartment and let Hunter’s dialogue reveal the characters.

While The Whale is one of the best films of 2022, it has its flaws, especially Sadie Sink’s not-very-textured performance as the daughter (and I didn’t find Ty Simpkins very compelling, either).  The thread about the young missionary Thomas has at least one contrivance too many. Also, the weepy soap opera music cues underneath The Whale’s most emotionally powerful moments are unnecessary, distracting and unforgivable.

The scenes where Charlie is gorging himself are tough to watch.  I saw The Whale at a theater that is essentially next to my favorite French restaurant, and I like to cap a morning movie with a lunch of salade lyonnaise and steak tartare; but emerging from The Whale at lunchtime, I just couldn’t do that.  I recommend this film, but not for a movie/dinner or dinner/movie date.

Nevertheless, this is still one of the year’s best films because of Charlie’s compelling story and Brendan Frazier’s magnificent portrayal.

THE PALE BLUE EYE: Gothic and so-so, except for a great Harry Melling

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Photo caption: Harry Melling in THE PALE BLUE EYE. Courtesy of Netflix.

The Pale Blue Eye stars Christian Bale as a detective pulled out of retirement to solve a murder mystery at West Point in 1830. He enlists a cadet as his assistant – none other than Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling), in his one unsuccessful year at the Military Academy. Except for Harry Melling, The Pale Blue Eye is not great.

As the two keep peeling the onion, the bodies and more weirdness keep piling up, including a distractingly incredible dive into the occult. Just when the whodunit is seemingly wrapped up, there’s one more twisty Big Reveal. The whodunit is far from thrilling, and the final twist isn’t enough to pay off.

The fine director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart, Hostiles) frames the whole thing in a Gothic horror patina, but that’s not enough to keep the story interesting. Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s story is a slog.

Christian Bale ably plays his character with world-weariness and just the right hint of slyness. Two of the world’s greatest screen actors, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Timothy Spall, are embarrassingly wasted in underwritten roles. Toby Jones and Gillian Anderson don’t fare much better.

Harry Melling goes big as Edgar Allen Poe, reveling in a southern accent (Poe grew up in Virginia) and the florid 18th century speech. His Poe has the confidence, perhaps from narcissism, that belies his unpopularity with peers, and his lack of accomplishment. And. of course, Melling embues his Poe with a discernible creepiness. This isn’t a big deal IMO, but Melling is made up to look just like a young Poe would have looked, before the mustache and the dissolution.

As a kid, Melling broke through as Dudley Dursley in the Harry Potter franchise, which he needed to finish in a fat suit because he had slimmed down so much. In the last year or so, Melling has produced some great work in The Queen’s Gambit, Please Baby Please and The Tragedy of Macbeth. Before that, he was the best element of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. He is now one of cinema’s great scene-stealers.

The Pale Blue Eye is streaming on Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: One of my favorite character actors, the late L.Q. Jones in HANG ‘EM HIGH.

Happy New Year from The Movie Gourmet. This week – new reviews of Babyon and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. Don’t overlook my year-end features:

  • Best Movies of 2022.
  • 2022 Farewells: on the screen (Sidney Poitier, William Hurt, Jean-Louis Trintignant,, Angela Lansbury, James Caan, Louise Fletcher, Ray Liotta, Bo Hopkins, Clu Gulager, Henry Silva,  L.Q. Jones, Roger E. Mosley, Anne Heche, Meat Loaf, Tony Sirico and Ronnie Hawkins).
  • 2022 Farewells: behind the camera (Peter Bogdanovich, Alan Ladd Jr., Jean-Luc Godard, Bob Rafaelson, Wolfgang Peterson and Monty Norman).

CURRENT MOVIES

Janelle Monáe in GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Credit: John Wilson. Courtesy of Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

During the Holidays, I suspend my usual The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE so I can highlight the very best movies from earlier in 2022. These are on my list of Best Movies of 2022 and they shouldn’t be overlooked. Now you can watch them all at home.

  • Nope: an exceptionally intelligent popcorn movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Montana Story: a family secret simmers, then explodes. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Compartment No. 6: a surprising journey to connection. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Poser: personal plagiarism. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Tale of King Crab: storytelling at its best. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • 12 Months: an authentic relationship evolves. Amazon.

ON TV

Susan Hayward in I WANT TO LIVE!

On January 9, Turner Classic Movies will air I Want to Live! Susan Hayward’s performance as a good-hearted, but very unlucky, floozy won her an Oscar. It’s about a party girl who takes up with a couple of lowlifes. The lowlifes commit a murder and pin it on her. There is a great jazz soundtrack and a dramatic walk to The Chair.

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY: skewer the rich

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Photo caption: Daniel Craig and Janelle Monae in GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Courtesy of Netflix.

Writer-director Rian Johnson follows his wonderful Knives Out with Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, another satirical drawing room murder mystery with super detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig). Again, the rich are skewered and, again, Blanc is overshadowed by a younger female of color. It’s all good fun.

Glass Onion is set on the extravagant private island (think the hideout of a Bond supervillain) of an untethered, narcissistic billionaire (think Elon Musk). The billionaire (a perfect Edward Norton) invites four of buddies from his past (Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom, Jr., and Katharine Hahn) for a weekend house party, plus a girlfriend (Madelyn Cline) and an assistant (Jessica Henwick – whose compelling presence is wasted in this often sniveling role). And Benoit Blanc comes, too, which is fitting because the weekend’s theme is a Clue-like mystery game. Another mysterious friend from the past (Janelle Monáe) shows up; her relationship to the others is complicated, and she puts everyone on edge.

There’s a murder to be solved and a Macguffin to be found. Along the way there are several massive plot twists. Clues dropped early hint that a fortune has been made, not by intellectual talent and hard work, but by manipulation and cheating. Rian Johnson loves to expose treachery among the 1 percent, and here he brings us a classic emperor-has-no-clothes comeuppance.

Knives Out was one of 2019’s smartest and funniest films, and Glass Onion is not in that class – but is still very entertaining. The first forty minutes of set-up are not that compelling, but the pace picks up once the plot twists start piling up and Janelle Monáe takes over the movie.

Janelle Monáe in GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY. Credit: John Wilson. Courtesy of Netflix.

The cast is excellent, especially Craig and Norton. But the most riveting performance is by the singular Janelle Monáe. The stunningly beautiful Monáe is a captivating screen presence. She’s also demonstrated serious dramatic acting chops in her who-is-THAT? performance in her first feature film Moonlight, and again in Hidden Figures. Monáe’s own music and fashion projects are startlingly original, and her artsy sensibility seems impervious to risk. I say, let her direct a movie if she wants – just get her back up on the movie screen.

Glass Onion looks several times glossier than its $40 million budget. Glass Onion has spent over a week as the #1 film on Netflix, which is excellent because it means that Netflix will likely fund another Rian Johnson movie.

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery is streaming on Netflix.