movie gourmet

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson in BITTERBRUSH. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Poser, Bitterbrush and Both Sides of the Blade, plus a preview of this year’s in-person Cinequest.

REMEMBRANCES

James Caan in THE GODFATHER

Actor James Caan is mostly remembered for his vivid portrayal of a guy with too much testosterone -Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (Bada bing!). Caan had been working since age 21 in TV series, wih a John Wayne movie thrown in, when he appeared in the TV movie Brian’s Song – a highly popular weeper. He also appeared, with Robert Duvall, in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People. Most underappreciated performance? Probably Rollerball.

Actor Tony Sirico, best known for his Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in The Sopranos, overcame a youth that landed him in Sing Sing to play a slew of movie and TV gangsters (and appear in four Woody Allen films, too.)

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

THE IMPOSTER

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

  • The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
  • The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
  • Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.

ON TV

Dana Andrews, Sally Forrest, Thomas Mitchell and Ida Lupino in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS

On July 19, Turner Classic Movies will air one of my Overlooked Noir, Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps (1956). A zillionaire dies and leaves his media empire to his feckless playboy son (Vincent Price). The ne’er-do-well scion cruelly dangles the CEO job in front of the company’s top talent, plunging them into a ruthless competition. Whoever solves the Lipstick Killer Murders will win the prize, and plenty of boardroom backstabbing ensues.

BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE: not your conventional love triangle

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Photo caption: Juliette Binoche and Vincent Lindon in Claire Denis’ BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (FIRE). Courtesy of SFFILM.

With some of Frances’s top filmmakers on the job – Both Sides of the Blade is not your conventional love triangle.

Sara (the ever rapturous Juliette Binoche) has built a ten-year relationship with Jean (Vincent Lindon), that has survived his prison sentence. Sara had previously been with François (Grégoire Colin), but left him because she valued Jean’s reliability, loyalty and decency. When François shows up again in their lives, Sara is drawn to him again.

Both Sides of the Blade is the work of French auteur Claire Denis (35 Shots of Rum, Let the Sunshine In). With Denis, Binoche and Lindon layering in all the complexities of these characters, the result is unexpected.

I screened Both Sides of the Blade (also known as Fire) earlier this year for this year’s San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). It opens in Bay Area theaters this week.

Cinequest is back LIVE August 16-29

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Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival, returns live and in-person August 16. After two years of its online Cinejoy festivals, Cinequest is back in downtown San Jose, with screenings August 16-24 at the California, Theatre, Hammer Theater and 3Below. For August 25-29, the program moves to the Pruneyard in Campbell. (In 2023, the in-person Cinequest will return to its usual March time slot.)

Jim Gaffigan and Rhea Seehorn inLINOLEUM. Courtesy of Blue Fox Entertainment.

Highlights of the 2022 Cinequest include

  • The opening night film Linoleum, including a personal appearance by its star Jim Gaffigan. Linoleum has created buzz as an especially thoughtful and heartfelt comedy.
  • New movies with Alison Brie, Alessandro Nivola, Aubrey Plaza, Molly Shannon, Corey Stoll, Fred Armisen, Bruce Campbell, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Richard Kind and Natascha McElhone.
  • See it here FIRST: Linoleum, Spin Me Round, The Allnighter and Trust are among the movies slated for theatrical release later this year.
  • Films from China, Korea and Vietnam, and I’ve already screened Cinequest features from Poland, Germany and Uruguay.

And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.

As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty Cinequest films from around the world. Bookmark my CINEQUEST page, with links to all my coverage (links on the individual movies will start to go live on Sunday, August 14). Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Cinequest at San Jose’s California Theatre

BITTERBRUSH: two women at work

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Photo caption: Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson in BITTERBRUSH. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

In the cinéma vérité documentary Bitterbrush, Hollyn and Colie, two women in their early twenties do their jobs. Because they are range riders, their job is to move into a spartan cabin high in the remote mountains of eastern Idaho and collect cattle pasturing in the heights. Over several months, the two of them, on horseback and aided by a few trained dogs, find and herd 500-600 head of cattle.

This is LITERALLY not their first rodeo, and we quickly see that Hollyn and Colie are already seasoned, skilled and resourceful. These are two very young women alone on an isolated mountain and responsible for hundreds of valuable animals – and they face no situation that confounds them. We also see that range riding is hard, hard work. And it’s even harder in a snow storm.

As do any co-workers, Hollyn and Colie shoot the breeze. Their hopes and dreams and future plans are vague, along the lines of “If I won the lottery“, until one development forces more focus.

For those of us not in the cattle industry, the cattle-herding ability of the dogs is a revelation.

Technically, this is a workplace documentary. All the gals do on camera is go about their daily work, but the novelty of that work and the rapturous setting make the leisurely pace of Bitterbrush surprisingly riveting. This is director Emelie Mahdavian’s second feature, and it’s damn good.

The location, in high Rocky Mountain valleys, is stunning. Cinematographers Derek Howard and Alejandro Mejia take full advantage.

Sensibility alert: this film is about the livestock industry, and horses and cows are not treated as suburban pets.

Bitterbrush is streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and redbox.

Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson in BITTERBRUSH. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

POSER: personal plagiarism

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Photo caption: Sylvie Mix in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Poser, a deeply psychological portrait of an artistic wannabe among real artists, was the Must See at the 2021 Nashville Film Festival and it’s in theaters now (albeit hard to find). It is worth seeking out.

Lennon (Sylvie Mix) reveres the underground music scene of Columbus, Ohio’s Old North (which she compares to the cultural achievements of Renaissance Florence). Her entrée is a podcast, which allows her to meet a panoply of local artists, including Bobbi Kitten, the charismatic front woman of the real life band Damn the Witch Siren. At first, we chuckle and cringe at Lennon, until it becomes apparent that a much darker personal plagiarism is afoot and Poser evolves into a thriller.

Poser is the first narrative feature for directors Ori Segev and Noah Dixon (Dixon wrote the screenplay), Mix, Kitten and damn near the entire cast and crew, and it’s packed with original music. Segev and Dixon are Columbus filmmakers who work in music, and they wanted to set a story in that music scene with their favorite bands; they could have done that with a banal premise, but instead their story is super original

There is so much in here about identity and the creative process, lots of original music and some cultural tourism, too. A shot of the recording of train sounds is indelibly chilling.

The podcast lets Lennon invite herself into the world she worships. When Lennon is invited up on a rooftop by two actual artists, she can barely contain her excitement. We find Lennon amusing until she practices aping an artist in front of her mirror, and we sense something much darker is afoot. Stealing the creative work of someone else is plagiarism – but what is stealing someone else’s identity?

It’s easy to mock self-invention, but every achiever begins with the ambition to be something he/she is not yet. (And it doesn’t escape me that no one but me decided that I would become a movie blogger.)

Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitten in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Be prepared to be creeped out by Mix’s performance and to be dazzled by Bobbi Kitten’s magnetism. This is the first feature film for Sylvie Mix, and she is able to turn the role of a passive, unaccomplished, initially silly character into something powerful.

Poser is the first screen credit for the exuberantly confident Bobbi Kitten, who commands our attention whenever she is onscreen. Damn the Witch Siren is the premiere electronic act in Columbus, Ohio, and five of her songs are on the soundtrack.

Z Wolf in POSER. Photo courtesy of Oscilloscope Films.

Kitten’s colleague Z Wolf is also a presence in Poser. Z Wolf always wears a full wolf mask on his head, sipping a fountain drink through a straw with great practicality.

The audience gets to visit the Old North, Columbus Ohio’s local arts neighborhood. There’s a very funny montage where we hear from real artists and aspiring artists. It reminded me of a code that The Wife and our niece Sarah devised when strolling through an art show – BA for Bad Art, NA for Not Art and KA for Kid Art. One very stoned guy marvels over the secret of the doubled-over potato chip.

Poser is rolling out in theaters and is playing Landmark’s Opera Plaza beginning July 8. My favorite film at last year’s Nashville Film Festival, Poser is one of the Best Movies of 2022 – So Far.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Dakota Johnson in CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH. Courtesy of AppleTV.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song and Cha Cha Real Smooth.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Clifton Collins, Jr. in JOCKEY. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

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

  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
  • The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
  • Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Tab Hunter in TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL.

On July 11, Turner Classic Movies presents the recent documentary Tab Hunter Confidential. Tab Hunter was Hollywood’s dreamboat of the 1950’s – and he was a closeted gay man. That meant that he was walking a tightrope in an era when one scandal sheet revelation could erase his career. We hear Tab’s story from Tab himself; the doc is based on Hunter’s memoir, co-written by Eddie Muller. Tab is still very good-looking and seems like a helluva decent guy. Also available to stream on Amazon.

HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG: a reflective artist, a reflective movie

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Photo caption. Leonard Cohen in HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG. Courtesy of Leonard Cohen Family Trust.

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is a biodoc as reflective as the subject himself. That subject is poet/singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, creator of profound verse and ear-worm melodies. Cohen was such a seeker that he secluded himself for five years at a Buddhist monastery on Mount Baldy.

Co-writers and co-directors Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine have comprehensively sourced the film with Cohen intimates and a substantial dose of Cohen himself. Geller and Goldfine have braided together Cohen’s journey with that of his most sublime song, Hallelujah.

One doesn’t think of a song even HAVING a journey, but Cohen wrote Hallelujah over years and years, possibly composing over 150 verses, only to have Columbia refuse to issue the album that it had commissioned. Then the song was rescued by John Cale, rejuvenated in the animated movie Shrek, and became iconic with the spectacular cover by Jeff Buckley. Along the way, Cohen himself would reveal alternative lyrics in live performance. Helluva story.

I’ve seen splashier documentaries – this is, after all, about a poet. The one forehead-slapping shocker for me was the initial rejection of Hallelujah. At almost two hours, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is a settle-in-and-be-mesmerized experience.

(BTW, could there be a bigger producer/artist mismatch than Phil Spector and Leonard Cohen?)

Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song is opening July 8 in some Bay Area theaters (including the Roxie, the Opera Plaza, the Rafael and the Rialto Cinemas Elmwood), and will expand into more theaters on July 15 and 22.

CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH: decent people and their foibles, navigating life

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Photo caption: Cooper Raiff and Dakota Johnson in CHA CHA REAL SMOOTH. Courtesy of AppleTV.

The engaging and satisfying Cha Cha Real Smooth, an adult-coming-of-age romantic dramedy, is surprisingly textured. The charming but feckless Andrew (Cooper Riff) has emerged from a fun college experience that has not prepared him for the grown up world. His high-achieving college girlfriend has correctly assessed that he has no plan for life after college and, hence, doesn’t have a future. Andrew’s only alternative is moving back with his mom (Leslie Mann), Stepdad Greg (Brad Garret) and his little brother (Evan Assante) and taking a humiliating job at the mall.

Andrew stumbles into a new gig that leverages his one true skill – he becomes a bar/bat mitzvah party starter, the guy who can get everyone (including 13-year-olds and their parents) on to the dance floor. On the job he meets the autistic girl Lola (Vanessa Burghard) and her young mom Domino (Dakota Johnson). (She’s not a stripper although Domino is a stripper name if there ever was one).

Andrew and Domino bond over Andrew’s compassionate treatment of Lola. The 32-year-old Domino, however, is a damaged soul, having married very young, only to have been left immediately by Lola’s dad to raise an autistic kid on her own. Domino now has a high-achieving fiance (Raul Castillo), who travels a lot.

This premise is ripe for for a conventional rom com or a sex comedy or a bawdy, low-brow teen comedy. However, Cha Cha Real Smooth departs from the predictable and heads into unexpected directions driven by its characters. Every character struggles with something – Andrew’s mom is bipolar, Stepdad Greg is wooden and tonedeaf, the little brother is awkwardly stumbling into adolescence, and Andrew, of course is immature and aimless. Even the girl who was All That at Andrew’s high school is also drifting and wondering if she “peaked in high school”.

But, with the exception of a couple middle school bullies and their enabling dad, everybody in Cha Cha Real Smooth is a decent person. In this era of Snark, here are good people, with their foibles and eccentricities just trying to navigate life.

This refreshing aspect of Cha Cha Real Smooth comes from the characters written by Cooper Raiff, who also directed and, of course, stars as Andrew. This is Raiff’s second feature as a writer-director (following Shithouse), and, at age 25, he has proved that he is a promising talent. Especially as a writer.

Dakota Johnson’s performance is one of her best. Her Domino is so invested in her daughter that the rest of her life is chaotic; she’s well-schooled in hard knocks, leaving her much wiser than Andrew, but fearful of accepting good developments in her life.

The rest of the cast is very good, too. Leslie Mann continues to be a comedic treasure.

Cha Cha Real Smooth is streaming on AppleTV.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: JOCKEY. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet –

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

NUTS! Courtesy of SFFILM.

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

  • NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
  • The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
  • Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
NUTS! Courtesy of SFFILM.

ON TV

Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton in REPO MAN.

I’m recommending tonight’s midnight (PDT) showing of Alex Cox’s 1984 cult film Repo Man on Turner Classic Movies. Emilio Estevez plays a punk (in both senses) who stumbles into a job assisting a professional auto-repossessor. That repo man is played by Harry Dean Stanton, who, at the age of 58, broke through in two wonderful lead performances. In his titular role in Repo Man, he plays the crusty, old school mentor of the heretofore aimless kid. The same year, Stanton delivered his masterpiece performance in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas.

Repo Man is a delight, with a full dose of Harry Dean, the inside peek into a shady and dangerous job, lots of humor and even an homage to the classic film noir Kiss Me Deadly. (In Repo Man, look for singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett in a bit part as “Additional Blonde Agent”.)

Hang ten this summer

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RIDING GIANTS

Let’s go surfin’ now

Everybody’s learning how

Come on and safari with me

It’s a great time to get stoked with the two most bitchin’ surfing movies, the documentaries Step Into Liquid and Riding Giants.

In Step Into Liquid (2003), we see the world’s best pro surfers in the most extreme locations.  We also see devoted amateurs in the tiny ripples of Lake Michigan and surfing evangelists teaching Irish school children.  The cinematography is remarkable – critic Elvis Mitchell called the film “insanely gorgeous”.  The filmmaker is Dana Brown, son of Bruce Brown, who invented the surf doc genre with The Endless Summer (1966) and The Endless Summer II (1994).

Riding Giants (2004) focuses on the obsessive search for the best wave by some of the greatest surfers in history. We see “the biggest wave ever ridden” and then a monster that could be bigger.  The movie traces the discovery of the Half Moon Bay surf spot Mavericks.  And more and more, all wonderfully shot.

The filmmaker is Stacy Peralta, a surfer and one the pioneers of modern skateboading, (and a founder of the Powell Peralta skateboard product company).  Peralta also made Dogtown and Z-boys (2001), the great documentary about the roots of skateboarding, and wrote the 2005 Lords of Dogtown.

Both Step into Liquid and Riding Giants can be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.