Movies – Page 104 – The Movie Gourmet

ARRIVAL: communicating in an unknown dimension

November 14, 2016 by movie gourmet

In Arrival, Amy Adams plays a linguistics professor at a Midwestern college who is drifting, having not recovered emotionally from the death of her child and the failure of her marriage. When space aliens come to earth (!) with very unclear intentions, she is deployed to figure out how to communicate with them.

Now if aliens (meaning living creatures in the universe who are not us) ever DO visit earth, I guarantee that we will be surprised at their appearance. I can’t imagine what they will look like, but they won’t look like the ones in The Day the Earth Stood Still, E.T. or Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Here, Arrival hits a home run. These aliens don’t look how we would expect, they don’t sound like we would expect and they don’t communicate like we would expect.

More central to the story, the aliens don’t think like we do. For them, time is not linear, which adds the mystic element that defines Arrival. Will our linguist learn how to communicate with these advanced beings who don’t seem to have language as we understand it? Will she connect with beings that think in different (additional?) dimensions?

Arrival is directed by Denis Villaneuve, who made Incendies, rated at the #1 slot on my Best Movies of 2011, as well as the thrillers Prisoners, Enemy and Sicario. His skill at thrillers pays off in the scenes with the aliens, when we are constantly on the edges of our seats. The people are actually going INTO the alien spacecraft? Holy Moley!

I loved Amy Adams in Arrival, as I tend to do in everything she does. Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg are also solid. The Wife pointed out that Renner succeeds in an unusual movie role – a hotshot with a healthy ego who recognizes that someone else has the better idea and becomes collaborative. But Arrival is about the story, not the performances.

Arrival is real science fiction. So many so-called “sci-fi” movies are really just war movies, revenge dramas, survival tales or Westerns that are set in the future or in space. Fortunately, we have recently had some truly thoughtful sci-fi including I Origins, Her and, now, Arrival.

Every viewer will be transfixed by the first 80% of Arrival. How you feel about the finale depends on whether you buy into the disconnected-from-linear-time aspect or you just get confused, like I did.

Stream of the Week: FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE – a grieving fish out of water

November 11, 2016November 8, 2016 by movie gourmet

David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest in Maris Curran's FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE, playing at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, April 21st - May 5th, 2016. — David Oyelowo and Dianne Wiest in FIVE NIGHTS IN MAINE. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society

An Atlanta man (David Oyeowlo) suddenly loses his wife to an auto accident and is completely shattered by the depth and the jarring abruptness of his loss. Pushed by his sister out of his paralysis, he drives up to Maine to visit his wife’s mother (Dianne Wiest). She is a person who is generally harsh, judgemental and irritating at all times, but is more so now that her own health is failing. His experience with her becomes the antithesis of the comfort and support that one would expect. As she probes and spars with him, the two are each driven to their own catharsis. The end of Five Nights in Maine also comes abruptly, leaving us to reflect on the lessons learned by the leading characters and how their grief is resolved.

Five Nights in Maine uses a handheld camera and LOTS of close-ups. This was a conscious choice by first-time writer-director Maris Curran, who sought a “closing in” effect because “grief is claustrophobic”.

Dianne Wiest’s performance is an awards-worthy tour de force. Flashing fiery looks and shooting piercing remarks from an invariably rigid posture, she commands our attention every moment that she is on-screen. As we would expect, Oyewolo is outstanding, especially in the early scenes where he collapses into shock. Rosie Perez, not as sassy, but every bit as appealing, as usual, is rock solid in the supporting role as the mother’s nurse. As the sister, Tenoyah Parris (Chi-Raq, Dear White People, Mad Men) gives yet another flawless performance.

I saw Five Nights in Maine at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), where Director Maris Curran, producer Carly Hugo and actor David Oyelowo appeared at the screening. Curran said she was motivated to write a story about loss as her own marriage was falling apart; when the ground was pulled out from under her, she created a protagonist in that situation.

Aiming for a sensual look for an emotional film, Curran was able to snare Tunisian cinematographer Sofian El Fani, fresh from his exquisite work in from Blue Is the Warmest Color, for his first American film. Budgeted for a 19-day shoot, the crew finished in only 18.

Oyewolo, happily married for 18 years, found exploring the territory of losing his wife to be very uncomfortable. Five Nights in Maine was shot right after Selma, so his exhaustion from Selma helped him find this “hollowed-out” character. Oyewolo sees Five Nights in Maine as a fish out of water story – not just geographically but emotionally (a man not used to or prepared for grief). Oyewolo prefers women directors because he “wants to be part of stories that are emotionally challenging”.

Fortunately, Curran leavens this dark-themed story with bits of sharp humor. It’s an emotionally affecting and authentic movie. Five Nights in Maine is available to stream on Amazon Instant, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and DirecTV.

CERTAIN WOMEN: not much happens in real life, either

November 4, 2016 by movie gourmet

The talented and idiosyncratic filmmaker Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women is another of her languorous observations of real people in the Northwest. It’s a classic Slice Of Life movie, with three slices, actually. Reichardt adapted the screenplay from short stories by Maile Meloy, and we have three barely interlocking tales of three women around the hamlet of Belfry, Montana. There’s the lawyer (Laura Dern) struggling to make her brain addled client (Jared Harris) understand and accept that he has no adequate legal recourse for a work injury. There’s a part-year resident (Michelle Williams) with a husband trying to reconnect with her and a very “teenage” teenager. And there’s a horse handler (Lily Gladstone) who gets a crush on a night school teacher (Kristin Stewart).

Not much happens. None of the main characters is in a substantially different place at the end of the film, although Gladstone’s rancher has learned a lesson about attraction. I’m going to blow right through my usual reticence about spoilers and tell you that Michelle Williams’ character gets her pile of rocks.

As a director, Reichardt is a brilliant observer, always picking up on the little awkward moments that are a part of life. She’s the perfect filmmaker to show Gladstone’s horse tender walking through downtown Livingston, where she knows no one, at night and peering in windows at people dining and getting their hair cut. Not only is there a solitary light bulb on a lonely character’s ceiling, but no one has finished the taped-and-mudded sheet rock around the bulb.

All three major actresses are very good. The performances by Lily Gladstone, Jared Harris and Rene Auberjonois (as an old man having trouble staying focused) are especially indelible.

I was a huge fan of Reichardt’s Old Joy, less so of her western misfire Meek’s Cutoff, and I thought that her Wendy and Lucy is a masterpiece. (BTW Certain Women is dedicated “For Lucy”, the dog in Wendy and Lucy.) If you are a patient moviegoer and/or a fan of Reichardt’s, then you should see Certain Women. But renting her Wendy and Lucy would be a better choice.

THE HANDMAIDEN: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot

November 4, 2016November 3, 2016 by movie gourmet

After a few minutes of The Handmaiden, we learn that it’s a con artist movie. After 100 minutes, we think we’ve watched an excellent con artist movie, but then we’re surprised by a huge PLOT TWIST, and we’re in for two more episodes and lots of surprises in a gripping and absorbing final hour. It’s also one of the most visually beautiful and highly erotic films of the year.

Director and co-writer Chan-wook Park sets the story in 1930s Korea during Japanese occupation (Japanese dialogue is subtitled in yellow and Korean dialogue in white). A young heiress has been secluded from childhood by her guardian uncle, who intends to marry her himself for her fortune. A con man embarks on a campaign to seduce and marry the wealthy young woman to harvest her inheritance himself. The con man enlists a pickpocket to become handmaiden to the heiress – and his mole. I’m not going to tell you more about the plot, but the audience is in for a wild ride.

The Handmaiden takes its time revealing its secrets. Who is conning who? Who is attracted to whom? How naive is the heiress? How loyal is the handmaiden? Who is really Japanese and who is really Korean? What’s in those antique books? What’s in the basement? Is the uncle perverted or REALLY perverted? And what legendary sex toy will show up in the final scene?

Chan-wook Park’s 2003 US art house hit Oldboy is highly sexualized, trippy and disturbing. The Handmaiden is much more mainstream and accessible than Oldboy, but its sexuality packs a punch.

Gorgeous and erotic, The Handmaiden is one of the most gloriously entertaining films of the year.

AQUARIUS: spirit, thy name is Sonia Braga

November 3, 2016 by movie gourmet

In the Brazilian character-driven drama Aquarius, Sonia Braga plays Clara, the last owner of a beachfront condo who hasn’t sold out to a developer who owns the rest of the condos. The conflict is between Clara, who refuses to sell and those her want her to. But Aquarius is really about Clara, and it takes its time setting up her character; it’s 26 minutes before we even see the developers. We must understand her to understand her motivation – and her will.

Aquarius moves through scenes with a lifeguard at the beach, with girlfriends at club, at family parties, not to move the plot, but to invest in revealing aspects of Clara’s character. Having conquered cancer, lost her husband, raised children and built an artistic career, Clara has some mileage on her – enough to know what she wants and needs. Having earned the authority to live her life as she pleases, Clara is a wilful free spirit. And, as everyone finds out, she is absolutely fearless.

It’s a career-capping performance for Sonia Braga, still luminous 40 years after Donna Flor and Her Two Husbands. Mid movie, there’s a scene when Clara’s adult children try to have an awkward conversation about the financial benefits of selling the apartment. She doesn’t make it easy for them, and their long-submerged feelings about their father and their mother surface. With piercing observations and cold-eyed disappointment, Clara is as masterful over her children as when they were infants. It’s hard to imagine a better movie scene this year. Braga is brilliant.

The young Brazilian television actor Humberto Carrão is exceptional as Clara’s ever smiling foil Diego, whose youth and punctilious civility mask a capacity to engage in any tactic, even very dirty tricks.

I viewed Aquarius at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

Aquarius is critical of the political status quo, and the Brazilian government’s refusal to submit it for the Best Foreign Language Picture Oscar has created a controversy detailed in this New York Times article.

MOONLIGHT: finding gentle humanity in an urban jungle

November 2, 2016 by movie gourmet

The indie drama Moonlight brings us a glimmer of gentle humanity in the crack-plagued inner city. Centered on a nine-year-old African-American boy named Chiron (pronounced shy-RONE) in South Florida, Moonlight is at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening.

Chiron is a sensitive kid who is left to raise himself by his crackhead mom. Hiding from the neighborhood toughs, he is taken in by the local drug lord (Mahershala Ali – Remy in House of Cards) and his girlfriend. Given the mean streets and the neglectful mom, that actually turns out to be a good thing. The older man becomes a surrogate father and dispenses helpful advice like, “Don’t sit with your back to the door”. We also see Chiron at 17 (working on the “Questioning” part of LGBQT), and at 27, when he finally decides to address the pivotal events of his youth.

Moonlight’s director Barry Jenkins wrote the screenplay from the story by Terrell McCraney. Jenkins and McCraney did not know each other as kids, but grew up in the same period in the Miami area, and both had parents touched by the crack epidemic.

No matter how hard parents try to protect and control their kids, much of their growing up will be outside the parents’ field of vision. Kids will discover things with, learn from and be influenced by their peers. As unsettling as that is, the only alternative is to move off the grid and home school them (at the expense of socialization). The scenes in Moonlight of the 9-year-old and the 17-year-old Chiron with his friends outside the view of adults are unusually realistic narrative cinema.

Jenkins structured Moonlight in three acts, with different actors playing Chiron at age 9 (Alex Hibbert), age 17 (Ashton Sanders) and age 27 (Travante Rhodes). Likewise, Chiron’s friend Kevin is played by Jaden Piner, Jharrel Jerome and André Holland. To understand the third act (and the vanity plates on Chiron’s car), it’s important to remember that it’s Kevin who gives Chiron the nickname “Black” when everyone else calls him “Little”.

The 9-year-old Chiron’s mom is complicated – she makes him read instead of watching TV, but still ditches him when she entertains a gentleman caller. Young Mr. Hibbert’s eyes are eloquent when he looks back at his mother – he already knows that this is not the way it’s supposed to be (and she hates that he knows). The teenage Chiron’s mom has lost all control and is her son’s worst nightmare – a totally consumed crackhead like Samuel L. Jackson’s Gator in Jungle Fever.

The best aspect of Moonlight is its treatment of bullying and Chiron’s sexual questioning and awakening. We feel, even relive, the dread of childhood bullies. Moonlight’s treatment of growing up gay, especially gay and African-American is extraordinarily sensitive and even revelatory.

This is an important film, but its effectiveness grinds down in the third act. The first, 9-year-old segment is absorbing. The second, teenage sequence does an adequate job on the bullying and a stellar job on the sexuality. To that point, we really care about Chiron, and we’re on the edges of our seats rooting for his survival. But then Travante Rhodes takes over the character of Chiron as a grown man who is trying to be the Mahershala Ali character but looks and walks like Mike Tyson; Rhodes’ eyes and face don’t bring us in as do the younger actors. The lifestyle choice that Chiron has made after his teens and his roadtrip to self-discovery are interesting but not compelling, and Moonlight’s urgency peters out.

I’m a contrarian here: Moonlight has gotten rapturous acclaim, notably, from the critics that I respect the most, A.O. Scott, Mick LaSalle, Sheila O’Malley, Richard Roeper, Tim Sika and others. It has Metacritic rating of NINETY-NINE! But, leaving the theater, The Wife’s first comment was, “I feel like I just ate my broccoli,” and I agreed with her.

The casting is ALMOST perfect. Young Hibbert and Jerome are exceptional and all the Chiron/Kevin actors are good, except for Rhodes. Mahershala Ali’s drug dealer moves with a lion’s top-of-the-food-chain insouciance, but his moment when the young Chiron asks him “Does my mom do drugs?” and a very direct follow-up question is heartbreaking. The very sleek British actress Naomie Harris (Some Kind of Traitor) is unrecognizable as the crackhead mom – a very strong performance. The singer Janelle Monáe is very appealing in her turn as the drug dealer’s girlfriend.

Moonlight deserves praise for its realism and insight, but loses its punch in the final twenty-five minutes.

THE HOUSE ON PINE STREET: does she really see a ghost?

October 31, 2016October 29, 2016 by movie gourmet

So here’s the thing with every movie ghost story – either the ghost is real or the protagonist is crazy enough to hallucinate one. The beauty of The House on Pine Street is that the story is right down the middle – ya just don’t know until the end when the story takes us definitively in one direction – and then suddenly lurches right back to the other extreme.

Jennifer (Emily Goss) is a very pregnant urbanist, who reluctantly moves from her dream life in Chicago back to her whitebread hometown in suburban Kansas. Unlike Jennifer, her husband hadn’t been thriving in Chicago, and Jennifer’s intrusive and judgmental mother (Cathy Barnett – perfect in the role) has set up an opportunity for him in the hometown. They move to a house that is not her dream home AT ALL, “but it’s a really good deal”. Jennifer overreacts to some crumbling plaster.

Jennifer is pretty disgruntled, and, generally for good reason – her mom’s every sentence is loaded with disapproval. Her mom’s housewarming party would be a social nightmare for anyone – but it’s too literally nightmarish for her. One of the guests, an amateur psychic (an excellent Jim Korinke), observes, “the house has interesting energy”.

Then some weird shit starts happening: knocks from unoccupied rooms, a crockpot lid that keeps going ajar. And we ask, is the house haunted or is she hallucinating? Her sane and sensible and skeptical BFF comes from Chicago to visit as sounding board, and things do not go well.

Co-writers and co-directors Aaron and Austin Keeling keep us on the edges of our seats. Their excellent sound design borrows from The Conversation and The Shining – and that’s a good thing.

The Keelings also benefit from a fine lead – Emily Goss’ eyes are VERY alive. She carries the movie as we watch her shifting between resentfulness, terror and determination.

The total package is very successful. I saw The House on Pine Street at Cinequest, and now it can be streamed from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

TOWER: a most original and important retelling of a story that we thought we knew

October 28, 2016 by movie gourmet

Tower is a remarkably original retelling of the 1966 mass shooting at UT Austin. Tower is a tick-tock of the 96 minutes when 49 people were randomly chosen to be shot by a gunman in the landmark tower 240 feet above the campus. That gunman is barely mentioned (and may not even be named) in the movie.

Tower is director Keith Maitland’s second feature. What makes Tower distinctive and powerful it’s the survivors who tell their stories, reenacted by actors who are animated by a rotoscope-like technique (think Richard Linklater’s Waking Life). Telling this story through animation, dotted with some historical stills and footage, is captivating.

Since 1966, we’ve suffered through lots of mass shootings. The UT Tower shooting was especially shocking at the time and prompted the questions about what drove the “madman” to his deed. But, fifty years later, what’s really important today is how the event affected the survivors – what was what like to live through this experience and how it lives with them today. That’s the story that Maitland lets them tell us – and in such an absorbing way.

I saw Tower at the Mill Valley Film Festival. It opens theatrically in the Bay Area today at the Landmark Shattuck in Berkeley.

MEN GO TO BATTLE: getting away from an obnoxious brother the hard way

October 27, 2016 by movie gourmet

In the indie drama Men Go to Battle, it’s 1861 and two bachelor brothers are sharing an especially unprosperous farmstead in rural Kentucky. Brash and loudmouthed, brother Francis (David Maloney) confidently plunges into one foolhardy scheme after another. His quiet practical brother Henry (Timothy Morton) picks up the pieces. Not one to use words to express his feelings, Henry has finally had enough of Francis and simply leaves for the Civil War without notice.

Observing Francis is plenty amusing, because of his unerringly wrongheaded impulses. But the stone faced Henry, for whom still waters run deep, is much more interesting – we wonder what he is thinking and what he is going to do. Once he’s made up his mind, he is decisive and resolute. In a remarkably powerful scene on the morning after the Battle of Stones River (Perryville), he wordlessly decides about war and about his part in it.

Men Go to Battle is the first feature for director and co-writer Zachary Treitz. His co-writer is the actress Kate Lyn Sheil (Sun Don’t Shine, House of Cards), who has a small acting part (as does indie director Amy Seimetz).

Visually, much of movie is way too dark (as in you can’t see what is going on). But Men Go to Battle does an exceptional job of illustrating the QUIET of pre-electric and pre-motorized North America.

[Note: Some critics have described this movie s “Civil War Mumblecore”. Indeed, it’s a low-budget indie made by thirty-somethings and the male actors DO mumble a lot. But I despise the Mumblecore genre because the stories are about underachieving slackers who are navel gazing and whining about first world problems. That’s not the case here. This movie is about a real family relationship, and there is no entitlement or snivelling, so it’s NOT Mumblecore.]

Men Go to Battle is available to to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

THE GREASY STRANGLER: manufactured for the midnight show

October 26, 2016 by movie gourmet

There’s been a lot of buzz about the gross-out spectacular The Greasy Strangler – weirdest movie of the year, blah blah. But the first feature from British writer-director Jim Hosking is really pretty easy to deconstruct – it’s manufactured to become popular at the midnight cult movie shoes, joining the rotation along with Rocky Horror, Eraserhead, The Room, etc. The Greasy Strangler will draw in the midnight crowd with its meals prepared with industrial grease, the prosthetic penises of varying sizes and a heavy dose of sex between naked grotesques. It’s made for audience participation with signature lines for the audience to repeat along with the characters, like “You’re a bullshit artist” and “Hootie tootie disco cutie”.

This is not to say there aren’t some clever touches in The Greasy Strangler. Believe me, you’ve never seen a car wash used in this way before. And there’s a priceless male disco outfit with a cutout in exactly the wrong place.

Sky Elobar and Michel St. Michaels in THE GREASY STRANGLER

The plot is pretty simple: a virginal nerd boy (Sky Elobar of Don Verdean) is living with his omni-disgusting father (Michael St. Michaels), a cranky cretin who constantly demands copious amounts of grease added on to his food – even movie popcorn butter and street vendor chili dogs. Will the younger man finger his dad as the local serial killer, the Greasy Strangler? And will the father alienate the affections of his son’s new sweetheart (Elizabeth Del Razzo)? Nightly, the Greasy Strangler immerses himself in a 55 gallon drum of grease and then zombie-walks through town in search of victims.

If you are not entertained by the epically disgusting, this movie is not for you – after all, that’s the whole point. The Greasy Strangler can be streamed from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. Or you can catch it in the decades of midnight screenings ahead.

Sky Elobar and Elizabeth Del Razzo in THE GREASY STRANGLER