Movies – Page 117 – The Movie Gourmet

BROOKLYN: Saoirse Ronan brings alive satisfying romantic drama

November 19, 2015 by movie gourmet

Saoirse Ronan brings alive the satisfying mid-century romantic drama Brooklyn. Ronan plays a very young woman who leaves her Irish small town in 1952 and, after a difficult start, builds a life in Brooklyn. When she must return to Ireland for a visit, things gets complicated. It’s a coming of age story and a romance and a study of the loneliness that comes with immigration.

Ronan’s performance is exquisite. Her character is neither talky nor expressive, yet Ronan conveys her wit and profound feelings in every situation. An uncommon acting talent, Ronan burst on the scene in the pivotal role as the little sister in Atonement, filmed when she was just 12. Since then, she’s made the girl power action flick Hannah and the wry The Grand Budapest Hotel (she was the relentlessly loyal girlfriend with the birthmark of Mexico on her cheek), along with a variety of other films that illustrate her versatility. She will be nominated for Best Actress for this performance in Ronan, which at times rises to the profound.

The director John Crowley has done an excellent job here. Brooklyn looks great – watch for the differing color palettes in the Irish and Brooklyn scenes, and it’s remarkably well-paced. Crowley is an excellent story-teller – I loved his early Irish indies Intermission and Boy A (one of my Best Movies of 2008). The Irish scenes in Brooklyn were shot in the real town of Enniscorthy, County Wexford, where the story is set. There’s an especially moving scene with an Irish song – brilliant.

The supporting cast is excellent, especially the always reliable Jim Broadbent. Brid Kelly nails the role of Miss Kelly, a shopkeeper who is remarkably enthusiastic about her own malevolent small-mindedness. If Ronan’s performance weren’t so brilliant, Julie Walters would steal this movie as our heroine’s Brooklyn landlady. Jessica Paré (Mad Men) is also very good (and has Brooklyn’s biggest laugh line). And child actor James DiGiacomo is unforgettable.

With its focus on the protagonist’s relationships with her family members and girlfriends and the question of which suitor she’ll pick, Brooklyn is a “woman’s picture” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Well-crafted and satisfying, Brooklyn is a safe bet to have wide audience appeal and to earn Ronan an Oscar nod.

SPOTLIGHT: edge of the seat drama

December 10, 2015November 13, 2015 by movie gourmet

Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo in SPOTLIGHT

Bolstered with some superb supporting performances, filmmaker Tom McCarthy turns a journalistic procedural into the riveting. edge-of-your-seat-drama Spotlight. The story centers on a team of Boston Globe investigative reporters (Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Brian d’Arcy James, John Slattery and LievSchrieiber) as they untangle the sex abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese. Starting with the already-known Father Geoghan case, they uncover sexual abuse by two Boston priests, then four, then thirteen and soon an unthinkable magnitude, all intentionally covered up by the Church. Reminiscent of All the President’s Men, the team’s shoe leather efforts nets the Big Story.

We already are familiar with the horrible and disgusting revelations. But writer-director Tom McCarthy builds suspense and keeps us totally engaged in this brilliantly paced movie. McCarthy also wrote and directed the brilliant, character-driven fictional films The Visitor and The Station Agent.

Michael Keaton, coming off his tour de force in Birdman, is especially good here, especially in a reflective scene near the end. McAdams and Schreiber are also solid. Ruffalo has the most showy part, as a frenetic and volatile reporter.

But this most compelling acting comes from several of the supporting players, especially Michael Cyril Creighton, Jimmy LeBlanc and Anthony Paolucci as survivors of sexual abuse. The ever-reliable Jamey Sheridan is superb as a diocesan lawyer. Richard O’Rourke is affecting as an addled pedophile priest. Paul Guilfoyle, so convincing as true blue guys in CSI and Primary Colors, gets to play convincingly smarmy here. I don’t see Richard Jenkins in the credits, but the voice of an expert psychotherapist sure sounds like him.

At the end, McCarthy uses epilogue titles to effectively show the extent of the horrors revealed.

All in all, Spotlight is the first top rate movie of the Fall.

LAMBERT & STAMP: a good story from the birth of hard rock

November 9, 2015 by movie gourmet

Chris Stamp, Pete Townsend and Kit Lambert in LAMBERT & STAMP

The documentary Lambert & Stamp is the story of the two guys, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, who managed The Who to rock immortality. It’s an interesting odd couple story: hardscrabble and posh, straight and gay. There’s also this improbable but actual premise – in a quest to become movie directors, Lambert and Stamp decided to find a rock group to manage, film themselves managing the group and then use the resulting film as their filmmaking calling card. Of course, because they stumbled on a struggling band named The High Numbers and turned them into The Who, they never got to make the movie.

Chris Stamp survives, along with The Who members Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey, and we get to hear the story from their lips, and there’s plenty of film from the 60s and 70s, too. (The actor Terence Stamp is in the movie, too – he’s Chris Stamp’s big brother.)

However, rich source material can be too much of a good thing if you use more of it than you need. It’s interesting to see Lambert hold forth in German and French with European journalists, but not on and on and on. Lambert & Stamp is a little too long for me to recommend to a general audience, but to people interested in rock history or fans of The Who, it’s a Must See.

Lambert & Stamp is available streaming on Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

3 STILL STANDING: the comics who spurned LA

November 8, 2015 by movie gourmet

the stars of 3 STILL STANDING: Larry "Bubbles" Brown, Johnny Steele, Will Durst — The stars of 3 STILL STANDING: Larry “Bubbles” Brown, Johnny Steele, Will Durst

The San Francisco comedy club scene of the 1980s was a Golden Age for the art form of stand-up comedy – and its practitioners do consider it an art form, not just an entertainment product. That Bay Area scene launched major careers: Robin Williams, Dana Carvey, Paula Poundstone, Ellen DeGeneres, Bobby Slayton, Kevin Pollack, Whoopi Goldberg and Rob Schneider. The documentary 3 Still Standing tells the story of three of their comedy peers who flourished in the 1980s but chose not to “go to LA” and how they’ve dealt with the “downsizing”, when cable TV killed the market for stand-up comedy in clubs.

The three comics – Will Durst, Larry “Bubbles” Brown and Johnny Steele – are what make 3 Still Standing so compelling. Durst is a master of sharp political comedy in a society that is now more interested in vacuous celebrities. Steele’s observations are too subversive for a mainstream that is less hip and a whole lot less smart. Brown, whose appearances on Letterman were 21 years apart, is no longer young enough for the decision-makers who book comedy. But they’re all experts in their craft, and their material is hilarious.

Larry “Bubbles” Brown is a revelation. His comic persona is based on his half-empty world view and his self-deprecating view of his looks.

“It’s been a great day for me. Haven’t passed any blood.”

“I’m in the medical textbooks as one of the major causes of vaginal dryness”.

“Giving me Viagra is like giving a doorbell to a homeless guy.”

We’ve seen the global and technological economic changes that end once-promising career paths and force us to adapt or else. Here, the catalysts are both techno-economic (the supplanting/absorption of the comedy market by cable television) and cultural (the continued dumbing-down of our society). But it’s rare that the aging victims among us are so damn fun to watch as these three artists.

Filmmakers Donna Locicero and Richard Campos started the project “as a Valentine to the era that we enjoyed so much”. That would have been an entertaining movie. But 3 Still Standing gained more depth and texture when it evolved into the character-driven story of these three guys and their plight. In a post-screening Q & A, Campos also noted that “the San Francisco Bay Area is a character in the film”.

Robin Williams and Dana Carvey are prominent parts of 3 Still Standing. Locicero said that Williams had seen several versions of the film, including the final cut – all to ensure that his segments didn’t overshadow the story of the three principals.

3 Still Standing opens on November 12 at Camera 3 in San Jose. On November 11, the San Jose Improv will host a screening with outtakes from the movie and live appearances by Durst, Brown and Steele.

Durst, Brown and Steele are inventive originals and important artists. They prove that you can be on the wrong side of the marketplace and still be on the right side of history. I saw 3 Still Standing at the Camera Cinema Club.

THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ: tres droll

November 5, 2015 by movie gourmet

THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOULLEBECQ — THE KIDNAPPING OF MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ

When Michel Houellebecq, one of the most well-known writers in France, disappeared for a few weeks recently, there were media rumors that he had been kidnapped. The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq is an absurdist mockudrama in which Houellebecq himself plays himself in an imagined kidnapping. Once Houellebecq’s captors hide him in a farmhouse, the interactions between the characters become very funny.

The humor is all very droll and stems from the characters’ reactions to what Houellebecq finds to be an absurd situation. He is kept in the frilly room of a little girl, complete with large doll. And we see one of France’s leading public intellectuals and his less gifted captors fully engaged in existential discussions on topics such as “Does Poland exist?”.

Unfortunately, The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq opens with an almost intolerably slow segment BEFORE he is kidnapped. In fact, the pace of the entire film is pretty slow, so The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq is not for everyone.

But if you fast forward over the beginning and settle into observing the writer and his motley crew of kidnappers, you’ll find some laughs. The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq is available streaming on Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

UNFRIENDED: run from your webcams!!

December 22, 2015November 2, 2015 by movie gourmet

In the very satisfying horror film Unfriended, it’s the one-year anniversary of a teenage girl’s suicide, and her bullying peers convene via webcams on social media. But their computers are hijacked by an Unknown Force who starts wreaking revenge. The kids become annoyed, then worried and, finally, panicked for their lives.

Here’s something I’ve never seen before: the entire movie is compiled of the characters’ screenshots. The critic Christy Lemire says that “Unfriended is a gimmick with a ridiculous premise, but damned if it doesn’t work”, and she’s right. Writer Nelson Greaves and Director Levan Gabriadze came up with this device, and their originality pays off with a fun and effective movie. Unfriended is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play and Flixster.

Scare Week: PEEPING TOM

October 29, 2015 by movie gourmet

PEEPING TOM, coming up on Turner Classic Movies and better than PSYCHO — PEEPING TOM

Here is the best-ever psycho serial killer movie. Peeping Tom was released in 1960, the same year as Psycho. The British film critics didn’t know what to make of a thriller where the protagonist was so disturbing, and they trashed Peeping Tom so badly that its great director Michael Powell (The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Stairway to Heaven, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes) wasn’t able to work again in the UK. But I think Peeping Tom is an overlooked masterpiece and even better than its iconic counterpart Psycho.

Karlheinz Böhm plays a mild-mannered urban recluse who most people find socially awkward, but wouldn’t necessarily suspect to be a serial killer. The very innocent downstairs neighbor (Anna Massey) finds him dreamy and in need of saving – not a good choice.

Two aspects elevate Peeping Tom above the already high standards of Hitchcockian suspense. First, he’s not just a serial killer – he’s also shooting the murders as snuff films. Second, we see the killer watching home movies of his childhood – and we understand that ANYONE with his upbringing would be twisted; he’s a monster that repels us, but we understand him.

Until the last decade, Peeping Tom was unavailable, but you can find it now on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play and Xbox Video. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

PROPHET’S PREY: perverting polygamy

October 21, 2015 by movie gourmet

The Showtime documentary Prophet’s Prey takes us deep into the world of renegade Mormon polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, now behind bars for sexual assault on young girls. In 1986, Jeff’s father Rulon Jeffs became the patriarch of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamous cult that straddles the barren borders of Utah and Arizona. When Rulon became in firm, Warren Jeffs took control and, upon Rulon’s death, became the Church’s leader, a position of unencumbered and accountable power within the Church.

Fundamentalist polygamy, as practiced by Rulon and others, often involves older men taking on underage girls as multiple wives, which is discomfiting enough. But Warren is a sociopath and a child sexual predator, who, when given total power as leader became a monster of unspeakable proportions. Reportedly, at least 24 of Warren Jeff’s “wives” were under 17 and as young as 12.

As in any effective documentary, the source material is top rate. Filmmaker Amy Berg directed Prophet’s Prey from the book of the same name by Sam Brower (who also appears in the film) the private eye who dogged Jeffs. We hear from Warren Jeff’s “wife” #63 Janet. We meet his brother Warren (once head of FLDS security) and his sister Elaine and his nephews Brent and Lyle. There’s even amazing surveillance camera footage of Jeffs in his cell.

Prophet’s Prey’s writer-director Amy Berg previously directed Deliver Us from Evil about pedophile Catholic priests in California’s Central Valley, which ranked in the top ten on my list of Best Movies of 2006. She’s well on her way to cornering the market on docs about sexually deviant religious leaders. Prophet’s Prey is narrated by the musician Nick Cave.

Prophet’s Prey is currently playing on Showtime and DirecTV PPV.

BRIDGE OF SPIES: pretty good spy story with a great Mark Rylance

October 19, 2015 by movie gourmet

In Steven Spielberg’s true-to-life espionage thriller Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks plays James B. Donovan, the insurance lawyer who went on a Cold War secret mission to negotiate the trade of a captured Russian spy for the captured US spy plane pilot Francis Gay Powers. That Russian spy was Rudolph Abel, played by Mark Rylance – himself perhaps the best reason to see this movie.

Rylance is a top echelon Shakespearean actor from the UK – best known in the US for his star turn as the dour Thomas Cromwell in the television miniseries Wolf Hall. In a remarkably minimalist yet evocative performance, Rylance reveals a man who lives by a code and is doggedly loyal to his own misguided cause – with absolutely no expectations of fairness or mercy from anyone else. The effect is to make us sympathize with a guy who is trying to give our most menacing enemy our dearest nuclear secrets. As my friend Karyn noted about Rylance, “less is more”.

This is not a great movie. Sure, Spielberg is the master of entertainment (complete with sentimentally swelling music at the end). After the movie’s riveting opening sequence of spy craft, we settle into a sometimes ponderous segment showing the Abel trial and the U-2 missions. Bridge of Spies takes off again when Hanks’ Donovan must head behind the Iron Curtain.

[SPOILER ALERT – After seeing the film, I was compelled to research James B. Donovan to see if he really represented Abel and negotiated both the Abel-for-Powers deal AND the release of over a thousand Cuban prisoners from the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Indeed, he did – all of the acts depicted in the movie seem to be factual. But the real James B. Donovan was not the Everyman portrayed by Spielberg and Hanks. Before going into private practice, Donovan served a stint as the General Counsel of the OSS – the predecessor of the CIA. While slipping off to East Berlin to barter for Powers, he was on the New York City Board of Education. And, instead of returning to obscurity after bringing Powers back to the US, he ran for US Senate from New York.]

THE MARTIAN: an entertaining Must See

October 8, 2015 by movie gourmet

The space adventure The Martian delivers what the best big Hollywood movies can offer – a great looking movie that convincingly takes us to a place we’ve never been, inhabited by our favorite movie stars at their most appealing.

In The Martian, Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, a member of a scientific expedition to Mars who is (understandingly) left for dead when his team must make an emergency escape from the Red Planet. The next manned mission to Mars is scheduled to land four years later 1000 miles away and he only has a four months supply of food, so his chances don’t look promising. But Mark Watney is a character of irrepressible resilience, with a wicked sense of humor, and he immediately embarks on solving the many individual problems that stand between him and survival. NASA leadership (Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean and more) and his team en route back to Earth (Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, Michael Pena) all try to help.

Directed masterfully by Ridley Scott, The Martian pops along and there’s never a dull moment. It helps that the character of Watney is very funny.

I’m not highly scientifically literate, but the science in The Martian seemed to be at least internally consistent. I do think that – in real life – the NASA team would have immediately come to the solution thought up in the movie by the geek in the Jet Propulsion Lab.

The awesomely desolate Marscapes are fantastic. It’s all CGI, but you can’t tell – it looks like it is shot on location.

Here’s why The Martian isn’t a great movie:

Other than Damon’s Mark Watney, the other characters are types, getting all of their authentic texture from the performances instead of from the writing.
Never for a moment does the audience think there’s any chance that The Martian is really going to kill off Matt Damon.

But, overall, The Martian is so entertaining, it’s a Must See – even for folks that usually pass on science fiction.