Movies

WE STAND ALONE TOGETHER: THE MEN OF EASY COMPANY – what they endured

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There’s no better movie choice for Memorial Day than the documentary We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company.  A companion to the fine 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, this oral history gives voice to soldiers as they revisit what they endured.

The Easy Company of the title was part of the 101st Airborne, a storied WW II unit of regular guys who became elite paratroopers. We meet a bunch of those guys as they recount their journey of 55 years before – their basic training, their first combat – on D-Day. Easy Company went on to play a part in WW II’s most pivotal moments: the Normandy invasion, the liberation of the Netherlands, beating back Germany’s last offensive at the brutal Battle of the Bulge and conquering Hitler’s own private getaway, the Eagle’s Nest.

These are men of The Greatest Generation, a term coined four decades later by Tom Brokaw. For those most part, they didn’t share their war experiences with their families and friends. We are hearing many of them tell their stories for the first time.

I’m a Baby Boomer, and my Dad and all of my friends’ dads were WW II vets – basically every dad-aged adult male. We knew them as grocery clerks, science teachers, factory workers, insurance agents and mechanics like my Dad. All of us kids, growing up on a steady diet of WW II movies and TV, asked them, but they would never talk about the war. I now realize that I knew men who had served as infantry in Europe and Marines in the Pacific.

One family member did tell me about getting shot down over New Guinea and spending time with an indigenous tribe before his rescue. What he didn’t relate was in a journal that I found long after his death – that the repeated terror of over twenty bombing missions finally became more than he could bear.

Above all, We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company is the story of men who experienced one trauma after another. The unit suffered over 50% casualties on D-Day. Their eleven months of combat missions must have seemed endless. They deserve, finally, to be heard.

We Stand Alone Together: The Men of Easy Company can be streamed from HBO Max.

HAMLET/HORATIO: less angst, more tragedy

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Themo Melikidze as Horatio and Andrew Burdette as Hamlet in HAMLET/HORATIO

In Hamlet/Horatio, director Paul Warner and writer David Vando put a new twist on Shakepeare’s Hamlet.  Warner and Vando gives us a Hamlet from the point of view of Hamlet’s bestie Horatio (Themo Melikidze), as he fulfills his promise to retell the tragic fate of his friend.  That means that it’s not from Hamlet’s the internal point of view of Hamlet himself (Andrew Burdette), as he simmers in inner turmoil.

The result is almost soliloquy-free, and many famous lines are not spoken.  This is decidedly NOT a Cliff Notes version; Warner and Vando have intentionally left out some stuff that WILL be on the test.

Hamlet is generally thought of as a character-driven story about Hamlet’s angst and indecision. We all know that Hamlet has good reason to be depressed and angry at his father’s death and the usurpation by his uncle.  By focusing on Horatio’s retelling of his friend’s story, the spotlight is on the external plot – how Hamlet was wronged by treachery, seeks redress, and how, tragically, almost everyone winds up dead.

Hamlet is not my favorite Shakespeare play because I’m generally ambivalent to Hamlet wringing his hands for two or three hours.  Still, I missed that aspect in Hamlet/Horatio.  Hamlet/Horatio does succeed with the Closet scene and the Gravedigger scene; both are exceptionally good. Does Hamlet need a refreshing?  Why, sure.  Kenneth Branagh’s fine 1996 unabridged movie version had a running time of four hours, two minutes, and IMO that’s just too long for a movie.  And, as Warner points out, it’s not the most accessible play for a modern audience.  In contrast to Branagh’s and other movie versions, Hamlet/Horatio is a remarkably crisp 101 minutes.   

Joe Menino plays Polonius as ridiculously devoid of self-awareness, but without the usual broad comedy. Menino’s performance is very effective and still funny.  Just because Polonius never recognizes that he is a pompous blowhard, you don’t need to play him as Foghorn Leghorn.  The actors Anna Maria Cianciulli, as Gertrude, and Wayne Stephens, as Laertes, are very good.

Yesterday, I published my own list of Best Shakespeare Movies.  Hamlet/Horatio will be available to stream on June 1.

THE DRY: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural

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Photo caption: Eric Bana in Robert Connolly’s film THE DRY, which playes at SFFILM. Photo courtesy of SFFILM.

Eric Bana soars in The Dry, an atmospheric, slow-burn tale of murder and long-festering secrets from the Australian outback. The Dry is as psychological as it is procedural.

Bana plays Aaron, a renowned big city police officer who returns to his remote, tiny hometown, for the funeral of his childhood best friend. The friend, with his wife and young son, have been shotgunned to death, and all signs point to a murder-suicide. The friends’ parents implore Aaron to see if there is another explanation.

That task is complicated by the act that Aaron is not welcomed by many in his hometown. His teen heartthrob was mysteriously drowned, and Aaron was a prime suspect, causing him to flee the town. Twenty years later, all he knows is that he didn’t do it and that he lied about his alibi.

As indicated by the title, writer-director Robert Connolly sets The Dry in Australian outback in the Climate Change. The vast, tinder-dry landscapes underscores the literal and psychological isolation of the locals.

Aaron, racked with feelings about the twenty-year-old mystery death, starts investigating the current day murders. He joins up with the inexperienced local cop, and they poke around the rural community over several, searingly hot days. It takes a while to get there, but I thought the payoff justified the slow pace; The Wife didn’t. Both of us were surprised when the The Real Killer was revealed.

Eric Bana’s performance as Aaron is superb. The whole movie is about Aaron trying to keep his investigative focus while being buffeted by feelings about his childhood friends and his hometown and the trauma that caused him to move away from them.

Because of his good looks and his physicality, Bana appears in a lot of big movies that don’t test his emotional range (Hulk, Troy, Black Hawk Down). But Bana is always good and even better in movies like Munich and Hanna, where we get to glimpse his thinking and feeling. For a really good and overlooked Eric Bana movie, I recommend the 2012 thriller Deadfall, available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

The Dry played at SFFILM in April, but I missed it there. The Dry is now in Bay Area theaters and streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play.

BREWMANCE: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs

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Photo caption: Dan Sundstrom (Ten Mile Brewing) in Christo Brock’s BREWMANCE. Photo Credit:BROCKLAMATION FILMS

The appealing documentary Brewmance traces the evolution of the American craft beer phenomenon – and it’s quite a story.

The United States may have been the richest and most powerful country in the world, but before bottled Anchor Steam came out in the early 1970s, you couldn’t find a good beer in America. The passions of individual home brewers morphed into the first tiny craft breweries. We meet the undisputed father of the movement, Fritz Maytag of Anchor Steam, along with the founders of once-microbrewers Sierra Nevada and Boston Beer Company (Samuel Adams).

It’s interesting that craft brewers initially had to teach people to drink good beer. A populace conditioned to bland lagers like Budweiser, Coors, Miller’s High Life, Pabst Blue Ribbon and Schlitz was slow to embrace beers with strong flavors and aromas (and more alcohol). But, eventually, just as the American market began to appreciate good bread, good cheese and good wine in the late 1970s and 1980s, an acceptance of good beer followed. Indeed, we’re not surprised to see that the craft brewers we meet in Brewmance are also foodies.

Because The Movie Gourmet’s own taste has settled in India Pale Ales, I particularly appreciated Brewmance’s chronicle of the explosion of IPAs once brewers were able to source more varieties of hops and to deploy them more imaginatively. (Here’s a tip from The Movie Gourmet – if you can find an IPA brewed with New Zealand’s Nelson Sauvin hops – buy it.) And, yes, I will think less of you if you order a Bud Light, a Coors Light, a PBR or a Corona.

Here’s why Brewmance is so watchable, given that a 5-10 minute explanation of how beer is made is kinda geeky and that the history of any movement is, well, history. Director Christo Brock seamlessly braids these topics together with the stories of two startup craft breweries.

Underdog stories are irresistible, and every craft brewery starts out as an underdog. Brewmance features two very different sets of home brewers as they launch their own commercial craft breweries in Southern California.

Brewmance is a Must See for beer lovers and foodies, and a 102 minute delight for anyone. Brewmance is streaming on AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play and is coming to Amazon (included with Prime) on June 1.

THAT GUY DICK MILLER: putting the “character” in “character actor”

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Photo caption: THAT GUY DICK MILLER

The entertaining documentary That Guy Dick Miller is about an actor whose name you may not place, but that you’ve seen. It’s a straight-ahead documentary about a delightfully offbeat guy.

Dick Miller amassed 184 screen credits as a protégé of legendary independent filmmaker and schlockmeister Roger Corman.  Along the way, he rubbed shoulders with indie film icons Jack Nicholson, Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov, John Sayles, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.

Miller’s career started in 1955 as an Indian in the Roger Corman-directed Western Apache Woman and then Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors, The Terror, The Wild Angels and The Trip. Continuing as the king of the low budget movies, Miller went on to work for a second generation of Corman acolyte directors and then plunged full throttle into horror films.  Miller was the unfortunate Murray Futterman in Gremlins and Uncle Willie in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight.

On the screen and off, Dick Miller was glib and Bronx-accented, the quintessential wiseacre. In That Guy Dick Miller, we get to meet Miller and his wife Lainey; it’s clear the the two of them were lots of fun to be around. Irresistibly a card, Miller is even bawdy when he recalls his appearance in Night Call Nurses, a 1972 sexploitation film (that I actually saw in a drive-in 1972). 

On screen, Miller always swung for the fences, no matter how small the part.  Lots of actors play the ticket-taker or the security guard, but it’s Dick Miller that you remember for those minuscule roles.

Dick Miller as Walter Paisley, getting smooched in A BUCKET OF BLOOD

Miller is most well known for the lead character, Walter Paisley, in the beatnik-flavored cult film A Bucket of Blood. Miller appeared over ten more times as different characters named with some version of Walter Paisley. In fact, his final role was as Rabbi Walter Paisley in Hannukah, which opened after his death in 2019.

That Guy Dick Miller was recommended to me by Sandy Wolf, who had screened it as a Cinequest submission. However, That Guy Dick Miller premiered at SXSW instead of at Cinequest.

That Guy Dick Miller can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Caption: STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET

This week, Sesame Street’s origin story and a handful of overlooked films from the past decade. And don’t forget today;s Turner Classic Movies presentation of the consensus choice for Worst Movie of All Time – Plan 9 from Outer Space.

REMEMBRANCE

Actress Olympia Dukakis died last week at 89. A stage actress of renown, she was 56 when she got a screen role in her sweet spot (Moonstruck) and knocked it for an Oscar. She was perfect as the only-in-San-Francisco Anna Madrigal in the miniseries Tales of the City in 1993, 1998 and 2019. For a completely unrestrained Olympia Dukakis performance, try the little 2011 Canadian dramedy Cloudburst (Amazon – included with Prime, AppleTV).

ON VIDEO

Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street: This documentary is almost as charming as the beloved children’s television show whose origin story it chronicles. On VOD this week.

The Face of Love: Is a widow (Annette Bening) in love with her new boyfriend (Ed Harris ) – or still in love with her late husband? Amazon.

Other choices:

  • Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • The Brainwashing of My Dad: some insight into our national madness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

TAB HUNTER CONFIDENTIAL

On May 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. He hear Tab’s story from Tab himself – he’s still very good-looking and seems like a helluva decent guy. Also available to stream on Amazon,

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET: the origin story of an institution

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Caption: A scene from Marilyn Agrelo’s film STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET. Courtesy of SFFILM

There’s a lot to like about Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, a documentary as charming as the beloved TV series. As groundbreaking as it was, Sesame Street is now a 51-year-old institution, and its origin saga has not been well-known. Most of the key players survive, allowing director Marilyn Agrelo to present the first-hand back story.

We take the concept for granted today, based on the recognition that kids voraciously learn from commercial television – they learn to consume commercially marketed products. Sesame Street’s founders aimed to find out what kids like to watch and what is good for them to watch and put the two together.

Refreshingly. the pioneering producer Joan Ganz Cooney, the visionary Lloyd Morrisette of the Carnegie Foundation and the inventive director/head writer Jon Stone, each gives the credit to the others. If you add Mister Rogers to these folks, you have the Mount Rushmore of children’s television.

Everything in Sesame Street was intentional – like the street setting itself. Noting that most kid shows had fantasy settings, the creators chose a gritty urban neighborhood street to be relatable to disadvantaged urban kids. The same is true for the integrated cast.

Of course, Street Gang highlights the role of the Muppets. At first, the Muppets had their own set, but the creators learned that kids were so entertained by the Muppets that they found the street boring. So, they pivoted and brought the Muppets on to the street.

Jim Henson founded the Muppets as a late night satirical act and brought that adult sensibility to Sesame Street. The jokes embedded for adults encouraged parents to watch Sesame Street with their kids (which the educators thought was important).

There is also the astounding story of Sesame Street in Mississippi, where state government-controlled public television refused to air a show with an integrated cast. Those stations had to reverse themselves when private Mississippi stations put the show on the air.

This had not occurred to me, but Sesame Street requires creation of original music for 100 episodes per year – an enormous body of work. Street Gang takes us into the songwriting craft, with witty gems like Letter B (from Let It Be).

I screened Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street at SFFILM in April. It is widely available to stream today.

Coming up on TV: the all-time worst

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Caption: Vampira and Tor Johnson in Ed Wood’s PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE

On Friday, May 7, Turner Classic Movies presents Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959), often ranked as the worst movie of all time and #1 in my Bad Movie Festival.

This movie is so bad that Tim Burton made a Johnny Depp movie about it – “Ed Wood”, named for its zealously persistent, but pathetic, creator.  Ed Wood throws everything at the screen, hoping that something interesting will stick:  dying vampire star Bela Lugosi, the TV fortune teller Criswell, the horror movie hostess Vampira, zombie-look-alike pro wrestler Tor Johnson and stock footage of a nuclear explosion.  None of it is tied together with any coherence, and it’s all unintentionally funny.  This one’s good for the whole family.

Plan 9 from Outer Space can also be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Lugosi died while making this film and was replaced by a taller, non-speaking “double” who stalks about covering his face with his cloak.  The double shows up in the trailer.

STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET: the origin story of an institution

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Caption: A scene from Marilyn Agrelo’s film STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT TO SESAME STREET. Courtesy of SFFILM

There’s a lot to like about Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, a documentary as charming as the beloved TV series. As groundbreaking as it was, Sesame Street is now a 51-year-old institution, and its origin saga has not been well-known. Most of the key players survive, allowing director Marilyn Agrelo to present the first-hand back story.

We take the concept for granted today, based on the recognition that kids voraciously learn from commercial television – they learn to consume commercially marketed products. Sesame Street’s founders aimed to find out what kids like to watch and what is good for them to watch and put the two together.

Refreshingly. the pioneering producer Joan Ganz Cooney, the visionary Lloyd Morrisette of the Carnegie Foundation and the inventive director/head writer Jon Stone, each gives the credit to the others. If you add Mister Rogers to these folks, you have the Mount Rushmore of children’s television.

Everything in Sesame Street was intentional – like the street setting itself. Noting that most kid shows had fantasy settings, the creators chose a gritty urban neighborhood street to be relatable to disadvantaged urban kids. The same is true for the integrated cast.

Of course, Street Gang highlights the role of the Muppets. At first, the Muppets had their own set, but the creators learned that kids were so entertained by the Muppets that they found the street boring. So, they pivoted and brought the Muppets on to the street.

Jim Henson founded the Muppets as a late night satirical act and brought that adult sensibility to Sesame Street. The jokes embedded for adults encouraged parents to watch Sesame Street with their kids (which the educators thought was important).

There is also the astounding story of Sesame Street in Mississippi, where state government-controlled public television refused to air a show with an integrated cast. Those stations had to reverse themselves when private Mississippi stations put the show on the air.

This had not occurred to me, but Sesame Street requires creation of original music for 100 episodes per year – an enormous body of work. Street Gang takes us into the songwriting craft, with witty gems like Letter B (from Let It Be).

I screened Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street at SFFILM. It opens today in select San Francisco theaters and will release on VOD on May 6.

SFFILM: three indie gems

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Kelley Kali in a scene from Kelley Kali’s and Angelique Molina’s film I’M FINE (THANKS FOR ASKING), playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 9 -18, 2021. Courtesy of SFFILM

The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) is always an important showcase for independent cinema. Here are three indie gems in this year’s SFFILM program.

In the winning indie I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking), a recently widowed mom has lost her housing and goes on a one-woman crusade to get herself and her daughter back into an apartment. With a one-day deadline to earn the last $200 for a rental deposit, she races the clock through a series of misadventures – both comic and tragic – roller skating around Pacoima, braiding hair and making app-based food deliveries. And she’s putting on the best face, hiding her homelessness (and even convincing her 8-year-old that they’re “camping”). I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) makes powerful statements about housing security and the gig economy in a oft funny, always accessible movie. It’s the first feature for the female, BIPOC filmmakers – shot on a low budget during a pandemic.

A scene from Bo Maguire’s film SOCKS ON FIRE, playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 9 -18, 2021. Courtesy of SFFILM

Socks on Fire is Bo McGuire’s tale of his own family’s inheritance battle over a Hokes Bluff, Alabama, bungalow. The family of church-going Bama football fans – and one drag queen – is jarred and wounded by the mean behavior of one aunt. Enriched by old home movies and re-enactments, this ain’t your conventional talking head documentary. Socks on Fire swings between funny and operatic, and there’s a sweet remembrance of a grandmother in here, too. Won Best Documentary at the Tribeca Film Festival.

A scene from Kentucker Audley’s and Albert Birney’s film STRAWBERRY MANSION, playing at the 2021 San Francisco International Film Festival, April 9 -18, 2021. Courtesy of SFFILM

The very trippy and ultimately sweet fable Strawberry Mansion is set in a future where people’s dreams are taxed. An Everyman tax auditor (co-writer and co-director Kentucker Audley) is assigned to the dreams of an elderly artist and is plunged into an Alice in Wonderland experience with her dreams, and his dreams, and a romance, to boot. Strawberry Mansion is also a sharp and funny critique of insidious commercialism.

Socks on Fire had its North American theatrical premiere at a drive-in event – complete with live drag queen performances – as SFFILM’s centerpiece event. I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking) and Strawberry Mansion can be streamed at home through April 18. Tickets are available at SFFILM.