Every year, we have watched the Oscars while enjoying a meal inspired by the Best Picture nominees. We’ve had sushi for Lost in Translation, cowboy beans for Brokeback Mountain, Somali chicken suqaar for Captain Phillips, etc. The photo above shows last year’s Oscar dinner, finished with the courtesan au chocolate, the elaborate filled pastry smuggled to Gustave (Ray Fiennes) in The Grand Budapest Hotel.
But this year, The Wife and I are spending an away weekend with our daughter and son-in-law, so we just can’t pull it off.
But, if we were going to stage our dinner, we would have considered:
spaghetti from Brooklyn;
potatoes (but not cultivated in our own waste) from The Martian;
pub pints from one of the Boston bars in Spotlight;
Steve Carell’s Las Vegas convention dessert in The Big Short;
and I like the idea of raw bison liver from The Revenant, but The Wife was never going to agree to that.
Below is our 2011 pièce de résistance, our Severed Hand Ice Sculpture for 127 Hours and Winter’s Bone.
The Movie Gourmet’s culinary tribute to 127 HOURS and WINTER’S BONE
The thought-provoking documentary The Promised Band has its world premiere next week at Cinequest. It’s about a group of Israeli and Palestinian women seeking to fight through the cultural, legal, political, military and security barriers between them (by forming a girl band). I’ve seen it, and it effectively brings the audience into the Israel-Palestine border situation and the isolating effects on both Israelis and Palestinians. The Promised Band is one of the 129 woman-directed films at this year’s Cinequest.
The most compelling subject of the documentary is the main Palestinian character, the charismatic Lina. There’s now a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to bring Lina from Ramallah to San Jose for Cinequest: Let’s Get Lina to California. I’ve kicked in a little, and I’d appreciate it if you would consider helping out, too.
The Movie Gourmet saw Brooklyn again last weekend with The Wife, and I liked it better the second time around. That’s saying something because it’s already #4 on my Best Movies of 2015. (The only three movies that I admired more weren’t nominated this year.)
Here’s my original post on Brooklyn, when it was first released. This time – even though I knew what was coming – I was much more emotionally involved in the story. I predicted that Brooklyn would especially appeal to women, but even my male poker buddies who saw it told me that they “were rooting for the Italian guy”.
Saoirse Ronan is so brilliant in Brooklyn. I expect Brie Larson to win the Best Actress Oscar for Room, but Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) and Ronan are equally deserving.
On Sunday evening, The Revenant is going to beat Spotlight for the Best Picture Oscar. I rated Brooklyn the highest of the Oscar-nominated movies, even over The Revenant and Spotlight, and I’m sticking with that assessment.
Make your plans now to attend the 26th edition of Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival. By some metrics the largest film festival in North America, Cinequest was recently voted the nation’s best by USA Today readers. The 2016 Cinequest is scheduled for March 1 through March 13 and will over 100 feature films from the US and over twenty other countries. And, at Cinequest, it’s easy to meet the filmmakers.
This year’s headline events include:
The Helen Mirren thriller Eye in the Sky on Opening Night.
A pre-release screening of the major studio The Little Prince, already spoken of as a contender for the 2017 Animated Feature Oscar.
James Franco’s appearance to present his film The Adderall Diaries.
Rita Moreno’s attendance at the world premiere of her movie Remember Me.
The Australian drama The Daughter on Closing Night (I’ve seen it – and it packs a punch!).
This year, Cinequest presents the world or US premieres of sixty features and sixty-nine shorts. And of these 129 debut films, 64 were directed by women!
I’m going to be strongly recommending at least two of these first features, the psychological thriller Lost Solace and the character-driven drama Heaven’s Floor. I’ve already screened over a dozen Cinequest 2016 movies, and I’ve already also found an excellent period romance, some thought-provoking documentaries and even a satisfying low brow comedy.
Indeed, the real treasure at Cinequest 2016 is likely to be found among the hitherto less well-known films. In the past three years, the Cinequest gems Wild Tales, ’71, Ida and The Hunt all made my Best of the Year lists.
Cinequest is on my list of Silicon Valley’s Best Movie Deals. You can get a pass for as little as $155, and you can get individual tickets as well. The express pass for an additional tax-deductible $100 is a fantastic deal – you get to skip to the front of the lines!
Take a look at the program, the schedule and the passes and tickets. (If you want to support Silicon Valley’s most important cinema event while skipping the lines, the $100 donation for Express Line Access is an awesome deal.)
As usual, I’ll be covering Cinequest rigorously with features and movie recommendations. I usually screen (and write about) over thirty films from around the world. I’ll soon have up a Cinequest 2016 page. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.
I know that this is utterly futile, but I wish that young people will watch 45 Years. It’s not gonna happen because young people have little interest in movies about old people. But there’s much in 45 Years for folks in their 20s to consider as they build lifelong relationships.
It’s easy to say, “Be completely truthful and hide nothing from your partner”. And we’ve certainly seen enough examples (even in movies, too) about the corrosiveness of familial secrets and lies. But what about truths that are toxic and destructive?
45 Years also illustrates that you gotta live with your partner’s feelings whether justified, rational or not. Kate herself knows that she shouldn’t blame Geoff for something before he had met her, saying, “I can hardly be cross about something before we existed, could I?….Still…” Then there’s the question, not of what he did, but why he didn’t tell her. And 45 Years probes what happens when the assumptions in a relationship are rocked.
Finally, here’s some rare relationship advice from The Movie Gourmet that would have aided the characters in 45 Years: If you can’t handle the answer, don’t ask the question.
Kyle Chandler and Casey Affleck in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
The Sundance Film Festival happened this past week and it happened without The Movie Gourmet traveling to Park City, Utah. Nevertheless, I followed Sundance on a daily basis and here’s why – the buzz from Sundance adds a bunch of movies to my “Must Find and See” list for the coming year.
Last year’s Sundance Film Festival produced six films for my Best Movies of 2015: #2 Wild Tales, #5 Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, #4 Brooklyn, and honorable mentions I’ll See You in My Dreams, The End of the Tour and ’71. In addition, Sundance featured several of the year’s most notable films: The Tribe, It Follows, Tangerine, Diary of a Teenage Girl, I Smile Back and 99 Homes.
The films on the top of my 2016 Sundance Must See list are Manchester By the Sea and The Birth of a Nation. Manchester By the Sea is from Kenneth Lonergan, who also wrote and directed the brilliant You Can Count on Me and Margaret. Manchester By the Sea features a reputedly searing performance by Casey Affleck; Kyle Chandler also stars.
The Birth of a Nation, which won the top prize at the fest, is the story of the slave rebellion chronicled in The Confessions of Nat Turner, written and directed by and starring the actor Nate Parker. Believe it or not, both movies are ALREADY generating 2016 Oscar buzz.
This year, Amazon and Netflix, to the consternation of the movie studios, aggressively shopped for Sundance indies. Amazon bought Manchester By the Sea and, although The Birth of a Nation was bought by Fox Searchlight, Netflix drove up the price.
Sundance is also usually especially rich with documentaries. Last year’s haul included Listen to Me Marlon, What Happened Miss Simone?, Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead, Welcome to Leith, The Hunting Ground, Prophet’s Prey, Going Clear: The Prison of Belief, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, Finders Keepers, Hot Girls Wanted and Cartel Land. In other words, Amy, The Look of Silence and Hitchcock/Truffaut were the only major 2015 documentaries that did NOT play Sundance.
This year’s top doc at Sundance was Weiner, an inside look at the Anthony Weiner mayoral campaign that collapsed on his bafflingly gross tweets and sexts. Mrs. Weiner is Huma Abedin, a longtime top aide to another Famously Wronged Woman, Hillary Clinton. Prepare to cringe.
LUNAFEST, the traveling film fest to raise money for breast cancer research, comes to San Jose this week with its tag line “Short Films By, For And About Women”. The 90-minute film program features six short films directed by women. The event also features dinner, a boutique and breast cancer prevention tips. Doors open at 6 PM on Friday, January 22 at the San Jose Women’s Club.
As usual, this year’s films present something for everyone. There’s the animated Beach Flags about a young Iranian woman in a beach lifeguard competition. Finding June, about a deaf woman diagnosed with breast cancer, is an exploration of personal communication. In the Finnish comedy First World Problems, a shopper loses her car in a mall parking lot.
100 percent of all net proceeds are donated to charity. LUNAFEST San Jose 2016, including the boutique, auctions, raffle, ticket sales and sponsorship will benefit the Breast Cancer Fund, Sempervirens Fund – Lani Luthard Memorial Grove, and the SJWC Charitable Giving Program, which funds local charities including San Jose Day Nursery and Next Door Solutions.
The great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond died last week at 85. He was known as a champion of natural light in filmmaking, a major contribution that he and fellow Hungarian László Kovács brought to Hollywood in the late 1960s. Zsigmond shot The Deer Hunter, Deliverance and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He was nominated for four Oscars, and won for Close Encounters.
Zsigmond shot The Sugarland Express, Steven Spielberg’s first theatrical feature (Duel was a TV movie) and worked with directors Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Brian De Palma and even Jack Nicholson (The Two Jakes). Yet he may best known among cinephiles for his groundbreaking and artistically risky work in McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Heaven’s Gate (two movies that I otherwise don’t care for). He was even on the all-star camera crew for the prototype concert movie The Last Waltz.
To celebrate Zsigmond, this week I am recommending two DVDs – one of his overlooked masterpieces and a film ABOUT his art. First, there’s the 1971 Western directed by Peter Fonda, The Hired Hand. This is a moody, captivating and underrated film – and it looks great, thanks to Zsigmond. The Hired Hand is available on DVD from Netflix.
Second, Zsgimond is one of the artists discussing the art of cinematography in the excellent 1992 documentary Visions of Light; it’s a Must Watch for movie fans. Visions of Light is also available on Netflix DVD. Zsigmond also appears in the fine documentary on 1970s auteur-driven cinema Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘N’ Roll Generation Saved Hollywood.
How does a film get listed on my Best Movies of 2015? Essentially, I look for two very personal reactions: 1) I am thrilled by the experience of watching the film (or feel another strong visceral reaction) and 2) I am still thinking about the movie for days afterward.
A few days ago I saw both Caroland Youth. I found each of them to be exceptional films, and I enjoyed and admired them both. But I was thrilled by Youth and am still thinking about it. Youth made my top ten list. Not so with Carol.
It hurts if I think of something else during the movie. It helps to be original (Ex Machina, Wild Tales, Youth, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl). It helps to be authentic (Brooklyn, I’ll See You in My Dreams). It really helps if I think that the movie is timeless and will stand up over time.
It helps if I would watch the movie again, but that’s not necessary. One viewing of a challenging and uncomfortable film like The Look of Silencemay be all that I can stomach. On the other hand, I have a bunch of Guilty Pleasures that I can watch repeatedly without rating them as great films.
There’s no shame in missing my top ten list. I really enjoyed, and heartily recommend Carol, along with Legend, Meet the Patels, The Gift, Amy, Mr. Holmes, Sicario, Black Mass, Gemma Bovery, Spy and Seymour: An Introduction. They’re just not on my list of the year’s best.
Bruce Sinofsky was a filmmaker who actually saved lives. His Paradise Lost trilogy resulted in innocent men being released from death row.
Lizabeth Scott‘s career was launched by her striking looks. Often described as a “smoky blonde”, she proved herself a brilliant actresses playing smoky and smoking blondes in film noir, notably Dead Reckoning,Too Late for Tears and I Walk Alone. My favorite Lizabeth Scott role is in Pitfall. The married protagonist (Dick Powell) falls for her but she’s not the usual femme fatale. She’s not a Bad Girl, just an unlucky one. She has horrible taste in a boyfriend and the bad luck to attract a menacing stalker (Burr), but she’s fundamentally decent. Will her sexual promiscuity be punished at the end of this 1948 movie – and will his?
Comedy pioneer Anne Meara
Anne Meara‘s death was noted in our celebrity-obsessed culture as the loss of Ben Stiller’s mom. But she was – in her own right – a comedy pioneer. In groundbreaking performances with her husband and comedy partner Jerry Stiller in the early 1960s, Meara influenced a whole new comic sensibility. Her peers included Nichols and May, Mort Sahl, Woody Allen and Bob Newhart. She was in the forerunner of Second City, and her sketches evolved into the SNL form of comedy that has dominated since the 70s. She worked mostly in television, and one of her best recent roles was as Miranda’s demented mother-in-law in Sex and the City.
Fred Thompson is best known for his role as an investigative attorney during the Watergate Hearings and for his decade in the US Senate. But he was a pretty fair country actor, too, and my favorite Fred Thompson performance was in the very smart and funny corporate mockudrama Barbarians at the Gate.
Vincent Bugliosi, the Los Angeles prosecutor, secured convictions of the Manson Family for the sensational Tate-LaBianca murders. His memoir of the investigation and trials, Helter Skelter, was adapted into the riveting 1976 miniseries of the same title starring Steve Railsback as Charlie.
Christopher Lee, with his 278 screen credits, is fondly remembered for entertaining roles at the beginning of his career as a horror heavy and at the end of his career as an imposing presence in the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings franchises. My favorite Christopher Lee role is as the bad guy Rochefort (Charlton Heston’s henchman) in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers (1973) and The Four Musketeers (1974).
Leonard Nimoy, with Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
Leonard Nimoy was much more than Spock, with a career highlighted (in my mind) by the chillingly confident and authoritative Dr. David Kibner in the 1978 Philip Kaufman remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Not everybody can be menacing in a turtleneck.
Maureen O’Hara was the durable star chiefly remembered as the Queen of Technicolor and for being forceful enough to match up to John Wayne. I remember her most fondly in one of her first American films, playing against John Garfield in the noirish WW II spy thriller The Fallen Sparrow. She doesn’t look 22 – does she?
