The actor Eli Wallach has died at age 98. He was a star of the New York stage and of NYC-based TV series and live television dramas of the 1950s. Wallach was a great movie character actor who had the gift of packing maximum entertainment value into any role. Movie fans will probably best remember him for two bandito bad guys – Cavela in The Magnificent Seven and Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Wallach had 167 screen credits – he was in Polanski’s The Ghost Writer just four years ago. I hope we don’t overlook his feature film debut in 1956, Elia Kazan’s
comedy of seduction Baby Doll. Wallach plays a cotton gin owner who knows – and is trying to prove – that his gin has been burnt down by his rival (Karl Malden). Getting even involves the seduction of Malden’s dim, oversexed and luscious young wife (Carroll Baker). In this scene, watch Wallach pour on the charm while his eyes reveal predatory horniness. I love it when Baker exclaims, “Mr. Vacaro – this conversation is certainly taking a personal turn!”.
Ruby Dee, who died this week at age 91, was a great actress of film and stage, as well as the artistic and political partner of her husband Ossie Davis. One of her most affecting scenes is “Gator’s Last Dance” in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever. Samuel L. Jackson (in the breakthrough performance that set up Jackson for his star-making turn in Pulp Fiction) plays a crackhead. Badly strung out, he bursts into the home of his parents (Dee and Davis) looking for some dope money. At first look, Dee seems to have less of a role in the scene than Jackson or Davis. But the key is her intense desperation to avoid – and then to mitigate – the encounter between son and father. And, finally, her fears are realized and manifest into profound grief. It’s a searing performance (and it’s worth sitting through the advertisement).
The cinematographer Gordon Willis has died at age 82. Willis was a particularly singular filmmaker who often broke new ground and often made movies that looked much different from movies made before. Although three of the films he shot won the Best Picture Oscar, he was unrecognized by the Academy Awards until he received an honorary Oscar in 2009.
To understand the impact a cinematographer can have on a movie, just check out these examples from among Willis’ 34 feature films. The first is The Godfather, for which he received the nickname “The Prince of Darkness”. (Willis shot all three Godfather films). The convention of the time held that a filmmaker always had to show the eyes of the movie star. Willis argued that, by not showing Marlon Brando’s eyes, you could actually see into his character’s soul.
The second example is All the President’s Men, a paranoid thriller enhanced by the contrast between the stark brightness of the Washington Post newsroom and the menacing darkness of the parking garage where Bob Woodward met his secret source Deep Throat.
And, finally, there’s Woody Allen’s 1979 masterpiece Manhattan. Why make a black and white movie in 1979? New York City was never a more stirring backdrop.
In honor of Godzilla, here’s my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters. Note that Godzilla himself (even in the original 1954 Gojira) is too realistic to make my top ten. Enjoy.
The Swedish filmmaker Malik Bendjelloul has died suddenly at age 36. He won the Best Documentary Oscar with his FIRST FEATURE – the powerful Searching for Sugar Man. Judging from Sugar Man, this is a significant loss to future cinema. At least we can still watch his one riveting and flabbergasting story – available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Xbox Video.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Now, tonight you CAN go out and drink green beer with all the amateur drinkers. Nothing wrong with that, if that’s your thing.
OR you could settle in for some top shelf cinema set in recent Irish history – The Troubles of Northern Ireland. For eight fine films about The Troubles, see my Best Films About the Troubles (Northern Ireland).
A deep selection of comedies, international cinema and spotlight films combined for a very strong program at Cinequest 2014. My pick for the festival’s best film is the Polish drama Ida. Although not all of the films engaged me, the only bad movie this year was the incoherent Chinese thriller Parallel Maze.
COMEDIES
This year, Cinequest programmed 22 comedy features (which seems like an unusually high number), and that paid off with some of the festival’s most popular films. I thought the funniest was the dark, dark Hungarian comedy Heavenly Shift about a rogue ambulance crew. Probably two of the top four most popular movies at Cinequest (along with Ida and the Canadian weeper Down River) were the opening night’s The Grand Seduction and the Israeli caper comedy Hunting Elephants. The American indie satire Friended to Death (which had its world premiere at Cinequest) also broke through – and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it soon in theatrical release.
INTERNATIONAL CINEMA
As I said, my pick for best film at Cinequest was Ida, about a Polish novice nun in 1962 who, just before she takes her vows, learns that she is the child of Jewish Holocaust victims. Also remarkable for its authentic and textured characters was the Slovenian classroom drama Class Enemy. And, of course, Heavenly Shift from Hungary and Hunting Elephants from Israel were festival highlights.
Once again, it’s just impossible to give too much credit to Cinequest’s international programmer Charlie Cockey. Unfortunately, just before the fest, Charlie developed a cough that kept him home in Brno, Czech Republic, so we missed him here in San Jose. Before the fest, I profiled Charlie with Cinequest’s Charlie Cockey: The Man Who Goes to Film Festivals.
SPOTLIGHT FILMS
Cinequest’s program of spotlight films are the bigger movies that are screened just once, usually at the California Theatre. In the past these have included some celebrity-driven events that have been the weakest links in the fest (only Grand Piano fit this profile in 2014). But, over all, in the 2014 Cinequest, the spotlight films sparkled, especially: The Grand Seduction, Mystery Road, Words and Pictures, Teenage, Unforgiven and Dom Hemingway. Cinequest also gets a lot of cred for having LA Times critic Kenneth Turan introduce last year’s Bay Area masterpiece Fruitvale Station. In 2014’s Cinequest, you could do well just by showing up to the California Theatre every night at 7 PM.
For my comments on over 20 of this year’s Cinequest movies, see my CINEQUEST 2014 page.
Friended to Death: this sharply funny indie satirizes our obsession with social media. TMI becomes LOL.
Heavenly Shift: the hilariously dark (very dark) Hungarian comedy about a rogue ambulance crew with a financial incentive to deliver its patients dead on arrival.
SATURDAY
One of Cinequest’s most thought-provoking films, the Slovenian classroom drama Class Enemy.
The British crime lark Dom Hemingway with Jude Law – a probable crowd pleaser.
SUNDAY
The Encore Day selections have yet to be announced (except for The Farmer and the Chef and Slingshot), but I wouldn’t be surprised if one of Cinequest’s biggest hits so far, the Israeli caper comedy Hunting Elephants, gets another screening.
The 2014 edition of Cinequest has emphasized comedy, and that has paid off with some of the festival’s biggest hits:
The Grand Seduction: Cinequest’s opening night film was this uproarious Canadian knee-slapper – a Waking Ned Devine with random acts of cricket.
Friended to Death: this sharply funny idie satirizes our obsession with social media. TMI becomes LOL.
Heavenly Shift: the hilariously dark (very dark) Hungarian comedy about a rogue ambulance crew with a financial incentive to deliver its patients dead on arrival.
Hunting Elephants: an Israeli caper comedy with Patrick Stewart (as you’ve never seen him).
The other most popular Cinequest hits have been the exquisite Polish drama Idaand the Canadian weeper Down River. I also particularly like the Slovenian class room drama Class Enemy.
Most of these films are still scheduled to play in the last half of the festival. Subject to Cinequest’s exhibition rights, I’m guessing that the most likely candidates for Cinequest’s Encore Day on Sunday, March 16 are Ida, Friended to Death, Down River, Hunting Elephants and Class Enemy.
The indie comedy Friended to Death has its US premiere tonight at Cinequest, and it’s not the first time for the filmmakers. Friended to Death writer-director Sarah Smick and co-writer Ian Michaels brought their Here’s the Kickerto Cinequest in 2011 (Michaels directed that one). Smick and Michaels also act in both movies.
In Here’s the Kicker,the relationship of a prematurely retired football player and his girlfriend is being battered by their dead-end jobs in LA; (she is a make up artist – in porn films). To save their relationship, he agrees to move back to her hometown in Texas where they can open a salon/saloon: a combo beauty parlor and sports bar. Just as they are leaving on the road trip, he is offered his dream job as a football scout. When is he going to get the nerve to tell her? Along the way, they pick up his obnoxious former teammate and, most hilariously, his dad, who does NOT want to return to alcohol rehab. Many guffaws ensue in this all too rare occurrence – a satisfying American film comedy.
As the girlfriend, Sarah Smick succeeds in remaining sympathetic despite being continually aggrieved – no easy accomplishment. Luce Rains is great as the drunk dad.
According to Ian Michaels at the Cinequest screening, Producer/Cinematographer/Editor Chris Harris made the key decision to cut some early scenes so the road trip could commence sooner. Obviously, that move worked. Here’s the Kicker deserves a wide release.
Good news. Here’s the Kicker is available streaming on YouTube. It’s also is now out on DVD. Please go to the movie’s Netflix page and click SAVE – once it gets enough SAVES, it will become available on Netflix.
It’s hard to write comedy. Otherwise, we’d be seeing lots of good comedies. That’s why it’s worth tagging along on the uproarious road trip in Here’s the Kicker.
