Photo caption: Kodi Smit-McPhee in THE POWER OF THE DOG. Courtesy of Netflix.
The Oscar nominations are out, and I am NOT howling with outrage. I’m generally pleased that the year’s best movies are receiving lots of recognition: The Power of the Dog, Belfast, Nightmare Alley, Don’t Look Up and CODA – and even my top choice Drive My Car, which I feared would be overlooked (because it is a fairly obscure, three-hour long Japanese movie).
Being the Ricardos is nominated for several major awards despite being a so-so movie; my guess is that Aaron Sorkin, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are so popular and respected among the Academy voters, that voters expected it to be really good and somehow failed to recalibrate after watching it.
Emilia Jones, Troy Kotsur, Marlee Matlin and Daniel Durant in CODA. Courtesy of AppleTV.
The most exciting category is Best Supporting Actor, where three exquisite performances are recognized. Kodi Smit-McPhee takes over the final third of The Power of the Dog and elevates it. Deaf actor Troy Kotsur is as fine an actor as any hearing person, as he demonstrates in his moving performance in CODA. Always very good, Ciaran Hinds knocks a grandpa role out of the park in Belfast (and gets to deliver the film’s most moving line). I will be elated whichever of the three win the statuette.
In the Best Actress category, Olivia Colman delivered another performance for the ages, but in The Lost Daughter, a film that is just not going to be popular.
My biggest quibble is in the Best Supporting Actress category, which bypassed Cate Blanchett despite her TWO spectacular supporting performances in Don’t Look Up and Nightmare Alley.
Drive My Car and The Worst Person in the World should contend for the International Cinema Oscar. I’m dissatisfied that the Academy failed to nominate Riders of Justice, Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn or Lamb. (To be fair, Riders of Justice wasn’t even submitted by Denmark, which went wih Flee instead.) Instead, Academy nods went to a movie I had never heard of – Luriana:A Yak in the Classroom from Bhutan – and to the underwhelming The Hand of God.
The Animated Feature category is usually thought of as a category for children’s films. It’s interesting that a film decidedly for adults (Flee) has a chance.
Finally, I know this is geeky, but I was especially pleased that Tamara Deverell was nominated for Best Production Design for Nightmare Alley. She created an astonishing art deco office suite for Cate Blanchett’s character and an extraordinary world of mid-century carnivals.
Judi Dench, Jude Hill and Ciarán Hinds in BELFAST. Courtesy of Focus Features
Peter Bogdanovich with Jesse Hawthorne Ficks at the Roxie in 2019
Peter Bogdanovich will rightly be remembered as the writer-director of at least one undisputed masterpiece, The Last Picture Show. He also directed some near-masterpieces and some infamous flops. But he was also a popularizer of film history and an unsurpassed raconteur. The NYT could appropriately describe his life and career as “a Hollywood drama”.
From childhood, Bogdanovich was a movie fan, who made himself into a film historian before most folks even knew that was a thing. His interviews with John Ford, Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock were important documents of film history and helped Americans appreciate own own auteurs. He bookended his own career with auteur documentaries. In 1971, he made Directed by John Ford. In 2018, his The Great Buster celebrated an even greater genius than Bogdanovich (who didn’t get a redemptive final act like Bogdanovich’s).
As a very young man, Bogdanovich became an actor, and he always seemed to be performing. Here is a guy who interviewed Welles, Hitchcock and Ford, and he likely imagined himself being interviewed someday. When he got the chance to spin tales, he gloried in it.
An unashamed name-dropper, Bogdanovich was the master of the colorful Hollywood anecdote (including some he may have embellished). He got to tell his own story in the first season of the Turner Classic Movies podcast The Plot Thickens, which I highly recommend.
He relished his Hollywood rise without appreciating that a fall was possible. Bogdanovich’s ego led to some miscalculations in business decisions so staggering that they have made some of his films “lost films”, unable to be seen for decades.
The reason that Woody Allen, who also made films for adult audiences, could direct 57 films is that his sister, Letty Aronson, produced the last 33 of them; they lined up financing for modest budgets and stuck to them; Peter Bogdanovich (and Orson Welles) let grandiosity overpower discipline, which meant living with the consequences of self-indulgence and the taking of big risks.
One of my own greatest moviegoing experiences was sitting next to Bogdanovich (yes, in the immediately adjacent seat) during a rare screening of They All Laughed. Another was being in the audience when the Roxie Theater screened The Last Picture Show (and the hard-to-find Saint Jack – with Bogdanovich in attendance for two Q&A sessions.
Ben Johnson in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
Four Bogdanovich films are among my all-time favorites:
The Last Picture Show: It’s a movie about kids that is best appreciated by grown-ups, especially grown-ups with some mileage on them. When I saw The Last Picture Show at San Jose’s domed Century Theaters in 1971, I was the same age as the main characters, and I was especially interested in their sexual escapades. It’s a remarkable thing to watch a coming of age story about 18-year-olds when you are 18 and then again forty years later when you know stuff. Nominated for eight Oscars, it won two.
What’s Up, Doc?: The EXTENDED closing chase scene is among the very funniest in movie history – right up there with the best of Buster Keaton; Streisand and O’Neal lead an ever-growing cavalcade of pursuers through the hills of San Francisco, at one point crashing the Chinese New Year’s Day parade. Bogdanovich’s hero Howard Hawks, the master of the screwball comedy, would have been proud.
Saint Jack: This cynical neo-noir set in Vietnam-era Singapore benefited from great performances by Ben Gazzara and Denholm Elliott, and the only movie appearance by Monika Subramaniam. Bogdanovich shot the film guerilla-style, pretending to the local authorities that he was following a more politically acceptable script. After years of being very hard to find, Saint Jack is finally available to stream.
They All Laughed: This film elevates the entire rom com genre. The middleaged romance between Ben Gazzara and Audrey Hepburn is exquisitely wistful and authentic. John Ritter leads an endearingly funny supporting cast with Patti Hansen, Blaine Novak, Dorothy Stratton and Colleen Camp. Ritter’s comedic performance is itself a masterpiece – right up there with the best of Chaplin, Keaton and Cary Grant. They All Laughed remains an essentially lost film, although you can find the DVD.
Ben Gazarra and Audrey Hepburn in THEY ALL LAUGHED
Other fine Bogdanovich films include Paper Moon, Mask and The Cat’s Meow.
Peter Bogdanovich and John Huston in Orson Welles’ THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND
During his heyday in the 1970s, he acted (playing essentially himself) in the Orson Welles masterpiece The Other Side of the Wind, released in 2018. Late in his life, he became well-known to fans of The Sopranos by playing Tony Soprano’s psychiatrist’s psychiatrist.
Cinema was better – and more colorful – because of Peter Bogdanovich. I’ll miss him.
Photo caption: Peter Bogdanovich in THE SOPRANOS. Courtesy of HBO.
Some of 2021’s best movie experiences are still under the radar. Here are seven films that you shouldn’t overlook.
All are available to stream at home. (There are more overlooked 2021 movies that I could recommend, but I’m not going to tease you with movies that you can’t find.)
Riders of Justice: Starring the charismatic Mads Mikkelsen, this character-driven thriller is near the top of my Best Movies of 2021. Riders of Justice has been inadequately described as a revenge thriller and an action comedy. It is gloriously satisfying as entertainment, but the more I think about it, Riders of Justice explores grief, revenge and mortality – they’re all in here. And it’s still very, very funny. Even Denmark overlooked Riders of Justice, submitting Flee as their entry for the Best International Feature Oscar instead. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road: An unusual documentary about an unusual man. Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work. Wilson’s old and trusted friend drove him around important places in his life – in the format of Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee – and it paid off with oft emotional revelations from the usually monosyllabic Wilson. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
The Lost Leonardo: This documentary peels back the onion on an ever surprising tale of discovery, scholarship, fraud, commerce and politics in the refined and pretentious art world. Is a rediscovered Renaissance masterpiece authentic, and does it matter? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Wildland: This remarkable Danish neo-noir gives family ties a bad name. The story simmers and evolves into a nail biter right up to its noir-stained epilogue. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.
The Unknown Saint: This delightfully deadpan crime comedy is a shrine to really bad luck. Morocco’s submission for this year’s Best International Feature Oscar. Netflix.
Summertime: I can’t remember hearing so much poetry in a movie. This ever vibrant film is about giving voice, the voice of mostly young Los Angelenos, expressing themselves, mostly through poetry. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and redbox.
Ma Belle, My Beauty: This simmering romantic drama is a gorgeous, sexy, character-driven film, an exploration of the post-breakup dynamics of polyamorous queer women. This is a beautiful, absorbing movie with the unexpected appearance of a strap-on. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Idella Johnson, Sivan Noam Shimon and Hannah Pepper in Marion Hill’s film MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY. Courtesy of SFILM.
Photo caption: The Wife and the Movie Gourmet still enjoying wedded bliss
Happy 21st Anniversary to The Wife, also known as Lisa, The Love of My Life!
We’ve spent most of the past two years together 24/7, and, for most of this year, with her father living with us, too – and we’ve resented the pandemic, but not each other.
We started out the year by admiring Sound of Metaland Nomadlandtogether. Now that I’ve eased her back into the theaters, too, we enjoyed Belfast last month.
This year we binged EVEN MORE more episodic television together. Her dad has an insatiable appetite for crime drama, so we’ve watched OVER FORTY FULL SEASONS of them, mostly on Acorn. The best have been Hidden, Shetland, River, Mystery Road, Traces, Darkness: Those Who Kill, Hinterland, Line of Duty, Bloodlands, L’Accident, Little Boy Blue, and Trapped. As far as we can tell from TV, the murder epidemic in England, Scotland and Wales has spread to Ireland, France, Iceland and Australia.
On a less grim note, we enjoyed Ted Lasso and Episodes (except for the concluding episode of Episodes).
She was fine with me heading off to cover the Nashville Film Festival in person. Once again, she tolerated my spending huge chunks of time covering Cinequest, Frameline, San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival virtually.
She’s the biggest fan and supporter of this blog DURING ALL OF ITS ELEVEN YEARS, and I appreciate her and love her. Happy Anniversary, Honey!
Sian Reese-Williams in HIDDEN, one of our many episodic crime dramas.
Photo caption: Hidetoshi Nishijima and Tôko Miura in DRIVE MY CAR. Courtesy of The Match Factory.
somehow managed to watch 137 2021 movies (and another 170 movies from earlier years). Here are the ones that I most admire and engage with. (Note: I still haven’t seen The Tragedy of Macbeth or Parallel Mothers.)
To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later.
Christopher Plummer has died at age 91. I loved him in his Oscar-winning performance in Beginners and in 2019’s Knives Out. One of the great Shakespearean stage actors of his generation, Plummer’s TV and movie career, with its 372 screen credits, eclipses the adjective “prolific”. Plummer, of course is best known for that beloved movie that I despise (as did he for decades), The Sound of Music. Plummer elevated some fine movies in his supporting roles: The Man Who Would Be King, Jesus of Nazareth. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Here’s his NYT obit.
Dean Stockwell in BLUE VELVET.
Dean Stockwell’s 70-year acting career contained at least four distinct chapters, between which he took mostly voluntary breaks. He started as a child star – one of the biggest; he was spanked by William Powell in Son of the Thin Man and acted with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in Anchors Aweigh. After walking away as a teenager, he returned for serious, original roles in Compulsion and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. During his hippie drop-out phase, he dropped back in for the Roger Corman hippie exploitation movie Psych-out. Then Stockwell played Harry Dean Stanton’s sympathetic brother in Wim Wenders masterpiece Paris, Texas. He followed that with hos most indelible performance, as his friend Dennis Hopper’s terrifying henchman in Blue Velvet, where he unforgettably lip-synchs a Roy Orbison tune. Stockwell topped of his career with the popular television series Quantum Leap. Here is Sheila O’Malley’s marvelous tribute at RogerEbert.com.
Hal Holbrook as Deep Throat in ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN
Hal Holbrook, known for his one-man stage personification of Mark Twain between 1947 and 2005, has died at age 95. Holbrook was responsible for the most gripping moments in a great movie, All the President’s Men, even though he was always in the dark or on the phone, and his face was never seen.
Yaphet Kotto (right) with Richard Pryor in BLUE COLLAR
Actor Yaphet Kotto made plenty of big movies (Alien) and is most remembered for starring the television series Homicide: Life on the Street, as the Bond villain in Live and Let Die and as Idi Amin in the superb TV movie Raid on Entebbe. I most appreciate his performance in Paul Schrader’s 1978 Blue Collar with Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel, set in an auto factory. The Movie Gourmet comes from an autoworker family, and I have worked in a plant like the one in the movie. so I found the film especially evocative. Kotto was also excellent as the FBI agent shepherding Charles Grodin in Midnight Run.
Ned Beatty in SUPERMAN
Actor Ned Beatty, Oscar-nominated for Network, amassed 165 screen credits, and Beatty was impeccable in every one that I’ve seen. Pudgy people (including The Movie Gourmet) are often underestimated; character actor Ned Beatty was certainly one of his generation’s greatest screen actors.
Beatty has been so prolific and so consistently excellent, that it’s now hard to grok that his most unforgettable performance, in Deliverance, was also his first movie. The rape scene in Deliverance was so shocking and so sensational that many overlook how perfectly Beatty played each of his scenes, including the one with the Banjo Boy and the one where his assailant has been dispatched by Burt Reynold’s arrow.
Cicely Tyson in a MAN CALLED ADAM
Cicely Tyson was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for Sounder. I recently wrote of her radiant big screen debut in A Man Called Adam. Two great speeches, in which she absolutely commands the screen, showcase her talent; you can tell that this is going to be a movie star.
Norman Lloyd (center) in SCENE OF THE CRIME
Actor, director and producer Norman Lloyd died at age 106. Lloyd was the villain in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 nailbiter Saboteur, and his career stretched through 2015 (when he was a centenarian). His most remembered role was as Dr. Daniel Auschlander on television’s St Elsewhere. Among his achievements – a 75 year marriage.
As an actor on stage, radio, television and the Big Screen, Lloyd worked with Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Anthony Mann, Elia Kazan and Martin Scorsese. He acted with stars from Dana Andrews and Burt Lancaster to Denzel Washington. Fortunately for film fans, Lloyd was a delightful, anecdote-rich raconteur.
My own favorite Norman Lloyd performance was as the highly idiosyncratic stoolie Sleeper in Scene of the Crime.
Cloris Leachman in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
I first became aware of Cloris Leachman, who died this year at age 94, in 1971 – in her Oscar-winning performance in The Last Picture Show. Then I enjoyed her as Frau Blücher in Young Frankenstein and as Phyllis Lindstrom in The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Much later, as I delved into film noir, I learned that her movie debut was in the startling opening scene of the 1955 atomic noir Kiss Me Deadly.
What I didn’t know was that Leachman had, beginning in 1947, already amassed over 100 of her 285 screen credits before The Last Picture Show. Before her great run in the 70s, she had a prolific career in television, including guest appearances on Perry Mason, Mannix, The Big Valley, Dr. Kildare, Gunsmoke and 77 Sunset Strip. She even appeared 28 times in a recurring role on Lassie.
But Leachman will be forever remembered for her performance at age 45 as Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show. Ruth Popper is the neglected wife of the football coach in a windswept Texas hamlet, a woman trapped in the most profound loneliness. She seeks comfort in an affair with Sonny (Timothy Bottoms), the local good kid, who is 18. This relationship cannot last, and Ruth’s final monologue with Sonny is devastating.
George Segal (right) with Elliott Gould in CALIFORNIA SPLIT
George Segal’s big screen breakthrough came in that most searing exploration of toxic marriages, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? My favorite George Segal performance came in what is arguably Robert Altman’s best movie, California Split. Segal and Elliot Gould played two compulsive gamblers; as usual, Gould had the flamboyant part, but Segal was masterful as his more contained character slipped bit by bit into the vortex of addictive behavior
Olympia Dukakis was 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).
Charles Grodin‘s perfect role was as an accountant in way over his head; a bounty hunter (Robert De Niro) is taking him across the country as they are being pursed by the FBI (Yaphet Kottto) and the Mafia (Dennis Farina). Grodin’s was an exquisite performance in a very funny movie.
Grodin was known for characters consumed by handwringing anxiety, with the exception of his more likeable role in the Jill Clayburgh vehicle It’s My Turn. He broke through in 1972’s The Heartbreak Kid, playing a guy on his honeymoon who falls for a beautiful woman (Cybill Shepherd) with whom he is not honeymooning. (He was also well-known for his appearances on television talk shows, including his own.)
Jessica Walter was an incredibly prolific television actress with one great movie performance. That performance was as Evelyn, Clint Eastwood’s nightmare of a one night stand in Play Misty for Me. Walter topped off her career as Lucille Bluth in 84 episodes of Arrested Development. I don’t know what the record is for guest spots in 1972-76 detective shows, but Water appeared in Banyon, Cannon, The F.B.I. (six times), Mannix, Columbo, Ironside, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii Five-O, Banacek, McCloud, The Streets of San Francisco, and MacMillan & Wife.
Michael Apted. Photo credit: First Run Features courtesy Everett Collection
In 2021, we lost writers, directors, cinematographers and composers who produced classic of cinema:
Director Michael Apted’s 9 Seven Up movies constitute the greatest documentary series in the history of cinema. Got to see him in person at the 2019 Mill Valley Film Festival.
Giusepe Rotunno’s cinematography in CARNAL KNOWLEDGE
Cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno was a master at creating images that told us about the characters and their relation to each other. Here’s my remembrance with some of his images, plus a link to a brilliant video essay.
Hary Dean Stanton and Warren Oates in Monte Hellman’s COCKFIGHTER
Monte Hellman, my favorite cult film director, was described by theNew York Timesas a “hero of the American independent film movement“. Working in low-budget genre movies, collaborating with the likes of Roger Corman Hellman could elevate the sparest of scripts and the most minuscule of budgets into film classics. Hellman showcased Warren Oates’ gift for playing a tough, bottom-feeding grasper who needs a little too much luck in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) and the Hellman masterpiece Cockfighter (1974).
Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in Larry McMurtry’s LONESOME DOVE
Writer Larry McMurtry told powerful, unflinching, character-centered stories of the Old West (Lonesome Dove) and the contemporary West (The Last Picture Show). He won an Oscar for his Brokeback Mountain screenplay, and his novels were the basis for Hud and Terms of Endearment.
Melvin Van Peebles was a Renaissance Man (see his NYT obit) who wrote, directed, edited and produced 1971’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Along with Gordon Park’s Shaft, that film launched blaxploitation cinema and was a landmark in indie filmmaking. His son Mario directed and starred in Baadasssss! (Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube) about this seminal project.
Jean-Marc Vallée directed The Dallas Buyers Club, Wild and The Young Victoria, which earned acting awards for Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Reece Witherspoon, Laura Dern and Emily Blunt.
One of the primary reasons that I watch so many movies is to see something that I haven’t seen before.
Some 2021 films have imaginatively tweaked the very forms and parameters of cinema itself and its genres:
Summertime: I can’t remember hearing so much poetry in a movie. This ever vibrant film is about giving voice, the voice of mostly young Los Angelenos, expressing themselves, mostly through poetry.
499: In this critique of contemporary Mexico, director Rodrigo Reyes has invented the medium of “docu-fable”. It is all as real as real can be (the documentary), except for the fictional, 500-year-old conquistador (the fable).
The Velvet Underground: I’ ve never seen a doc which so completely immerses the audience into a time and place.
Lamb: This dark, cautionary fable of karma is somewhat misdescribed as a horror film because it plays with the concept of “monster”.
Aviva Armour-Ostroff (left) in LUNE, world premiere at Cinequest. Photo credit: Samantha Falco.
Then there are the movies that take us to the unknown, the underrepresented and the new:
Lune: The Must See in this year’s Cinequest is this astonishingly authentic exploration of bipolar disorder. Played by writer and co-director Aviva Armour-Ostroff, the most singular movie character I’ve seen recently is based on Armour-Ostroff’s father.
I’m Fine (Thanks for Asking): Filmmaker/star Kelley Kali shows us a hard-worker trying to stay afloat the gig economy – and explicitly in a pandemic.
Socks on Fire: Bo McGuire uses old home movies and re-enactments in this unconventional documentary about his family’s unlikely inheritance battle. Socks on Fire swings between funny and operatic, and there’s a sweet remembrance of a grandmother in here, too.
Ma Belle My Beauty: Marion Hill’s simmering exploration of the post-breakup dynamics of polyamorous queer women. This is a beautiful, absorbing movie with the unexpected appearance of a strap-on.
Strawberry Mansion: Filmmaker/star Kentucker Audley’s very trippy and ultimately sweet fable is set in an utterly surreal, imagined future. It’s also a sharp and funny critique of insidious commercialism.
Slow Machine: In their enigmatic dive into paranoia, filmmakers Joe Denardo and Paul Felten somehow made a film that is at once engrossing and impenetrable.
And finally, there is the category of “aiming low and hitting it”:
Photo caption: ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN. Courtesy of HBO Max.
2021 has been an unusually strong year for biodocs. With the notable exceptions of Dean Martin and Kenny G, most of the subjects have been disruptors: Anthony Bourdain, Julia Child, Kurt Vonnegut, Brian Wilson, Guy Clark, John Belushi, Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams.
Along with Penny Lane’s surprisingly revelatory Listening to Kenny G, a good watch even if you never ever think of Kenny G, here are the best from 2021:
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain: An unusually profound, revealing and unsentimental biodoc of a complicated man – a shy bad ass, an outwardly cynical romantic, a brooding humorist. A triumph for director Morgan Neville, Oscar-winner for 20 Feet from Stardom.
Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road: An unusual documentary about an unusual man. Brian Wilson, The Beach Boys’ songwriting and arranging genius weighs in on his life and work. Wilson’s old and trusted friend drove him around important places in his life – in the format of Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee – and it paid off with oft emotional revelations from the usually monosyllabic Wilson.
Without Getting Killed or Caught: This lyrical documentary traces the lives of singer-songwriter Guy Clark and his painter-songwriter wife Susanna. Their roommate was troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, Guy’s best friend and Susanna’s soulmate. This is a film about an unusual web of relationships amidst the creative process.
Julia: This charming documentary, affectionate and clear-eyed, tells the unlikely story of how Julia Child broke through every expectation of her gender, class and upbringing to become an icon in her fifties.
Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time: This uncommonly rich biodoc of the social critic/humorist/philosopher benefits from having been paused and restarted several times, resulting in hours of filmed interviews with Vonnegut in different decades. Very entertaining because Vonnegut was so damn funny.
King of Cool: King of Cool is filled with insight into an icon who was extremely successful at being unknowable. Dean Martin used his charm to mask his detachment. Universally beloved, his internal life was still never understood by his closest friends and colleagues – and even by his family. The filmmakers turned to the device from Citizen Kane – what was the “Rosebud” that drove and explained Dean Martin?
Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams were both gay men from the Deep South, who attained fame and descended into addiction. They also knew each other. Truman and Tennessee tells their stories from their own letters and from being interviewed on TV by the likes of David Frost and Dick Cavett. There is no third-party “narration”. It’s an effective and increasingly popular documentary technique, used in, for example, I Am Not Your Negro.
Belushi: We all know the story of John Belushi – a career soaring like Icarus, propelled by comic genius and then death by drug overdose at age 33. The new biodoc Belushi brings us more texture because of unprecedented access to Belushi’s friends and widow and to Belushi’s own letters, notes and journals.
Photo caption: Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitten in POSER at the Nashville Film Festival, Photo courtesy of the Nashville Film Festival.
2021, an unquestioned improvement over 2020, has come with its challenges, but I’ve still had a rich year at the movies. Here are my favorite movie-going experiences of 2021:
First, let’s acknowledge that The Movie Gourmet is back in theaters. On June 19, 2021, I saw The Sparks Brothersat the AMC Mercado in Santa Clara. The last movie that I had seen in a theater had been The Burnt Orange Heresy on March 5, 2020 in the California Theatre at the 2020 Cinequest. In the 472 days of COVID lockdown, I still managed to watch 329 movies and episodic series via streaming and screeners.
But here’s the year’s topper – for the first time, I traveled to cover the Nashville Film Festival. NashFilmFest’s director of programming Lauren Ponto curated an excellent slate. My favorites were discovering the dazzling indie Poser and attending the pre-release screening of Old Henry with the filmmakers, including star Tim Blake Nelson. I also caught a couple of non-fest movies at Nashville’s excellent art house theater, the Belcourt. Of course, Nashville is a culturally rich city with epic barbecue; (I worship the ribs at Peg Leg Porker and the pulled pork at Martin’s Bar-Be-Que Joint).
Along with Nashville, I discovered new films by virtually covering Cinequest, Frameline, San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM) and San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. My favorite festival nuggets were Poser (Nashville), Lune (Cinequest), Summertime (Frameline and Cinequest) and Ma Belle, My Beauty (SFFILM).
I discovered my favorite film of the year so-far, Riders of Justice (and I’m waiting for eveyone else to catch on to how good it is).
I got to revisit some of my all-time favorite films: Lone Star, House of Games, The Commitments, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Point Blank. and the grievously overlooked One False Move.
And then, I have this very individual obsession – seeing a movie as the only patron in a theater (just like William Randolph Hearst in his personal theater at Hearst Castle). One would think that this would happen more than it does because I see lots of obscure movies at sparsely-attended weekday matinees. But, almost always, there’s at least one more audience member, and I had only enjoyed two solos screenings in thirty-five years. Anyway, it happened TWICE in late 2021 – The Souvenir Part II at San Francisco’s Landmark Embarcadero and Benedetta at Berkeley’s Landmark Shattuck.
