Photo caption: John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in WILD HORSE NINE, opening the Mill Valley Film Festival. Courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – my preview of the Mill Valley Film Festival, which just opened and runs through October. Every year, most of the big Oscar movies play at Mill Valley before their thetrical rekease. This year’s program includes films by many of the world’s filmmakers: Cristian Mungiu, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Hirokazu Koreeda, Pedro Almodovar, Mike Leigh, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Pawel Pawlikowski, Peter Farrely, Danny Boyle, Martin McDonagh, Barbara Kopple and Ron Howard. The fest opened with Boyle’s dark comedy Wild Horse Nine with John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as CIA agents on Easter Island.
I also posted a new review of the observational indie dramedy The Scout, which is worth seeking out in art houses.
REMEMBRANCE
Fashion designer Bob Mackie dominated the Hollywood red carpet, adorning clients like Cher, Carol Burnett, Bernadette Peters, and Mitzi Gaynor. I saw Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion at a SLO Film Fest screening, with Bob Mackie in person.
CURRENT MOVIES
The Scout: not what she signed up for. In theaters.
The Whisper Man: an unsettling thriller with three creepy villains. Netflix.
Romeria: when the dots don’t connect right away. Amazon, Fandango, AppleTV.
ON TV
Julie Delpy in WHITE.
On October 5, Turner Classic Movies brings us two of Kzrysztof Kieslowski’ Three Colourstrilogy which I include on my Greatest Movies of All Time. The first is Blue, starring Juliette Binoche as a woman who battles overwhelming grief by de-linking herself from all aspects of her previous life; nevertheless, some elements of her past intrude, and sh come to a complicated path forward. Because of the character’s heartbreak, most of Blue is pretty grim. I recommend that you first sample White, about a Polish immigrant who stands to get kicked out of France when his French wife (Julie Delpy) decodes to divorce him.
Oddly, TCM is not playing Red, perhaps the best of the three films, starring Irene Jacob and Jean-Louis Trintignat as two of several Parisians connected by chance and dog welfare. As the various characters thread teir ways through various sexual improprieties, including a voyeurism scandal, the final scene connects them with the protagonists of Blue and White. Red is included with Criterion and HBO and available to rent on Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
The Polish auteur Kieslowski spent most of his career behind the Iron Curtain and topped off his career with five great, French-funded projects from 1989 to 1994: Dekalog, The Double Life of Veronique, Blue, White and Red. After finishing Red at age 52, he retired at the peak of his powers, and, sadly, died less than two years later during heart surgery.
Over/Under. sweet and uncommonly authentic. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
ON TV
Robert Newton and Sally Gray in OBSESSION
“And the manner in which I dispose of your body presents no obstacles.”
So says Dr. Clive Riordan (Robert Newton), an especially diabolical and chilling movie villain, in The Obsession (The Hidden Room) coming up on October 1 on Turner Classic Movies. 1949
Riordan, a twisted psychiatrist, is addressing his wife’s American lover, Bill Kronin (Phil Brown). Riordan is addressing the infidelity of his wife Storm (Sally Gray) by kidnapping Kronin and hiding him, chained to the wall of a soundproof room behind his garage. Planning the perfect crime, Riordan intends to hold Kronin for months, until the police cease looking for him; then, Riordan intends to dissolve Kronin in a bath of acid. Riordan sadistically explains all of this to his victim, and the plan does look foolproof – but the would-be murderer doesn’t count on an intrepid Scotland Yard inspector (Naunton Wayne) and Storm’s pet dog Monty… Directed by the great classic noir director Edward Dmytryk, now working in Britain after his recent blacklisting in the US.
Robert Newton, Monty the Dog and Phil Brown in OBSESSION
Photo caption: Jeremiah Daniels and William Catlett in COLOR BOOK. Courtesy of NashFilm.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of David Fortune’s emotionally powerful debut Color Book and the gripping doc Sweetheart Deal, a triumph of cinéma vérité.
Over/Under. sweet and uncommonly authentic. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
ON TV
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
On September 19, Turner Classic Movies will present The Narrow Margin, a taut 71 minutes of tension from my Overlooked Noir. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target. McGraw and Windsor’s performances are first-rate, and their hardboiled dialogue is terrific. Director Richard Fleisher, early in his career, imaginatively stages the woman-hunt up and down the tight corridors and compartments of the moving train. I just rewatched The Narrow Margin at the 2025 Noir City, and it’s still a masterpiece.
Photo caption: Robert De Niro, Adam Scott and Michelle Monagan in THE WHISPER MAN. Courtesy of Netflix.
This week on The Movie Gourmet: a preview of the upcoming Nashville Film Festival, and new reviews of Ross McElwee’s poignant memoir Remake and the unsettling Netflix serial killer thriller The Whisper Man.
Don’t overlook the long-lost Iranian film Chess of the Wind, a masterpiece of family treachery. Recently rediscovered and restored, it’s now available to stream.
The Odyssey: epic filmmaking at its best. In theaters.
Romeria: when the dots don’t connect right away. Amazon, Fandango, AppleTV.
Over/Under. sweet and uncommonly authentic. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
I Want Your Sex: good, naughty fun. In theaters, but hard to find.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Maddie’s Secret: a bracingly inventive comic melodrama. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
ON TV
Ricardo Montalban in BORDER INCIDENT
On September 7, Turner Classic Movies presents a Ricardo Montalban double bill from 25 years before Ricardo hawked the Chrysler Cordoba by purring ‘rich Corinthian leather“. In Border Incident (1949), he plays a Mexican cop teamed with an American cop (George Murphy) chasing an illegal human smuggling ring.; Border Incident is memorable chiefly for the Murphy character’s harrowing demise, guaranteed to make you fidget in your seat. In Mystery Street (1950), Ricardo plays a Massachusetts State detective who teams with a Harvard Medical School researcher (Bruce Bennett) to solve a murder case with forensic science; it’s the granddaddy of all the CSI-type forensic procedurals.
Bruce Bennett and Ricardo Montalban in MYSTERY STREET.
Photo caption: Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA: Courtesy of MUBI,
It’s been a massive week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Jane Schoenbrun’s witty and bizarre Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the Anthony Bourdain coming-of-age biopic Tony, and the sweet and authentic female coming-of-age film Over/Under.
Don’t overlook the long-lost Iranian film Chess of the Wind, a masterpiece of family treachery. Recently rediscovered and restored, it’s now available to stream.
Shohreh Aghdashloo and Fakhri Khorvash in CHESS OF THE WIND. Courtesy of Janus Pictures.
REMEMBRANCES
We remember Dolly Parton acting in the movies 9 to 7 and Steel Magnolias, but she made a massive contribution to the movies behind the camera, with 62 composer credits and and an unfathomable 702 soundtrack credits.
In The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tim Curry charismatically exploded off the screen as Dr. Frank-N-Furter – A Scientist, the “sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania.” As Frank-N-Furter, Curry created a movie character as unforgettable as Michael Corleone, George Bailey, Rhett Butler, Hannibal Lector or Indiana Jones.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Maddie’s Secret: a bracingly inventive comic melodrama. In theaters, but hard to find.
ON TV
Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea in SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS
On August 30, Turner Classic Movies will be presenting a film recognized as the masterpiece of a great filmmaker, but one that has slipped from the current conversation – Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels. Sturges was the first workaday Hollywood screenwriter to transition into a major writer-director, and between the ages of 42 and 46, he churned out The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Sullivan’s Travels, Hail the Conquering Hero and The Great McGinty, an impressive body of work. Unfortunately, his turbulent personality led to conflict in his business affairs, which exacerbated his drinking. He burned out and was dead at age 60, but he left behind some of the very, very smartest and funniest movie comedies. Sullivan’s Travels is a fast-paced and cynical comedy about a pretentious movie director who goes on the road to be inspired by The Average Man – and gets more of an adventure than he expects. There has never been a better movie about Hollywood. Sullivan’s Travels is on It’s on my own 50 Greatest Movies of All Time list.
Photo caption: Greta Lee and Willem Dafoe in LATE FAME. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Willem Dafoe’s tour de force in Late Fame and the long lost Iranian film Chess of the Wind, a masterpiece of family treachery.
Next week: Jane Schoenbrun follows their astonishingly original I Saw the TV Glow with Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, the Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony and the sweet and authentic female coming of age film Over/Under.
REMEMBRANCE
Mark Rydell directed The Cowboys, Cinderella Liberty, The Rose and his triple-Oscar winner, On Golden Pond.
CURRENT MOVIES
Late Fame: will he stay comfortable in his own skin? In theaters.
The Odyssey: epic filmmaking at its best. In theaters.
Romeria: when the dots don’t connect right away. In art house theaters, but hard to find.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Maddie’s Secret: a bracingly inventive comic melodrama. In theaters, but hard to find.
ON TV
Dana Andrews and Joan Fontaine in BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT
On August 24, Turner Classic Movies brings us Beyond a Reasonable Doubt, with its ending of unsurpassed irony. Seeking to discredit capital punishment, a cocksure novelist (Dana Andrews) gets himself charged with and CONVICTED of a murder, planning to then reveal proof that he couldn’t have done it. But then the evidence of his innocence suddenly disappears! Crackerjack (and deeply noir) surprise ending. Another film noir from The great German auteur Fritz Lang directed the cinematic masterpieces Metropolis and M before fleeing the Nazis; Beyond a Reasonable Doubt was the last in his remarkable string of Hollywood film noir:The Woman in the Window, Scarlet Street, House by the River, Clash by Night, The Blue Gardenia, The Big Heat, Human Desire and While the City Sleeps.
The Last Viking: hidden loot amidst the deluded. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
Maddie’s Secret: a bracingly inventive comic melodrama. In theaters.
ON TV
Marlon Brando and Robert Redford in THE CHASE.
On August 18, Turner Classic Movies airs a curiosity from 1965, The Chase, which illustrates the truth that talent alone can’t save lousy source material. Directed by the great Arthur Penn, The Chase stars Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Robert Duvall and Angie Dickinson, not to mention Janice Rule, E.G. Marshall, James Fox, Martha Hyer, and from Hollywood’s earlier golden days, Miriam Hopkins and Bruce Cabot. And it stinks.
Brando plays the sheriff in a redneck Texas town stewing about the expected return of a recently escaped convict named BUBBER (Redford). Bubber’s wife (Fonda) is now having an affair with the son (Fox) of the banker who runs the town (Marshall). Before Bubber sneaks back into the town junkyard, everyone drinks, fusses, and commits more adultery. Emily (Rule) openly humiliates her cuckolded hubbie (Duvall). All the while, the minor characters act really racist and conspire to lynch Bubber, who is white.
What I find bizarre is that Arthur Penn was at the height of his powers in 1966. He had already been Oscar-nominated for The Miracle Worker, as he would be for his next movie, the iconic, groundbreaking Bonnie and Clyde, to be followed by Alice’s Restaurant (yet another Oscar nod), Little Big Man and Night Moves.
I put the blame on the source material and the casting. Lillian Hellman adapted the screenplay from a Horton Foote play, in turn adapted from a Foote novel. It all seems like a over-wrought Southern melodrama in which everyone speaks like they’re pronouncing Big Daddy’s lines in Cat on a Hot tin Roof.
Brando does what he can with a character who is alienated and keeps getting beaten up. Janice Rule and Angie are especially good. But Redford and Fonda are horribly – and distractingly – miscast as white trash, and we just can’t get past that. Plus there’s a racism thread slapped on to be topical, and it’s so sjallow as to be disrespectful of the real Civil Rights movement.
Here’s a curiosity: The Chase was the second of Paul Williams’ 96 screen acting credits, mostly in fairly silly roles that are entirely divorced from his highly successful career as a composer (six Oscar nominations),
A decade later, no studio could have afforded to make a movie with Brando, Redford, Fonda and Duvall all on the payroll. It may not be good, but The Chase can be fun to watch if you mock the cliches and laugh at the miscasting. And Janice Rule is a force of nature in this film.
Note: many films share the title The Chase, but this is the one made by Arthur Penn in 1966.
The Christophers: twisty, watchable and disposable. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
ON TV
Gene Tierney in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
On August 9, Turner Classic Movies presents the unsettling classic noir Leaver Her to Heaven – and it’s in technicolor! Poor Cornell Wilde falls for the exquisitely gorgeous Gene Tierney, but she is MESSED UP. When I see Leave Her to Heaven, I think of my best friend Steve’s advice – “Never [date] anyone crazier than you are”. MUCH, MUCH more cautionary than Fatal Attraction. Tierney said that she played the role as an insane person desperately trying to appear sane.
