Eddie Bracken surrounded by his new Marine pals in Hail! The Conquering Hero
Don’t miss this brilliantly funny movie. It’s one of Preston Sturges’ less well known great comedies. Eddie Bracken plays a would-be soldier discharged for hay fever – but his hometown mistakenly thinks that he is being sent home a war hero. Hilarity ensues. All the funnier when you realize that this film was made in 1944 amid our nation’s most culturally patriotic period. It will be broadcast on TCM on October 10th.
Baby boomers will also appreciate crusty William Demarest (the crusty housekeeper in TV’s My Three Sons) as the crusty Marine Sarge.
Make sure that you see The Social Network. The birth story of Facebook is a riveting tale of college sophomores that are brilliant, ambitious, immature, self-absorbed and disloyal – and about to become zillionaires. It’s a triumph for actor Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland, Zombieland and Solitary Man), director David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac) and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (A Few Good Men, The West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War). It’s already on my list of Best Movies of 2010 – So Far.
I’m still pushing the hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story. Without strongly recommending it, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller. You can skip Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger.
My DVD of the Week, like The Social Network, is a classic send up of contemporary business history: Barbarians at the Gate. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
I’m featuring Hail! The Conquering Hero on TV this week. Other Movies on TVinclude Strangers on a Train, The Big Sleep and The Best Years of Our Lives, all coming up on TCM. Baseball fans might still be able to find Ken Burns’ The Tenth Inning on PBS.
The Social Network reminded me of another classic send up of contemporary business history: Barbarians at the Gate. Barbarians is the story of late 1980s corporate excess centered on the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. James Garner, Fred Thompson and Jonathan Pryce star as the duelling CEOs bouncing between corporate jets, boardrooms and must-be-seen-at charity galas with their egos and trophy wives. Barbarians at the Gate was originally broadcast on HBO and is available from Netflix.
Mademoiselle Chambon is the year’s best romance, and very worth seeking out; The lovers are beautifully acted by Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlaine in two of the very finest performances of the year. I’m still pushing the hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story. There’s also the George Clooney arty thriller The American. If you can still find them, there are also two excellent crime dramas – Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance.
Without strongly recommending them, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller and the silly A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop has its moments. You can skip Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.
My DVD of the Week is one of the year’s best so far: The Ghost Writer. Don’t miss another of the year’s best, The Secret in Their Eyes either. For my recent DVD choices (including trailers), see DVDs of the Week.
Movies on TVinclude lots of good choices: Seven Days in May, Badlands, Boxcar Bertha, Leave Her to Heaven, Twentieth Century and The Earrings of Madame de…, all coming up on TCM.
If you’re a baseball fan, there’s Ken Burns’ The Tenth Inning on PBS.
Now that Tony Blair is flogging his memoir, it’s a great time to watch the far juicier The Ghost Writer, which is a fictionalization of the writing of Tony Blair’s memoirs. It’s a first class paranoid political thriller by Roman Polanski. Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan lead an excellent cast, and Olivia Williams stands out.
Mademoiselle Chambon is the year’s best romance, and very worth seeking out in the next two weeks. The lovers are beautifully acted by Vincent Lindon and Sandrine Kiberlaine in two of the very finest performances of the year.
I’m still recommending the hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story, the George Clooney arty thriller The American and the two gritty crime dramas – Mesrine: Killer Instinct and Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance.
Without strongly recommending them, I can say that The Town is a satisfying Hollywood thriller and the silly A Woman, A Gun and a Noodle Shop has its moments.
The Secret in their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos): This year’s Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Picture, is a police procedural set in Argentina with two breathtaking plot twists, original characters, a mature romance and one breathtaking, “how did they do it?” shot. The story centers on a murder in Argentina’s politically turbulent 1970s, but most of the story takes place twenty years later when a retired cop revisits the murder.
Veteran Argentine actor Ricardo Darin shines once again in a Joe Mantegna-type role. Darin leads an excellent cast, including Guillermo Francella, who brings alive the character of Darin’s drunk assistant.
Director Juan Jose Campanella is receiving justifiable praise for the amazing shot of a police search in a filled and frenzied soccer stadium. It ranks as one of the great single shots, along with the kitchen entrance in Goodfellas and the battle scene in Children of Men.
This week, I’m recommending an arty thriller, The American with George Clooney and two gritty crime dramas – the true story Mesrine: Killer Instinct and the Aussie fictional Animal Kingdom. For a date movie, there is the charming and relatively smart romantic comedy Going the Distance. The hardhitting documentary The Tillman Story is one of the year’s best.
Ajami is an ultra-realistic crime drama set in a scruffy neighborhood in Jaffa, Israel. The story weaves together Arab Christians and Arab Muslims and both religious and non-religious Israeli Jews. Everyone aspires to make a living and live in personal safety, but the circumstances and tribal identities make this very difficult at best. There are two trans-religious romances, but no one is going to live happily ever after.
It’s a film that doesn’t make any overt political statements, but shows what is from the perspective of individual of different backgrounds. Given their own experiences, it’s easy to understand the motivations of each character.
Ajami was co-writtten and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Jaffa-born Palestinian, and Yaron Shoni, an Israeli Jew. After seeing the film, I was surprised to learn that it has no trained actors – all of the roles are played by real-life residents who improvised their lines to follow the story line.
Ajami was nominated for the most recent Best Foreign Language Oscar, was released earlier this year in US art houses and is now available on DVD..
Co-Director Scandar Copti discusses the process of using non-actors improvising within a script framework.
