Weekly Movie Recommendations

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m attending the SLO Film Fest (tonight is Surf Nite), and here’s my Best of the 2023 SLO Film Fest. Plus there’s a recent Oscar coming up on TCM, and I’ve got a a remembrance of Harry Belafonte. Watch for a new review of new review of Little Richard: I Am Everything.

Note that I’ve launched my Best Movies of 2023 – So Far and have completely refreshed The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

REMEMBRANCE

Already a big musical star, Harry Belafonte burst on screen with searing performances in the 1950s – Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, Odds Against Tomorrow. He only made a few movies after 1959, but they were good ones: Sidney Poitier’s Buck and the Preacher, Robert Altman’s Kansas City and The Player, Spike Lee’s BlacKKKlansman. Belafonte could have had an even bigger film career, but, early on, he refused roles that he found demeaning and then devoted the last six decades of his life to civil rights work, where he made immense contributions.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
• Hannah Ha Ha: what makes for human value and fulfillment? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Roise & Frank: therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
• The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. In theaters.
• Living: what is it to live? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
• Reggie: it’s not just about Reggie. Netflix.
• I’m an Electric Lampshade: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted.
• Satan & Adam: more than an odd couple. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Levinsky Park: refuge for refugees? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
• The Speed Cubers: odd, and then profound. Netflix.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• AppleTV.

ON TV

On April 29, Turner Classic Movies will air the sly comedy Local Hero. An oil company sends a corporate lackey (Peter Riegert) on a scheme to buy a remote Scottish village – the entire village. The canny locals, however, are not without their own wiles. Scottish writer-director Bill Forsythe made Local Hero to follow up his art house hit Gregory’s Girl. Forsythe went on to make my favorite of his films, the wonderfully droll and absurd Comfort and Joy. But then he made three box office bombs with big movie stars and stepped away from filmmaking in the mid 1990s.

On April 30, TCM will broadcast the Iran hostage thriller Argo, already officially a Turner “Classic” from 2012. Of course, Argo was a big Ben Affleck Hollywood movie that won the Best Picture Oscar and a Supporting Actor Oscar for Alan Arkin. But, besides, Arkin, Argo is rich with brilliant supporting performances. Victor Garber, Clea Duvall, Scoot McNairy, Zeljko Ivanek, Christopher Denham are especially good as “house guests”.  Farshad Farahat is compelling as the commander of the final revolutionary checkpoint.  The rest of the cast is equally superb:  Bryan Cranston, Philip Baker Hall, Richard Kind, Michael Parks and Chris Messina.  Watch for a bit role played by 80s horror maven Adrienne Barbeau.

A reflection on Ben Affleck, who has become easy to lampoon. Affleck has “gone Hollywood” in a big way, made bombs like Pearl Harbor and Gigli, has been on a bumpy journey with and without alcohol, and his dating history is made-for-TMZ.

Let’s remember that Affleck was the youngest person ever to win the screenwriting Oscar (for Good Will Hunting). He’s directed Argo and Gone Baby Gone. After beginning with two exceptional indies, Dazed and Confused and Chasing Amy, he’s acted in some of the very best big Hollywood movies: Good Will Hunting, Shakespeare in Love, Argo, Gone Girl, The Last Duel. This body of work demonstrates that Ben Affleck is an important filmmaker – we’ve been lucky to have him.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – my first coverage of the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival – SLO Film Fest is just around the corner. There’s also a new review of Hannah Ha Ha. I’ve launched my Best Movies of 2023 – So Far. And I have a completely refreshed The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

Note: Bill Nighy’s superb performance in Living can now be streamed.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
• Hannah Ha Ha: what makes for human value and fulfillment? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Roise & Frank: therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
• The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. In theaters.
• Living: what is it to live? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
• Reggie: it’s not just about Reggie. Netflix.
• I’m an Electric Lampshade: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Satan & Adam: more than an odd couple. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Levinsky Park: refuge for refugees? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
• The Speed Cubers: odd, and then profound. Netflix.
• Rodents of Unusual Size: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The 11th Green: a thinking person’s paranoid conspiracy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• The Wave: Everything you want in a disaster movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Magallanes: some wrongs cannot be righted. AppleTV.

ON TV

On April 23, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife (Susan Clark), but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was right around eighteen-years-old when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years. Night Moves features an impressive ensemble of supporting actors: Harris Yulin, James Woods, Edward Binns, Max Gail (Wojo on Barney Miller) and the sui generis Kenneth Mars.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’ve been covering the San Francico International Film Festival, now underway: First look at the 2023 SFFILM and Under the radar at the 2023 SFFILM. But I still have new reviews of the enjoyable Sally Hawkins vehicle The Lost King and the Kazakh neo-noir (yes, a neo-noir from Kazakhstan) A Dark, Dark Man. The best movie in theaters remains Return to Seoul.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
• Roise & Frank: therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
• The Lost King: not all cranks are cranky. In theaters.
• A Dark, Dark Man: rounding up the usual suspects in Kazakhstan. MHz.
• Reggie: it’s not just about Reggie. Netflix.
• I’m an Electric Lampshade: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

On April 17, Turner Classic Movies presents Humphrey Bogart as Raymond Chandler’s hard-boiled LA detective Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep. Bogart’s performance is iconic, and The Big Sleep is famous for its impenetrably tangled plot. It’s also one of the most overtly sexual noirs, and Lauren Bacall at her sultriest is only the beginning. The achingly beautiful Martha Vickers plays a druggie who throws herself at anything in pants. And Dorothy Malone invites Bogie to share a back-of-the-bookstore quickie.

Speaking of the plot, I recently heard Eddie Muller say that, after filming, the studio bosses had more scenes written for Bogart and Bacall (and we thank them for that); to make room for those new scenes, some exposition was cut, leaving at least one loose end. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed watching The Big Sleep many times over the decades before I learned about the supposed hanging plot thread. You probably won’t notice it, either.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the delightful Gaelic dramedy Roise & Frank, the gotta-see-it-to-believe-it I’m an Electric Lampshade and the surprising Reggie Jackson doc Reggie. And a totally refreshed CURENT MOVIES section.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
• Roise & Frank:therapy dog and hurling coach. In theaters.
• Reggie: it’s not just about Reggie. Netflix.
• I’m an Electric Lampshade: the final score is Doug 1, Expectations 0. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

On April 11, Turner Classic Movies airs the recent documentary Scandal: The Trial of Mary Astor. It’s worth a watch for its tale of America’s Victorian social mores running headlong into the emerging celebrity culture. In 1936, movie star Mary Astor suffered through a humiliating child custody trial; her vindictive ex-husband stole her diary, in which she had documented her sex life with the playwright George S. Kaufman and others, and leaked it to the press. The trial was held at night so Astor could shoot Dodsworth during the daytime. And, in another bizarre twist, Astor won over the court on the stand by channeling her extremely sympathetic character in Dodsworth!

Photo caption: Park Ji-min in RETURN TO SEOUL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Turn Every Page and the first Must See of 2023 – Return to Seoul.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Return to Seoul: brilliantly crafted and emotionally gripping. In theaters.
• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV..
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

If you want to understand what Pre-Code is all about, take a look at the 1931 The Maltese Falcon, which has an entirely different tone than the 1941 John Huston/Humphrey Bogart/Mary Astor The Maltese Falcon that you’ve surely seen. The 1931 Falcon, which is coming up on Turner Classic Movies on April 4.

Ricardo Cortez’s Sam Spade is lecherous, cocksure, leering and pawing. Indeed, if this Pre-Code The Maltese Falcon is about anything, it’s about sex. It opens with a woman adjusting her hose before leaving Sam Spade’s office, evidence of a just-completed sexual encounter.

Bebe Daniels plays Miss Wonderly/Brigid O’Shaughnessy as sexually aggressive. She’s shown taking an obviously post-coital bath, and deals out lines like “who’s that dame wearing MY kimono?“. At one point, a large banknote is missing and Spade takes Brigid into an adjoining room and strip searches her. This 1931 movie is the only Maltese Falcon that contains this sequence. What we see on camera is an apparently nude Brigid clutching her clothes behind the door.

The Hays Code prevented the re-release of The Maltese Falcon in 1936, which led to the 1936 remake, Satan Met a Lady. Because it’s so risque, the complete version of this 1931 film was not screened again in the United States until 1966.Here’s my essay on the three faces of The Maltese Falcon.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of Sansón and Me. Watch this space for upcoming reviews of Turn Every Page and Roise & Frank. Wind River is highlighted on my most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Turn Every Page: two masters, two obsessives. In theaters.
• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

On March 28, Turner Classic Movies airs one my personal favorite movies, The Paper Chase, which traces a young man’s (Timothy Bottoms) first year at Harvard Law School and is based on the memoir of a recent grad. Although IMDb labels The Paper Chase as 1973 movie, I saw it in the summer of 1975, just as I was about to enter law school myself.   It’s such a personal favorite because just about EVERYTHING in the movie is something that I experienced myself at in my first year at Georgetown Law – everything, that is, EXCEPT dating Lindsay Wagner.  It’s a compelling story and the great producer John Houseman won an acting Oscar for his performance as the mentor/nemesis law professor; Houseman immediately cashed in with his ”They make money the old fashioned way… they EARN it” commercials for Smith Barney.

The Paper Chase is also notable as the first feature film credit for actors Craig Richard Nelson, Graham Beckel (Brokeback Mountain, L.A. Confidential)  and Edward Herrmann (known for many portrayals of FDR).  All three are stellar as members of the law school study group, and these guys have now combined for over 300 screen acting credits.  The Paper Chase is also available to stream from Amazon, Vudu and YouTube.

John Jay Osborn Jr.,  who wrote the autobiographical novel which was the source material movie, died last year. 

This week on The Movie Gourmet – watch for a new review of Turn Every Page, which I recommend.

Along with big Oscar winners Everything Everywhere All at Once and All Quiet on the Western Front, three of the top four movies on my Best Movies of 2022 are newly available to stream:

• The Whale, with its spectacular performances by the Oscar-winning Brendan Fraser and by Hong Chau.
• Aftersun, with its Oscar-nominated performance by Paul Mescal.
• Broker, which was spurned by the Oscars despite being a masterpiece.

REMEMBRANCE

Sadly, the actor Robert Blake will be remembered for the horrific childhood and sordid post-career detailed in his NYT obit, a hit TV show with a parrot and an absence of personal boundaries on TV talk shows. He was a child star, exploited by an abusive parent, in Our Gang and even The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. But he proved his underlying talent in In Cold Blood.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Turn Every Page: two masters, two obsessives. In theaters.
• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

On March 24, Turner Classic Movies airs Metropolitan from 1990, the work of writer-director Whit Stillman, who is essentially his own genre. What Stilman does really well is bring us unto the world of old money Eastern preppies with their refined manners and their odd customs like debutante balls.  His well-educated characters have earnest late-night existential conversations in complete sentences.  Nobody else does this, and Stillman’s dialogue has always kept me wholly absorbed.  I keep thinking, I should despise these people, and yet their ruminations are kind of intoxicating. Stilman’s next movie, Barcelona, is enjoyable, too.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – my Cinequest coverage, some thoughts on The Woman King and remembrances of two actors who were not-so-well-known, but massively talented. And watch this space for The Movie Gourmet’s 2023 Oscar Dinner, coming imminently.

At the urging of The Wife, we caught up with The Woman King. It’s a very well-crafted movie, and a pretty good one. Like any war movie (or Western), there are the familiar elements of assembling the team, training for the mission, combat, rescue of comrades and the climactic battle. Of course, The Woman King is novel because we aren’t used to seeing a war movie with women warriors, and especially not African-Ancestry women warriors – and let’s not underestimate the importance of that. I was struck how much better The Woman King was than Top Gun: Maverick, even though they follow the same war movie conventions.

Viola Davis, of course, is one our most emotionally powerful screen actors, and it’s fun to see her cut loose as an action hero at age 58. Lashana Lynch is really excellent in The Woman King, just as she impressed me so much as Nomi the new Agent 007 in the Bond movies. Vetting the claim “inspired by true events”, I was impressed by this Wikipedia article on the Agojie.

REMEMBRANCES

Actor Tom Sizemore is most remembered for his Oscar-nominated performance as Tom Hank’s sergeant in Saving Private Ryan. Sizemore was intense and charismatic and hugely talented, but his longtime cocaine addiction kept him off the screen and in the tabloids, rehab and jail. In a rare leading role, Sizemore carried an excellent little neo-noir, The Last Lullaby; see it on Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and redbox.

Prolific Canadian actor Gordon Pinsent was unforgettable in Away from Her, Sarah Polley’s Alzheimer’s movie with Julie Christie (my choice for the best movie of 2007). Pinsent piled up 152 screen credits, much of it lesser material on TV. He played a bad guy in one of my favorite neo-noirs, Chandler with Warren Oates.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Women Talking: safety and its costs. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Living: what is it to live? In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Empire of Light: a woman, revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: skewer the rich. Netflix.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Babylon: “wanton excess” is inadequate to describe this movie. In very few theaters.
• The Eternal Daughter: consumed by mom. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Kimi: an adequate REAR WINDOWS ends as a thrilling WAIT UNTIL DARK. HBO Max.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. In theaters and on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox..
• Decision to Leave: he’s obsessed, and she asks, “Am I so wicked?”. Amazon, AppleTV, Mubi.
• Causeway: affecting and uplifting. AppleTV.
• The Menu: immune from pretension. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.
• Armageddon Time: coming of age – right into a moral choice. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Banshees of Inisherin: no limits on stubbornness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• Tar: a haughty spirit before a fall. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Triangle of Sadness: more subtlety, please. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

ON TV

On March 15, The Candidate reappears on Turner Classic Movies’ 31 Days of Oscar. The Candidate may still be the greatest political film of all-time, with a searing leading performance by Robert Redford. My day job, for 38 years, was in politics, and so many moments in The Candidate are absolutely real. Excellent supporting performances by Peter Boyle, Don Porter and Melvyn Douglas. (Significant parts of The Candidate were shot in the Bay Area, including San Jose’s Eastridge mall and Oakland’s Paramount Theatre.)

TCM is sandwiching The Candidate between two other great films of American politics, Seven Days in May and All the King’s Men.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – my coverage of Cinequest (links live later today), now underway, and a new review of Women Talking. Plus the following rant.

I finally got around to watching Top Gun: Maverick, if only because The Wife insists on catching herself up on all the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. I knew that I was not the audience for this well-crafted movie, which is very entertaining on the most superficial level, and I acknowledge that the aerial training and combat scenes are technically unsurpassed. The actors all do their best with the hackneyed and well-worn dialogue, like “You’re where you belong. Make us proud.” But I wasn’t prepared for the insipidity of the happy endings of each plot thread; the only way Top Gun: Maverick could have been cornier is if they found out that Goose wasn’t killed in the first movie, after all. And, since I’m the last person to see Top Gun: Maverick, I don’t consider this a spoiler: although Maverick and Rooster each do something to sacrifice himself for the other, nobody is really sacrificed – this is another war movie where there is no human cost to the violence; (and the enemies are clad anonymously in Darth Vader-like headgear). The screenplay is cynically written to make sure no one feels sad after this movie – it is a fantasy. FWIW Jennifer Connelly is a huge improvement over Kelly McGinnis in the original Top Gun.

CURRENT MOVIES

• Women Talking: safety and its costs. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Living: what is it to live? In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Empire of Light: a woman, revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: skewer the rich. Netflix.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Babylon: “wanton excess” is inadequate to describe this movie. In theaters.
• The Eternal Daughter: consumed by mom. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Kimi: an adequate REAR WINDOWS ends as a thrilling WAIT UNTIL DARK. HBO Max.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. In theaters and on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox..
• Decision to Leave: he’s obsessed, and she asks, “Am I so wicked?”. Amazon, AppleTV, Mubi.
• Causeway: affecting and uplifting. AppleTV.
• The Menu: immune from pretension. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.
• Armageddon Time: coming of age – right into a moral choice. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Banshees of Inisherin: no limits on stubbornness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• Tar: a haughty spirit before a fall. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Triangle of Sadness: more subtlety, please. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE:

• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m busy screening movies that are programmed at Cinequest’s on-line festival Cinejoy, beginning next weekend. Of the current movies that I recommend, only Living, The Fabelmans: and Everything Everywhere All at Once are still relatively easy to find in theaters. The good news is that most are already streaming (see Current Movies below), and Empire of Light just became available to stream.

REMEMBRANCES

Early on, Raquel Welch was thought of more as a novelty movie star than as an actress. She had become instantly recognizable for displaying her spectacular figure in a skintight spacesuit (Fantastic Voyage), a doe-skin bikini (One Billion Years B.C.), a star spangled bikini (Myra Breckenridge), and flimsy undergarments (100 Rifles). In 1972, she proved that she could act in Kansas City Bomber. Welch nailed the character of a hard scrabble single mom committed to raising her kid while facing one indignity and bad choice after another. (Welch herself had two kids by the time she was 21 and was divorced at 24.) In 1973, she demonstrated brilliant comic acting chops in The Three Musketeers,

Her birth surname was Tejada; she took Welch from her first husband. Welch’s father was Bolivian, and her cousin was the first female president of Bolivia.

Director Hugh Hudson’s FIRST FEATURE won the Best Picture Oscar – Chariots of Fire. He never approached that level of achievement with feature films again, although he had a successful career directing commercials. He was one of the very few directors to attempt to make a movie about the American Revolution, Revolution

CURRENT MOVIES

• Broker: in the margins, finding a profound humanity. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• Living: what is it to live? In theaters.
• Empire of Light: a woman, revealed. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• The Whale: regret to redemption. In theaters, but increasingly hard to find.
• All the Beauty and the Bloodshed: justice by erasure. In theaters.
• Madoff: Monster of Wall Street: adding some jawdroppers to a familiar story. Netflix.
• Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery: skewer the rich. Netflix.
• Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. back in theaters plus on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Babylon: “wanton excess” is inadequate to describe this movie. In theaters.
• The Eternal Daughter: consumed by mom. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Kimi: an adequate REAR WINDOWS ends as a thrilling WAIT UNTIL DARK. HBO Max.
• Aftersun: who’s coming of age is this? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Fabelmans: a mom, a dad and their genius kid. In theaters and on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox..
• Decision to Leave: he’s obsessed, and she asks, “Am I so wicked?”. Amazon, AppleTV, Mubi.
• Causeway: affecting and uplifting. AppleTV.
• The Menu: immune from pretension. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• All Quiet on the Western Front: the trauma of war. Netflix.
• Armageddon Time: coming of age – right into a moral choice. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• The Banshees of Inisherin: no limits on stubbornness. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox and included with HBO Max.
• Tar: a haughty spirit before a fall. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Triangle of Sadness: more subtlety, please. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.

WATCH AT HOME

The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

• Love & Mercy: a tale of three monsters and salvation. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Mustang: repression challenged by the human spirit. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Truman: how to say goodbye. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• Searching: A ticking clock thriller that captures the Silicon Valley vibe. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Venus: Meeting your kid for the first time while transitioning. Amazon, AppleTV.
• The Sapphires: Here’s a crowd pleaser: Motown meets Aborigines. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu.
• Wind River: “This isn’t the land of backup, Jane. This is the land of you’re on your own.” Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
• Radio Dreams: stranger in a strange and funny land. Amazon, AppleTV.
• Little Dieter Needs to Fly: an unimaginable escape and a quirky guy Project Nim: .Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
• We Believe in Science: denying science on a monumental scale. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

On March 1, Turner Classic Movies presents a great Rudyard Kipling adventure yarn,  gloriously brought to the screen by director John Huston – The Man Who Would Be King. Michael Caine and Sean Connery star as Peachy Carnahan and Daniel Dravot, two reprobates mustered out of the Queen’s army in colonial India. Rather than return to menial prospects in England, these cheeky and lovable scoundrels seek to make their fortune as mercenaries on the outskirts of the Raj.  Fortune smiles, and they reach unforeseeable success – and then one of them overreaches…

John Huston had been trying to make this 1975 movie since the 1950s. His first choices for the roles of Carnahan and Dravot were Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, but Bogart became ill. Then the casting of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster fell through. When he was mulling over a pairing of Paul Newman and Robert Redford, Newman advised him to use British actors for these British roles. Thank you, Paul Newman – Caine and Connery are magnificent.

Huston told Caine that the movie was about friendship, and that Carnahan and Dravot are successful as long as they are united in single purpose.

Christopher Plummer plays Kipling. Saeed Jaffrey is excellent as the local fixer.