Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Heston Horwin and Jennifer Levinson (center) in TRUST. World premiere tonight at Cinequest. Courtesy of Menemsha Films.

This week, The Movie Gourmet focuses on Cinequest, Silicon Valley’s own major film festival – back in person and now underway.

There’s also a new review of The Outfit, a satisfying crime thriller from earlier this year and a reminder about the charming documentary The Automat, which is now available to stream.

REMEMBRANCES

Director Wolfgang Peterson made a harrowing submarine masterpiece, Das Boot, one of the great war (and anti-war) movies. Then got to make lots of big Hollywood action epics, none of which were as good as Das Boot.

Actor Roger E. Mosley is best known for his 158 episodes as the helicopter pilot on Magnum, P.I. and over 50 guest appearances in tv series. As the title character in Leadbelly and in many TV shows, he paved the way for more positive and empathetic depictions of African-American characters. He also worked in one of best-ever TV movies, The Jericho Mile, in one of the best sports movies, Semi-Tough, and as Sonny Liston (with Muhammad Ali himself) in The Greatest.  

Although her body of work was overshadowed by her off-screen personal life, actor Anne Heche was superb in Wag the Dog. That was one of a remarkable string of Big Movies in 1997 and 1998: Donnie Brasco, Volcano, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Six Days Seven Nights, Return to Paradise and Brian De Palma’s Psycho.

CURRENT MOVIES

Wes Studi and Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.

WATCH AT HOME

L.A. Renigen in COLMA : THE MUSICAL. Courtesy of Greenrocksolid.

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

  • Colma: The Musical: a refreshing hoot. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Outfit: no one is just what they seem to be. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Worst Person in the World: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic. Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Heartworn Highways: like desperados waitin’ for a train. AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Showtime.
  • Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel: the artsy and the quirky. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • The Worst Person in the World: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic. Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Heartworn Highways: like desperados waitin’ for a train. AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Showtime.
  • Everything Everywhere All at Once: often indecipherable and mostly dazzling. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Visitor: self-isolation no longer. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
  • Project Nim: a chimp learns the foibles of humans. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KINO Now.
  • The Gatekeepers: winning tactics make for a losing strategy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Auggie: Who do you see when you put on the glasses? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

THE AUTOMAT: nickels in, memories out

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Photo caption: THE AUTOMAT: Actress Audrey Hepburn photographed by Howard Fried in New York City as part of a multi-day photo shoot for Esquire magazine, 1951. Courtesy of A Slice of Pie Productions.

The charming documentary The Automat traces the fascinating seven-decade run of the marble-floored food palaces where one could put nickels in a slot and be rewarded with a meal. The story of the automat is essentially a business history of Holt & Hardart, which pioneered the automat concept in Philadelphia and New York, and dominated the market for years, at one point the nation’s largest restaurant chain. Mel Brooks, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Colin Powell speak to how the automat touched their lives, and Starbucks founder Howard Schulz credits the automat as his inspiration; (Mel Brooks even wrote and performed a song for the film).

The Automat is the first film for director Lisa Hurvitz, who spent eight years on the project. Along with the celebrities, Hurvitz has sourced her film with longtime Holt & Hardart employees, members of the founding families and even the guy who titled his Ph.D. dissertation, Trapped Behind the Automat: Technological Systems and the American Restaurant, 1902-1991.

The Automat is filled with unexpected nuggets, including:

  • The New Orleans origin of Holt & Hardart’s signature coffee.
  • The astounding percentage of the NYC and Philly populations once fed by Holt & Hardart.
  • The devastating impact of a nickel price increase.

Above all, The Automat features the automat as a democratic institution – a place and an activity enjoyed by a diverse collection of customers from all classes, genders and races.

The Automat gives voice to those nostalgic about the automat, but it is clear-eyed about why it didn’t survive – a business model based on volume when the volume of customers moved to the suburbs, along with social changes in post-war America.

The Automat had a blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run in March, but now you can stream it from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and KinoNow.

Movies to See Right Now

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Herbert Nordrum and Renate Reinsve in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. Courtesy of NEON.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a reminder about the brilliant but overlooked The Worst Person in the World and an important music documentary, Heartworn Highways. And a new review of the impressionistic doc Dreaming Walls: Inside the Chelsea Hotel.

REMEMBRANCE

Clu Gulager in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW

Prolific actor Clu Gulager has died at 93. The last of Gulager’s 165 IMDb credits came just three years ago in Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood. Best known for 105 episodes as the sheriff on The Virginian, Gulager made his living by guest appearances in a zillion TV shows from Wagon Train and Have Gun, Will Travel through Ironside, Cannon, CHiPs and Falcon Crest. One of his three characters on The Name of the Game was Rex Dakota. I have just learned that he starred in 72 episodes of a 1960-62 TV Western that, amazingly, I do not remember – The Tall Man, with Barry Sullivan and Pat Garrett and Gulager as Billy the Kid. He also peppered his career with cult movies like The Return of the Living Dead and I’m Gonna Get You Sucka. Gulager teamed with Lee Marvin in Don Siegel’s classic neo-noir The Killers.

Gulager’s best-ever screen performance was in The Last Picture Show as an oil rig foreman who is the illicit squeeze of his boss’ wife (Ellen Burstyn). This guy is trapped in a job he will never improve upon and in an affair he will never control; Gulager perfectly conveys his bitter dissatisfaction. The Director’s Cut also adds some sizzle to his pool hall sex scene with Jacy (Cybill Shepherd).

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

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

ON TV

Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay in THE THREE MUSKETEERS

To my delight, Turner Classic Movies often schedules Richard Lester’s boisterous The Three Musketeers, but, on August 16, is airing it with The Four Musketeers, which was filmed in the same shoot and released the next year (1974). Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York and Frank Finlay swashbuckle away against Bad Guys Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston. Geraldine Chaplin and Raquel Welch adorn the action. These movies are a hoot.

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD: funny, poignant, original and profoundly authentic

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Photo caption: Renate Reinsve in THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. Courtesy of NEON.

One of the very Best Movies of 2022 is finally available to watch at home. In writer-director Joachim Trier’s masterpiece The Worst Person in the World, Julie (Renate Reinsve) is roaring through her life like a locomotive in search of tracks. She’s a medical student until she isn’t, having decided that her passion is psychology instead. Then, she’s convinced her avocation is photography. Each career plunge is accompanied by a new hairstyle and a new boyfriend. She’s charming and talented – and completely restless and unreliable. Surely she can’t keep up this pace of self-reinvention forever, can she?

Julie falls in love with Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie) a graphic novelist in his forties, and settles into a dead end retail job in a bookstore and a role as the young companion of a literary figure. Rocking a black cocktail dress for an event celebrating Aksel, she sneaks out and crashes another party. There, she meets the barista Eivind (Herbert Nordrum), and they flirt, after deciding not to cheat on their partners.

Is Julie going to dump Aksel and break up Eivind’s relationship? Real life is more complicated than that, and so is The Worst Person in the World, which maintains a profound authenticity through its moments of silliness, sexiness and poignancy.

I’ve been a huge fan of Trier, since his first feature Reprise, which I named the 4th best movie of 2005. I didn’t care for his well-crafted follow-up Oslo, August 31. But I’ve been strongly recommending his under-appreciated Louder Than Bombs. Reprise is available to stream on Amazon, and you can find the other two on many streaming platforms.

Famed director Howard Hawks said that a great movie has “three great scenes and no bad scenes.” There are no bad scenes in The Worst Person in the World, and Trier hits Hawk’s mark with the moments when:

  • Julie, on her 30th birthday, reflects on what her mother, grandmother and other female ancestors were doing when they were 30.
  • Julie and Eivind meet and share nonsexual intimacies – which is smolderingly sexy.
  • Time stands still for the rest of Oslo when Julie has the impulse to find Eivind again.

The title of the film does not refer to Julie; it’s a self-deprecating joke by another character, who is a good person himself.

Renate Reinsve is relentlessly appealing as Julie; Reinsve won the best actress award at Cannes. Lie (who starred in Reprise and Oslo, August 31) and Nordrum are also superb.

Technically, The Worst Person in the World is a romantic comedy, but it’s so smart, so authentic and so original, I can’t bring myself to describe it as such. The Worst Person in the World is Oscar-nominated both for Trier’s screenplay and for best international feature film. After an extremely limited year-end Oscar qualifying run and a couple of weeks in theaters in February, The Worst Person in the World can now be streamed from Amazon, Apple, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Oscar Martínez, Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas in OFFICIAL COMPETITION. Courtesy of IFC Films.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – reviews of high-brow cinema with The August Virgin and low-brow movie fun with Supercool.

I’m traveling and don’t have time to write a review, but I saw Nope and it is excellent – an unusually intelligent popcorn movie. I’m not a big horror/sci fi guy, and I loved it. One of the best movies of 2022.

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Itsaso Arana (right) in THE AUGUST VIRGIN. Photo courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

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

  • The August Virgin: in search of reinvention. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Supercool: familar, until it isn’t. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Visitor: self-isolation no longer. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
  • Project Nim: a chimp learns the foibles of humans. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KINO Now.
  • The Gatekeepers: winning tactics make for a losing strategy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Colma: The Musical: a refreshing hoot. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Auggie: Who do you see when you put on the glasses? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
Molly Parker and Clifton Collins Jr. in JOCKEY. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

THE AUGUST VIRGIN: in search of reinvention

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Photo caption: Itsaso Arana in THE AUGUST VIRGIN. Photo courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

In the lovely and genuine The August Virgin, 33 year-old Eva (Itsaso Arana) is between relationships, not defined by any career success, and her biological clock is ticking. She knows it’s time for a reset. In August, Eva borrows an acquaintance’s apartment in another Madrid neighborhood and sets off on a series of strolls, in search of possibilities as yet unknown.

Many madrileños escape the city’s oppressive heat for the month of August. But Madrid is still filled with street festivals and tourists. Eva meanders around town, encountering old friends and making new ones. As Eva notes, in Madrid’s August, expectations are relaxed.

Eva is purposeful about shaking things up, but she has no plan other than to be open to the possibilities. That openness, with its fluidity and randomness, leads her to her moment of reinvention.

Eva is played by the film’s co-writer, Itsaso Arana. What’s so singular about Arana’s performance is that her Eva, as dissatisfied as she is with her current situation, is always comfortable in her own skin. She’s never desperate or needy (except when trying to negotiate a reluctant door lock) and always confident enough to engage with a stranger. At one point, the Spanish pop star Soleá sings, “I’ve still got time. I’m still here.”

THE AUGUST VIRGIN. Photo courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

The August Virgin’s other co-writer is director Jonás Trueba, and this is his sixth feature. I recently watched his next most recent film The Reconquest (La Reconquista) on Netflix, and it’s another intensely personal and genuine story, about two 30-year-olds reconnecting 15 years after a teen crush. Jonás Trueba is the son of Oscar-winning director Fernando Trueba (Belle Epoque, Chico & Rita).

Several critics have seen Trueba’s work as an homage to French New Wave filmmaker Éric Rohmer, but I found that The August Virgin, with Eva’s serial conversations (real, probing conversations), reminded me of the more accessible work of Richard Linklater.

Madrid itself is on display here, with its searing daytime sun, and the liveliness of the streets, tapas bars and after-hours clubs when the sun goes down.

Trueba and Arana allow Eva her process, and she samples one experience after another, seemingly with the faith that one of them will lead her to where she wants to be. This is not a film for the impatient, but I found its two hours enchanting.

The August Virgin is on my list of Best Movies of 2020and is now available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Wes Studi and Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of A Love Song with Dale Dickey and Wes Studi, the how-could-this-happen? documentary My Old School, and the fluffy Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. I’ve also completely refreshed most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE. Plus my preview of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, now underway.

I’m traveling and don’t have time to write a review, but I saw Nope and it is excellent – an unusually intelligent popcorn movie. I’m not a big horror/sci fi guy and I loved it. One of the best movies of 2022.

REMEMBRANCE

Bob Rafaelson was a New Hollywood director, a peer of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, William Friedkin, Peter Bogdanovich and Brian De Palma. But Rafaelson only made one great movie, Five Easy Pieces, which he co-wrote. Five Easy Pieces, though, is by itself an eternal legacy.

ICYMI here are my remembrances of actor L.Q. Jones and composer Monty Norman (scroll down).

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

Ethan Hawke and Philip Seymour Hoffman in BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU’RE DEAD

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

  • Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead: for Philip Seymour Hoffman. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Visitor: self-isolation no longer. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Bra: Just your average silent Azerbaijani comedy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The East: how do we punish corporate crime? HBO, Amazon, AppleTV, redbox.
  • Project Nim: a chimp learns the foibles of humans. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Bombshell: The Hedy Lamar Story: the world’s most beautiful woman and her secrets. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, KINO Now.
  • The Gatekeepers: winning tactics make for a losing strategy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Colma: The Musical: a refreshing hoot. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Auggie: Who do you see when you put on the glasses? Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.

ON TV

Claire Trevor in RAW DEAL

Tomorrow night, July 30, Turner Classic Movies presets Raw Deal, featuring some of the best dialogue in all of film noir, a love triangle and the superb cinematography of John Alton. A con (Dennis O’Keefe) escapes from prison and goes on the run with his girlfriend (Claire Trevor) and a hostage, his prison social worker (Marsha Hunt). None of them know that the jailbreak had been engineered by the convict’s ruthless partner (Raymond Burr), who was expecting that he would be killed in the attempt. On the desperate road trip, attractions blossom, and the Bad Girl and the Good Girl begin to share the Good/Bad Guy.

Raw Deal is one of my Overlooked Noir, and TCM will air it Saturday night and Sunday morning on its Noir Alley with an intro and an outro by Eddie Muller.

Marsha Hunt, Claire Trevor and Dennis O’Keefe in RAW DEAL

A LOVE SONG: bittersweet, heartfelt and funny

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Photo caption: Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of San Luis Obispo Film Fest.

A Love Song is a welcome starring vehicle for the longtime character actress Dale Dickey, whose every good night and every bad night is etched into the lines on her face. Dickey plays Faye, whom we meet camping alone in her travel trailer in the remote high desert of Western Colorado.

After a decades-long marriage, Faye has been widowed for seven years, paralyzed by grief in the first two. Now she moves confidently around her solo campsite, displaying her serious outdoor skills and an impressive touch for fishing for crawdads.

It is revealed that Faye is waiting for someone. She has invited a high school friend, whom she hasn’t seen for over three decades, to re-connect. That friend is Lito (Wes Studi), who has also been widowed after a long marriage.

A Love Song wistfully explores loneliness and how grief can impact the ability to love again.

Dickey is on screen almost every moment, and she’s great. Dickey has a way of making even her supporting performances unforgettable. She broke through as the scary meth matriarch in Winter’s Bone, and played the flinty bank teller in Hell and High Water.

Wes Studi and Dale Dickey in A LOVE SONG. Courtesy of Bleecker Street.

Studi recently received a deserved lifetime Oscar. His performances as very scary Native American warriors in Dances with Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans sparked a very impressive body of film work.

Dickey and Studi have said that each had their very first on-screen kiss in A Love Song.

A Love Song is the first feature for writer-director Max Waterman-Silver, who uses his debut to show off his native Western Colorado. I found his direction inconsistent, but he delivered two perfect single-shot scenes, both of very long duration, one when Lito and Faye are sitting with guitars, the other when the two are standing outside Faye’s trailer.

Faye is occasionally visited by four Native American brothers with their little sister as their spokeswoman. Waterman-Silver’s sense of comic timing in these scenes is flawless.

Both The Wife and I were periodically distracted by holes or inconsistencies in the screenplay. At one point, the dog inexplicably vanishes (fortunately temporarily). And there’s no way that someone with Faye’s seasoning would hike up a mountain without water, especially when she can’t make it back down by nightfall.

I admire filmmakers who make their films short enough (82 minutes) so they can pace them slowly. The Wife, less patient with slow burns, still thought that it ran long.

The performances by Dickey and Studi are reason enough to watch this bittersweet, gentle, heartfelt and funny film. I saw A Love Song at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. It releases into theaters this weekend.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz and Oscar Martínez in OFFICIAL COMPETITION. Courtesy of IFC Films.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a preview of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, including new reviews of Speer Goes to Hollywood and The Faithful: The King, The Pope and The Princess. Plus reviews of the year’s wittiest movie so far, Official Competition, and My Donkey, My Lover and I.

REMEMBRANCES

L.Q. Jones in HANG ‘EM HIGH

Actor L.Q. Jones, born with the already Texas-colorful name of Justus E. McQueen, took the name of his first movie character (in Battle Cry) and rode it through 165 roles, bringing something interesting and different in every one. His NYT obit quoted him an liking to play “a heavy that is not crazy or deranged — although we play those, of course — but rather someone who is a heavy because he enjoys being a heavy.” Jones worked in some excellent war movies (Men in War, Torpedo Run, The Naked and the Dead, Hell Is for Heroes) and revisionist westerns (The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Hang ‘Em High). He was also a delightful raconteur, which you can enjy by searching for “LQ Jones” on YouTube.

Composer Monty Norman created the James Bond Theme for Dr. No, which has been used in every Bond film flick since. Norman massaged a tune he had written earlier, and, as his NYT obit quoted him, “I thought, ‘My God, that’s it. His sexiness, his mystery, his ruthlessness — it’s all there in a few notes’.”

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

TOUCHING THE VOID

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

  • Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.
  • The Outfit: no one is just what they seem to be. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, redbox.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
  • The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
  • Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.

ON TV


Cynda Williams and Billy Bob Thornton in ONE FALSE MOVE

On July 27, Turner Classic Movies will air the gripping contemporary neo-noir One False Move. This is a fundamentally noir story – there are guys overreaching for greed and ambition, a femme fatale, and a very dark secret. America’s original sin – race – is at the core of One False Move.

The tale begins with a home invasion in Los Angeles. Two vicious professional robbers, with one’s beautiful girlfriend, steal money and cocaine, leaving a trail of corpses. The crime is solved right away – the cops know who did it and that the murderers are headed to a small town in Arkansas. The LA cops fly to Arkansas and lay in wait with the local constabulary. One False Move is a ticking time bomb as we wait for the criminals to drive across the Southwest to the inevitable confrontation.

One False Move features a great performance by the late Bill Paxton. It’s one of my Overlooked Neo-noir, and can also be streamed from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Bill Paxton in ONE FALSE MOVE

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Colie Moline and Hollyn Patterson in BITTERBRUSH. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Poser, Bitterbrush and Both Sides of the Blade, plus a preview of this year’s in-person Cinequest.

REMEMBRANCES

James Caan in THE GODFATHER

Actor James Caan is mostly remembered for his vivid portrayal of a guy with too much testosterone -Sonny Corleone in The Godfather (Bada bing!). Caan had been working since age 21 in TV series, wih a John Wayne movie thrown in, when he appeared in the TV movie Brian’s Song – a highly popular weeper. He also appeared, with Robert Duvall, in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People. Most underappreciated performance? Probably Rollerball.

Actor Tony Sirico, best known for his Paulie “Walnuts” Gualtieri in The Sopranos, overcame a youth that landed him in Sing Sing to play a slew of movie and TV gangsters (and appear in four Woody Allen films, too.)

CURRENT MOVIES

WATCH AT HOME

THE IMPOSTER

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

  • The Imposter: you gotta see this. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Jockey: he finally grapples with himself. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Step Into Liquid: “insanely gorgeous” surfing. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Riding Giants: obsessive search for the biggest wave to surf. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Electrick Children: magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • NUTS!: the rise and fall of a testicular empire. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Dick Johnson Is Dead: funny, heartfelt and frequently bizarre. Netflix.
  • The Women’s Balcony: a righteous man must keep his woman happy. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • The Handmaiden: gorgeous, erotic and a helluva plot. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu.
  • Very Semi-Serious: glorious The New Yorker cartoons. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • Touching the Void: the gripping true life story of a mountaineer who had to cut his climbing partner’s rope. Amazon, AppleTV.

ON TV

Dana Andrews, Sally Forrest, Thomas Mitchell and Ida Lupino in WHILE THE CITY SLEEPS

On July 19, Turner Classic Movies will air one of my Overlooked Noir, Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps (1956). A zillionaire dies and leaves his media empire to his feckless playboy son (Vincent Price). The ne’er-do-well scion cruelly dangles the CEO job in front of the company’s top talent, plunging them into a ruthless competition. Whoever solves the Lipstick Killer Murders will win the prize, and plenty of boardroom backstabbing ensues.