Buy Me a Gun: children in the narcolypse. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
ON TV
Maggie Cheung and Tony Leong in IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.
On May 25th, Turner Classic Movies airs In the Mood for Love, Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai’s steamy masterpiece. Tony Leong and Maggie Cheung play apartment neighbors in 1962 Hong Kong. They suspect, investigate and confirm that their respective spouses are having an affair -and become very personally close themselves during the process. They decide to keep the moral high ground and resist falling in bed with each other – and what’s sexier than NOT having sex? This becomes a haunting love story, complete with tantalizing near misses.
Wong Kar Wai’s regular cinematogapher Christopher Doyle combined with Mark Lee Ping-bing to shoot one of the most beautiful and atmospheric films you’ll ever see. You can feel the humidity as the men sweat in their Mad Men Era suits , and the rich color palette magnifies the passion.
Incidentally, the leading man is a different Tony Leong than the star of another art house hit, 1992’s The Lover.
Compartment No. 6 is the best new film in theaters now, but hard to find. It’s an insightful and unpredictable dual character study set on a train ride to Murmansk. In theaters.
Photo caption: Seidi Haarla and Yuri Borisov in COMPARTMENT No. 6. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the bittersweet A Love Song with Dale Dickey and Wes Studi and the wildly exuberant Everything Everywhere All at Once with Michele Yeoh. Here’s my personal remembrance of Norm Mineta, the most distinguished of my own mentors, and a note on the documentary An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy .
CURRENT FILMS
Compartment No. 6 is the best new film in theaters now, but hard to find. It’s an insightful and unpredictable dual character study set on a train ride to Murmansk. In theaters.
This year’s crop of Oscar films is fading into Old News, but note that Oscar winners CODA, Drive My Car and Belfast are all now available to stream.
The best new film in theaters is hard to find: the insightful and unpredictable dual character study Compartment No. 6.
ON TV
Roger Livesey in THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP
Tomorrow morning (April 30, Turner Classic Movies will air the 1943 masterpiece The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a remarkably textured portrait of a man over four decades and his struggles to evolve into new eras. Written and directed by the great British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this is a movie with a sharp message to 1940s audiences about modernity, as well as a subtle exploration of privilege that will resonate today.
Photo caption: THE GRAND BOLERO, playing at Cinequest. Courtesy of Cinequest.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy continues through this weekend. See my Best of Cinequest and all my Cinequest coverage. I’ve also honored Cinequest by highlighting two gems from recent festivals: the innovative docufictionErotic Fire of the Unattainable and the surreal Mexican masterpiece Buy Me a Gun.
CURRENT FILMS
Note: Oscar winners CODA, Drive My Car and Belfast are all now available to stream.
CODA: what’s not to like about this delightful Oscar-winning audience-pleaser? CODA’s success results from the textured supporting characters and complicated family dynamics in writer-director Sian Heder’s screenplay. AppleTV
Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. HBO Max, AppleTV, Amazon, and Vudu.
Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. IHBO Max, Hulu,Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
Richard Widmark running out of luck in THE NIGHT AND THE CITY
On April 16 and 17, Turner Classic Movies is airing the under appreciated film noir classic Night in the City on Noir Alley with intro and outro by Eddie Muller. Richard Widmark is superb as Harry Fabian, a loser who tries to corner the pro wrestling business in post-war London. The one thing that Harry Fabian is good at is finding suckers, but he doesn’t realize that the biggest sucker is…Harry Fabian. It’s highly recommended on my list of Overlooked Noir.
Gay Walley in EROTIC FIRE OF THE UNATTAINABLE. Courtesy of Vital Productions.
In recognition of Cinequest, now underway, here;s a gem from the 2020 Cinejoy virtual fest. Erotic Fire of the Unattainable is the captivating study of a free spirited woman of a certain age and her relationships. Gay (Gay Walley) is a NYC author in her 60s who has a boyfriend, but there are other men available to sample; she’s had a history of struggles in trying to find a guy who is the best fit.
Her relationships are all asymmetric – either she loves the man more than he loves her, or he loves her more.
We don’t see many movies about the romantic lives of women of a certain age, but assessing the relative appeal of lovers is a universal quandary. Unless you have lucked into the Ideal Partner (like I have with The Wife), there are trade offs.
As the actress Gay Walley says about the character Gay, “She is a free spirit. All the men come with strings. She clearly wants to be with someone but she can’t take the strings.”
Steve Starr and Gay Walley in EROTIC FIRE OF THE UNATTAINABLE. Courtesy of Vital Productions
Director Frank Vitale works in his own form of cinema, docufiction – “people playing themselves in stories that relate to their own real lives”. He casts non-actors and their friends, who act out stories that spring from their own real life experiences. His star, Gay Smalley, gets the screenwriting credit. Smalley, who in real life has published a novel entitled Erotic Fire of the Unattainable, plays the author Gay, who has penned a book of the same name.
He may use non-actors, but there’s nothing amateurish about Vitale’s filmmaking – Erotic Fire of the Unattainable looks great. The cinematographer is Niav Conty, who directed another Cinequest/Cinejoy gem, Small Time.
Erotic Fire of the Unattainable twas my favorite discovery at Cinequest’s 2020 online festival CINEJOY. Erotic Fire of the Unattainable is now streaming on Amazon (included with Prime) and YouTube.
Photo caption: Michael James Kelly and Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber in 12 MONTHS, world premiere at Cinequest. Courtesy of Cinequest.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – Cinequest’s online festival Cinejoy continues and here is my Best of Cinequest and all my Cinequest coverage. I’ve also honored Cinequest by highlighting the pandemic thriller Before the Fire, a female-written and -directed film with its world premiere at a recent Cinequest.
Note: Oscar winners CODA, Drive My Car and Belfast are all now available to stream.
CODA: what’s not to like about this delightful Oscar-winning audience-pleaser? CODA’s success results from the textured supporting characters and complicated family dynamics in writer-director Sian Heder’s screenplay. AppleTV
Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. HBO Max, AppleTV, Amazon, and Vudu.
Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. IHBO Max, Hulu,Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
On April 9 and 10, Turner Classic Movies airs the delightful 1956 heist film Bob le Flambeur on Noir Alley with intros and outros by Eddie Muller. In Bob le Flambeur, Bob the Gambler (Roger Duchesne) is a very decent and cool guy, whose only character flaw is that his financial planning is based on robbing a casino. The other characters, however are a uniformly amoral bunch of blackmailers, finks and pimps, all trying to betray Bob and each other in a tangle of double crosses. Still, with all its cynicism, it’s fairly cheery for a noir and even the decidedly cynical ending is fun.
Bob le Flambeur was written and directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, that rare Frenchman enamored of American culture; besides adopting the surname of the American novelist, Melville tooled around 1950s Paris in a Cadillac, wearing a Stetson. Melville went on to create a great string of neo-noirs in the 1960s starring Alain Delon, Jean-Paul Belmondo and Lino Ventura – Le Doulos, Le deuxième souffle, Le Cercle Rouge, Le Samourai and Un Flic.
Bob le Flambeur influenced the young filmmakers of the upcoming French New Wave, as well as many American filmmakers. You can also stream Bob le Flambeur from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
A moment of telling kindness in a global shit show.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – Cinequest is underway today, as is my Cinequest coverage. Plus a new review of The Automat and a rant on the Oscars.
Oscar winners CODA, Drive My Car and Belfast are all now available to stream.
Reflecting on the shit show that was this year’s Oscars:
The second-worst moment was the desecration of the In Memorium segment, with peppy dancers in front of the images of the dead people; no one is properly revered when someone is bouncing to Norman Greenbaum’s one hit in front of their portrait. Shameful. (And why should Betty White, however beloved, get special recognition on a cinema awards show when she only made four forgettable movies?)
The best moment was Lady Gaga’s kindness and graciousness in helping Liza Minnelli through presenting the Best Picture award. Liza clearly didn’t have enough cognitive capacity to navigate the situation, and I feared she would announce La La Land as the winner. But Lady Gaga let her have her moment without messing up CODA’s.
CURRENT FILMS
CODA: what’s not to like about this delightful Oscar-winning audience-pleaser? CODA’s success results from the textured supporting characters and complicated family dynamics in writer-director Sian Heder’s screenplay. AppleTV.
Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. HBO Max, AppleTV, Amazon, and Vudu.
Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. IHBO Max, Hulu,Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
This week at The Movie Gourmet – I previewed Noir City, underway through Sunday, reviewed my final list of theBest Movies of 2021 and tossed in a belated review of The Last Duel. Plus – a sneak peek at tomorrow night’s Oscar Dinner.
Taylor Hawkins, the Foo Fighters’ drummer, has died at 50. He is featured extensively in HBO’s Alanis Morissette documentary Jagged.
CURRENT FILMS
Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. In theaters.
Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
Jagged: Insightful biodoc of Alanis Morissette, who is really not that angry, after all. HBO.
The Lost Daughter : Great, Oscar-nominated performances by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in this dark, unsettling exploration of the obligation of parenting. Netflix.
House of Gucci: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in this modern tale of Shakespearean family treachery. In theaters.
Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
ON TV
THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK
On March 28, Turner Classic Movies airs one of the greatest political movies of all time – The Times of Harvey Milk, the documentary Oscar winner from 1984. It’s the real story behind the 2008 Sean Penn narrative Milk – and with the original witnesses. If you pay attention, The Times of Harvey Milk can teach you everything from how to win a local campaign to how to build a societal movement. One of the best political movies ever. And watch for the dog poop scene!
This week at The Movie Gourmet – remembrances of Alan Ladd Jr and William Hurt. Remember that A Song for Cesaris now in Bay Area theaters.
REMEMBRANCES
Alan Ladd Jr. (left) with George Lucas.
I don’t often celebrate Hollywood suits, but studio exec and producer Alan Ladd, Jr., had a major artistic and social impact on American cinema. Ladd is being remembered now chiefly for being the guy who greenlit Star Wars, which seems like a no-brainer now, but it wouldn’t have happened without Ladd; then in his thirties, Ladd was younger than his Hollywood peers, but old enough to have enjoyed the Flash Gordon series as a kid. Ladd also supported Mel Brooks’ vision to shoot Young Frankenstein in black and white.
We don’t immediately think of Ladd as a feminist warrior, but it was Ladd who changed the character of Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Alien from male to female. And Ladd was the key player behind the most groundbreaking of 1970s feminist cinema, An Unmarried Woman, Norma Rae and 9 to 5, and, 15 years later, the iconic Thelma and Louise.
Ladd’s body of work was astounding: Chariots of Fire (Best Picture Oscar), Braveheart (Best Picture Oscar), Body Heat, To Live and Die in LA, The Right Stuff, Moonstruck, A Fish Called Wanda, The Man in the Moon, Gone Baby Gone, All that Jazz, Breaking Away, a wedding, Julia, The Three Musketeers, Harry and Tonto, The Scent of a Woman, The Omen and even Kagemusha.
William Hurt in BODY HEAT.
Actor William Hurt, broke through unforgettably in his first feature film Altered States, which began a stunning run in the 1980s, of which my favorites were Body Heat, The Big Chill and Broadcast News. Hurt’s characters were frequently cerebral, contained and deliberate. His Ned Racine in Body Heat was always thinking, too, just not thinking as quickly or diabolically as Kathleen Turner’s femme fatale Matty Walker. Even after his A-list days had passed, Hurt was uniformly excellent supporting others in films like History of Violence and Into the Wild .
CURRENT FILMS
Drive My Car: director and co-writer Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s engrossing masterpiece about dealing with loss – and it’s the best movie of 2021. Layered with character-driven stories that could each justify their own movie, this is a mesmerizing film that builds into an exhilarating catharsis. In theaters.
Nightmare Alley: enough burning ambition for a thousand carnies. In theaters.
Belfast: a child’s point of view is universal. If you have heartstrings, they are gonna get pulled. In theaters.
Don’t Look Up: Wickedly funny. Filmmaker Adam McKay (The Big Short) and a host of movie stars hit the bullseye as they target a corrupt political establishment, a soulless media and a gullible, lazy-minded public. Netflix.
The Tragedy of Macbeth: No surprise here: Joel Coen, Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand deliver a crisp and imaginative version of the Bard’s Scottish Play. AppleTV.
Parallel Mothers: Pedro Almodovar gives us a lush melodrama, sandwiched between bookend dives into today’s unhealed wounds from the Spanish Civil War. In theaters.
Jagged: Insightful biodoc of Alanis Morissette, who is really not that angry, after all. HBO.
The Lost Daughter : Great, Oscar-nominated performances by Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in this dark, unsettling exploration of the obligation of parenting. Netflix.
House of Gucci: Lady Gaga and Adam Driver shine in this modern tale of Shakespearean family treachery. In theaters.
Licorice Pizza: When nine years is a big age difference. In theaters.
The Hand of God: Filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino’s own coming of age story – and a time capsule of 1986 Naples. Netflix.
Being the Ricardos: a tepid slice of a really good story. Amazon (included with Prime).
Turner Classic Movies is in its 31 Days of Oscars series and, on March 20, will present Babette’s Feast (1987), one of my Best Foodie Movies. Two aged 19th century Danish spinster sisters have taken in a French refugee as their housekeeper. The sisters carry on their father’s severe religious sect, which rejects earthly pleasures. After fourteen years, the housekeeper wins the lottery and, in gratitude, spends all her winnings on the ingredients for a banquet that she prepares for the sisters and their friends. As the dinner builds, the colors of the film become warmer and brighter, reflecting the sheer carnality of the repast. The smugly ascetic and humorless guests become less and less able to resist pleasure of the epicurean delights.The feast’s visual highlights are Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) and Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée (rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). This was the first Danish film to win Best Foreign Language Oscar.
