Weekly Movie Recommendations

Rediscovered masterpiece of Argentine noir on DVD

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Photo caption: Carlos Cores in LOS TALLOS AMARGOS

Thanks to the Film Noir Foundation, two newly restored classics of film noir are available on DVD. Both are from Argentina – and one of them is a masterpiece.

The masterpiece is Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems), one of the most imaginative and psychological movies of the classic film noir era. Because of his insecurities, a man invents imagined threats, but his real nemesis is himself. The shocking and ironic ending that would have been far too dark for any Hollywood film of the era.

Los tallos amargos was listed as one of the “50 Best Photographed Films of All-Time” by American Cinematographer. Its storied dream sequence is one of the most surreal in cinema. Los tallos amargos won the Silver Condor (the Argentine Oscar) for both Best Picture and Best Director (Fernando Ayala).

Narciso Ibáñez Menta and Laura Hidalgo in THE BEAST MUST DIE

The other film newly available on DVD is The Beast Must Die, which begins with the murder of a man so despicable that every other character has at least one motive for killing him. A visiting detective novelist becomes a murder investigator. As he peels back the onion, the whodunit revolves around which motive propelled the act of murder. There is a big reveal and a shocking ending.

The Los tallos amargos and The Beast Must Die DVDs can be pre-ordered from the Film Noir Foundation, and they will ship beginning November 2, 2021.

dream sequence in LOS TALLOS AMARGOS

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Ingvar Hilmir Snær and Noomi Rapace in LAMB. Courtesy of A24.

This week (Halloween week), the movies get more unsettling and scary.

IN THEATERS

Lamb: This dark, cautionary fable of karma is a brilliant and unsettling debut by writer-director Valdimar Jóhannsson.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Sibyl: The filmmaking is so exquisite that it masks the delicious trashiness of the story. This sex-filled melodrama is now widely available to stream (Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube).

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

ON TV

THE KILLER SHREWS – this is a dog in a fright mask

This being Halloween Week, Turner Classic Movies starts out with some of the more outlandish movie monsters on October 26, First. we have carnivorous rabbits the size of horses in Night of the Lepus. Then we have a classic from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters, – it’s The Killer Shrews, where the filmmakers have put fright masks on dogs, and then applied shaggy patches to the sides of the dogs and ropy rat tails to their backs.

Then, on October 29, TCM brings us a REALLY scary movie, Philip Kaufman’s 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams must figure out that humans are being replicated by floating pods from outer space. Leonard Nimoy plays the chillingly confident and authoritative Dr. David Kibner – not everybody can be menacing in a turtleneck. The final shot is spine tingling.

Btooke Adams and Donald Sutherland in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

SIBYL: masking its trashiness with expert filmmaking

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Virginie Efira and Laure Calamy in SIBYL

In director Justine Triet’s sex-filled (and sometimes darkly funny) melodrama Sibyl, the psychotherapist Sibyl (Virginie Efira) decides to phase out her practice and return to her primary obsession – novel writing. Sibyl is changing the trajectory of her own life, and she reflects on the one true love in her past (Niels Schneider), her sobriety, her parenting and the family of her sister (Laure Calamy).

While off-loading most of her patients, Sibyl picks up a new one – a needy young actress (Adèle Exarchopoulos from Blue Is the Warmest Color). The actress is about to jump start her movie career, but she’s having an affair with the other lead actor (Gaspar Ulliel), who is inconveniently married to the director Sandra Hüller (Toni Erdmann).

Each of these threads is its own melodrama, and Triet braids them together into an always entertaining story. We are our choices – and we can be our impulses.

Sibyl may be a psychotherapist, but she hasn’t mastered the concept of boundaries. Most egregiously, she doesn’t hesitate to use the personal secrets of her patients as fodder for her novels. Yikes! And she doesn’t resist rampant boundary-crossing by the actress, the actor and the director, either, and she’s used by all of them.

The characters, especially Sibyl, fill the camera lens with passionate sex – on the floor, up against a door, on the beach, on an apartment bathroom’s sink, on the deck of a boat, but not, to the best of my recollection, on a bed.

Niels Schneider and Virginie Efira in SIBYL

There’s lots of sly, dark humor, beginning with the over-intellectualized mansplaining in the very first scene. The sister is hilarious, especially when she coaches her niece on how to manipulate her mother. At one point, the director of the film-within-the-film responds to a lover’s meltdown on the set: “Guys, let’s keep the drama fictional if you don’t mind.“

The scene where the director first meets the actress who has just been impregnated by the director’s husband is another comic masterpiece from Hüller.

Many of us so revere French cinema that we forget that one of the things French filmmakers do well is trashy. And Sibyl is every bit as trashy as Fifty Shades of Grey. However, the editing (Laurent Sénéchal) and the acting are so exquisite that it masks the trashiness of the story.

I originally streamed Sibyl on Virtual Cinema at Laemmle. It’s now available on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and DVD.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Daniel Craig in NO TIME TO DIE Photo credit: Nicola Dove © 2020 DANJAQ, LLC AND MGM.

This week, we have familiar favorites – Daniel Craig’s final fling as James Bond and Tony Soprano’s origin story. Plus, the Mill Valley Film Festival is underway through this weekend – here’s my festival preview.

Time for a rant: yesterday I saw Lamb at a midday show in a 209-seat theater auditorium. When I bought my ticket, someone had already purchased a ticket for seat P9, almost at the top of the room. I purchased seat C8, in the middle of the third row. As the trailers ended, a third patron seated himself – in seat C10 – with only one seat buffering us. This guy chose between 207 available seats and picked one only two feet from me – in a pandemic. What a tool! He probably encroaches at the urinals, too.

IN THEATERS

No Time to Die: Daniel Craig returns one last time as his world-weary James Bond – and it’s epic. No disposable women this time.

The Many Saints of Newark: This prequel of The Sopranos shows us what formed the teenage Tony Soprano, especially his role model “uncle”, Dickie Moltisanti (Alessandro Nivola). Also on HBO Max.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

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

ON TV

Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton in WHERE EAGLES DARE

On October 16, Turner Classic Movies presents Where Eagles Dare, a crackerjack thriller from the WWII commando subgenre (think The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen). The seemingly impossible target is a cliff-side Nazi stronghold only accessible via a funicular. And not all the commandos understand the true mission. The oddly matched stars are Richard Burton (nearing the end of his second marriage to Elizabeth Taylor) and Clint Eastwood (after the Leone spaghetti westerns but before his Dirty Harry franchise). It all works.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Tim Blake Nelson in OLD HENRY. Courtesy of Shout! Factory.

Three new movies in theaters this week, but I’m only recommending one of them. Of course, I’ll try to catch the new James Bond movie, the last with Daniel Craig, No Time to Die.

I just got back from covering the Nashville Film Festival, and here’s my preview of the Mill Valley Film Festival, opening tonight.

IN THEATERS

Old Henry: If you appreciate a good western, then Old Henry is your movie.  The big shootout is thrilling, and Tim Blake Nelson is so good as a man who knows he can’t have redemption and only seeks some solace. Old Henry is now playing nationally, including for one-week run at San Francisco’s Roxie.

The Nowhere Inn: In this comedy, Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia) plays herself directing a documentary about her real life friend, the avant-garde musician Annie Clark, who performs as St. Vincent. These are two smart and talented women, and the movie is maybe half as funny as they are. If you need a dose of St. Vincent’s sexy vibrancy, then watch her perform instead.

Titane: Demented, icky and excessive, the Cannes Palme d’Or winner is intentionally unpleasant to watch. A maniac stripper has sex with, and becomes impregnated by, a Cadillac; she’s also a serial killer with a fetish for impaling her victims. I felt punished, even tortured, when I was watching Titane.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Sandra Guldberg Kampp in WILDLAND. Photo courtesy of BAC Films.

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

ON TV

Edmond O’Brien in D.O.A.

On October 13, Turner Classic Movies brings us one of my favorites – 83 minutes of noir hysteria titled D.O.A. This gripping whodunit opens with a man walking into a police station to report HIS OWN MURDER. The man (Edmond O’Brien) finds out that he has been dosed with a poison for which there is no antidote – and that he has only a few days to live. He desperately races the clock to find out who has murdered him and why. Much of D.O.A. was shot on location in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and one SF scene has one of the first cinematic glimpses into Beat culture. The little known director Rudolph Maté gave the film a great look, which shouldn’t be a surprise because Maté had been Oscar-nominated five times as a cinematographer. The next year, he followed D.O.A. with another solid noir, Union Station, with William Holden and Barry Fitzgerald.

Movies to See Right Now

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Sylvie Mix and Bobbi Kitten in POSER, playing at the Nashville Film Festival, Photo courtesy of the Nashville Film Festival.

I’m in Music City for the Nashville Film Festival, which is both an in-person and on-line event. Check out my coverage so far:

IN THEATERS

Without Getting Killed or Caught: This lyrical documentary traces the lives of singer-songwriter Guy Clark and his painter-songwriter wife Susanna. Their roommate was troubled songwriter Townes Van Zandt, Guy’s best friend and Susanna’s soulmate. This is a film about an unusual web of relationships amidst the creative process. It’s already slipped out of Bay Area theaters, but I’ll let you know when it streams.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Wildland: A teenage girl is orphaned and is placed with relatives that she doesn’t really know. She gradually learns that the family, headed by her mom’s estranged sister is a ruthless criminal enterprise. Wildland simmers and evolves into a nail biter right up to its noir-stained epilogue. Laemmle.

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

ON TV

Levon Helm at left and Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner’s Daughter

Turner Classic Movies is aligned with my trip to Nashville, the Ground Zero of Country music. On October 4, TCM airs Coal Miner’s Daughter, one of my 5 Great Hillbilly Movies. Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Loretta Lynn in this successful biopic.  In an early major role, Tommy Lee Jones plays Loretta’s husband Mooney.  Levon Helm, the Arkansas-bred drummer for The Band has one of his rare but compelling film roles as Loretta’s Daddy.  Besides the performances, the movie works because Loretta must grow from nobody to star, girl to woman and hick to worldly.

Coal Miner’s Daughter was one of the big Hollywood movies directed by Michael Apted, whose 7 Up series is one of the most significant documentary series in cinema history.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jessica Chastain in THE EYES OF TAMMY FAYE

This week, there are a few good choices in theaters, and it may be your last chance to catch The Lost Leonardo until it streams. Plus more watch-at-home choices. Stay tuned for my preview coverage of the Nashville Film Festival – both in-person and virtual cinema.

IN THEATERS

The Eyes of Tammy Faye: Jessica Chastain’s powerhouse performance in humanizes and brings dignity to the disgraced, over-made-up televangelist.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Kansas City Bomber: self-discovery at the roller derby track. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael: the remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic Pauline Kael and her drive for relevance. On TCM on September 26, and rentable from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

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

ON TV

88 years ago, only four years into the Talking Picture Era, there were dramedies (even though the word dramedy had yet to be coined). On September 26, Turner Classic Movies airs George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight, an all-star 1933 Hollywood dramedy that mostly still stands up today. Jean Harlow is hilarious as the trophy bride of the course noveau-millionaire played by Wallace Beery. Marie Dressler is at least as funny as a former star yearning to relive an old romance. John Barrymore adds a heartbreaking performance as a man facing disgrace. If all this weren’t enough, we also get Lionel Barrymore, some ditziness from Billie Burke and a splash of sarcasm from quick-patter artist Lee Tracy. Harlow, who died at 26, is usually remembered as a platinum blonde sex symbol, but Dinner at Eight reminds us of her comic brilliance.

WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL – the drive for relevance

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Pauline Kael in WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL

What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael is the remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic Pauline Kael and her drive for relevance. It’s coming up September 26 on Turner Classic Movies.

Documentarian Rob Garver has sourced What She Said is well-sourced with the memories of Kael’s colleagues, rivals and intimates. Garver’s portrait of Kael helps us understand her refusal to conform to social norms as she basically invented the role of a female film critic and what today we might call a national influencer on cinema.

Of course, one of Kael’s defining characteristics was her all-consuming love of movies, a trait shared by many in this film’s target audience. Fittingly, Garver keeps things lively by illustrating Kael’s story with clips from the movies she loved and hated. Garver’s artistry in composing this mosaic of evocative movie moments sets What She Said apart from the standard talking head biodocs.

Kael was astonishingly confident in her taste (which was not as snooty as many film writers). For the record, I think Kael was right to love Mean Streets, Band of Outsiders, Bonnie and Clyde, and, of course, The Godfather. It meant something to American film culture that she championed those films. She was, however, wrong to love Last Tango in Paris. She was also right to hate Limelight, Hiroshima Mon Amour and The Sound of Music. But Kael was just being a contrarian and off-base to hate Lawrence of Arabia and Shoah.

Kael was by necessity an intrepid self-promoter and filled with shameless contradictions. She famously dismissed the auteur theory but sponsored the bodies of work of auteurs Scorsese, Peckinpah, Coppola and Altman. She loved – even lived – to discover and support new talent.

Most of the people we like and admire possess at least some bit of selflessness and empathy. Kael’s daughter Gina James says that Kael turned her lack of self awareness into triumph. This observation, of course, cuts both ways.

I first screened What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael for the 2019 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. Again, TCM will air it on September 26, and you can rent it from Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan in THE CARD COUNTER. Photo courtesy of Focus Features / ©2021 Focus Features, LLC

I’ve got about eight solid movie-going options in theaters for you this week. I’ll be seeing at least three more new movies this week, so stay tuned for yet more recommendations.

IN THEATERS

The Card Counter: Oscar Isaac stars in Paul Schrader’s dark portrait of highly disciplined loner who lives by a code but can’t submerge his past.

Best Sellers: Michael Caine and Aubrey Plaza star in a breezy comedy about a marketing campaign that takes off when bad behavior goes viral on social media.

Also in theaters:

REMEMBRANCE

Nino Castelnuovo in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

Actor Nino Castelnuovo matched up with the then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve for a doomed romance in the innovative French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). In the epilogue, when Castelnuovo gazes out the window of his gas station, it’s one of the great weepers in cinema history.

ON VIDEO

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

ON TV

Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford in HUMAN DESIRE

On Saturday and Sunday, Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley features Human Desire with Gloria Grahame. Grahame is one of the enduring figures of film noir because of her performances In a Lonely Place and The Big Heat. But she’s at least as good in this less well-known turn. Grahame plays Vicki, married to a brutish wife-beater (Broderick Crawford). Vicki is no saint – she accompanies hubby on a murder and helps him cover his tracks by coming on to a hunky railroad engineer (Glenn Ford). Vicki then suggests to her lover that if only her husband were dead…But Vicki, while morally flexible, isn’t bad to the core. She’s complicated. TCM will provide an Intro and Outro by Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir.

And, on September 21, TCM airs the little seen All Night Long, one of my Overlooked Neo-noir. It’s Shakespeare’s Othello, set in the jazz world of 1962 London – and with music performed by Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and other real jazz musicians.

Patrick McGoohan and Paul Harris in ALL NIGHT LONG

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: THE LOST LEONARDO

This week, I still like The Lost Leonardo and Ma Belle, My Beauty in theaters – and a host of watch-at-home suggestions.

REMEMBRANCES

Jean-Paul Belmondo

Jean-Paul Belmondo, with his flattened nose and a cigarette dangling from his full lips, was the personification of European cinema in the early 1960s, from the French New Wave to Jean-Paul Melville neo-noirs to Italian art films. Projecting an insouciant sexiness, he starred with Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless, which basically kicked off the Nouvelle Vague with Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Breathless was released in 1960, the same year that Belmondo co-starred with Oscar-winner Sophia Loren in Vittorio de Sica’s Two Women, co-starred with Jena Moreau in Seven Days, Seven Nights, and starred in four other films, to boot.

Michael Constantine in MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING

Super-prolific character actor Michael Constantine appeared in hundreds of television episodes (113 in Room 222 alone). I liked him in his movie comedies – as the grumpy former GI in If It’s Tuesday, It Must Be Belgium and as the Windex-obsessed dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

IN THEATERS

ON VIDEO

On Being a Human Person: A documentary on Roy Andersson, an auteur who makes very, very odd movies that are deeply profound, humanistic and mostly funny. Laemmle.

The Unknown Saint: Here’s another pitch for this delightful crime comedy from Morocco. It’s a deadpan dive into human foibles and really, really bad luck. Netflix.

THE UNKNOWN SAINT. Photo courtesy of The Match Factory.

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

ON TV

Timothy Bottoms (standing) in THE PAPER CHASE

On September 14, 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 Houseman in THE PAPER CHASE