Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Idella Johnson, Sivan Noam Shimon and Hannah Pepper in Marion Hill’s film MA BELLE, MY BEAUTY. Courtesy of SFILM.

This week – an expectation-busting documentary in theaters and two new audience-pleasers to watch at home.

IN THEATERS

499: Photo courtesy of Cinema Guild.

499: In this critique of contemporary Mexico, director Rodrigo Reyes has invented the medium of “docu-fable”. It is all as real as real can be (the documentary), except for the fictional, 500-year-old conquistador (the fable). Opens today at San Francisco’s Roxie with Reyes in attendance and plays through September 8.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

The Unknown Saint: I loved this crime comedy from Morocco. It’s a deadpan dive into human foibles and really, really bad luck. Netflix.

Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed. This doc tells two improbable stories. The first is how Bob Ross, the soft-talking, permanent-coiffed painting instructor on PBS, could become such a cultural phenomenon. The second is a sordid tale of bone-picking exploitation. Netflix.

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

ON TV

Clint Eastwood in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

On September 6, Turner Classic Movies gives us a helluva choice, depending on how you prefer your movie violence. For stylized movie violence (and stylized movie music, camerawork and everything else, there’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Then there’s the serious-as-a-heart-attack Battle of Algiers.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly completes Sergio Leone’s hugely influential triad of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns. The wonderfully idiosyncratic score by Ennio Morricone is indelible.

The Battle of Algiers is the story of 1950s French colonialists struggling to suppress the guerrilla uprising of Algerian independence fighters.  Although it looks like a documentary, it is not.  Instead, filmmaker Gillo Pontecorvo recreated the actual events so realistically that we believe that we are watching strategy councils of each side. Among the great war films, it may be the best film on counter-insurgency.  In 2003, the Pentagon screened the film for its special operations commanders.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in RESPECT.

Five new movies this week, plus a seminal neo-noir on TV.

IN THEATERS

Ma Belle, My Beauty: This simmering romantic drama is a gorgeous, sexy, character-driven film. I screened Ma Belle, My Beauty at the 2021 SFFILM.

Respect: Jennifer Hudson is up to the challenge of portraying Aretha Franklin in this revealing biopic, especially her struggles to wrest command of her own creativity from both well-intentioned and ill-intentioned men. A little too long, but then there’s I Never Loved a Man (Like the Way I Love You), Respect, Think, Natural Woman and Amazing Grace.

The Lost Leonardo: This documentary peels back the onion on an ever surprising tale of discovery, scholarship, fraud, commerce and politics in the refined and pretentious art world. Is a rediscovered Renaissance masterpiece authentic, and does it matter?

Searching for Mr. Rugoff: The story of a now-unknown giant in independent cinema – a guy with the best possible movie taste and the most elevated artistic sensibilities who was personally a barbarian. Will also be streaming from the Roxie.

Eugenio Derbez in CODA

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Curiosa: This French romantic drama is set in the Belle Epoque, when the Eiffel Tower was new and sexual liberation was burgeoning among literati. It would be more erotic if we cared about the characters. Laemmle.

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

ON TV

Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

On August 28, Turner Classic Movies presents the seminal 1960s neo-noir Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin. Marvin stars as Walker, a heist man who is shot and left for dead by his partner Reese (John Vernon, Animal House’s Dean Wormer), who absconded with Walker’s share of the loot and Walker’s wife. When Walker recovers, he is hellbent on revenge, aided by his sister-in-law Chris (Angie Dickinson).

It turns out that Walker needs to trace the money through a cavalcade of Mr. Bigs (Lloyd Bochner, Keenan Wynn, Carroll O’Connor). There’s a great set piece where Walker invades a highrise penthouse, despite the heavily guarded elevator being the only entrance. It all ends in a thrilling nighttime finale at Fort Point.

Walker is a very uncomplicated character, all he wants is to kill Reese and reclaim his $93,000. Anyone in Walker’s situation would be pissed off, but Lee Marvin plays Walker in a constant state of cold rage. Lee Marvin’s unique charisma animates this relentless killing machine.

Marvin, just coming off The Dirty Dozen and having won an Oscar for Cat Ballou, was at the peak of his stardom. Marvin’s other contribution to the film was handpicking the then unheralded John Boorman to direct; (this was five years before Boorman’s masterpiece Deliverance). Boorman intentionally delivered a morally bleak story in the most deserted of locations: empty parking lots, the Los Angeles River channel. and San Francisco’s two icons of abandonment – Alcatraz and Fort Point.

Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

If you’re wondering why Angie Dickinson was a movie star, Point Blank is for you. Angie was ballsy, sexy and always unashamedly very direct, and she rocked midcentury fashion. (She plays one unforgettable scene in a dress with bold horizontal stripes in the colors of Denny’s restaurants.)

Watch for James B. Sikking as the professional sniper; Sikking became well-known as the supercilious SWAT team commander Lt. Howard Hunter in Hill Street Blues. Future horror icon Sid Haig pops up as the security guard in the penthouse lobby.

Angie Dickinson and Lee Marvin in POINT BLANK

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Troy Kotsur and Marlee Matlin in CODA

This week, the Must See is the surprisingly textured CODA.

IN THEATERS

CODA: Writer-director Sian Heder’s screenplay has made CODA, which could have been simplistic, into that rare, feel-good family film that is authentic, fumy and thought-provoking. Also streaming in AppleTV.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

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

ON TV

Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in GASLIGHT

On August 25, Turner Classic Movies will air Gaslight (1944), a classic suspense thriller that still has a lot to say about domestic violence and abusive power in relationships.

An evil husband (Charles Boyer) isolates his wife (Ingrid Bergman) and uses manipulation to convince her that she’s going crazy. He’s seeking to conceal his crimes and gain unfettered control of her house and fortune. He’s also dallying with the maid (a nubile 18-year-old Angela Lansbury). Fortunately, the wife’s longtime admirer (Joseph Cotton) works for Scotland Yard and starts to investigate…

Here’s my essay on Gaslight, Gaslight and gaslighting in domestic violence.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Dev Patel in THE GREEN KNIGHT. Photo courtesy of A24

This week – a thoughtful swords-and-sorcery fantasy and a spectacular misfire of an art movie. Plus my favorite film noir femme fatale.

IN THEATERS

The Green Knight: Dev Patel plays Sir Gawain of Arthurian legend in a movie more about a test of character than it is about a heroic quest. Thoughtful and character-driven – and great special effects, too.

Annette: This passionate and inventive art house musical is doomed by a flawed screenplay, bad pacing and a creepy puppet baby.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

SUMMERTIME. Photo courtesy of Frameline.

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

ON TV

Gloria Grahame with Director Jerry Hopper on the set of NAKED ALIBI; Photo courtesy of Mark A. Clark and Film Noir Photos.

On August 17, Turner Classic Movies celebrates my favorite film noir actress, Gloria Grahame, with several Grahame films, including Human Desire, The Big Heat and In a Lonely Place. Grahame projected an uncanny mixture of sexiness, vulnerability and unpredictability. The fact that Gloria was a Bad Girl in real life doesn’t hurt.

The best of these films is In a Lonely Place, where Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all… The flashiest Grahame role is in The Big Heat, where she is involved in an act of shocking cruelty and fitting retribution.

But I’m pitching her less well-known turn in Human Desire, where she plays Vicki, married to a brutish wife-beater (Broderick Crawford). Vicki is no saint, and 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…

Human Desire was directed by the great Fritz Lang, and is a remake of Jean Renoir’s classic La Bête Humaine (The Human Beast) with Jean Gabin and Simone Simon.

I have the Australian version of the Human Desire poster in my living room. The tag line is “She was born to be bad…to be kissed..to make trouble“, and the Aussie authorities have labeled it “NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN“.

Gloria Grahame and Glenn Ford in HUMAN DESIRE

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Sly Stone in SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)

This week, we have a new period drama, but the best bets in theaters are still Roadrunner and Summer of Soul. I’m off to see The Green Knight and the Cannes winner Annette, so stay tuned.

IN THEATERS

Casanova, Last Love: In another of Benoît Jacquot’s visually sumptuous powered-wig-and-harpsichord movies, Casanova gets his comeuppance. The seducer is seduced and it’s well, pathetic.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

CJ Hunt and RE Lee in NEUTRAL GROUND

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

  • Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube. #1 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far
  • Dirt Music: a gorgeous bodice-ripper with a WTF ending. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.
  • No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
  • Neutral Ground: the supremacist legacy of old statues. PBS.
  • Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two gay Southern geniuses, revealing themselves. Laemmle.
  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
  • That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Franka Potente in RUN LOLA RUN

ON TV

Tune into Turner Classic Movies on August 10 for director Robert Altman’s underappreciated California Split.  Elliott Gould plays a guy deep in the throes of gambling addiction, and George Segal plays another guy well on his way.  The two join up and play the LA-area card clubs before heading to Reno for a poker game that may be too big for them.  Gould is at his manic, wise cracking best, and plays off the more reserved Segal in a very funny adventure.  Of course, their decision-making is influenced by their addiction.

Actor Joseph Walsh wrote the screenplay about his own gambling addiction and plays the bookie you don’t want to owe money to.  Real card club and casino patrons play the poker players, so the verisimilitude of the poker games is unmatched.  The real Amarillo Slim elevates the big game.

California Split was the first non-Cinerama movie to use eight tracks for sound, which was perfect for Altman’s style of overlapping dialogue and tidbits of side and background conversations.

The poker is both authentic and entertaining.  The two guys “read a table”, analyzing the other players in one particularly funny moment.

Reliable character actor Bert Remsen has a memorable bit in drag.   Mickey Fox is memorable as a suspicious poker loser.  Look for a young Jeff Goldblum, too.

Elliott Gould (center left) and George Segal (center right) in CALIFORNIA SPLIT

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN

This week – a contemporary Australian bodice-ripper on video and a whole mess of great television recommendations. The best two movies in theaters are still Summer of Soul and Roadrunner.

IN THEATERS

ON VIDEO

Kelly MacDonald in DIRT MUSIC. Photo courtesy of Blue Finch Film Releasing.

Dirt Music: A sweeping romance amid Australian coastal vistas, but with an ending that wants to have it both ways. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube.

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

  • Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube. #1 on my Best Movies of 2021 – So Far.
  • No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
  • Neutral Ground: the supremacist legacy of old statues. PBS.
  • The Courier: amateur among spies. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
  • Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two gay Southern geniuses, revealing themselves. Laemmle.
  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • My Name Is Bulger: Two brothers, two paths to power. discovery+.
  • About Endlessness: Damned if I know. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
  • That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Brenda Blethen in SECRETS & LIES

Well, here we are in the August doldrums and Turner Classic Movies is turning up the heat with some great choices.

First, on August 1, there’s Secrets & Lies, which I considered the very best movie of 1996. Written and directed by Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet, Naked, Topsy-Turvy, All or Nothing, Vera Drake, Another Year), this is Leigh’s masterpiece and his most acessible film.

Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is an accomplished young British woman who has been raised by middle-class adoptive parents. She decides to track down her birth mother, who turns out to be the working class hot mess Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn). This triggers Cynthia’s emotional damage from giving up baby Hortense, her panic at explaining this to her family – with the complicating factor that Hortense is Black. All kinds of family complications ensue. Cynthia’s underachieving daughter (Claire Rushbrook) is not at all comfortable with the emergence of an over-achieving sibling. Cynthia’s sister-in-law (Penelope Logan) faces this through her own child-related anguish. And Cynthia’s brother (Timothy Spall), who has clawed his way to respectability, has to juggle these developments.

There’s a searing emotional authenticity to Secrets & Lies, but there’s plenty of humor, too. (The montage of the brother’s portrait photography clients is hilarious.)

This is a career-topping performance by Brenda Blethens (TV’s Vera) and she was Oscar-nominated.

Blethyn’s fine performance is the showiest, but this is the movie where I recognized the greatness of Timothy Spall (Mr. Turner and Wormtail in the Harry Potter franchise),

The rest of the cast is brilliant, too, including Logan (Lovejoy and Mrs. Hughes in Downton Abbey) and Leslie Manville. Claire Rushbrook is especially good as the gobsmacked daughter.

Secrets & Lies, Leigh, Blethyn and Jean-Baptiste were all nominated for Academy Awards (and this was a little British indie back when they only nominated 5 movies for Best Picture). Secrets & Lies and Fargo lost the Best Picture Oscar to The English Patient (only because The English Patient was far, far more pretentious). This is a film of uncommon humanity and one of my Greatest Movies of All Time.

Bette Davis and Warren William in SATAN MET A LADY

On August 2, TCM airs Satan Met a Lady, an earlier version of the 1941 The Maltese Falcon. I’ve written about all three versions in Three faces of the Maltese Falcon. This 1936 version is more of a screwball comedy than a whodunit, and the ensemble acting is magnificent..

Finally, on August 4 , TCM plays Pushover, one of my Overlooked Noir. Tracking a notorious criminal, the cop (Fred MacMurray) follows – and then dates – the gangster’s girlfriend (“Introducing Kim Novak”).  It starts out as part of the job, but then he falls for her himself. He decides that, if he can double cross BOTH the cops and the criminal, he can wind up with the loot AND Kim Novak. (This is a film noir, so we know he’s not destined for a tropical beach with an umbrella drink.)

Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak in PUSHOVER

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN

This week – my first stab at the Best Movies of 2021 – So Far – and you can see two of them in theaters right now and stream another. Plus the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF) opens, and here’s my SFJFF preview.

PERSIAN LESSONS, opening the SFJFF toinight. Photo courtesy of JFI.

IN THEATERS

Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain: An unusually profound, revealing and unsentimental biodoc of a complicated man – a shy bad ass, an outwardly cynical romantic, a brooding humorist. A triumph for director Morgan Neville, Oscar-winner for 20 Feet from Stardom.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

Neutral Ground: C.J. Hunt’s pointed exploration of the continuing legacy of Confederate monuments in America. Plus an essay – more thoughts about Neutral Ground and the Lost Cause lie.

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

  • Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
  • No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
  • The Courier: amateur among spies. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
  • Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two gay Southern geniuses, revealing themselves. Laemmle.
  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube.
  • My Name Is Bulger: Two brothers, two paths to power. discovery+.
  • About Endlessness: Damned if I know. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Hamlet/Horatio: More tragedy, less angst. Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play.
  • Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
  • That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

John Heard in CUTTER’S WAY

Tonight, Turner Classic Movies will present Cutter’s Way, which I recommended earlier this week. A paranoid thriller framed by post-Vietnam War disillusionment, it features early Jeff Bridges and career-best performances by John Heard and Lisa Eichhorn.

Here’s a choice to complement Summer of Soul. On July 27, TCM will air Monterey Pop (1968). The two music festivals took place within a year of each other – one with a Black audience and one with a mostly White one. The Monterey Pop audience was unfamiliar with – and blown away by Otis Redding’s epic performance.

This is one of the few DVDs that I still own, for the performances by Redding, the Mamas and the Papas, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Canned Heat, Simon and Garfunkle, Jefferson Airplane, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Country Joe and the Fish and The Who.  

It’s okay with me if you fast forward over Ravi Shankar.  Don’t miss the reaction of Mama Cass Elliot, sitting in the audience, to Janis Joplin. Pete Townsend and Jimi Hendrix had a guitar-destroying competition, which Hendrix, aided by lighter fluid, undeniably won. 

Otis Redding in MONTEREY POP

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Sly Stone in SUMMER OF SOUL (…OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED)

This week, the best film in theaters is still Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). And there’s a long-lost Argentine masterpiece coming up on TCM.

IN THEATERS

Mama Weed: In this French comic thriller, a woman (Isabelle Huppert) embraces an increasingly bizarre and risky plan.  Mama Weed starts out droll and blossoms into madcap.

The Boys in Red Hats: A documentarian’s point of view shifts as he peels back the onion on a social media frenzy. It comes down to insights into media, social media and, especially, White privilege. I screened The Boys in Red Hats for its world premiere at Cinequest,. Now it’s in theaters and also streaming on Virtual Cinema.

Also in theaters:

ON VIDEO

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

  • Riders of Justice: Thriller, comedy and much, much more. It’s the year’s best movie so far. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.
  • No Sudden Move: Steven Soderbergh’s neo-noir thriller has even more double-crosses than movie stars – and it has plenty of movie stars. HBO Max.
  • Slow Machine: incomprehensibly engrossing. At Laemmle now and coming to the Roxie.
  • The Courier: amateur among spies. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.
  • Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two gay Southern geniuses, revealing themselves. Laemmle..
  • My Name Is Bulger: Two brothers, two paths to power. discovery+.
  • About Endlessness: Damned if I know. Streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Bad Tales: perhaps too dark. Virtual Cinema, including Laemmle.
  • Brewmance: barley, hops, yeast and underdogs. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play .
  • Hamlet/Horatio: More tragedy, less angst. Amazon, AppleTV, Google Play..
  • Louder Than Bombs: An intricately constructed family drama. Amazon (included with Prime), Vudu and YouTube.
  • That Guy Dick Miller: Putting the “character” in “character actor:” Amazon (included with Prime).
  • Sword of Trust: comedy and so, so much more. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • Run Lola Run: you’ll never see a more kinetic movie. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
  • The Face of Love: Who is she really in love with? Amazon.
  • Augustine: obsession, passion and the birth of a science. Amazon (included with Prime), AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON TV

Don’t miss the once-lost Argentine film noir masteriece Bitter Stems (Los tallos amargos). On Turner CLassic Movies on Saturday night and Sunday morning on TCM’s Noir Alley.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is bitter-stems.jpg
Vassili Lambrinos and Carlos Cores in BITTER STEMS

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Rolf Konow. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing

For the Fourth of July weekend, I’m recommending going to theaters to see The Sparks Brothers or In the Heights, OR streaming Riders of Justice.

Last night I saw one of the year’s most eagerly-awaited films – and it;s great: Questlove’s Summer of Soul (…Or, When the Revo’ution Could Not Be Televised). Now in theaters and on Hulu.

IN THEATERS

  • The Sparks Brothers: Must be seen to be believed.
  • Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two giants of American literature in their own words.
  • In the Heights: Vibrant, earnest and perfect for this moment. Also streaming on HBO Max.
  • Summer of 85: Director Francois Ozon reflects on how we remember our youth in this romantic teen coming of age story.
  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. In theaters and also streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play
  • Undine: slow burn, barely flickering.
  • Censor: less scary and suspenseful than it is unpleasant.

ON VIDEO

Riders of Justice: It’s the year’s best movie so far. A character-driven comedy thriller embedded with deeper stuff. Marvelous. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.

Slow Machine: An incomprehensible art film that is surprisingly engrossing. At Laemmle now and coming to the Roxie.

The Courier: Benedict Cumberbatch stars in this true story of Cold War espionage. Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.

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

ON TV

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN

On July 3, Turner Classic Movies is broadcasting the 1951 Alfred Hitchcock suspense thriller Strangers on a Train – one of his very best. A hypothetical discussion about murdering inconvenient people turns out to be not so hypothetical.

Robert Walker plays Bruno, one of the creepiest villains in movie history.  Guy (San Jose native Farley Granger) thinks that Bruno is just an oddball – until it’s too late. The tennis match and carousel finale are epic set pieces.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: A scene from RIDERS OF JUSTICE, a Magnet release. © Kasper Tuxen. Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing

This week: my experience returning to theaters, the best movie of the year so far, and a marathon of Alfred Hitchcock.

I finally went to a movie theater for the first time in an unimaginable 473 days – and I was a little rusty. On a 92 degree day, I slipped into the air conditioned theater and, while trying to adjust my recliner, inadvertently turned on the seat heater. Everything else went well.

I found the Astronaut Pen that The Wife gave me, which fits easily in my pants pocket. And I still had my unlined notepad from Muji, so I can scrawl notes in the dark. (the downtown San Jose Muji did not survive COVID, so I’ll need another source.)

Incidentally, in that 473 days of COVID hermitage, I had watched 328 films at home – streaming, broadcast, DVD and screeners.

IN THEATERS

The Sparks Brothers: This affectionate documentary profiles a 54-year-old pop band, still tirelessly living their art. Both the subject band and the movie about them are very funny.

Truman and Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation: Two giants of American literature in their own words.

Also in theaters:

  • In the Heights: Vibrant, earnest and perfect for this moment. Also streaming on HBO Max.
  • Summer of 85: Director Francois Ozon reflects on how we remember our youth in this romantic teen coming of age story.
  • The Dry: a mystery as psychological as it is procedural. In theaters and also streaming on AppleTV, YouTube and Google Play
  • Undine: slow burn, barely flickering.
  • Censor: less scary and suspenseful than it is unpleasant.

ON VIDEO

Riders of Justice: It’s the year’s best movie so far. A character-driven comedy thriller embedded with deeper stuff. Marvelous. Also AppleTV.

Summertime: This ever vibrant film is about giving voice, the voice of mostly young Los Angelenos, expressing themselves mostly through poetry. Stream from Frameline through Sunday night, June 27.

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

ON TV

Starting Saturday, June 26, and continuing through early Monday. Turner Classic Movies will be airing FORTY-EIGHT HOURS of Alfred Hitchcock. The 23 different movies (Shadow of a Doubt plays twice on Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley) range from Hitchcock’s 1927 silent The Lodger to his 1976 Family Plot. The program includes Hitchcock’s best eight films: Vertigo, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, North by Northwest, Rope, The Birds and Shadow of a Doubt. 

Farley Granger, James Stewart and John Dahl in ROPE