Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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CARVER: world premiere at Cinequest. Photo courtesy of Select Films.

I’ve been absorbed in preparing for Cinequest’s Online Film Festival Cinejoy, which begins next Saturday, March 20. I’ve already screened over a dozen films from the program, and there are some winners in the program.

As usual, I’ll be publishing a festival preview with recommendations and writing about individual films. Here is my coverage of previous festivals: CINEQUEST. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.

Here’s a wistful note – the last movie that I watched in a movie theater was on March 5, 2020, at last year’s Cinequest, which had to be shut down mid-festival because of COVID. It was The Burnt Orange Heresy, and I sat, not yet masked, in a corner of the 1122-seat California Theatre, distanced about 20 feet away from other festival goers.

ON VIDEO

ON TV

Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF

If you want drama, Tennessee Williams ladles it on thick in 1958’s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which Turner Classic Movies presents on March 17.   The movie version of Williams’ steamy Southern Pulitzer Prize-winning play stars Elizabeth Taylor in a slip and Paul Newman with a crutch and a drink.  Taylor and Newman are great, but Burl Ives steals the movie as Big Daddy.  Madeleine Sherwood is outstanding as the weaselly daughter-in-law Ida.

Okay, so they couldn’t explicitly mention homosexuality on screen in 1958, but that doesn’t tke away from the dramatic tension. And, think about this – let’s all forebear the course word bullshit and substitute mendacity.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Frances McDormand in NOMADLAND. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week, make sure you see the year’s best movie, Nomadland. Plus a highly original first feature for a female writer-director and two strong recommendations on TCM.

ON VIDEO

Nomadland: The fierce authenticity of Frances McDormand’s performance and Chloé Zhao’s genius with nonprofessional actors illuminates this extraordinary film with humanity. It’s the year’s best movie. Streaming on Hulu.

Jumbo: A painfully shy girl, who is embarrassed by every human interaction,falls in love with a not-really-inanimate object. Jumbo is the first feature for writer-director Zoé Wittock, and it’s a helluva super-imaginative calling card.   Ever bouncing between the sweet and the outre, Jumbo worked for me.  Available to stream at Laemmle.

Other current films:

ON TV

KILLER’S KISS

On March 6 and 7, Turner Classic Movies will present one my Overlooked Noir, a young Stanley Kubrick’s Killer’s Kiss; it will be on Noir Alley with an intro and outro by Eddie Muller. It doesn’t take long to realize that Killer’s Kiss is not a typical film noir – there’s Kubrick’s own bracing visual style, an interracial relationship and a comically absurd fight to the death. The cast matched a couple one-hit wonders with the pioneering African-American actor and civil rights activist Frank Silvera.

Harry Dean Stanton in PARIS, TEXAS

And on March 10, TCM will air Harry Dean Stanton’s masterpiece in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas. In Paris Texas, Harry Dean plays Travis, a man so traumatized that he has disappeared and is found wandering across the desert and mistaken for a mute.  As he is cared for by his brother (Dean Stockwell), he evolves from feral to erratic to troubled, but with a sense of tenderness and a determination to put things right.  We see Travis as a madman who gains extraordinary lucidity about what wrong in his life and his own responsibility for it.

At the film’s climax, Travis speaks to Jane (Natassja Kinski) through a one-way mirror (she can’t see him).  Spinning what at first seems like parable, Travis explains what happened to him – and to her – and why it happened.  It’s a 20-minute monologue so captivating and touching that it rises to be recognized as one of the very greatest screen performances.

Paris, Texas is on my list of the fifty or so Greatest Movies of All Time.

Natassja Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton in PARIS, TEXAS

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Frances McDormand in NOMADLAND. Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.

This week: the best film of 2020, Nomadland, is streaming. Recenty catching up to Nomadland, Sound of Metal, Mayor and Black Bear allowed me to finalize my Best Movies of 2020.

ON VIDEO

Nomadland: The fierce authenticity of Frances McDormand’s performance and Chloé Zhao’s genius with nonprofessional actors illuminates this extraordinary film with humanity. Streaming on Hulu.

Minari: This autobiographical drama of family cohesion is set in the immigrant experience. Streaming from various VOD providers.

Other current films:

ON TV

Lee Remick and Jack Lemmon in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES

On February 28, Turner Classic Movies airs Days of Wine and Roses, Blake Edwards’ unflinching exploration of alcoholism, featuring great performances by Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick (both nominated for Oscars) and Charles Bickford.

Movies to See Right Now

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Riz Ahmed in SOUND OF SILENCE

Tonight Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland with Frances McDormand can be streamed. I haven’t seen it yet, but, after The Rider, I’m a huge Chloé Zhao fan, so I’ll be watching and writing about it soon. Nomadland is the critical consensus choice as the year’s best film.

Here’s my remembrance of the late cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno with some of his images and a link to a brilliant video essay.

ON VIDEO

Sound of Metal: This psychological pressure-cooker is super intense ride, but there’s a satisfying payoff. Both Riz Ahmed’s performance and the sound design are Oscar-worthy. Amazon (included with Prime).

Black Bear: Making full use of Aubrey Plaza’s unique gifts, this dark comedy is edge-of-the-seat movie and a cauldron of surprises. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play.

Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You: The reflections of the Boss bring poignancy without melancholy to this musical documentary. We glimpse creative collaboration in the recording studio and get a range of songs, from the heartbreaking to the exhilarating. AppleTV.

More current films:

Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis in MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Riz Ahmed in SOUND OF METAL

This week, I recommend Sound of Metal (Amazon, included with Prime) and Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You (Netflix). I’ll be writing about both of them soon. Sound of Metal will be going on my list of Best Movies of 2020.

REMEMBRANCE

Christopher Plummer in KNIVES OUT

Christopher Plummer has died at age 91. I loved him in his Oscar-winning performance in Beginners and in 2019’s Knives Out. One of the great Shakespearean stage actors of his generation, Plummer’s TV and movie career, with its 372 screen credits, eclipses the adjective “prolific”. Plummer, of course is best known for that beloved movie that I despise (as did he for decades), The Sound of Music. Plummer elevated some fine movies in his supporting roles: The Man Who Would Be King, Jesus of Nazareth. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Here’s his NYT obit.

ON VIDEO

ON TV

Catherine Deneuve in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

On February 15, Turner Classic Movies airs the romantic French musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964). Innovative writer-director Jacques Demy had the actors sing all of the dialogue. Umbrellas is also notable for the breakout performance by then 20-year-old Catherine Deneuve; and an epilogue scene at a gas station – one of the great weepers in cinema history. 

Nino Castelnuovo in THE UMBRELLAS OF CHERBOURG

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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MAYOR

Don’t overlook the year’s best documentary, Mayor. Mayor is both a dark comedy about local politics and a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, all nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Mayor is one of the Best Movies of 2020, and it’s still streaming on Virtual Cinema, including at Laemmle.

And here’s my tribute to Cloris Leachman and my recommendation to watch her indelible performance in The Last Picture Show on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play.

REMEMBRANCE

Actor Hal Holbrook, known for his one-man stage personification of Mark Twain between 1947 and 2005, has died at age 95. Holbrook was responsible for the most gripping moments in a great movie, All the President’s Men, even though he was always in the dark or on the phone, and his face was never seen.

In 1970, Holbrook played a liberal US Senator in The Bold Ones: The Senator, a fictional character that I reacted to in the way so many responded to the Martin Sheen president in West Wing (or Atticus Finch) – why can’t he be real? Holbrook was also excellent as Capt. Lloyd Bucher in the ripped-from-the-headlines TV movie Pueblo, which, alas, I can’t find streaming anywhere. I recommend this excellent NYT obit.

ON VIDEO

Some more current films:

MLK/FBI

ON TV

Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in THE PRODUCERS

On February 6, Turner Classic Movies presents my choice for the funniest movie all time – Mel Brooks’ 1967 masterpiece The Producers. Zero Mostel plays a human tornado of a crooked Broadway producer, who drags along his bewildered and terrified accountant (Gene Wilder). The brilliant Wilder has never been funnier, and The Producers also features career-best performances by funnymen Dick Shawn and Kenneth Mars. And, of course, there’s the unforgettable musical show stopper Springtime for Hitler. (See this INSTEAD of the 2005 remake.)

On February 11, TCM once again airs the little known and underappreciated A Man Called Adam with Sammy Davis Jr. and the late Cicely Tyson.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Cicely Tyson in A MAN CALLED ADAM

Cicely Tyson, who has just died at age 96, received her first big screen credit in the film I wrote about yesterday. More on that below, along with an engrossing documentary that is one the year’s best films.

ON VIDEO

MAYOR

Mayor: The camera shadows the intrepid mayor of the Palestinian city of Ramallah as he goes about his daily adventures.  Director David Osit, in just his third feature, has created a masterpiece of cinéma vérité that informs us about human foibles and aspirations, nestled within the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. One of the Best Movies of 2020.  Streaming on Virtual Cinema, including at Laemmle.

And some more current films:

Gil Carrillo in NIGHT STALKER: THE HUNT FOR A SERIAL KILLER

ON TV

On January 31, Turner Classic Movies presents the hard-to-find film A Man Called Adam, which I wrote about in depth yesterday.

Sammy Davis Jr. plays Adam, a self-destructive jazz star. Cicely Tyson, in her first credited movie role, is radiant. A Man Called Adam features an unflinching look at race in America, some excellent jazz and early-career glimpses of Ossie Davis, Lola Falana and Morgan Freeman.

Cicely Tyson and Sammy Davis Jr., in A MAN CALLED ADAM

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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This week: a handful of excellent new documentaries explore American history, true crime and pop music.

I also recommend this wonderful NYT interview with Mads Mikkelsen, who really used to be professional dancer (who knew?) and touches on his exhilarating dance scene in Another Round.

ON VIDEO

MLK/FBI: Sam Pollard, the master of the civil rights documentary (Eyes on the Prize), takes on the FBI’s quest to discredit and even destroy Martin Luther King, Jr. MLK/FBI is gripping history, with much to say about American then and America now. Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer: This limited series about a roller coaster of a whodunit and a man hunt is elevated by the intoxicating storytelling of a genuinely good guy. Netflix.

The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart: This very well-sourced showbiz doc tells the story of a band and that of a family, especially from the perspective of the affable Barry Gibb. We see some very young kids with what seems like ridiculously audacious ambition becoming an Aussie version of a British Invasion success. As pop music evolves, they keep reinventing themselves until the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack takes them to unsurpassed heights. Then, when the Disco Sucks movement caught fire, the brothers again reinvented themselves as songwriters for other pop, rock, soul and country stars. It’s a bit reverential, but not fatally so. HBO.

Mads Mikkelsen in ANOTHER ROUND

And some more current films:

ON TV

On January 24, Turner Classic Movies will offer the delightful Peter Bogdanovich screwball comedy What’s Up, Doc? The nerdy academic Howard (Ryan O’Neal) and his continually aggrieved fiance Eunice (Madeline Kahn) travel to San Francisco to compete for a career-launching grant. The luggage with Howard’s great discovery (musical rocks) is mixed up with two identical suitcases, one containing valuable jewelry, the other with spy secrets, and soon we have juggling MacGuffins.

That’s all funny enough, but Howard bumps into Judy (Barbra Streisand), the kookiest serial college dropout in America, who determines that she must have him and utterly disrupts his life. Our hero’s ruthless rival for the grant is hilariously played by Kenneth Mars (the Nazi playwright in The Producers). Austin Pendleton is wonderful as the would-be benefactor.

The EXTENDED closing chase scene is among the very funniest in movie history – right up there with the best of Buster Keaton; Streisand and O’Neal lead an ever-growing cavalcade of pursuers through the hills of San Francisco, at one point crashing the Chinese New Year’s Day parade. I love What’s Up, Doc? and own the DVD, and I watch every time I stumble across it on TV. Bogdanovich’s hero Howard Hawks, the master of the screwball comedy, would have been proud.

WHAT’S UP, DOC?

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

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Barbara Stanwyck in WITNESS TO MURDER

This week: a hard-to-find suspense classic on TV and a disappointing romcom.

Here’s my remembrance of the late director Michael Apted, whose 9 Seven Up movies constitute the greatest documentary series in the history of cinema. Got to see him in person at the 2019 Mill Valley Film Festival.

ON VIDEO

I was disappointed in Sofia Coppola’s inoffensive but tired romantic comedy On the Rocks, a waste of Coppola’s talent and Bill Murray’s. I’ve often said that I could watch Bill Murray read the phone book, but this IS like Bill Murray reading the phone book. AppleTV.

And some more current films:

Peter Capaldi in THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD

ON TV

Don’t miss the gripping and hard-to-find Witness to Murder, which I wrote about in depth yesterday, on Turner Classic Movies tomorrow night and Sunday morning.

And on January 18, TCM airs Pedro Almodovar’s 1988 Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, eighty-eight minutes of non-stop hilarity. Women on the Verge is not as profound as Almodovar’s later work, but it is a masterpiece of madcap comedy.

Carmen Maura plays Pepa, a voice-over actress who has been dumped by her voice-over actor boyfriend, Ivan.  Pepa has a gal pal who has discovered that her new squeeze is a Shiite terrorist.   Ivan has a lunatic wife (who is armed and bewigged), a bespectacled son (a very young Antonio Banderas) and a new feminist attorney girlfriend.   Everyone converges in Pepa’s apartment, on the streets of Madrid and on the way to a flight to Stockholm.  Along the way, there is a mambo-loving Mad Hatter of a cabbie and some barbiturate-spiked gazpacho.  Comic mayhem ensues.

Almodovar had made several outrageously raucous movies before, but Women on the Verge was the art house hit that first brought him to the attention of American audiences.  Today he is one of our very best film makers.  His Talk To Her (2002), Bad Education (2004) and Broken Embraces (2009) each made the top four on my lists of the years’ best films.

Actress Rossy de Palma, a very good sport in a key supporting role, sports one of the greatest noses in cinema.

Rossy De Palma in WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN

coming on TV: WITNESS TO MURDER

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Barbara Stanwyck in WITNESS TO MURDER

On January 16 and 17, Turner Classic Movies is airing the gripping and hard-to-find Witness to Murder. Richter (George Sanders) and Cheryl (Barbara Stanwyck) live in neighboring apartments. Cheryl believes she has seen Richter murder someone, but Richter’s clever and ruthless duplicity makes it appear that Cheryl is just crazy. Will Police Lt. Larry Mathews (Gary Merrill) believe her before Richter can make Cheryl his second victim?

What a wowzer first scene! Witness to Murder opens with a gripping scene that economically sets up the plot. “Operator, get me the police! Hurry!” We know immediately and certainly that Richter really committed the murder and that Cheryl really saw it. Throughout the movie, the audience knows this and Richter knows this, but no one else does, and neither does Cheryl herself during segments of the story.

Cheryl reports the murder and the police (Larry Mathews and sidekick) respond. However, Richter has concealed the crime so well that cops can’t find any evidence that a crime occurred. Could Cheryl have been mistaken? Or dreamed it? or made it up? or hallucinated? Is she neurotic and mildly hysteric or is she psychotic and delusional?

Larry develops an immediate attraction to Cheryl, and, despite her apparent emotional instability, begins a courtship.

Richter (malevolently) and Larry (paternalistically) begin gaslighting Cheryl, trying to convince her that she really only imagined what she saw – trying to convince her that what seemed so real, was not. Cheryl starts doubting herself.

Of course, Richter knows that he committed the murder, and he knows that Cheryl knows. To get her out of the way, he schemes to have her seen as crazed stalker. His scheme drives her to an outburst that serves as a pretext for locking her up in a psychiatric facility (with an interview by an oddly brusque shrink). Richter’s attempts to murder Cheryl continue right into Witness to Murder’s Perils-of-Pauline ending.

See my complete post on Witness to Murder, for more on the filmmakers and supporting cast. It’s one of my Overlooked Noir.

On this weekend’s TCM broadcast of Witness to Murder, film historian Eddie Muller – the Czar of Noir – will provide his always insightful intro and outro. Witness to Murder is not available to stream; I own the DVD. Be sure to DVR it when it airs on Turner Classic Movies.

George Sanders in WITNESS TO MURDER