Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: June Squibb, Erin Kellyman and Chiwetel Ejiofor in ELEANOR THE GREAT. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the astonishingly over-the-top One Battle After Another and a remembrance of an iconic actress. Don’t miss this week’s TV pick (below).

REMEMBRANCE

Diane Keaton in ANNIE HALL

The beloved Diane Keaton earned her status as a cinema icon with unforgettable performances in three of the 50 Greatest Movies of All Time. She won her Oscar her completely idiosyncratic portrayal of the title character in Annie Hall, my choice as the best romantic comedy ever. In The Godfather, her Kay Adams book ended the story of Michael Corleone, first accepting his “That’s my family, Kay, It’s not me.” and then ending the movie with the door to Michael literally closing in her face. The most searing moment in The Godfather Part II was Kay’s ferocity in telling Michael about a miscarriage that wasn’t. 72 more movies and three more Oscar nominations filled out Keaton’s 54-year screen career, but those three performances were indelible. A further note – my best pal in LA occasionally ran into Keaton around town, and she liked to dress like Annie Hall in real life.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Turhan Bey and Lynn Bari in THE SPIRITUALIST.

Here’s a rarity – on October 18, Turner Classic Movies brings us The Spiritualist (also The Amazing Mr. X), a 1948 B-picture that I hadn’t heard of until I saw it at last year’s Noir City in Oakland. It’s only 78 minutes long, and it’s a lot of fun. A cunning phony psychic (Turhan Bey) has convinced a wealthy widow that he can communicate with the dead, and she’s moved him into her mansion. Her world-wise daughter (Cathy O’Donnell) isn’t buying his act. But, while he is a con artist, he’s a really, really skilled one, and he pulls off illusion after illusion to keep the gullible widow believing – it’s like watching a magic show. The Spiritualist was shot by John Alton, one of the two greatest film noir cinematographers, and he makes the mansion extra spooky and the tricks extra sinister.

This was a rare leading role for Turhan Bey, and he makes a very charismatic charlatan, oozing suave charm and faux authority. Bey, an Austrian with a Turkish father and a Jewish Czechoslovakian mother, knocked around Hollywood playing exotic characters and never getting the lead in an A-picture. He has a very interesting Wikipedia page.

Cathy O’Donnell, Turhan Bey and Lynn Bari in THE SPIRITUALIST.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: June Squibb in ELEANOR THE GREAT. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Eleanor the Great and Anemone, plus To a Land Unknown, newly available on VOD. I also highlighted the top-rate thrillers now streaming for free on Amazon Prime.

Last week, I had fun with The Last Movie Title series:

REMEMBRANCES

Claudia Cardinale (right) in THE LEOPARD

Claudia Cardinale was first noticed in the Italian comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street and had a key role in Fellini’s 8 1/2, one of the greatest movies ever. Popularly seen as a voluptuous bombshell in the 1960s, she worked in 128 films through 2022. The scene in which she is re-introduced to the local nobleman (Burt Lancaster) as a nubile adult in The Leopard is one of the most stunning entrances in cinema.

Indie writer-director Henry Jaglom was known internationally among cinephiles for his artsy, individualistic, women-centered films like Eating and Venice/Venice. I attended an in-person Jaglom presentation of his film Hollywood Dreams.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

John Payne, Lee Van Cleef, Nevile Brand and Preston Foster in KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL

On October 11, TCM is presenting a triple-header of important film noir:

  • Kansas City Confidential: A criminal mastermind hides his identity from his own squad of indelible goons (Lee Van Cleef, Neville Brand, Jack Elam) as they pull off a heist and frame a poor flower delivery driver (John Payne). To solve the crime and clear himself, the driver has to head to Mexico, where more plot twists await.
  • The Manchurian Candidate: For a ticking bomb thriller, you really can’t top John Frankenhimer’s 1962 original. Laurence Harvey plays a victim of Commie brainwashing who has become a robotic, remote-controlled assassin. Can he be stopped in time?The Manchurian Candidate tops off a set of brilliant Frank Sinatra performances (before his directors couldn’t restrain him from mugging): From Here to Eternity, Suddenly!, The Man with a Golden Arm. Harvey, Sinatra and Janet Leigh are all good, but this is really Angela Lansbury’s movie. Not only is her character promoting the political career of her bombastic Joe McCarthy-like husband, but she is a Communist agent intent on the Communist takeover of the US government. And she is pulling the strings to direct the assassin – her own son! Lansbury’s character makes my list of Worst Movie Mothers.
  • Sweet Smell of Success: This film proves that you don’t need a murder to qualify as a film noir as long as there’s enough blackmail, police corruption and brutality, sexual harassment, criminal frames and red-baiting. In his best-ever performance, Tony Curtis plays a press agent who must suck up to a powerful, cruel and capricious columnist (Burt Lancaster).
Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Linda Fiorentino in THE LAST SEDUCTION.

This week, The Movie Gourmet has launched The Last Movie Title series, with posts on The Last Seduction, Last Days in Vietnam and The Last Valley. Next week, The Last Movie, itself.

Don’t overlook the beginning the Best Movies of 2025 – So Far, the running list that I update throughout the year. The big Oscar movies, with their November and December release dates, await. I am most eagerly anticipating Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, Lynne Ramsey’s Die My Love, Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, Shih-Ching Tsou’s Left-handed Girl, Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, Christian Petzold’s Mirrors No. 3 and the Palm d’Or winner at Cannes, It Was Just an Accident.

CURRENT MOVIES

Ivan Martin in TO KILL A WOLF. Courtesy of To Kill a Wolf.

ON TV

Roy Scheider in ALL THAT JAZZ

On October 4, Turner Classic Movies will air a big Oscar movie from 1979 that we don’t hear that much about anymore – All That Jazz. The director and co-writer Bob Fosse unsparingly tells his own story of artistic obsession peppered with compulsive womanizing and drug use. Fosse was a great and groundbreaking dancer and choreographer, and won five Tonys for Broadway choreography. He is the only person to win a directing Oscar (Cabaret), Tony and Emmy in the same year (1973). Roy Scheider garnered one of All That Jazz’s eight Oscar nominations for his searing performance as Fosse’s on-screen surrogate. The supporting performances are outstanding, especially Ann Reinking’s, essentially playing herself and Leland Palmer’s, playing a character much like Fosse’s wife and longtime collaborator Gwen Verdon. Try not to tear up at the birthday number performed by Reinking and the director’s tween daughter (Erzebet Foldi). All That Jazz is on my list of the 50 Greatest Movies of All Time.

Ann Reinking in ALL THAT JAZZ

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Pavel Talankan in MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN. Courtesy of the SLO Film Fest.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – a new review of the character-driven indie drama To Kill a Wolf. If you missed today’s TCM broadcast of my TV pick, the rare serial killer movie El Vampiro Negro, you can still stream it on kanopy. And you can stream Caught by the Tides, the top film on my Best Movies of 2025 – So Far, on Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango and Criterion.

CURRENT MOVIES

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Tamara de Lempicka (right) in Julie Rubio’s THE TRUE STORY OF TAMARA  DE LEMPICKA & THE ART OF SURVIVAL. Courtesy of Mill Valley Film Festival.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: James Sweeney (facing) and Dylan O’Brien in TWINLESS. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m focused on NashFilm, The Nashville Film Festival, which opened last night. Here’s my Must See at NashFilm. Plus, new reviews of the fine documentaries Mr. Nobody Against Putin and The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival.

Don’t overlook my first cut at the Best Movies of 2025 – So Far, the running list that I update throughout the year.

Here’s my remembrance of Robert Redford, one of the very most significant filmmakers of his generation.

CURRENT MOVIES

Photo caption: Porshia Zimiga (left) in EAST OF WALL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

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Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Dylan O’Brien and James Sweeney in TWINLESS. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

This week on the Movie Gourmet – new reviews of Twinless, one of the best movies of 2025, and Caught Stealing, which is not. Plus, the historical drama Shoshana is finally accessible to most of you via streaming. And I previewed the upcoming Nashville Film Festival.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Joan Crawford in SUDDEN FEAR.

On September 13, the classic noir suspenser Sudden Fear plays on Turner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley with intro and outro by Eddie Muller. Sudden Fear showcases Joan Crawfor as a highly successful woman who marries a guy (Jack Palance) who really just wants her money; he plots with his longtime girlfriend (Gloria Grahame) to do in his wife for the inheritance. The wife discovers their scheme, and plans to get them before they can get her.

The riveting final twelve minutes is movie perfection. Now, it’s a pretty good movie for the first hour and thirty-eight minutes, but its ending takes Sudden Fear up a couple of notches.

Jack Palance and Joan Crawford in SUDDEN FEAR.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Graham Greene in WIND RIVER.

Coming up next week on The Movie Gourmet – reviews of some movies just opening in theaters this week and a preview of the Nashville Film Festival.

REMEMBRANCE

Graham Greene in DANCES WITH WOLVES

Dignified yet down-to-earth Canadian actor Graham Greene, a member of the Oneida First Nation, garnered almost 200 screen credits, including Dances with Wolves, Powwow Highway, The Green Mile, Longmire and Wind River.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Paul Newman and Edmond O’Brien in THE RACK

On September 10, Turner Classic Movies offers the overlooked Korean War film The Rack. A returning US Army captain (Paul Newman) is court-martialed for collaborating with the enemy while a POW. He was tortured, and The Rack explores what can be realistically expected of a prisoner under duress. It’s a pretty good movie, and Wendell Corey, Edmond O’Brien, Walter Pidgeon, Lee Marvin and Cloris Leachman co-star.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Tabatha Zimiga in EAST OF WALL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the kinda funny, but disposable, Honey Don’t and the raunchy Spanish absurdist comedy The Fantastic Golem Affairs, plus a preview of the upcoming NashFilm.

REMEMBRANCE

Artist Joe Caroff created the unforgettable movie posters for West Side Story, The Last Temptation of Christ and many others, including the iconic 007 for the James Bond franchise. His comprehensive NYT obit includes other examples of his work.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Victor Buono in THE STRANGLER

Coming up on Turner Classic Movies, the 1964 serial killer movie The Strangler; it’s the masterpiece of director Burt Topper, who specialized in low-budget exploitation movies. First, we see that lonely lab tech Otto Kroll (Victor Buono in an especially brilliant and eccentric performance) is twisted enough to murder random women and return to his lair to fondle his doll collection. Then we learn his motivation – he dutifully visits his hateful mother (Ellen Corby – later to play Grandma Walton) in her nursing room; she heaps abuse on him in every interaction. Pretty soon, even the audience wants to kill Mrs. Kroll, but Otto sneaks around taking out his hatred for his mom by strangling other women. Because Otto is outwardly genial to a fault, it takes a loooong time to fall under the suspicion of the cops. The character of Otto and Buono’s performance elevate The Strangler above its budget and launches it into the top rank of serial killer movies.

Victor Buono and Helen Cory in THE STRANGLER

Movie to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Porshia Zimiga (left) in EAST OF WALL. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the engrossing indie family drama East of Wall and the totally unexpected reveal of the familiar, Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan on Netflix.

REMEMBRANCE

Terence Stamp in THE LIMEY

I loved Terence Stamp. Stamp, of course was a 1960s British star as a dreamy leading man (Billy Budd, The Collector, Far from the Madding Crowd). I’ve felt that his best work was in his middle age and since: still magnetic in The Hit, The Limey, and The Adjustment Bureau. And as recently as 2021, in Last Night in Soho, with his still striking features and dead-cold eyes, he looked dangerous from at the first glimpse.

CURRENT MOVIES

MADE IN ETHIOPIA. Courtesy of POV.

Movies to See Right Now

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Photo caption: Liam Neeson in THE NAKED GUN. Courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

This Week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the surprising hypnotic documentary Architecton, the character-driven indie mystery To Kill a Wolf. Plus, my thoughts on the popular spoof The Naked Gun.

I enjoyed the raucous comedy The Naked Gun (and so did The Wife, although somewhat less than I did). I didn’t post a full review because this is not an overlooked movie, nor does anyone need me to deconstruct it. Liam Neeson ably deadpans his version of the clueless Leslie Nielsen-created character through dignity-sapping situations. Pamela Anderson, so good in The Last Showgirl, has fun, too. Danny Huston is all in as the bad guy – a Bond villain whose billions come from an electric car company. The jokes are stupid, which is the whole point.This ain’t a comedy for the ages, like Annie Hall, Sullivan’s Travels or even There’s Something About Mary, but it’s a fun 90-minute diversion for August 2025.

Watch for my upcoming recommendation of a totally unexpected reveal of the familiar, Sunday Best: The Untold Story of Ed Sullivan on Netflix.

CURRENT MOVIES

ON TV

Van Heflin and Mary Astor in ACT OF VIOLENCE

The great film noir Act of Violence is on TCM late tonight, with its career-topping performances by Van Heflin and Mary Astor. You need to DVR it because it’s not available to stream.