Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Regina King’s ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI opening at the Mill Valley Film Festival. Photo courtesy of Amazon.

This week: The most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE. And this weekend, I’ll be previewing a great film festival that we can all attend (virtually).

Don’t miss this beautifully-written essay on Five Easy Pieces by Steven Gaydos in Variety. Gaydos gets the impact on the 1970 audience just right and shines overdue credit on its female screenwriter Carole Eastman. There’s also a tidbit on Helena Kallianiotes, the funniest hitch hiker in movie history.

Karen Black, Helena Kallianiotes, Toni Basil and Jack Nicholson in FIVE EASY PIECES

REMEMBRANCE

RAGING BULL: cinematography by Michael Chapman

Cinematographer Michael Chapman shot the most stunning boxing scenes ever in Raging Bull. Before that, Chapman had an amazing run of work in indelible films from 1973 through 1979: The Last Detail, Taxi Driver, The Last Waltz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Wanderers.

RAGING BULL: cinematography by Michael Chapman

ON VIDEO

I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore: This wonderfully dark comedy is a showcase for Melanie Lynskey as a schlub who goes postal. Streaming on Netflix.

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

ON TV

Edih Chatterton and Walter Huston in DODSWORTH. Photo by Goldwyn/Kobal/Shutterstock (5880310c) Goldwyn USA Scene Still

On October 1, Turner Classic Movies airs the compelling Dodsworth, William Wyler’s 1936 film version of the Sinclair Lewis novel. The title character is a guy who has worked hard to get rich enough to step away from the rat race and take his wife on an extended European holiday. He thinks that he finally has it all – until he discovers that his wife has conflicting needs.

In one of his greatest performances, Walter Huston plays Sam Dodsworth as a guy supremely confident in his own skin, until he is devastated in learning who his wife really is. Unlike many stars from the Classic Era, Huston’s naturalistic acting would work in today’s cinema. Ruth Chatterton, who was a big Broadway star just ending a ten-year movie career, is equally good as Sam’s unashamedly selfish wife Fran (you’ve just to let me have my fling!).

The third great performance is Mary Astor’s most sympathetic, as Edith, the straight-shooting anti-Ftan. Astor shot Dodsworth during the daytime and then suffered through a humiliating child custody trial, held at night (with Chatterton at her side for support). Astor won over the court on the stand by channeling the character of Edith.

“Love has to stop somewhere short of suicide.” I just discovered Dodsworth this year, thanks to TCM guru Sandy Wolf.

I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE – a schlub goes postal

by
Elijah Wood and Melanie Lynskey in I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE

In the wonderfully dark comedy I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore, Ruth (Melanie Lynskey) is wallowing in a lonely, depressing, humdrum existence, when she has one of those days where everything goes wrong. When she staggers home in abject failure, she finds that her home has been burglarized. It’s the last straw, and Ruth becomes energized in an obsessive quest to track down the thieves. She picks up her geeky neighbor (Elijah Wood) an a confederate. Soon the lovable loser and her oddball sidekick follow the clues to a very dangerous gang, and they find themselves in a lethal thriller.

Melanie Lynskey and Macon Blair in I DON’T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE

I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore is the directorial debut of actor Macon Blair, an actor who has elevated a slew of indies, especially the refreshingly original thriller Blue Ruin. Blair has a tiny but very funny role as spoiler-dropping bar patron.

Melanie Lynskey is a comic treasure, and her deadpan earnestness carries I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore. What’s so funny here is that her Ruth, a workaday schlub, only needs to become SLIGHTLY deranged before she falls into a life-and-death adventure.

After a Blink-And-You’ve-Missed-It theatrical run in 2017, I Don’t Feel at Home in this World Anymore is available to stream on Netflix.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Niels Schneider and Virginie Efira in SIBYL

This week: a wildlife documentary unlike any you’ve ever seen and two movies about human wild life. Korean zombies, too.

ON VIDEO

Sibyl: The sex-filled melodrama from director Juliet Triet is trashy, but in that sly and expert French way. Sibyl is streaming on Virtual Cinema; I watched it at the Laemmle.

#Alive: A Korean Home Alone with zombies. Streaming on Netflix

DTF: The wild and unpleasant DTF is not the documentary that filmmaker Al Bailey planned, but instead it’s an unexpected descent from prurience into menace.

Rodents of Unusual Size: This charmingly addictive documentary features 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian. Streaming from Amazon and iTunes.

RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE

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

ON TV

On September 19, Turner Classic Movies will play the 1957 classic Western  3:10 to Yuma.  This may the career-best performance by the underrated Van Heflin, who plays a financially ruined rancher who bets his life for a chance to support his family.  All he has to do is to guard a cruel and resourceful outlaw (Glenn Ford) against rescue attempts by his gang.  Heflin’s rancher is totally outmatched and his only chance comes from his desperation-fueled adrenaline. It’s an edge-of-your-seat countdown until help is scheduled to arrive.  The 2007 remake with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe is very good, too, but Van Heflin reigns supreme.

Van Heflin in 3:10 TO YUMA

RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE: 5 million orange-toothed critters and a Cajun octogenarian

by
Thomas Gonzalez in RODENTS OF UNUSUAL SIZE

The offbeat documentary Rodents of Unusual Size, with its bizarre subject, is charmingly addictive. That subject is the nutria, a 20- to 30-pound Argentine rodent that threatens Louisiana’s wetlands and coastline.  Yes, 30-pound swamp rats with orange teeth.

Although Rodents of Unusual Size is decidedly non-preachy, the nutria is serious business. Imported for the commercial potential of its fur by a Tabasco sauce heir, nutria escaped into the Louisiana wilds and propagated wildly. When the US fur market crashed in the 1990s, the locals stopped trapping them, and Louisiana’s nutria population exploded to 20 million.

The problem is that nutria eat the roots of the vegetation in the Louisiana wetlands, causing erosion that has converted at least 42 square miles of land into open water. Worse, those wetlands are the storm buffer for the rest of the state.

Louisiana offers hunters a $5 bounty for the tail of each dead nutria, which has reduced the nutria population to a more manageable 5 million.  We even meet a guy whose official job title is Nutria Tail Assessor.

One of the reasons I love Louisiana is that folks just don’t take themselves too seriously there. Even when they are focused on the grave environmental impacts of the nutria invasion, they still appreciate the absurdity of a 30-pound, orange-toothed swamp rat.  (And, fittingly,  Rodents of Unusual Size is narrated by Louisiana native Wendell Pierce.)

Along the way, we are also introduced to nutria fur and the fur company Righteous Fur, nutria meat, nutria sports mascots and even nutria as pets.

But most compellingly, we meet Thomas Gonzalez, an 80-year-old bayou native, nutria hunter and bon vivant. Gonzalez is a force of nature, complete with strong-willed opinions and some impressive dance moves. Gonzalez serves as the voice of Louisiana and finishes the movie with a profound perspective on the nutria.

I saw Rodents of Unusual Size at Silicon Valley’s Cinema Club with filmmaker Chris Metzler available for Q&A. Metzler and his colleagues Jeff Springer and Quinn Costello filmed Rodents of Unusual Size over four years during Louisiana’s nutria season (November to April). The affable Metzler is a font of nutria knowledge, full of tidbits like albino nutria being prized by taxidermists. Because nutria are very difficult to spot and film in the wild, the filmmakers used Nooty the stunt nutria throughout the film. Nooty joined the filmmakers in creeping along the red carpet at various film festivals and has her own Facebook page.

Thomas Gonzalez alone is worth meeting on film, and, as told by Rodents of Unusual Size, the story of the nutria is quirkily fascinating. Rodents of Unusual Size can be streamed from Amazon and iTunes.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Nathalie Baye and Emmanuelle Devos in MOKA

This week: a slow burn showcase for two great French actresses plus a little indie comedy set in NYC’s Chinatown. The best Summer 2020 movies (like The August Virgin, The Truth, The 11th Green, An Easy Girl and Yes, God, Yes) are on my list of most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

ON VIDEO

Moka: a well-crafted fuse-burner and a showcase for two great actresses. You can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Lucky Grandma: There’s not that much to this indie comedy except for Tsai Chin’s tour de grouch performance as the crusty Grandma and the NYC Chinatown setting. Lucky Grandma is moderately entertaining and is streaming on Amazon.

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

ON TV

Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer OUT OF THE PAST

You really haven’t sampled film noir if you haven’t seen Out of the Past (1947), and it’s coming up on Turner Classic Movies on September 12. The model of a film noir hero, Robert Mitchum plays a guy who is cynical, strong, smart and resourceful – but still a sap for the femme fatale…played by the irresistible Jane Greer. Director Jacques Tourneur told Greer, ” First half of the movie – Good Girl; second half – Bad Girl.”

Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum in OUT OF THE PAST

MOKA: whodunit mixed with psychological thriller

by
Emannuelle Devos in MOKA

In the atmospheric ticking clock drama Moka, Emanneulle Devos plays Diane, a Swiss woman whose daughter has been killed in a hit-and-run accident.  Months afterward, she is still consumed with grief.  Impatient with the slow and uncertain pace of the police investigation and with her husband’s attempts at finding closure, Diane launches her own investigation to find the responsible party and make them pay.

Diane starts connecting dots and begins to suspect Marlène (Nathalie Baye), a shopowner from a neighboring town in France.   Diane adopts the alias of Hélène and, creepily, begins to infiltrate Marlène’s life.  Moka is a whodunit mixed with psychological thriller – who is really the perp and what is Diane capable of doing?

I, for one, didn’t see the big plot twist coming.  Director Frédéric Mermoud adapted the screenplay from the Tatiana De Rosnay novel.

The prolific French actress Emanneulle Devos made a splash in 2001 with Read My Lips and popped up recently in the indie Frank & Lola.  Devos has a very compelling quality.  She excels at playing women who are very intense and possibly dangerous, women like Diane in Moka.

Nathalie Baye and Emmanuelle Devos in MOKA

Nathalie Baye is the Meryl Streep of France, nominated ten times for France’s Best Actress award.  She started off in 1972 as Joëlle the script girl in Trauffaut’s Day for Night, and had risen to international stardom by 1982 and her performance in The Return of Martin Guerre – one of the greatest acting turns in all cinema. In Moka, Baye’s Marlène is a seemingly uncomplicated woman.  We correctly suspect that she’s something else under the surface, but we don’t guess what that really is.  It’s great to see Baye take this supporting role and nail it.

Moka is a well-crafted fuse-burner and a showcase for two great actresses. You can stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Helen Mirren in PRIME SUSPECT

This week: a binging recommendation for Labor Day Weekend, a revealing new documentary, a remembrance and the most eclectic watch-at-home recommendations you’ll find ANYWHERE.

REMEMBRANCE

Chadwick Boseman in MARSHALL. Photo credit: Barry Wetcher; courtesy of Open Road Films

Actor Chadwick Boseman, an emerging superstar after his iconic role in Black Panther, was able to humanize real life icons like Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall and James Brown. My favorite Boseman performance was in Marshall, available from all the major streaming platforms,

ON VIDEO

Prime Suspect: Binge the 25 hours of Prime Suspect, with Helen Mirren’s extraordinary performance as Detective Jane Tennison. And here’s a look at its great supporting performances. All seven series of Prime Suspect can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).

Coup 53: Superbly researched documentary on the 1953 Iranian coup d’etat manufactured by the UK and the US, complete with new revelations. Available to stream on Virtual Cinema; I watched it at the Roxie.

APOCALYPSE ’45

Apocalypse ’45: Never-before-seen color film and the memories of survivors bring to life the grisly final two years of WWII in the Pacific. It premieres this weekend on the Discovery Channel .

The August Virgin: In the best movie of summer 2020, a young woman switches up Madrid neighborhoods to mix things up in her life. It’s a lovely and genuine story of self-invention, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020 – So Far. The August Virgin is streaming on Virtual Cinemas, like San Rafael’s Rafael or Laemmle’s in LA.

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

ON TV

On September 6, Turner Classic Movies will broadcast the top heist film ever, the pioneering French classic Rififi: After the team is assembled and the job is plotted, the actual crime unfolds in real-time – over thirty minutes of nerve-wracking silence.

RIFIFI

binging PRIME SUSPECT and Helen Mirren’s Jane Tennison

by
Helen Mirren in PRIME SUSPECT

Prime Suspect, the perfect Labor Day weekend binge, pairs one of cinema’s greatest actresses, Helen Mirren, with one of the most compelling characters ever on episodic television, Detective Jane Tennison. At once a sensational crime show and a high brow character study, the seven seasons of Prime Suspect follow a female protagonist over fifteen years.

Prime Suspect is a set of nine separate stories over 25 hours. Jane Tennison’s career spans from Chief Detective Inspector to Superintendent to Chief Superintendent. The episodes were created between 1991 and 20O5, and Helen Mirren herself ages from 46 to 60 in the role.

The core of Prime Suspect is the character of Jane Tennison, forged by writer Lynda La Plante and Mirren. Jane is a driven woman, in a career that ranges from when women cops were unwelcome novelties to more politically correct times. In the entire span, Jane is, at best, barely tolerated.

Jane gives as well as she gets. She can force her superiors to promote her by using the same heavy-handed methods they use to suppress her.

Indeed, each Prime Suspect story has multiple threads of conflict. There is, of course, Jane against the criminal she is trying to catch. At the same time, Jane is being distracted and hampered by forces inside her own department. And Jane is in a constant battle to hold herself together amid overbearing stress.

Jane Tennison is a solitary figure, alone with her demons. She faces the daily challenges to her career survival and advancement with an ever-prickly demeanor.

Jane is a person of overwhelming ambition. In the very first season, it’s clear that she cannot advance by being pleasant and waiting her turn. She recognizes that sometimes she has to be unpleasant, and she will need to seize advancement at other’s expense; (in season 3, she receives a critical favor from a peer and then swipes his dream job).

Jane Tennison is also a fully sexual Woman of a Certain Age, but career rock stars like Jane can’t have it all. Her obsession with career leaves a trail of relationship carnage. At one point, Jane has fallen in love with the one man who gets her and adores her, but she has learned about herself and about life and…

And there’s always too much stress. Jane smokes too much and drinks too much. In Prime Suspect 3, her jaw is constantly pounding away on nicotine gum. In one later episode, she drops into her neighborhood market to buy four microwaveable frozen dinners and two fifths of whisky.

At first, Jane faces the most open and unapologetic misogyny, which evolves in later episodes into more veiled and insidious sexism. Being a flawed feminist hero is complicated. As the series evolves, Jane herself discriminates against a subordinate who is parenting. And she is betrayed by a female protege and, later, fights being forced out to pasture by a gender-integrated set of bosses.

Prime Suspect is always topical. Besides the ever-present sexism, the stories touch on race, abortion, postpartum depression, AIDS, sex work and pedophilia.

Most of the Prime Suspect plots are serial killer whodunits, and one story turns on whether she got it wrong in solving her breakthrough case. In one story, we know the culprit right away, but Jane is a race against the clock to prevent further victims.

In an astounding performance, Mirren grips us each time she fiercely deflects yet another indignity, as she waves her hand through her hair when she needs a reset from a setback and as her eyes reveal that she is connecting the dots. Her entire body coils in frustration and stiffens in insubordination. It’s a tour de force.

Between seasons of Prime Suspect, Helen Mirren was compiling an imposing body of work: The Madness of King George, Gosford Park and her Oscar-winning Elizabeth II in The Queen.

I believe that Mirren’s Jane ranks, with James Gandolfini’s run as Tony Soprano, as one of the greatest in episodic dramas. I’m guessing that Mirren was on screen for over twenty hours of Prime Suspect and that Gandolfini was on screen as Tony Sopranos for about 35 of The Sopranos‘ 86 hours. Of course, Prime Suspect’s Jane Tennison is distinguished from most episodic protagonists by being female and by aging fifteen years.

Mirren is surrounded by two generations of the best British actors. For tomorrow, I’ve also written PRIME SUSPECT: the supporting performances.

This is one of the best and most entertaining episodic series ever on television. All seven series of Prime Suspect can be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime).

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Mina Farid and Zahia Dehar in AN EASY GIRL

This week: two female-written, European coming of age films, The August Virgin and An Easy Girl, are still the top recommendations, but there’s also a powerful WWII doc and a film that is a morbid horror comedy with flecks of sci-fi and surrealism.

ON VIDEO

Kate Lyn Sheil in SHE DIES TOMORROW

She Dies Tomorrow: This completely original fable from writer-director Amy Seifetz bounces between absurdism, sci-fi, dark comedy and horror. It’s streaming on all the major platforms.

Apocalypse ’45: Never-before-seen color film and the memories of survivors bring to life the grisly final two years of WWII in the Pacific. Apocalypse ’45 is now streaming (I watched it at the Pruneyard Cinemas). It will premiere on the Discovery Channel on Labor Day weekend.

The August Virgin: In the best movie of summer 2020, a young woman switches up Madrid neighborhoods to mix things up in her life. It’s a lovely and genuine story of self-invention, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020 – So Far. The August Virgin is streaming on Virtual Cinemas, like San Rafael’s Rafael or Laemmle’s in LA.

An Easy Girl: A 16-year-old girl is introduced to her 22-year-old cousin’s Eurotrash lifestyle and learns about life; written by its female director, it doesn’t go as you would expect. An Easy Girl is a NYT Critic’s Pick, and it is streaming on Netflix.

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

ON TV

Michael York, Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay in THE THREE MUSKETEERS

On August 30, Turner Classic Movies is Richard Lester’s boisterous The Three Musketeers from 1973. Watch Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York and Frank Finlay swashbuckle away against Bad Guys Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston. Geraldine Chaplin and Raquel Welch adorn the action. [If you like it, you can stream the second volume, The Four Musketeers, from Criterion Collection, Amazon, YouTube and Google Play; it was filmed in the same shoot and released the next year.]

And, if you like your movies more complex and mysterious, tune in to Turner Classic Movies on September 3 for the enigmatic Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) by Australian filmmaker Peter Weir. An Australian girls school goes on an outing to a striking geological formation – and some of the girls and a teacher disappear. What happened to them? It’s beautiful and hypnotic and haunting. It’s a film masterpiece, but if you can’t handle ambiguous endings – this ain’t for you.

Weir has gone on to make high quality hits (The Year of Living Dangerously, Witness, Dead Poets Society, The Truman Show, Master and Commander), but Picnic at Hanging Rock – the movie that he made at age 31 – is his most original work.

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK

Movies to See Right Now (at home)

by
Itsaso Arana in THE AUGUST VIRGIN. Photo courtesy of Outsider Pictures.

This week: five new 2020 movies, and the best two are about young women in European summers.

ON VIDEO

The August Virgin: In the best movie of summer 2020, a young woman switches up Madrid neighborhoods to mix things up in her life. It’s a lovely and genuine story of self-invention, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2020 – So Far. The August Virgin opens today on Virtual Cinemas, like San Rafael’s Rafael or Laemmle’s in LA.

An Easy Girl: A 16-year-old girl is introduced to her 22-year-old cousin’s Eurotrash lifestyle and learns about life; written by its female director, it doesn’t go as you would expect. An Easy Girl is a NYT Critic’s Pick and it is streaming on Netflix.

Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind: A surprisingly interesting documentary about a now genial singer-songwriter that I hadn’t thought of for decades. I watched it at the Laemmle.

The Speed Cubers: This short documentary about a curiosity surprisingly turns into a moving story about love, friendship and profound decency. Streaming on Netflix.

Radioactive: Marie Curie led an amazing life – I knew about the two Nobel prizes, but not about the tragic early death of her husband, the sex scandal, WW I X-ray machines and more. You would think this would make for a scintillating biodoc, but this isn’t. Rosamund Pike is excellent as Curie but can’t save the movie. Streaming on Amazon (included with Prime).

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

ON TV

Bette Davis and Warren William in SATAN MET A LADY

Can you imagine The Maltese Falcon as a screwball comedy? On August 23, Turner Classic Movies has just that – Satan Met a Lady, the earlier, 1936 version of The Maltese Falcon, starring Bette Davis and Warren William, the King of Pre-Code. I’ve written about The three faces of The Maltese Falcon. Satan Met a Lady is lots of fun and well worth watching.