Weekly Movie Recommendations

Movies to See Right Now

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THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a film biography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

For the second straight week, I have the perfect film to kick off the summer – the marvelously entertaining dark comic thriller Headhunters. You can stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play.

ON TV

On July 2, Turner Classic Movies is presenting Chandler, the 1971 neo-noir starring Warren Oates as a seedy private detective who gets in over his head. I mention, but don’t dwell on Chandler in my essay Warren Oates: a gift for desperation. Look for film noir icons Charles McGraw and Gloria Grahame in supporting roles.

And on July 3, TCM airs Laura, perhaps my favorite thriller from the noir era, with an unforgettable performance by Clifton Webb as a megalomaniac with one vulnerability – the dazzling beauty of Gene Tierney. The musical theme is unforgettable, too.

Gene Tierney startles Dana Andrews in LAURA

Stream of the Week: HEADHUNTERS – from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata

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Aksel Hennie in HEADHUNTERS

For the second straight week, I’m recommending the marvelously entaertining Headhunters to kick off your summer. The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie: at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners. As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures. So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie. But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos, and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive. As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

HEADHUNTERS

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo. A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is somewhere in development.  In the meantime, stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play and have a fun time at the movies.

Movies to See Right Now

by
THE LAST BLACK MAN IN SAN FRANCISCO

Frameline, the San Francisco International LGBTQ+ Film Festival, is underway; scroll down to see what I’ve written about several Frameline films.

OUT NOW

  • The Last Black Man in San Francisco is an absorbing exploration of inner lives reacting to a changing city – and it’s one of the best films of the year. The link will go live this weekend after I finish my review.
  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a film biography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

I have the perfect film to kick off the summer – the marvelously entertaining dark comic thriller Headhunters. You can stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play It’s such a great choice, I’ll reprise it next week, too.

ON TV

Wow, on June 24, Turner Classic Movies will present two classics from the 1970s.  The first is one of the all-time greats of cinema – Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver.  It’s a masterpiece exploration of alienation through its searing portrait of loner Travis Bickle, played by an explosive Robert De Niro.  Also the first glimpse of Jodi Foster’s genius.

Then there’s the original Shaft – a low-budget and simplistic film not anywhere in the class of Taxi Driver.  But it is the icon of the Blaxploitation genre and a snapshot of an important moment in our culture.  And – it has one of the best movie theme songs EVER.  I can’t hear it without thinking of songwriter Isaac Hayes accepting his Best Song Oscar in his shirt-of-chains.

Isaac Hayes at the Oscars

Stream of the Week: HEADHUNTERS – from smoothly confident scoundrel to human piñata

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Aksel Hennie in HEADHUNTERS

The smug Norwegian corporate headhunter named Roger Brown (don’t ask) explains his motivation at the very beginning of the movie: at 5 feet, 6 inches, his insecurity about keeping his six foot blond wife leads him to cut some corners. As ruthlessly successful as he is in business, he feels the need to also burgle the homes of his clients and steal art treasures. So the dark comedy thriller Headhunters (Hodejegerne) begins like a heist movie. But soon Roger becomes targeted by a client with serious commando skills, unlimited high tech gizmos, and a firm intention to make Roger dead.

Roger Brown is played brilliantly by Aksel Hennie, a huge star in Norway who looks like a cross between Christopher Walken and Peter Lorre. The laughs come from Roger’s comeuppance as he undergoes every conceivable humiliation while trying to survive. As a smoothly confident scoundrel, Roger is at first not that sympathetic, but Hennie turns him into a panicked and terrified Everyman when he becomes a human pinata.

HEADHUNTERS

Headhunters is based on a page-turner by the Scandinavian mystery writer Jo Nesbo. A Hollywood remake of Headhunters is somewhere in development.  In the meantime, stream Headhunters on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube or Google Play and have a fun time at the movies.

Movies to See Right Now

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Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever in BOOKSMART. Credit: Francois Duhamel / Annapurna Pictures

I can recommend Booksmart for fun and smarts and Rocketman for fun. This weekend, there is a wave of movies that I haven’t seen yet, both critically praised (The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Late Night) and popcorn movies (Men In Black: International, Shaft).

OUT NOW

  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a filmbiography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • So you think you know what you’re going to get from a movie titled Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese. It is indeed a documentary of a concert tour, but Scorsese adds some fictional flourish, as befits Dylan’s longtime trickster persona.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
  • The documentary Framing John DeLorean is an incomplete retelling of this modern Icarus fable. If you already know the basics of the DeLorean story, I’d recommend this Car and Driver article instead. Framing John DeLorean is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

ON VIDEO

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Bay Area writer-director Ryan Coogler’s emotionally powerful debut, Fruitvale Station. Coogler, of course, has become one of the top American filmmakers with Creed and Black Panther (both also with Michael B. Jordan). Fruitvale Station is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, Google Play and YouTube.

ON TV

On June 20, Turner Classic Movies presents David Lean’s WWII epic The Bridge on the River Kwai.  It’s the stirring story of British troops forced into slave labor at a cruel Japanese POW camp.  The British commander (Alec Guinness, in perhaps his most acclaimed performance) must walk the tightrope between giving his men enough morale to survive and helping the enemy’s war effort.  He has his match in the prison camp commander (Sessue Hayakawa), and these two men from conflicting values systems engage in a duel of wits – for life and death stakes.  William Holden plays an American soldier/scoundrel forced into an assignment that he really, really doesn’t want.  There’s also the stirringly unforgettable whistling version of the Colonel Bogey March. The climax remains one of the greatest hold-your-breath action sequences in cinema, even compared to all the CGI-aided ones in the  62 years since it was filmed.

Sessue Hayakawa in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI
Alec Guinness in THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI

Stream of the Week: FRUITVALE STATION – the human moments that define a life

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FRUITVALE STATION

The emotionally powerful Fruitvale Station explores the humanity behind the news. If, as I do, you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you know what happened to Oscar Grant. Returning to the East Bay after 2008 New Year’s Eve revelries in San Francisco, the unarmed 22-year-old was handcuffed and lying on his stomach when he was mortally wounded by a transit cop’s gunshot. Oscar Grant was African-American. The transit cop was white. Multiple cell phone videos of the incident went viral on New Year’s Day. Fruitvale Station opens with one of those shaky videos.

But the beauty and strength of this impressive film is that Fruitvale Station is not about the incident and its political fallout – it’s about the people involved, in their workaday and familial roles to which all of us can relate. It follows the fictionalized life of Oscar Grant as he lives out what he doesn’t know is his last day.

Writer-director Ryan Coogler’s Oscar Grant is a complete and textured character. Oscar is a charming guy, a loving father and the fun dad/uncle who children love roughhousing with. He’s remarkably unreliable as a boyfriend, son and employee. He’s done a stretch in San Quentin, and he’s got a temper. He’s capable of random acts of kindness. He’s a complete package of decency, fecklessness, irresponsibility and possibilities. Would he have turned his life around if he hadn’t been at Fruitvale Station that night? We’ll never know. And that’s the tragedy laid bare by Fruitvale Station.

Although it’s a tragedy with some heartbreaking moments, Fruitvale Station isn’t a downer – it’s too full of humanity for that. Neither is it a political screed; Coogler lets the facts speak for themselves and the audience to draw its conclusions.

The acting is first-rate, especially Michael B. Jordan as Oscar, Melonie Diaz as his girlfriend and the great Octavia Spencer as his mom. Equally, important, the supporting cast is just as authentic.

It’s was stunning debut feature for then 27-year-old filmmaker Ryan Coogler,  (Coogler is also an African-American from the East Bay who was roughly the same age as Oscar Grant.)  Coogler, of course, has become one of the top American filmmakers with Creed and Black Panther (both also with Michael B. Jordan).

Fruitvale Station was justifiably honored at both the Sundance and Cannes film festivals, and played Cinequest.  Fruitvale Station is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and streaming from Amazon, Vudu, Google Play, YouTube and Xbox Video.

Movies to See Right Now

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Summer means popcorn movies – and Rocketman fills the bill – but smart adult movies like Booksmart and The Fall of the American Empire are in theaters, too, and are at least as entertaining.

OUT NOW

  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • The Fall of the American Empire is a pointed satire cleverly embedded in the form of a heist film.
  • Rocketman is more of a jukebox musical than a filmbiography, but it’s wonderfully entertaining.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.

ON VIDEO

My DVD/Stream of the Week is the documentary Stories We Tell, the brilliant director Sarah Polley’s exploration of her own family’s secrets. Which secret is more shocking, and which family member’s reaction is more surprising?
You can rent Stories We Tell on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Elisabeth Moss’ powerhouse performance as a monstrously narcissistic and drug-deranged rock star Her Smell is the acting tour de force of 2019. The movie could have been a great one if shorter, but Moss makes it worthwhile watch nonetheless. Her Smell is out of theaters, but it’s already streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play, an available on DVD from Redbox. 

And I just caught up to the hypnotically compelling Burning.  This 2 hour, 28 minute slow burn begins as a character study, evolves into a romance and then a mystery, and finally packs a powerful punch with a thriller climax. It’s a superb achievement for director and co-writer Chang-dong Lee. You can stream Burning from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On June 10, Turner Classic Movies brings us the especially nasty noir Detour, in which poor Tom Neal is practically eaten alive by Ann Savage as perhaps the most predatory and savage female character in film noir history. One of the few Hollywood films where the leading lady was intentionally de-glamorized with oily, stringy hair.

Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint - she's trouble!)
Ann Savage and Tom Neal in DETOUR (Hint – she’s trouble!)

DVD/Stream of the Week: STORIES WE TELL – when life surprises…and how we explain it

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Michael Polley in STORIES WE TELL

Stories We Tell is the third film from brilliant Canadian director Sarah Polley (Away From Her, Take This Waltz), a documentary in which she interviews members of her own family about her mother, who died when Sarah was 11. It doesn’t take long before Sarah uncovers a major surprise about her own life. And then she steps into an even bigger surprise about the first surprise. And then there’s a completely unexpected reaction by Polley’s father Michael.

There are surprises aplenty in the Polley family saga, but how folks react to the discoveries is just as interesting. It helps that everyone in the Polley family has a deliciously wicked sense of humor.

The family story is compelling enough, but Polley also explores story telling itself. Everyone who knew Polley’s mother tells her story from a different perspective. But we can weave together the often conflicting versions into what seems like a pretty complete portrait of a complicated person.

Polley adds more layers of meaning and ties the material together by filming herself recording her father reading his version of the story – his memoir serves as the unifying narration.

To take us back to the 1960s, Polley uses one-third actual home movies and two-thirds re-creations (with actors) shot on Super 8 film. Polley hired cinematographer Iris Ng after seeing Ng’s 5 minute Super 8 short. The most haunting clip is a real one, a video of the actress Mom’s audition for a 60s Canadian TV show.

Make sure that you watch all of the end credits – there’s one more surprise, and it’s hilarious.

You can rent Stories We Tell on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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This is a very promising summer movie season, having kicked off with the original, smart and hilarious Booksmart. This weekend, I’ll be chasing down the jukebox biodoc Rocketman. Stay tuned.

OUT NOW

  • The wildly successful comedy Booksmart is an entirely fresh take on the coming of age film, and a high school graduation party romp like you’ve never seen. Directed and written by women, BTW.
  • Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen are pleasantly entertaining in the improbable Beauty-and-the-Beast romantic comedy Long Shot.
  • Ramen Shop is a lightly-rooted dramedy about a Singaporean-Japanese family’s reconciliation. There’s also a metaphorical foodie angle.
  • The bio-documentary An American Story: Norman Mineta and His Legacy is available from PBS.

ON VIDEO

My Stream of the Week is my choice as the best movie of 2017.  In the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman. Truman had only a brief US theatrical run. It’s now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Elisabeth Moss’ powerhouse performance as a monstrously narcissistic and drug-deranged rock star Her Smell is the acting tour de force of 2019. The movie could have been a great one if shorter, but Moss makes it worthwhile watch nonetheless. Her Smell is out of theaters, but it’s already streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play, an available on DVD from Redbox. 

And I just caught up to the hypnotically compelling Burning.  This 2 hour, 28 minute slow burn begins as a character study, evolves into a romance and then a mystery, and finally packs a powerful punch with a thriller climax. It’s a superb achievement for director and co-writer Chang-dong Lee. You can stream Burning from Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and Vudu.

ON TV

On June 4 Turner Classic Movies will present The Night of the Hunter, which really should be rated among the greatest American films. Robert Mitchum plays one of cinema’s most chilling villains, serial killer Reverend Harry Powell. He’s a terrifying combination of religious fanaticism, depraved greed and misogyny. But wait until he runs into Lillian Gish (25 years after her heyday in silent films)! This is the only film directed by actor Charles Laughton, and it is brilliant, as is the cinematography of Stanley Cortez.

Later on June 4, TCM will air Woodstock: The Director’s Cut chronicling the most iconic rock concert ever, also a pivotal social and cultural phenomenon. Performers include: Joan Baez, Crosby Still & Nash, Arlo Guthrie, The Who, Sha Na Na, Richie Havens, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, Jimi Hendrix, Sly and the Family Stone, Santana and (wait for it…) Ten Years After.

Robert Mitchum in THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

Stream of the Week: TRUMAN – how to say goodbye

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Javier and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN
Javier Cámara and Ricardo Darin in TRUMAN

Here’s my choice as the best movie of 2017.  In the deeply emotionally affecting and humane Spanish film Truman, Tomás (Javier Cámara) leaves Montreal to pay a surprise four-day visit to his longtime friend Julián (Ricardo Darin) in Madrid. Julián has been battling cancer and has just received a very grim prognosis. Julián has chosen to forgo further treatment, and his cousin and caregiver Paula (Dolores Fonzi) is hoping that Tomás can talk Julián out of his decision.

Julián is a roguish bon vivant, although now hobbled by illness. Tomás is a responsible family man. As the four day visit unfolds, Tomás tags along as Julián cavalierly settles his affairs. Because of the circumstances, even the most routine activity is heavily charged with emotion. Julián, who has always been a wild card, is now a tinderbox always on the verge of erupting into some socially inappropriate gesture. Julián is particularly focused on arranging for adoption of his beloved and ponderous dog Truman.

Julián is a wiseacre, but his reaction to a moment of kindness from an very unexpected source is heartbreaking. Julián goes to say goodbye to his son, and then the learn a fact afterward that make this encounter exponentially more poignant. Truman has an especially sly ending – the granting of one last favor, however inconvenient.

TRUMAN
TRUMAN

The Argentine actor Darin is one of my favorite screen actors: Nine Queens, The Secret in their Eyes, Carancho, The Aura. As a man living under a death sentence, Julián has adopted a bemused fatalism, but is ready to burst into rage or despair at any moment, and Darin captures that perfectly.

I was blown away by Javier Cámara’s unforgettable performance, at once creepy and heartbreaking, in the Pedro Almodovar drama Talk to Her. Cámara is a master of the reaction, and his Tomás stoically serves as the loyal wing man to a friend with hair trigger unpredictability, often in a state of cringe.

The Argentine actress Dolores Fonzi (The Aura) is excellent as Paula, whose caregiver fatigue finally explodes.

Packed with bittersweet emotions, Truman is never maudlin. The Spanish director Cesc Gay, who co-wrote Truman, has created a gentle and insightful exploration into how people can say goodbye. There’s not a single misstep or hint of inauthenticity. Again, Truman is one of the best films of the year.

Truman had only a brief US theatrical run. It’s now streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

(Note: The crappy trailer below fails to capture all the humor and deep emotion in this film.)