John David Washington and Laura Harrier in BlacKkKlansman, a Focus Features release.Credit: David Lee / Focus Features
OUT NOW
Spike Lee’s true story BlacKkKlansmanis very funny and, finally, emotionally powerful.
You can still see the best movie of the year: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See. Still at one theater in Silicon Valley and one in San Francisco.
The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.
The political documentary Dark Money exposes the growing threat of unlimited secret money in political campaigns.
Puzzle intelligently and authentically traces one woman’s journey of self discovery.
The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exuberance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
My DVD/Stream of the week is the period thriller The Two Faces of January, a Patricia Highsmith tale of dark hearts in sunny Greece. The Two Faces of January is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
Turner Classic Movies is airingRequiem for a Heavyweight(1962). Anthony Quinn is Mountain Rivera, a fighter whose career is ended by a ring injury by Cassius Clay (played by the real Muhammed Ali). His manager, Jackie Gleason, continues to exploit him in this heartbreaking drama. There’s no boxing in this clip, but it illustrates the quality of the writing and the acting.
The successful period thriller The Two Faces of January, set in gloriously bright Greek tourist destinations, may not have the shadowy look of a traditional film noir, but its story is fundamentally noirish. Viggo Mortenson and Kirsten Dunst play an affluent couple vacationing in Athens in the early 1960s. They meet a handsome young American expat (Oscar Isaacs) knocking around Greece. The husband quickly and accurately sizes up the younger man as a con man – “I wouldn’t trust him to mow my lawn”. The central noir element is that NO ONE is as innocent as they seem, and the three become interlocked in a situation that becomes increasingly desperate for all three, culminating in a thrilling manhunt.
It’s the first feature directed by Hossein Amini, who adapted the screenplay for the markedly intense Drive, and he does a fine job here with a film that becomes more and more tense each time more information about the characters is revealed. The source material is a Patricia Highsmith novel.
The Two Faces of January is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Adam Driver and John David Washington in BLACKKKLANSMAN
My top choice this weekend is Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, which I’ll be writing about this weekend.
OUT NOW
You can still see the best movie of the year: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See. Still at one theater in Silicon Valley amd one in San Francisco.
The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.
The political documentary Dark Money exposes the growing threat of unlimited secret money in political campaigns.
Puzzle intelligently and authentically traces one woman’s journey of self discovery.
The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
My Stream of the Week is a tale of magical Mormon runaways in Vegas. With Electrick Children, first-time feature filmmaker Rebecca Thomas has created an entirely unique teen coming of age story. Electrick Children employs an element of magical realism that requires the audience to accept a premise which cannot be real. The result is a highly original success. Electrick Children can be streamed from Amazon (included in Amazon Prime) and can be purchased from several other VOD platforms.
ON TV
On August 22, Turner Classic Movies presents the still-powerful 1943 The Ox-Bow Incident, a parable about mobs acting rashly on the basis of fear and prejudice (which certainly resonates in today’s political environment). Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan lead an excellent period cast with Dana Andrews, Anthony Quinn and Jane Darwell, along with Frank Conroy and Harry Davenport, whose performances are perfect little gems. Which character most resembles Donald Trump?
Henry Fonda and Harry Morgan in THE OX-BOW INCIDENTTHE OX-BOW INCIDENT
With Electrick Children, a first-time feature filmmaker has created an entirely unique teen coming of age story. Electrick Children employs an element of magical realism that requires the audience to accept a premise which cannot be real. The result is a highly original success.
A 15-year-old Utah girl has been raised in a remote fundamentalist Mormon enclave where everyone dresses as 19th century pioneers. She has been immersed in Bible stories, but hasn’t been exposed to any modern culture or to the facts of life. She happens upon a hidden cassette tape and finds her first rock and roll song revelatory – so revelatory that she thinks that the song has moved her to pregnancy. Here comes the magical realism – she really is a virgin, and she really is pregnant.
Because of her faith, she doesn’t find immaculate conception to be the least bit implausible. Not so with her parents, who wrongly blame her 17-year-old brother. Their answer is to kick the boy out of the home and to marry off the girl to a neighboring fundamentalist. Facing the unwanted shotgun wedding, the girl commandeers the family pickup and flees; her brother, seeking a way to prove his innocence, stows away.
The kids surface in Las Vegas, where they fall in with a band of runaway teens. Of course the Mormon kids are completely unprepared to navigate any modern city, let alone Vegas. Their guides, the more streetwise kids, are more comfortable with the glitz and sleaze of Vegas, but are just as untethered. The Mormon kids and the suburban runaways have life-altering adventures on the streets.
The girl embarks on a quest to find the singer who she thinks has fathered her child, not understanding that there is more than one rock band in the world (or that Blondie’s Hanging on the Telephone has not made her pregnant.) Central to the film’s success is that the girl is naive but never silly. The young actress Julia Garner shines in a performance that is never ironic and always completely sincere. The girl is determined and devout, seeking teen independence in ways that are logical for someone with her isolated upbringing. Garner is currently the best thing about the Netflix series show Ozark.
As good as Garner is, the real talent here is writer-director Rebecca Thomas, a Mormon from Nevada with an MFA from Columbia. This is her first feature film, and I can’t wait for her next one. Thomas is currently attached to several upcoming projects, including a live action version of The Little Mermaid.
Electrick Childrencan be streamed from Amazon (included in Amazon Prime) and can be purchased from several other VOD platforms.
Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson in SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
It’s getting harder to find the year’s best movie so far, so please track down Leave No Trace. I’ll be seeing the muc anticipated BlacKKKlansman by Spike Lee.
OUT NOW
Please make every attempt to see the best movie of the year, now in Bay Area theaters: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See.
The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.
The political documentary Dark Money exposes the growing threat of unlimited secret money in political campaigns.
Puzzle intelligently and authentically traces one woman’s journey of self discovery.
The Third Murder is a legal procedural that takes a philosophical turn.
The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
I’m sure that you’ve never seen this week’s video pick because I don’t think it got a theatrical release. It’s the indie thriller Dose of Reality, which brings a jaw-dropper of a Big Surprise. Dose of Reality is available to stream on Amazon.
ON TV
On August 16, 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.
Kôji Yakusho in Hirokazu Koreeda’s THE THIRD MURDER. Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society (SFFILM).
Opening this week: The Third Murder is the work of director Hirokazu Koreeda, who made the 1995 art house hit Maborosi and one of the best movies of 2008, Still Walking. Koreeda’s Shoplifters just won the Palm d’Or at Cannes, and will be released in the US by Magnolia Pictures on November 23. I saw The Third Murder at the 2018 San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM). The Third Murder is a legal procedural that takes a philosophical turn.
OUT NOW
Please make every attempt to see the best movie of the year, now in Bay Area theaters: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See.
The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.
The political documentary Dark Money exposes the growing threat of unlimited secret money in political campaigns.
Puzzle intelligently and authentically traces one woman’s journey of self discovery.
The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
First Reformed: Ethan Hawke stars in this bleak, bleak psychological thriller with an intense ending.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
American Animals is funny documentary/reenactment of a preposterous heist.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
I’m sure that you’ve never seen this week’s video pick because I don’t think it got a theatrical release. It’s the indie thriller Dose of Reality, which brings a jaw-dropper of a Big Surprise. Dose of Reality is available to stream on Amazon.
ON TV
This is a great week for film noir and neo-noir on Turner Classic Movies. We begin on August 6 with The Set-Up (1949), one of the great film noirs and one of my 10 Best Boxing Movies. Robert Ryan plays a washed-up boxer that nobody believes can win again, not even his long-suffering wife (Audrey Totter). His manager doesn’t even bother to tell him that he is committed to taking a dive in his next fight. But what if he wins? Director Robert Wise makes use of real-time narrative, then highly innovative. Watch for the verisimilitude of the bar where the deal goes down.
Also on August 6, there’s the 1950 Perfect Murder noirTension, with Richard Basehart as the meek night manager of a pharmacy who is married to a slutty shrew (Audrey Totter – of course). She sneers, “”You were full of laughs then. Well, you’re all laughed out now”” When the wife humiliates him with her newest affair, he works a pair of the newly invented contact lenses and some flashy clothes into a new second identity. The wife’s boyfriend ends up fatally shot, and the cops start looking for the pharmacy manager. Will he take the fall? Barry Sullivan is the cop and Cyd Charisse is the good girl.
And on August 9, TCM plays one of my favorite neo-noirs, the Don Siegel thriller Charley Varrick. Walter Matthau stars as the title character, an expert heist man who sets up a “perfect crime” bank robbery which, of course, goes awry. Worst of all, it turns out that Varrick has stolen a secret Mob fortune being laundered by the bank, and now the underworld organization is after him. Only his wits can save him. I’ve rewatched Charley Varrick a couple of times recently, and it still holds up for me.
Fairuza Balk, Ryan Merriman (rear) and Rick Ravanello in DOSE OF REALITY
I’m sure that you’ve never seen this week’s video pick because I don’t think it got a theatrical release. It’s the indie thriller Dose of Reality, which I saw at Cinequest in 2013.
Dose of Reality packs wire-to-wire intensity and a surprise ending that no one will see coming. A woman is found in a bar’s restroom after closing time, apparently beaten and raped, but unable to remember by whom. Two bar employees are the only possible suspects. Both deny it, and the woman launches a series of searing mind games to determine her attacker.
Fairuza Balk (American History X, Almost Famous) commands the screen as the woman. Her character, starting from a place of utter victimization, becomes totally dominant over the men. The most interesting of the guys is played by veteran TV actor Rick Ravanello (106 acting credits on IMDb). Ravanello’s eyes have an uncommon capacity to credibly take the character through dimness, cunning, tweaked impairment, guilt and terror.
It’s a plenty compelling movie for the first 75 minutes, but Dose of Reality is all about the Big Surprise at the end – which is a shocker on the scale of The Crying Game. Afterward, I was able to reflect back and identify at least four clues in the story, but every one of the 250 audience members at Dose of Reality’s Cinequest world premiere was rocked by the surprise on first viewing. Actor Ravanello recounts that when he first read the script, he got to the end and blurted “No Fucking Way!”. It’s a success for writer-director Christopher Glatis.
Subject Sammy Davis Jr. in a still from SAMMY DAVIS JR.: I’VE GOTTA BE ME. Photo courtesy Menemsha Films/JFI.This week, Dark Money and Puzzle have opened in Bay Area theaters. And one of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival(SFJFF38), has opened and runs through August 5 in San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Rafael, Albany and Oakland. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest Jewish film festival, and, with a 2017 attendance figure of 40,000, still the largest. As always, there’s an especially strong slate of documentaries, including my recommended Must See docs; I especially liked the closing night film Sammy Davis Jr.: I’ve Gotta Be Me.
OUT NOW
Please make every attempt to see the best movie of the year, now in Bay Area theaters: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See.
The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited.
The political documentary Dark Money exposes the growing threat of unlimited secret money in political campaigns.
Puzzle intelligently and authentically traces one woman’s journey of self discovery.
The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
First Reformed: Ethan Hawke stars in this bleak, bleak psychological thriller with an intense ending.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
American Animals is funny documentary/reenactment of a preposterous heist.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
In honor of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, now underway, my this week’s video pick comes from last year’s festival. Israel was created as a home for refugees. What happens when African refugees overwhelm a neglected Tel Aviv neighborhood is the subject of the topical documentary Levinsky Park. Levinsky Park is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
On July 31, Turner Classic Movies brings us two generationally iconic films – one from The Greatest Generation and one for Baby Boomers.
First there’s the WW II melodrama From Here to Eternity. Sure, it’s a soap opera with that much lampooned Burt Lancaster-Debroah Kerr embrace in the crashing surf. But it’s packed with a great cast, and the story threads are expertly braided together by director Fred Zinneman. Besides Lancaster and Kerr, there’s Montgomery Clift, Jack Warden and – resurrecting his career – Frank Sinatra. One of the best performances is by Ernst Borgnine as the hulking bully named Fatso.
Next, it’s easy to recognize the greatness of The Graduate today, but it’s hard to appreciate how groundbreaking it was – all because of Mike Nichol’s directorial choices. Dustin Hoffman’s performance was central to the success of the film, yet he was a nobody at the time and Nichols had to fight for him – the studio preferred a conventionally handsome leading man. Nichols sure wasn’t copying anybody else when he put the Simon and Garfunkle songs in the soundtrack. And the final shot – where Nichols kept his camera lingering on Hoffman and Katherine Ross until the actors became uncomfortable – is one of cinema’s best.
Dustin Hoffman (and Anne Bancroft’s leg) in THE GRADUATE
In honor of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, now underway, my this week’s video pick comes from last year’s festival. Israel was created as a home for refugees. What happens when African refugees overwhelm a neglected Tel Aviv neighborhood is the subject of the topical documentary Levinsky Park.
Director Beth Toni Kruvant takes us to Tel Aviv’s hardscrabble Hatikva neighborhood, now burdened with an influx of African refugees from sub-Saharan Africa. The refugees aren’t Jewish, they don’t speak Hebrew and they sure aren’t white. Discouraged from working legally, the refugees encamp on the streets and do what they need to survive. The Israeli government senses a lose-lose media profile on the issue and tries to duck it entirely.
So how do the local Israelis react? There is a wide spectrum. Some welcome and try to help these people fleeing for their lives. Others tag the newcomers with the loaded pejorative “infiltrators” and try to kick them out. We see some ugly, overt racism in Levinsky Park, but nothing unlike what we’ve seen in the US in the Trump Era.
It’s the same question that confronts all countries in the West about political asylum-seekers – who will actually invite them in? What’s different about Levinsky Park, of course, is that this is Israel – the one nation created by and for refugees.
A leader emerges from the refugees, the charismatic and articulate Mutasim Ali. He frames their plight as a movement, and they strive to regain some control over their own futures.
This year’s SFJFF runs from July 19 through August 5 at theaters in San Francisco, Palo Alto, Albany, San Rafael and Oakland. You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.
Levinsky Park, which originally played in the Bay Area at Cinequest, is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.
Lakeith Stanfield and Tessa Thompson in SORRY TO BOTHER YOU
OK – stay with me here – I’m recommending the most oddly-paired double bill of Sorry to Bother You and Won’t You Be My Neighbor?. Both films fiercely stake out positions in support of basic human worth. The savagely funny social satireSorry to Bother You carries the message that humans are more than just their commercial value as consumers and labor to be exploited. The surprisingly emotional biodoc Won’t You Be My Neighbor?is about Fred Rogers’ fierce devotion to the principle that every child is deserving of love and our protection.
One of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 38th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival(SFJFF38), has opened and runs through August 5 in San Francisco, Palo Alto, San Rafael, Albany and Oakland. The SFJFF is the world’s oldest Jewish film festival, and, with a 2017 attendance figure of 40,000, still the largest. As always, there’s an especially strong slate of documentaries; I’ll be writing about the Must See docs tomorrow.
LEAVE NO TRACE
OUT NOW
Please make every attempt to see the best movie of the year, now in Bay Area theaters: the emotionally powerful coming of age drama Leave No Trace from Debra Granik (Winter’s Bone). Superbly well-crafted, impeccably acted, thoughtful and emotionally powerful, it’s a Must See.
First Reformed: Ethan Hawke stars in this bleak, bleak psychological thriller with an intense ending.
Three Identical Strangers is an astonishing documentary about triplets separated at birth that ranges from the exhuverance of discovering siblings to disturbing questions of social engineering.
American Animals is funny documentary/reenactment of a preposterous heist.
RBG is the affectionate and humanizing biodoc about that great stoneface, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
ON VIDEO
This week’s video pick, the inventive Ruby Sparks, is about romance and it’s very, very funny, but it transcends the genre of romantic comedy. It’s clear that its co-star Zoe Kazan is a major talent as a screenwriter. Ruby Sparks is available to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
ON TV
This week’s offerings from Turner Classic Movies are remarkably diverse. On July 24, there’s George Cukor’s Dinner at Eight, an all-star 1933 Hollywood dramedy that mostly still stands up today. Jean Harlow is hilarious as the trophy bride of the course noveau-millionaire played by Wallace Beery. Marie Dressler is at least as funny as a former star yearning to relive an old romance. John Barrymore adds a heartbreaking performance as a man facing disgrace. If all this weren’t enough, we also get Lionel Barrymore, some ditziness from Billie Burke and a splash of sarcasm from quick-patter artist Lee Tracy. Harlow, who died at 26, is usually remembered as a platinum blonde sex symbol, but Dinner at Eight reminds us of her comic brilliance.
On July 26 , TCM presents The Getaway, a 1972 crime thriller starring the charismatic Steve McQueen and his real-life squeeze Ali MacGraw. McQueen and MacGraw are delightful to watch as they move between violent clashes and double- and triple-crosses. As befits a Sam Peckinpah film, there’s an intense shootout at the end. The grossly underrated character actor Al Lettieri (Sollozzo the Turk in The Godfather) gets to play perhaps his most delicious villain; when he comes across a oddly matched married couple – the nubile Sally Struthers and the nerdy Jack Dodson (county clerk Howard Sprague in The Andy Griffith Show), Lettieri layers on some glorious sexual perversity. Speaking of character actors, we also get to enjoy the crew of Peckinpah favorites: Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, Dub Taylor, Bo Hopkins and Richard Bright.
And, just for fun, on July 23, TCM will air the original Godzilla and two movies from my list of Least Convincing Movie Monsters: The Black Scorpion and The Killer Shrews.
