CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing and SFFILM.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – The 2025 SFFILM is beginning, so here are my recommendations in Under the Radar at SFFILM. Plus, here are two great choices to watch at home: the engrossing 2002 French drama Man on the Train(Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango, YouTube) and Athina Rachel Tsangari’s sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness, Chevalier (Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango, YouTube).
Easter always triggers television networks to pull out their Biblical epics. If you’re going to watch just one Sword-and-Sandal classic, I recommend going full tilt with Barrabas, broadcast by Turner Classic Movies on April 20. This 1961 cornball stars Anthony Quinn as the Zelig-like title character.
The story begins with the thief Barabbas avoiding crucifixion when Pontius Pilate swaps him out for Jesus (this part is actually in the Bible). Because the Crucifixion isn’t enough action for a two-hour 17-minute movie, Barabbas is soon sent off as a slave to the salt mines, where he is rescued by a miraculously timely earthquake. He then joins the Roman gladiators, complete with a javelin-firing squad, gets lost in the catacombs and emerges to the Burning of Rome. He has encounters with the Emperor Nero and the Apostle Peter before he converts to Christianity – just in time for the mass crucifixion. Watch for an uncredited Sharon Tate as a patrician in the arena.
CHEVALIER. Photo courtesy of Strand Releasing and SFFILM.
To celebrate this week’s opening of SFFILM, here’s a gem from the 2016 SFFILM, Athina Rachel Tsangari’s Chevalier, a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness, with the moments of drollness and absurdity that we expect in the best of contemporary Greek cinema. Tsangari is bringing her newest film Harvest, starring Caleb Landry Jones and Harry Melling, to to the 2025 SFFILM.
In Chevalier, six guys are taking a holiday week on a yacht in the Aegean Sea. Each has his own stateroom, and the crew includes a chef. They spend their days scuba diving, jet skiing and the like. After a post-dinner game of charades, one suggests that they play Chevalier, a game about “Who is best overall?”. Of course, men tend to be competitive, and their egos are now at stake. The six guys began appraising each other, and their criteria get more and more absurd. “How many fillings do you have?”
In one especially inspired set piece, the guys race each other to construct IKEA bookcases, which results in five phallic towers on the boat’s deck (and one drooping failure). Naturally, some of the guys are obsessed with their own erections, too.
Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of SFFILM.
Director Athina Rachel Tsangari is obviously a keen observer of male behavior. Both men and women will enjoy laughing at male behavior taken to extreme. I sure did. Chevalier is perhaps the funniest movie of 2016, and it’s on my list of Best Movies of 2016.
I saw Chevalier at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILM), where I pegged it as the Must See of the fest. (In 2011, Tsangari brought her hilariously offbeat Attenberg to SFFILM.)
Make sure you get the 2015 Greek Chevalier, not the 2023 Hollywood bodice-ripper.
Unfortunately, in the Bay Area, Chevalier only got a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it release in 2016. Chevalier is now available to stream from Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
Photo caption: Catrinel Marlon and Vlad Ivanov in THE WHISTLER. Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – I’m busy preparing for the San Francisco and San Luis Obispo film festivals that dominate my Aprils. Just like last week, the best six new movies are documentaries; five are about musical, performance and visual artists and the sixth is about a psycho killer. I’ve also highlighted The Whistlers, a neo-noir thriller currently free on Max. Here are my film festival previews:
Tomorrow, Turner Classic Movies 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. My friend Sandy lets Ali McGraw’s lack of acting range get in the way of enjoying The Getaway, but IMO Al Lettieri more than makes up for it.
Sally Struthers, Al Lettieri and Jack Dodson in THE GETAWAY
Photo caption: George Clinton in WE WANT THE FUNK. Courtesy of Firelight Films.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – new reviews of the insightful Andy Kaufman biodoc Thank You Very Much, the delightful music doc We Want the Funk and the indie drama Nora. The best six new movies are documentaries; five are about musical, performance and visual artists and the sixth is about a psycho killer.
A Complete Unknown now rents for under $6 on Amazon and is free on Hulu. You can also pay more to watch it on AppleTV, YouTube and Fandango.
REMEMBRANCE
Richard Chamberlain (right) in THE THREE MUSKETEERS with Michael York, Oliver Reed and Frank Findlay.
Richard Chamberlain burst into the culture as TV’s dreamy Dr. Kildare, went to the English stage to hone his acting skills and returned to dominate the genre of television miniseries with Centennial, Shogun and The Thornbirds. Chamberlain made his share of movies, and my favorite is his role as Aramis in Richard Lester’s The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.
Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in THE NARROW MARGIN
On April 6, Turner Classic Movies will present The Narrow Margin, a taut 71 minutes of tension from my Overlooked Noir. Growly cop Charles McGraw plays hide-and-seek with a team of hit men on a claustrophobic train. Marie Windsor is unforgettable as the assassins’ target. McGraw and Windsor’s performances are first-rate, and their hardboiled dialogue is terrific. Director Richard Fleisher, early in his career, imaginatively stages the woman-hunt up and down the tight corridors and compartments of the moving train. I just rewatched The Narrow Margin at Noir City in January, and it’s still a masterpiece.
Cinequest movies can be watched at home through midnight on March 31 for less than ten bucks per movie. Here are my recommendations. I highly recommend the Kenyan thriller The Dog and the Mexican drama The Move In. Find them on Cinequest’s on-line festival, Cinejoy.
On March 29, Turner Classic Movies airs the overlooked film noir, The Bribe. A federal agent (Robert Taylor) goes undercover to investigate a war surplus scam. His one clue is that an American ex-pat couple in a Mexican seaside resort may be involved. The husband (John Hodiak), frustrated that a medical diagnosis has ended his career as a pilot, has taken to the bottle. That means that his nightclub singer wife (Ava Gardner) is often unaccompanied. Posing as a tourist, the agent befriends them and tries to figure out which of the local shady characters (including the oily Vincent Price) is Mr. Big. Of course, he falls for the wife, and she reciprocates – but is it because she’s made him as a cop? As the double crosses mount, everybody is bathed in tropical sweat.
Gardner, who broke through at age 24 in The Killers just three years before, is still at her most ravishing. Her off-the-shoulder tops and two-piece swim suit get our attention, but she especially rocks the bare-midriff outfit in the photo above.
But the best reason to watch The Bribe is Charles Laughton, an acting legend never better than here as a professional briber. His character often acts like a coward, but he is flush with confidence when it’s time to make a deal. A master of manipulation and persuasion, this guy is a great negotiator. In turn ingratiating and menacing, Laughton’s performance lights up the last half of The Bribe.
Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
ON TV
Turhan Bey and Lynn Bari in THE SPIRITUALIST.
Here’s a rarity – on March 23, 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 at 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.
Photo caption: Sergio Podeley in GUNMAN, world premiere at Cinequest next week. Courtesy of Cinequest.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – it’s pretty much all about Cinequest, especially The Best of Cinequest, with all my reviews and features linked on my Cinequest 2025 page. At least six more reviews and features will be coming out soon. But NEXT week, I’ll be back with reviews of Mickey 17, Chaos: The Manson Murders and Bob Trevino Likes It.
And then I’ll be back in festival mode, covering the SLO Film Fest and SFFILM.
Reminder – all of the big 2024 movies, including the big Oscar winner, Anora, are available to watch at home. They’re all under $6, except for The Brutalist($20) and A Complete Unknown ($25).
CURRENT MOVIES
Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
The Brutalist: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive? In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
Hard Truths: trapped inside her own rage. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
A Real Pain: whose pain is it? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
ON TV
Barbara Stanwyck in WITNESS TO MURDER
On March 20, 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.
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.
Photo caption: Mikey Madison and Yura Borisov in ANORA. Courtesy of NEON.
This week on The Movie Gourmet – it’s time to reset after the Oscars. I’m finishing up my Cinequest coverage; the festival starts on Tuesday, and I’ll be rolling out my fest preview and individual reviews, starting Sunday.
There’s no more excuse for missing big 2024 movies, including the big Oscar winner, Anora. They’re all available to watch at home for under $6, except for The Brutalist($20) and A Complete Unknown ($25), which are now streaming but pricey. I haven’t yet seen Nickel Boys, Sing Sing and Flow, but they’re also available on inexpensive VOD.
Alternatively, you could honor Gene Hackman by watching The Conversation (Criterion, Paramount, Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango). It’s right up there with The French Connection as Hackman’s best performance and his best movie.
CURRENT MOVIES
Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
A Complete Unknown: a genius and his time. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
The Last Showgirl: desperation amid the rhinestones. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
The Brutalist: buffeted by fate, can his soul survive? In theaters andAmazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
Hard Truths: trapped inside her own rage. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango..
The Room Next Door: Tilda and Julianne, life and death. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
Conclave: explosive secrets? in the Vatican?. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
A Real Pain: whose pain is it? Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
Emilia Pérez: four women yearn amid Mexico’s drug violence. Netflix.
ON TV
Buster Keaton (out in front) in SEVEN CHANCES
Don’t miss Turner Classic Movies March 11 airing of Seven Chances. I thought that I knew the work of Buster Keaton, but somehow I had never seen Seven Chancesuntil a few years ago. It features a phenomenal, 26-minute chase scene that rates with the very best in cinema history – What’s Up Doc?, The French Connection, Bullitt!, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Keaton’s own The General.
Keaton’s character publishes a public offer of marriage and gets way more takers than he can handle. There’s a very funny scene where he sits in a church to reflect on his situation and woman after woman seats herself next to and around him; he is oblivious to the fact that each of them is there to marry HIM. The church fills up with prospective wives, and, 30 minutes into the movie, he flees, with a horde of veiled would-be brides in pursuit. The chase is on.
Keaton is off and running and running and running, in a ridiculously long sprint though the city’s downtown and rail yards and into the hills. Amazingly, he did all of his own stunts, including leaping over an abyss and being swung around by a railroad crane. His race with a cascade of falling boulders is pure genius. You keep asking yourself, “How did they perform that stunt with 1925 technology?”
Keaton understood the comedic power of excess, and the sheer magnitude of the frustrated brides is hilarious I think I can see the inspiration for the hundreds of crashing cars at the end of The Blues Brothers.
Buster Keaton jumps the abyss in SEVEN CHANCES
When he made Seven Chances in 1925, Keaton was only 30 years old and had just directed his first feature two years before. He had just made the classics Sherlock, Jr. and The Navigator in 1924. He was about to make his masterpiece The General in 1926 and Steamboat Bill, Jr. in 1928. Talking pictures changed the industry in 1929, and Keaton signed a disastrous contract with MGM in 1930. Keaton was to direct only three more features in his career (all unaccredited). MGM took away his artistic freedom, and no studio kingpin knew what to do with him in the talking era. Keaton took to drink and went dark for decades.
I’ve finished my coverage of the Slamdance Film Festival, which continues on-line. Through March 7, you can watch Slamdance films at home on the Slamdance Channel: Here’s my wrap-up coverage of Slamdance:
Gene Hackman was one of the greatest screen actors of all time, justifiably best known for his searingly original Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. When we examine Hackman’s body of work, it’s striking that he delivered indelible performances in multiple movies in each of four decades: the 1960s (Bonnie and Clyde, The Gypsy Moths, Downhill Racer), the 1970s (The Conversation, Night Moves, Young Frankenstein), the 1980s (Hoosiers, Mississippi Burning, BAT*21, The Package) and the 1990s (Unforgiven, Get Shorty). Who else has accomplished that – Jimmy Stewart and very few others? My favorite Gene Hackman performance bar none – will always be as the dogged, and then obsessive, Harry Caul in The Conversation.
CURRENT MOVIES
Anora: human spirit vs the oligarchs. In theaters and Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
ON TV
William Powell and Carole Lombard in MY MAN GODFREY
On March 2, Turner Classic Movies is airing the timeless and fantastic comedy, My Man Godfrey (1936). An assembly of eccentric, oblivious, venal and utterly spoiled characters make up a rich Park Avenue family and their hangers-on during the Depression. The kooky daughter (Carole Lombard) brings home a homeless guy (William Powell) to serve as their butler. The contrast between the dignified butler and his wacky employers results in a brilliant screwball comedy that masks searing social criticism that is still sharply relevant today. The wonderful character actor Eugene Pallette (who looked and sounded like a bullfrog in a tuxedo) plays the family’s patriarch, and he’s keenly aware that his wife and kids are completely nuts.
I feel strongly about this 89-year-old movie, which I first saw when it was only 36-years-old. We talk about screwball comedy, but this is the gold standard. And we need to remember the comic genius of Carole Lombard, who died supporting the war against fascism when she was only 33.
Photo caption: Ariana Grande in WICKED. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.
This week, on The Movie Gourmet – I’ve been deep into Slamdance, including Discovering new filmmakers at SLAMDANCE. More Slamdance coverage is coming on Monday, when I start rolling out full reviews of individual films and highlighting the ones available to stream at home on the Slamdance Channel.
I finally got around to watching one of this year’s nominees for the Best Picture Oscar, Wicked. I had put this off because I’m not a fan of musicals, and, sure as shootin’, The Wife had to keep prodding me awake. I do always enjoy and admire Cynthia Erivo, and she’s excellent in Wicked. What surprised me was how brilliant Ariana Grande’s performance was, not just in singing and dancing, but in demonstrating absolutely perfect comic timing. Because I live under a pop culture rock, I wasn’t familiar with Grande, who I have since come to appreciate as a smart and hilarious mimic. Anyway, I don’t generally enjoy musicals, and that’s still true, no matter how good the stars are. (And Emilia Perez isn’t on my top ten list, either.)
Love Lies Bleeding: obsessions and impulses collide. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
I Saw the TV Glow: brimming with originality. Amazon, AppleTV, YouTube, Fandango.
ON TV
THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK
On February 24, Turner Classic Movies airs one of the greatest political movies of all time – The Times of Harvey Milk, the documentary Oscar winner from 1984. It’s the real story behind the 2008 Sean Penn narrative Milk – and with the original witnesses. If you pay attention, The Times of Harvey Milk can teach you everything from how to win a local campaign to how to build a societal movement. One of the best political movies ever. And watch for the dog poop scene!
