Weekly Movie Recommendations

DVD/Stream of the Week: GONE GIRL – 2014’s best Hollywood movie

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Rosamund Pike in GONE GIRL
Rosamund Pike in GONE GIRL

In the marvelously entertaining Gone Girl, Ben Affleck plays Nick, a good-looking lug who can turn a phrase. At a party one night, he’s on his A game, and he snags the beautiful Amy (Rosamund Pike). She’s smarter, a good rung on the ladder more attractive than he is, has parents with some money and is a second-hand celebrity to boot. Not particularly gifted and certainly not a striver, he knows he’s the Lucky One. He has married above himself, but he doesn’t have a clue HOW MUCH above until she suddenly disappears.

Based on the enormously popular novel by Gillian Flynn (who also wrote the screenplay), Gone Girl is the mystery of what has happened to Amy and what is Nick’s role in the disappearance. Plot twists abound, but you won’t get any spoilers from The Movie Gourmet.

This is Rosamund Pike’s movie.  Her appearance is so elegant – she looks like a crystal champagne flute with blonde hair – that pulling her out of Victorian period romances and into this thriller is inspired. And Pike responds with the performance of her career. She’s just brilliant as she makes us realize that there’s something behind her eyes that we hadn’t anticipated, and then keeps us watching what she is thinking throughout the story.

Gone Girl is directed by the contemporary master David Fincher (Fight Club, Se7en, Zodiac, The Social Network, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Here, Fincher has successfully chosen to rely on Flynn’s page turner of a story and the compelling characters, so Gone Girl is the least flashy of his films, but one of the most accessible. I’ll say this for Fincher – I can’t remember a more perfectly cast movie.

Kim Dickens (Treme, Deadwood) is superb as the investigating detective – this time almost unrecognizable as a brunette. Tyler Perry is wonderfully fun as a crafty celebrity attorney. The previously unheralded Carrie Coon is excellent as Nick’s twin sister (she’s gone on to cash in on the Avengers franchise). Missi Pyle does such a good job as a despicable cable TV personality that I thought I was actually watching a despicable cable TV personality. And David Clennon and (especially) Lisa Banes positively gleam as Amy’s parents. (Carefully observe every behavior by the parents in this movie.)

Just like the thug in The Guard who forgets whether he had been diagnosed in prison as a sociopath or a psychopath, I had the ask The Wife, who turned me on to this passage from Psychology Today. It’s useful to read this because, although you don’t realize it for forty-five minutes or so, Gone Girl is also a study of psychopathy.

Psychopaths … are unable to form emotional attachments or feel real empathy with others, although they often have disarming or even charming personalities. Psychopaths are very manipulative and can easily gain people’s trust. They learn to mimic emotions, despite their inability to actually feel them, and will appear normal to unsuspecting people. Psychopaths are often well educated and hold steady jobs. Some are so good at manipulation and mimicry that they have families and other long-term relationships without those around them ever suspecting their true nature.

When committing crimes, psychopaths carefully plan out every detail in advance and often have contingency plans in place. Unlike their sociopathic counterparts, psychopathic criminals are cool, calm, and meticulous. Their crimes, whether violent or non-violent, will be highly organized and generally offer few clues for authorities to pursue. Intelligent psychopaths make excellent white-collar criminals and “con artists” due to their calm and charismatic natures.

Gillian Flynn changed the story’s ending for the movie. The Wife, who is a big fan of the novel, didn’t mind. Gone Girl is recommended for both those who have and have not read the book. I understand that there’s more humor in the movie, as we occasionally laugh at the extremity of the behavior of one of the characters.

It all adds up into a remarkably fun movie and one that I was still mulling it over days later. Gone Girl was the best big Hollywood studio movie of 2014 (not counting releases from the prestige distribution arms of the major studios). It’s now available on DVD from Netflix and streaming on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Xbox Video and Flixster.

Movies to See Right Now

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Jeremy Renner in WIND RIVER
We’re in the dog days of summer movies, waiting for the Prestige Movies starting in late October, and hoping that some gems sneak into theaters now. For the time being, just make sure that you’ve seen these three:

  • The contemporary Western thriller Wind River, which has mystery, explosive action, wild scenery and some great acting, especially by Jeremy Renner and Gil Birmingham.
  • The delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.
  • The historical thriller Dunkirk.

The best of the rest:

  • Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly timed to the beat of music.
  • I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde.

My DID/Stream of the Week is Stories We Tell 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.  You can rent Stories We Tell on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On September 17, Turner Classic Movies airs In a Lonely Place (1950). The most unsettlingly sexy film noiress Gloria Grahame falls for the troubled screenwriter Humphrey Bogart, a guy with a MAJOR anger management issue; once she’s hooked, she realizes that he might be a murderer after all…Nicholas Ray directs. In a Lonely Place justifiably made the BBC’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films. The Czar of Noir Eddie Muller has named it as his #1 noir.

Gloria Grahame and Humphrey Bogart in IN A LONELY PLACE

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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Graham Greene and Elizabeth Olsen in WIND RIVER

Do your self a favor and make sure that you see the best of this summer:

  • The contemporary Western thriller Wind River, which has mystery, explosive action, wild scenery and some great acting, especially by Jeremy Renner and Gil Birmingham.
  • The delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.
  • The historical thriller Dunkirk.

The best of the rest:

  • Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly timed to the beat of music.
  • I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde.
  • The Trip to Spain, another gourmet romp from Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan is funny for the first 90 minutes or so – just leave when the characters part company in Malaga.

My Stream of the Week is the surprisingly engaging documentary about New York Times obituaries Obit, a superb study writing – we sit on the writers’ shoulders and observe their process in real-time.  Obit is now available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On September 9, Turner Classic Movies airs Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece of voyeurism, Rear Window.   Here we have James Stewart playing a guy frustrated because he is trapped at home by a disability. When he observes some activity by neighbors that he interprets as a possible murder, he becomes more and more obsessed and voyeuristic. When it looks like he has been correct instead of paranoid, that business about being trapped by a disability takes on a whole new meaning.  With the cool beauty Grace Kelly and the glowering and menacing Raymond Burr.

REAR WINDOW
REAR WINDOW

Movies to See Right Now

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Gil Birmingham in WIND RIVER

With the contemporary Western thriller Wind River, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan has delivered another masterpiece, this time in his first effort as director. It’s got mystery, explosive action, wild scenery and some great acting, especially by Jeremy Renner and Gil Birmingham.

Other movies that are among the best of the year are the historical thriller Dunkirk and the delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.

The best of the rest:

  • Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly timed to the beat of music.
  • I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde.
  • The Trip to Spain, another gourmet romp from Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan is funny for the first 90 minutes or so – just leave when the characters part company in Malaga.

Given that Netflix will release Top of the Lake: China Girl in September, my DVD/Stream of the Week is the original Top of the Lake from 2013. It’s the perfect choice to binge watch on Labor Day weekend.

Turner Classic Movies spotlights the director Werner Herzog on September 7 with Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, Stroszek, Aguirre the Wrath of God and Cobra Libre and the Les Blank documentaries Burden of Dreams (about the making of Fitzcarraldo) and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe.

On September 4, TCM brings us an evening of boxing films, including Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Harder They Fall, Somebody Up There Likes Me and The Golden Boy.  I am recommending the 1972 Fat City from the great director John Huston. Huston shot the film in Stockton, and Fat City is a time capsule for the Central Valley in the early 70s. Stacy Keach plays a boxer on the slide, his skills unraveled by his alcoholism. He inspires a kid (a very young Jeff Bridges), who becomes a boxer on the rise.

Keach and Susan Tyrrell give dead-on performances as pathetic sad sack barflies. Tyrrell was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar. In this wonderful 2000 profile in LA Weekly, Tyrrell said, “The last thing my mother said to me was, ‘SuSu, your life is a celebration of everything that is cheap and tawdry.’ I’ve always liked that, and I’ve always tried to live up to it.”

Susan Tyrrell in FAT CITY

DVD/Stream of the Week: the original TOP OF THE LAKE

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Elisabeth Moss in TOP OF THE LAKE

Netflix will release the episodic drama Top of the Lake: China Girl in September.  It premiered at this May’s Cannes Film Festival to rave reviews.  The Wife and I are looking forward to binging through it when it’s available.  So NOW is a good time to catch up on the FIRST season of Top of the Lake from 2013 – you can binge it on Labor Day Weekend.

In the original Top of the Lake, Moss plays an Australian detective who returns to her rural New Zealand hometown only to get entangled in the case of a missing pregnant 12-year-old. Moss’ cop begins unraveling the community’s secrets, and it turns out that she has a past herself. It’s easy to find oddballs and seekers in a mountain community, along with the usual crop of redneck louts, and this New Zealand backwater has more than its share of both. There’s a dodgy police commander, a slimy real estate broker, a bunch of edgy teenagers – and the protagonist’s old prom date is now living in a tent.

But that’s nothing compared to one of the most twisted characters of recent years, the sadistic local drug lord played by Peter Mullan (the Red Riding series, Tyrannosaur, The Claim).

And then there’s a colony of women living in shipping containers while they heal from life’s traumas and seek enlightenment. Their sometimes catatonic and always harsh guru is played by Holly Hunter.

Throw all these characters together into a cleverly constructed plot, and you’ve got one highly entertaining series.

Peter Mullan in TOP OF THE LAKE

Top of the Lake was created by New Zealand’s own Oscar-winning director Jane Campion.  Each of the episodes is only 48-50 minutes long, so watching all seven episodes goes pretty briskly.

In Top of the Lake: Chine Girl, the Elisabeth Moss character is back in Sydney, Australia,  and Nicole Kidman will join the cast.

Holly Hunter in TOP OF THE LAKE

You can catch Top of the Lake episodes on the Sundance Channel or watch all seven episodes on  DVD from Netflix or streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, Vudu, Hulu, YouTube and Google Play.

Movies to See Right Now

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Jeremy Renner and Gil Birmingham in WIND RIVER

With the contemporary Western thriller Wind River, screenwriter Taylor Sheridan has delivered another masterpiece, this time in his first effort as director. It’s got mystery, explosive action, wild scenery and some great acting, especially by Jeremy Renner and Gil Birmingham.

Other movies that are among the best of the year are the historical thriller Dunkirk and the delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.

The best of the rest:

  • Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly timed to the beat of music.
  • I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde.
  • The Trip to Spain, another gourmet romp from Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan is funny for the first 90 minutes or so – just leave when the characters part company in Malaga.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is an Oscar-winner that you haven’t seen: the Feel Good documentary Undefeated. You can find it on DVD and streaming from Netflix Instant, Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

On August 30, Turner Classic Movies presents the second and the funniest of Blake Edwards’ Pink Panther movies, 1964’s A Shot in the Dark, in which Peter Sellers really comes into his own as Inspector Clouseau. A Shot in the Dark also introduces Herbert Lom, the king ofte slow burn, as Clouseau’s perpetually infuriated boss.

On September 1, TCM airs the 1933 submarine movie Hell Below. It’s a pretty contrived Robert Montgomery vehicle, but there are some elements worth fast-forwarding to. The comic relief is provided by Jimmy Durante, who plays the cook Ptomaine; Baby Boomers tend to remember Durante for his shtick on variety shows of the 1950s and 1960s – here’s the unadulterated Durante. Durante even boxes with a kangeroo! Hell Below also features Walter Huston, who was a major star at the time and who I think would be very successful today.

Peter Sellers as Inspector Clouseau in A SHOT IN THE DARK
Herbert Lom in A SHOT IN THE DARK

DVD/Stream of the Week: UNDEFEATED – an Oscar winner you haven’t seen

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UNDEFEATED

With football season (finally) approaching, it’s time for a Feel Good, Oscar-winning story set on the gridiron. The extraordinary documentary Undefeated begins with a high school football coach addressing his team:

Let’s see now. Starting right guard shot and no longer in school. Starting middle linebacker shot and no longer in school. Two players fighting right in front of the coach. Starting center arrested. Most coaches – that would be pretty much a career’s worth of crap to deal with. Well, I think that sums up the last two weeks for me.

Undefeated is the story of this coach, Bill Courtney, leading his team through a season. The kids live in crushing poverty and attend a haplessly under-resourced high school in North Memphis.

Undefeated may be about a football team, but isn’t that much about football. Instead of the Xs and Os, it shows the emotional energy required of Courtney to keep each kid coming to school, coming to practice and on task. He gets many of the kids to think about goals for the first time in their lives. He is tireless, dogged and often frustrated and emotionally spent.

The film wisely focuses on three players, and we get to know them. Like the rest of the team, all three are from extremely disadvantaged homes. One is an overachiever both on the field and in the classroom, but surprisingly emotionally vulnerable. Another has college-level football talent but very little academic preparation. The third, recently back from youth prison, is impulsive, immature, selfish and extremely volatile.

Undefeated won the 2012 Oscar for Best Documentary for filmmakers Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin – but it didn’t get a wide theatrical release. It’s available now to stream from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and redbox.

Movies to See Right Now

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ATOMIC BLONDE

This hasn’t been a first-rate summer for movies, but you MUST SEE the historical thriller Dunkirk and the delightful romantic comedy The Big Sick.

The best of the rest:

  • Baby Driver is just an action movie, but the walking, running and driving are brilliantly timed to the beat of music.
  • The Midwife, with Catherine Deneuve as a woman out of control and uncontrollable, indelibly disrupting another life.
  • I enjoyed Charlize Theron’s rock ’em, sock ’em, espionage thriller Atomic Blonde.
  • The Trip to Spain, another gourmet romp from Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan is funny for the first 90 minutes or so – just leave when the characters part company in Malaga.

My DVD/Stream of the Week is Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, perhaps Richard Gere’s best movie performance ever, and strongly recommended. Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

For a ticking bomb thriller, you really can’t top John Frankenhimer’s The Manchurian Candidate, which Turner Classic Movies airs on August 19. Laurence Harvey plays a victim of Commie brainwashing who has become a robotic, remote-controlled assassin. Can he be stopped in time?

The Manchurian Candidate tops off a set of brilliant Frank Sinatra performances (before his directors couldn’t restrain him from mugging): From Here to Eternity, Suddenly!, The Man with a Golden Arm.

Harvey, Sinatra and Janet Leigh are all good, but this is really Angela Lansbury’s movie. Not only is her character promoting the political career of her bombastic Joe McCarthy-like husband, but she is a Communist agent intent on the Communist takeover of the US government. And she is pulling the strings to direct the assassin – her own son! Lansbury’s character makes my list of Worst Movie Mothers.

Angela Lansbury and Laurence Harvey in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE

DVD/Stream of the Week: NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER – big deals are not for little men

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NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER
Lior Ashkenazi and Richard Gere in NORMAN: THE MODERATE RISE AND TRAGIC FALL OF A NEW YORK FIXER

In Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer, writer-director Joseph Cedar and his star Richard Gere combine to create the unforgettable character of Norman Oppenheimer, a Jewish Willy Loman who finally gets his chance to sits with the Movers and Shakers. Norman’s gig is to find two real businessmen that he does not know, pretending to each to be the confidante of the other, and introduce them, hoping that they make a deal (a deal that he neither engineers or invests in), hoping that he can get a percentage as a finder’s fee.

Norman has not so much a ready smile as a compulsive one. Unencumbered by any sense of boundaries or propriety, he literally stalks the rich and influential like paparazzi stalk celebrities. He feigns familiarity and drops names (“a high official, I can’t say his name”). All he time, he tries, usually successfully, to stifle the odor of desperation.

I’ve spent over thirty years in politics, and in my business, it is said that there are Who Ya Know consultants and there are What Ya Know consultants. The most effective consultants combine both. If you’re only at the table to peddle the influence of Who Ya Know, you might be a little shady. That’s Norman.

I know the world of powerful and important people, a world that hustlers try to crash, and I’ve known people like Norman. And I know the Whack-A-Mole pressure of shepherding home a complex, multi-faceted deal. Norman’s character, while extreme, rings true.

Norman is everybody’s acquaintance but has no actual reputation of his own. No one knows where he lives or what deals he has structured before. He is so mysterious that we find ourselves even asking, is he homeless?

This may be Richard Gere’s best movie performance. Gere perfectly distills Norman’s obnoxious ambition to play with the high rollers and then his stress and bewilderment once he’s gotten to the high stakes table. The critic Christy Lemire writes, “You may not be able to root for him, but you can’t help but feel for him.”

Norman ingratiates himself to an Israeli politician (Lior Ashkenazi) and hits pay dirt when the politician unexpectedly becomes prime minister. Norman says, “for once, I have bet on the right horse”, and indeed Norman did spot a uniquely optimistic quality that other observers failed to recognize and appreciate. For the first time, Norman is relevant and at the exhilarating center of power.

Lior Ashkenazi is brilliant as the politician, a man who is able to recognize his own specific gifts. He is ebullient, and it’s easy to see how people can be attracted to his charisma and infectious confidence. His vulnerability is an appetite for fine things and a neediness for the flattery and attention that a poser like Norman can offer. Ashkenazi played a totally contrasting, much more nerdy, character in Cedar’s 2011 inventive and mostly successful character-driven dramedy Footnote.

Norman is juggling multiple balls in air, and he must make all of his deals pay off because they are all interlinked. It’s kind of like making an exotic bet at the racetrack like an exacta, a superfecta or a pick 6. If one part unravels, the whole thing will come crashing down. Norman has always been able to get by on bullshit, but now he’s has gotten his wish – to play at the highest level, where, at some point you’ve got to deliver. Here’s where “the tragic fall” comes in.

The stellar performances of Gere and Ashkenazi are but two highlights of Norman’s superb casting: Michael Sheen, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Harris Yulin, Steve Buscemi. Josh Charles plays a magnate who can sniff out a bullshit artist and can dismiss one with blistering efficiency. The always excellent Isaach De Bankolé (Night on Earth) is memorable in a tiny part. Hank Azaria sparkles as a character who confounds Norman with a taste of his own medicine. And we get to hear the glorious singing voice of Cantor Azi Schwartz.

As they say, if you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch. Big deals are not for little men.  Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer is available on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Note: Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer weighs in at #16 on my list of Longest Movie Titles.