The San Francisco International Film Festival opens tomorrow night, so this week’s video pick is my favorite film from the 2016 SFIFF. One of the best films of the year, Chevalier is 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. Chevalier is also now the Most Overlooked Movie of 2016, and I’m hoping that its popularity explodes now that it’s available on video.
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.
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 – So Far.
I saw Chevalier at the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival (SFIFF), where I pegged it as the Must See of the fest. (In 2011, Tsangari brought her hilariously offbeat Attenberg to SFIFF.) Unfortunately, in the Bay Area, Chevalier only got a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it release in June. Chevalier is now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Athina Rachel Tsangari, director of CHEVALIER . Photo courtesy of San Francisco Film Society
I’m getting ready to cover the San Francisco International Film Festival, which opens this coming Wednesday, April 5 and running through April 19. I expect to publish my festival preview on Sunday. In the mean time:
The little British drama The Sense of an Ending, with Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter and Charlotte Rampling, is my current top choice.
Bev Powley is very good in the agreeable comedy Carrie Pilby.
If you’re looking for an unchallenging comedy, then The Last Word, with the force of nature named Shirley MacLaine, is for you.
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
By all means, avoid the epically bad epic The Ottoman Lieutenant, so bad that it provokes unintended audience giggles and guffaws.
My DVD/Stream pick of the past two weeks has been the emotionally devastating Manchester by the Sea, which won Oscars for Casey Affleck (Best Actor) and by Kenneth Lonergan (Best Original Screenplay). Manchester by the Sea is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On April 2 on Turner Classic Movies: The Blue Gardeniapresents a 1953 view of date rape, with lecherous Raymond Burr getting Anne Baxter likkered up into a blackout drunk with Polynesian Pearl Divers. There’s a very nice twist on the whodunit: when she wakes up, she doesn’t remember killing him, but he sure is dead. There’s even a cameo performance by Nat King Cole. Also on April 2, TCM brings us The 400 Blows, François Truffaut’s 1959 explosion into leadership of the French New Wave. The main character is modeled after Truffaut’s own teenage years. It’s a great film, and the final freeze-frame is iconic.
Casey Affleck and Lucas Hedges in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
The powerfully affecting drama Manchester by the Seacenters on the New England janitor Lee (Casey Affleck), who must take over care of his dead brother’s teenage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). The searing performance by Affleck and the masterful story-telling by writer-director Kenneth Lonergan combine to make Manchester by the Sea a Must See and one the year’s very best films.
As the movie opens, we see Lee dealing with a series of apartment tenants, and we learn that he is emotionally isolated, and extremely reluctant to become entangled in any human relationships, even with willing females. Underneath, he is a witty guy, but he masks that with a stoic veneer. We also see that he is suppressing a rage that occasionally erupts.
Why is he like this? It’s hinted that there has been a tragedy for which he feels guilty. Mid-movie, that tragedy is depicted, and it’s hard to imagine a worse one. This is a man who, faced with an event that cannot be undone, has been disabled by grief and guilt. It becomes clear why he is so reluctant to take over the role as his nephew’s guardian.
Patrick has all the typical willfulness and teenage thirst for independence – all while expecting Lee to chauffeur him around his rich teen social life. Any teen is disaffected to some extent, but Patrick’s troubled mother has not been in the picture, and now his father has died. Lee is Patrick’s favorite uncle, and he is hurt and confused by Lee’s reaction, and he doesn’t understand why Lee is unwilling to drop everything to parent Patrick.
The friction between the two is remarkably realistic. Both Patrick and Lee have quick, sarcastic tongues, which make their scenes pretty funny, too. In fact, Manchester by the Sea is filled with humorous moments. There’s that awkwardness: how are you supposed to act when there is a death in the family – and yet something funny happens? Lonergan has an eye for the little things that go wrong in life: when the decedent’s last effects are misplaced, when the gurney won’t fold down to fit into the ambulance, when the cell phone buzzes in the funeral. And when the most horrible tragedy is marked by a forlorn plastic bag of junk food and beer.
A family death is naturally dramatic, and Lonergan uses this event to explore intense feelings of grief, guilt, responsibility and resentment. Absolutely every character acts like people do in real life. The result is a remarkable sense of authenticity.
Affleck has produced some of the greatest recent screen acting performances, in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone and Ain’t Those Bodies Saints. This performance is a career topper, a surefire Oscar-winner that will lead his obit. Just note how Affleck’s Lee answers a bad news phone call and the way he wordlessly eyeballs his ex-wife’s new husband.
Young Lucas Hedges steps up to play against Affleck, and Hedges makes his Patrick completely compelling and believable. Hedge’s Patrick is smart, wounded, insecure, needy, prideful and a smart mouth that we like being around.
As befits a Lonergan movie, all of the acting in Manchester By the Sea is top rate. The final scene between Michelle Williams and Affleck is utterly heartbreaking. I particularly liked C.J. Wilson as the family’s partner in their fishing boat.
As good as it is, Manchester by the Sea is not for everyone. The Wife and her sister had a meh reaction because they weren’t absorbed by Lee’s lack of apparent affect and didn’t think that the story’s arc paid off.
This is the third movie directed by the major American playwright Kenneth Lornergan. who has directed three movies. The first was another actor’s showcase, the excellent 2000 drama You Can Count on Me with Laura Linney as a well-grounded single mom and Mark Ruffalo as her reliably unreliable brother.
Lonergan made his second film, the near-masterpiece Margaret, in 2007. The studio fought with Lonergan over the film’s editing, cut it over his objection, and issued it to theaters in a blink-and-you’ve-missed-it release in 2011. In 2012, a DVD was released with both the studio’s 150-minutes version and with Lonergan’s preferred 186-minute cut. I own the DVD, and have seen the director’s cut. It’s an amazing film, and there’s an even better (shorter) one in there.
You Can Count on Me addresses responsibility, and Margaret deals with the consequences of an act that can’t be undone. Manchester by the Sea deals with these themes even more successfully and evocatively.
Manchester by the Sea is available on DVD from Netflix and Redbox and to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Michelle Williams and Casey Affleck in MANCHESTER BY THE SEA
Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING
Okay, I’m exhausted from Cinequest, and the Oscar movies have drifted out of the theaters for the most part, so here we go:
The little British drama The Sense of an Ending, with Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter and Charlotte Rampling, is the best movie opening this week.
If you’re looking for an unchallenging comedy, then The Last Word, with the force of nature named Shirley MacLaine, is for you.
By all means, avoid the epically bad epic The Ottoman Lieutenant, so bad that it provokes unintended audience giggles and guffaws.
The landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned state laws that banned interracial marriage. My DVD/Stream of the week, Lovingis the story of the real couple behind that ruling, and it’s a satisfying love story of two modest people who would rather not have been forced to make history. You can watch it on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Turner Classic Movies presents the political suspense drama Seven Days in May and Samuel Fuller’s gloriously pulpy psych ward expose, Shock Corridor, on March 18 and the Orson Welles film noir classic Touch of Evil on March 22.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton in LOVING. Credit: Ben Rothstein/Focus Features
The landmark 1967 US Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia overturned state laws that banned interracial marriage. Loving is the story of the real couple behind that ruling, and it’s a satisfying love story of two modest people who would rather not have been forced to make history.
Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton convincingly bring the lead characters to life. As the more vibrant character, Negga is especially winning. Edgerton is just as good as he plays the stolid and far less demonstrative husband.
Marton Csokas, with his pitiless, piercing eyes, is remarkably effective as the Virginia sheriff dead set on enforcing Virginia’s racist statute in the most personally intrusive way. Too often, actors seem to be impersonating Rod Steiger in In the Heat of the Night when they play racist Southern sheriffs, but Csokas brings some originality to his performance.
Loving is directed by one of my favorites, Jeff Nichols of Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter and Mud(which he calls his “Arkansas Trilogy”). Nichols specializes in leisurely paced dramas that evoke their settings in the rural South. Nichols’ languid style works well in telling stories that have moments of shock and violence. However, there is no dramatic courtroom face off or thrilling high point as we watch these people live their workaday lives, so Loving drags a bit in places. Nevertheless, Nichols does an excellent job of depicting the ongoing dread of racist terror that these people lived under.
Michael Shannon, who owes his career breakthrough to Nichols’ Shotgun Stories and stars in his Take Shelter and Mud, shows up in a sparkling cameo as a LIFE magazine photographer. If you perform a Google image search for “Richard Mildred Loving”, you’ll find the real LIFE photos, which make it clear that Nichols went to great lengths to make the characters and the settings look very, very much like the Lovings and their environment. I don’t need “lookalikes” in a historical movie, but the makeup and wardrobe on Edgerton and Negga (and especially Richard Loving’s mother) are remarkably close to the real people. And the scenes at the drag race and on the Loving’s sofa are recreated in almost chilling accuracy.
I studied Loving v. Virginia, along with other major civil rights and individual rights cases, in law school in the mid-1970s . Then, the idea that a government could outlaw a marriage between people of different races (and even the word “anti-miscegenation”) already seemed ridiculously obsolete and perversely quaint. But I hadn’t realized that the ruling in Loving v Virginia was only 8 years old at the time I studied it. California had such a law, too, which wasn’t repealed until 1948, and I have a friend whose Filipino and Mexican-American parents were kept from marrying by that statute.
History is made by real people. Loving is both good history and a watchable personal story. You can watch on DVD from Netflix and Redbox or stream it from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent in THE SENSE OF AN ENDING at CINEQUEST on Sunday
Silicon Valley’s own major film festival, Cinequest heads into its final weekend. I strongly recommend the indie dramedy Quality Problems, screening at 9:30 tomight at the Hammer theater in downtown San Jose; if you’re going to see one Cinequest film, make it this one. I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my Cinequest 2017 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
Because Cinequest is underway, my video pick is from the 2013 festival: in the documentary Meet the Hitlers, we are introduced to those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. Meet the Hitlers is available for streaming rental from Amazon Video and Vudu and for streaming purchase from iTunes.
In theaters:
La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
Winner of the Best Picture Oscar, the remarkably sensitive and realistic indie drama Moonlightis at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening. It’s almost universally praised, but I thought that the last act petered out.
The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past). It won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
On March 14, Turner Classic Movies is airing the 1975 character-driven neo-noir Night Moves, with Gene Hackman as an LA private eye who follows a trail of evidence to steamy Florida. Hackman shines in the role – the detective is deeply in love with his estranged wife, but unsuited for marriage. Night Moves also features Melanie Griffith’s breakthrough role as the highly sexualized teen daughter in the Florida family; Griffith was eighteen or nineteen when this was filmed, and had already been living with Don Johnson for three years. (That night TCM will also present two even better 1970s neo-noir thrillers – Klute and The French Connection.)
Because Cinequest is underway, my video pick is from the 2015 festival: in the documentary Meet the Hitlers, we are introduced to those few people who choose NOT to change their birth name of “Hitler”. And it’s a varied bunch. We meet a delightfully confident Missouri teen girl, a workaday Ecuadorian whose parents didn’t know who Hitler was and an affable Utah oldster who might be the most jovial fellow ever to brighten up a chain restaurant. And there’s an Austrian odd duck burdened with enough personal baggage that he surely didn’t need this name. Do they see the name as a curse, and how has it affected them? It’s a theoretical question to us in the audience, but it’s compelling to see the real world responses of the film’s subjects.
And then there’s a mystery about three Americans who HAVE changed the name – because they are the last living relatives of Adolph Hitler. We follow the journalist who has been tracking them down for over a decade. (Documentarian Matt Ogens makes a great editorial choice as to whether to reveal their current names.)
Finally, there’s the disturbing saga of a New Jersey neo-Nazi who is NOT named Adolph Hitler but WANTS to be. Of course, anybody can choose to adorn themselves with a Hitler mustache and swastika tattoos and spew hatespeech, but his choices are affecting not just himself, but his children.
Some of these threads are light-hearted and some are very dark. Meet the Hitlers works so well because Ogens weaves them together so seamlessly. It’s a very successful documentary.
I first reviewed Meet the Hitlers for its premiere at Cinequest 2015. Now Meet the Hitlers is available for streaming rental from Amazon Video and Vudu and for streaming purchase from iTunes.
Silicon Valley’s own major film festival, Cinequest, is underway. I’ll be linking more festival coverage to my Cinequest 2017 page, including both features and movie recommendations. Follow me on Twitter for the very latest coverage.
On March 6, the 2017 Cinequest will feature The Commune, the latest from Danish director Thomas Vinterburg. So my video pick this week is Vinterburg’s The Hunt, which was the high point of the 2013 Cinequest. The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
In theaters:
La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
Winner of the Best Picture Oscar, the remarkably sensitive and realistic indie drama Moonlightis at once a coming of age tale, an exploration of addicted parenting and a story of gay awakening. It’s almost universally praised, but I thought that the last act petered out.
The Salesman is another searing and authentic psychological family thriller from Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi (A Separation, The Past). It won the Best Foreign Language Oscar.
On March 5, Turner Classic Movies presents Babette’s Feast (1987), one of my Best Foodie Movies. Two aged 19th century Danish spinster sisters have taken in a French refugee as their housekeeper. The sisters carry on their father’s severe religious sect, which rejects earthly pleasures. After fourteen years, the housekeeper wins the lottery and, in gratitude, spends all her winnings on the ingredients for a banquet that she prepares for the sisters and their friends. As the dinner builds, the colors of the film become warmer and brighter, reflecting the sheer carnality of the repast. The smugly ascetic and humorless guests become less and less able to resist pleasure of the epicurean delights.The feast’s visual highlights are Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine (quail in puff pastry shell with foie gras and truffle sauce) and Savarin au Rhum avec des Figues et Fruit Glacée (rum sponge cake with figs and glacéed fruits). This was the first Danish film to win Best Foreign Language Oscar.
On March 6, the 2017 Cinequest will feature The Commune, the latest from Danish director Thomas Vinterburg. So my video pick this week is Vinterburg’s The Hunt, which was the high point of the 2013 Cinequest. Mads Mikkelsen plays a man whose life is ruined by a false claim of child sexual abuse. You’ll recognize Mikkelsen, a big star in Europe, from After the Wedding and the 2006 Casino Royale (he was the villain with the tears of blood). He won the 2012 Cannes Best Actor award for this performance.
The story is terrifyingly plausible. The protagonist, Lucas, is getting his bearings after a job change and a divorce. He lives in a small Danish town where everyone knows everyone else, next door to his best friend. The best friend drinks too much and his wife is a little high-strung, but Lucas embraces them for who they are. He’s a regular guy who hunts and drinks with his buddies and is adored by the kids at the kindergarten where he works. He’s not a saint – his ex-wife can get him to fly off the handle with little effort.
A little girl hears a sexual reference at home that she does not understand (and no one in the story could ever find out how she heard it). When she innocently repeats it at school, the staff is alarmed and starts to investigate. Except for one mistake by the school principal, everyone in the story acts reasonably. One step in the process builds upon another until the town’s parents become so understandably upset that a public hysteria ensues.
Director Thomas Vinterburg had previously created the underappreciated Celebration (Festen).The Hunt is gripping – we’re on the edges of our seats as the investigation snowballs and Lucas is put at risk of losing everything – his reputation, his job, his child, his friends, his liberty and even his life. Can Lucas be cleared, and, if he is, how scarred will he be? The Hunt is a superbly crafted film with a magnificent performance by Mikkelsen.
The Hunt is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
It’s Oscars Weekend and it’s pretty easy to find the favorite, La La Land, in theaters. My personal favorite, Hell or High Water, is available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play. Here are the weekly recommendations:
La La Land: the extraordinarily vivid romantic musical staring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.
Lion: an emotionally affecting family drama that makes the audience weep (in a good way).
The Founder: the enjoyably addictive story of how a the money-grubbing visionary Ray Kroc built the McDonald’s food service empire.
Hidden Figures: a true life story from the 1960s space program – a triumph of human spirit and brainpower over sexism and racism; the audience applauded.
I Am Not Your Negro, the documentary about the American public intellectual James Baldwin. It’s a searing examination of race in America as analyzed through Baldwin’s eyes and as expressed through his elegant words.
The thoughtful drama Fences is an actor’s showcase, especially for Viola Davis, but it’s very stagey.
I’ll also be posting about The Movie Gourmet’s annual Oscar Dinner on Sunday. And my coverage of Cinequest starts tomorrow (hopefully).
My Stream of the Week is the gorgeous, erotic and gloriously entertaining The Handmaiden from Korea. You can stream it on Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
I always point it out when Turner Classic Movies shows the iconic film noirThe Third Man (March 1) or the gender-bending comedy Victor/Victoria (March 1).
On March 3, TCM presents a wonderfully entertaining comedy about an entire family of professional con artists, The Young in Heart. It’s sweet and sappy, with the optimistic view that the criminals could be reformed by the unconditional love of a lonely old lady. After much fun, it turns out that they just needed some structure that incentivizes them to use their talents for good rather than evil. As readers will know, I’m not generally attracted to sentimental movies, but this one is damn funny. The family is played by Roland Young, the always batty Bille Burke, Janet Gaynor and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. The movie is almost stolen by Minnie Dupree as their intended victim, Miss Fortune. There’s also a nice turn by the gorgeous Paulette Goddard. The Young in Heart is a showcase for Roland Young, so often the supporting character in the great screwball comedies; this film, more than his Topper series, may be his best and most enjoyable performance.
Roland Young and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. in THE YOUNG IN HEART
