Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
And four to avoid:
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
My Stream of the Week is the important and absorbing documentaryZero Days, which traces the story of an incredibly successful cyber attack by two nation states upon another – and its implications. It’s that rare documentary which has become even more topical today. Since Zero Days’ release last June, we have endured the successful Russian cyber attack on the US election process. And we face an unpredictable foe in North Korea, and our only practical protection against North Korea’s nuclear threat may be our own preemptive cyber attacks. Zero Days is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On May 1, Turner Classic Movies will be broadcasting one of the great movies that you have likely NOT seen, having just been released on DVD in 2009: The Earrings of Madame de… (1953). Max Ophuls directed what is perhaps the most visually evocative romance ever in black and white. It’s worth seeing for the ballroom scene alone. The shallow and privileged wife of a stick-in-the-mud general takes a lover, but the earrings she pawned reveal the affair and consequences ensue. The great Italian director Vittorio De Sica plays the impossibly handsome lover.
My Stream of the Week is a movie that has actually become MORE topical since its release last year. The important and absorbing documentary Zero Days traces the story of an incredibly successful cyber attack by two nation states upon another – and its implications. In Iran’s nuclear weapons development program, the centrifuges used to enrich uranium began destroying themselves in 2010. It turned out that these machines were instructed to self-destruct by a computer worm devised by American and Israeli intelligence.
No doubt – this was an amazing technological triumph. Zero Days takes us through a whodunit that is thrilling even for a non-geek audience. We learn how a network that is completely disconnected from the Internet can still be infected. And how cybersecurity experts track down viruses. It’s all accessible and fascinating.
But, strategically, was this really a cyberwarfare victory? We learn just what parts of our lives can be attacked and frozen by computer attacks (Spoiler: pretty much everything). And we learn that this attack has greenlighted cyberwarfare by other nations – including hostile and potentially hostile ones. Zero Days makes a persuasive case that we need to have a public debate – as we have had on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons – on the use of this new kind of weaponry.
And here’s why it is more topical today. Since Zero Days’ release last year, we have endured the successful Russian cyberattack on the US election process. And we face an unpredictable foe in North Korea, and our only practical protection against North Korea’s nuclear threat may be our own preemptive cyberattacks.
Director Alex Gibney is one our very, very best documentarians. He won an Oscar for Taxi to the Dark Side, and he made the superb Casino Jack: The United States of Money, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Elliot Spitzer,Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,Going Clear: The Prison of Beliefand Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine.
Gibney’s specialty is getting sources on-camera that have the most intimate knowledge of his topic. In Zero Days, he pulls out a crew of cybersecurity experts, the top journalist covering cyberwarfare, leaders of both Israeli and American intelligence and even someone who can explain the Iranian perspective. Most impressively, Gibney has found insiders from the NSA who actually worked on this cyber attack (and prepared others).
Zero Days is available to stream on Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Robert Pattinson and Charlie Hunnam in THE LOST CITY OF Z photo courtesy of SFFILM
My top recommendation is The Lost City of Z, which opens in the Bay Area today.
Also in theaters this week:
Their Finest is an appealing, middling period drama set during the London Blitz.
I liked the gloriously pulpy revenge thriller The Assignmentwith Michelle Rodriguez, the toughest of the Tough Chicks, playing both the Before and After roles in a hostile gender re-assignment surgery. The Assignment is out, but in few theaters. It’s available now to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
I found the predictable Armenian Genocide drama The Promise to be a colossal waste of Oscar Isaac and Christian Bale.
Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
My DVD/Stream of the Week is the absorbing French drama Augustine, about obsession, passion and the birth of a science. I just saw The Stopover at the San Francisco International Film Festival, and the feral fierceness and simmering intensity of its star Soko reminded me of her earlier work in Augustine. It’s available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
On April 22, Turner Classic Movies airs The Enemy Below (1957), a cleverly plotted and well-acted WW II submarine story, ably directed by Dick Powell. Robert Mitchum is the new captain of a sub-chaser, and Curd Jürgens commands a German sub. The Jürgens character has no sympathy for the Nazi regime, which makes him relatable for the audience; in real life, the Bavarian-born Jürgens was imprisoned by the Nazis for his political views and became an Austrian citizen after being liberated. The Enemy Below is a brilliant game of lethal cat-and-mouse between the two skippers.
The Germans are trapped by their mission, which requires them to keep on a certain bearing. The US commander recognizes this and is able to keep catching up to them on this route. Mitchum explains his tactics to his crew, gets the crews trust and helps us follow the chess game. As nerves crack on the sub below, Jurgens takes unusual tactics to maintain morale. Mutual respect is manifested at end, with stirring loyalty demonstrated by the men to their captains.
There’s a lot here that you don’t see in other submarine warfare movies, including a rare ramming collision and aerial views of the depth charge pattern. There’s also a great special effect shot showing sailors on the deck dropping their fishing line down to the U-boat resting on the sea bottom directly below. The author of the source novel was himself a veteran of anti-sub warfare.
Robert Mitchum in THE ENEMY BELOWCurd Jurgens in THE ENEMY BELOW
The absorbing French drama Augustine is based on the real work of 19th century medical research pioneer Jean-Martin Charcot, known as the father of neurology. A young kitchen maid begins suffering wild seizures and is brought to Charcot’s research hospital. He ascertains the triggers for the seizures, and begins to close in on cure. Needing funding for his research, he triggers her seizures before groups of his peers; he is showing off his research, but it’s clear that his affluent male audience is titillated by the comely girl’s orgasmic thrashes.
She is drawn to this man whose kindness to her belies their class difference and whose brilliance is the key to her recovery. The good doctor intends to cure her – but not until she has performed for his potential funders. She is unexpectedly cured just before Charcot’s most important demonstration, and she gets to decide whether to continue her exploitation. In the stunning conclusion, she gets the upper hand and her simmering feelings erupt.
The fine French actor Vincent Lindon (Mademoiselle Chambon) excels at playing very contained and reserved characters, and here he nails Charcot’s clash of decency and professional ambition.
The French pop singer Soko is captivating as his patient. Last week, I noted the feral fierceness and simmering intensity of Soko is The Stopover, a film that I just saw at the San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival). That’s why I was moved to make Augustine this week’s video pick.
It’s an auspicious first feature film for writer-director Alice Winocour. She has constructed a story that about two sympathetic characters whose interests converge, then diverge and then… Since Augustine, Winocur has co-written the wonderful Mustang and directed Disorder.
Augustine is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
THE STOPOVER at the San Francisco International Film Festival photo courtesy of SFFILM
The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival) is underway, and links to my coverage are on my SFFILMFestival page. You can see two of my recommendations, both women-centered films, the topical French drama The Stopover and the Irish self-discovery dramedy A Date with Mad Mary, this weekend at SFFILMFestival.
In theaters this week:
I liked the gloriously pulpy revenge thriller The Assignmentwith Michelle Rodriguez, the toughest of the Tough Chicks, playing both the Before and After roles in a hostile gender re-assignment surgery. The Assignment is out, but in few theaters. It’s available now to stream from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Bev Powley is very good in the agreeable comedy Carrie Pilby. It’s also available to stream from Amazon Instant Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
Kristen Stewart is excellent in Personal Shopper, a murky mess of a movie; don’t bother.
Song to Song is yet another visually brilliant storytelling failure from auteur Terence Malick.
Also avoid the horror film The Blackcoat’s Daughter, which is out on video and, UNBELIEVABLY, getting some favorable buzz.
This week’s video pick comes from the program of last year’s San Francisco International Film Festival. The absorbing neo-noir romance Frank & Lola opens with a couple lovemaking for the first time – and right away there’s a glimmer that he’s more invested than she is. Soon we’re spirited from Vegas to Paris and back again in a deadly web of jealousy. I saw Frank & Lola in May 2016 at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I liked it more than most and put it on my Best Movies of 2016. After a brief and tiny theatrical release in December which did not reach the Bay Area, Frank & Lola is now available to stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
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 16. 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.
Michael Shannon and Imogen Poots in FRANK & LOLA. Photo courtesy of SFFILM.
The San Francisco International Film Festival is underway, so this week’s video pick comes from the program of last year’s festival. The absorbing neo-noir romance Frank & Lola opens with a couple lovemaking for the first time – and right away there’s a glimmer that he’s more invested than she is. Soon we’re spirited from Vegas to Paris and back again in a deadly web of jealousy.
Lola (Imogen Poots) is young and beautiful, a lively and sparkly kind of girl. Frank (the great Michael Shannon) is older but “cool” – a talented chef. He is loyal and steadfast but given to possessiveness, and he says things like, “who’s the mook?”.
In a superb debut feature, writer director Matthew Ross has invented a Lola that we (and Frank) spend the entire movie trying to figure out. Imogen Poots is brilliant in her most complex role so far. She’s an unreliable girlfriend – but the roots of her unreliability are a mystery – is she Bad or Troubled? A character describes her with “She can be very convincing”, and that’s NOT a complement. Poots keeps us on edge throughout the film, right up to her stunning final monologue.
Shannon, of course, is superb, and the entire cast is exceptional. There’s a memorable turn by Emmanuelle Devos, the off-beat French beauty with the cruel mouth. Rosanna Arquette is wonderful, as is Michael Nyqvist from the Swedish Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movies. I especially liked Justin Long as Keith Winkleman (is he a namedropping ass or something more?).
Frank & Lola has more than its share of food porn and, as befits a neo-noir, lots of depravity. But, at its heart, it’s a romance. Is Lola a Bad Girl or a Troubled Girl? If she’s bad, then love ain’t gonna prevail. But if she’s damaged, can love survive THAT either? We’re lucky enough to go along for the ride.
I saw Frank & Lola in May 2016 at the San Francisco International Film Festival. I liked it more than most and put it on my Best Movies of 2016. After a brief and tiny theatrical release in December which did not reach the Bay Area, Frank & Lola is now available to stream on Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
The San Francisco International Film Festival (SFFILMFestival) – a Can’t Miss for Bay Area film fans – has just begun, and here’s my festival preview.
My DVD/Stream of the week is my favorite from last year’s San Francisco International Film Festival and one of the best films of the year, the Greek comedy Chevalier, a sly and pointed exploration of male competitiveness. Chevalier is now available to rent on DVD from Netflix and to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Instant, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.
In theaters this week:
I liked the gloriously pulpy revenge thriller The Assignmentwith Michelle Rodriguez, the toughest of the Tough Chicks, playing both the Before and After roles in a hostile gender re-assignment surgery. The Assignment opens nationally in theaters today – but very in few theaters. It’s available now on Ultra VOD and YouTube.
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.
On April 8, Turner Classic Movies presents what is perhaps the best of director Anthony Mann’s “psychological Westerns”, Winchester ’73(1950) with James Stewart. Winchester ’73 taps the quest and revenge genres, and it has the requisite Western Indian battle and climactic shootout. Westerns were oft about Good versus Bad, but Mann makes Jimmy Stewart’s character in Winchester ’73 much more complex and morally ambiguous – and he has what we now call “unresolved issues”. The bad guys are Dan Duryea at his oiliest and Stephen McNally at his most brutish. The 29-year-old Shelly Winters finds herself as the object of several characters’ desires. Millard Mitchell is perfect as Jimmy’s sidekick. One of my favorite character actors, Jay C. Flippen, shows up as a cavalry sergeant.
And here’s a wonderfully fun period romp: TCM airs Richard Lester’s hilariously broad The Three Musketeers on April 9.
Millard Mitchell and James Stewart in WINCHESTER ’73Stephen McNally, Shelly Winters and Dan Duryea in WINCHESTER ’73WINCHESTER ’73
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
